A Twist Of Noir 261 - Kevin Michaels

THE WAY IT CRUMBLES - KEVIN MICHAELS

Originally published at Darkest Before The Dawn

“Got your Nine?” Cheese asked.

Twist nodded.

“Keep it tucked inside your pocket,” Cheese said between sips of Pepsi. “Make it easy to pull when the time comes to use it.”

Twist didn’t say anything – his eyes never left the front of the discount liquor store on Raymond Boulevard. He sat quietly behind the wheel of the Sentra, his head resting against the seat, taking in everything up and down the street. Nothing escaped his stare. It was a hot Tuesday afternoon – the store’s neon sign blinked off and on in the sunlight, like a beacon pointing the way towards hope, refuge, and salvation. They had been watching the store for at least an hour but in that time saw only a handful of customers, and Twist wondered about the size of this score. No way it would get them more than a couple of bucks, he worried. It didn’t seem worth the effort.

“Ain’t important what they got in the registers,” Cheese told him.

Twist shot him a look. “It’s a waste of time if all we gonna get is a couple of twenties and some cold six packs.”

“Gonna be a decent score. More to it than just the money in the till.”

“How you know that?”

Cheese smiled. “Guy who manages the place don’t go to the bank more than once a day,” he said. “That means he still got last night’s cash sitting in a bag underneath the counter, just ready to be taken.”

“And how you so sure about that?”

“I know how things work,” Cheese said with certainty as he eyed the street. “Know all about this store.”

He was all cockiness and street – short, compact body like a point guard, hair cropped short, and a thin trim line of stubble stretching beneath his chin. Attitude, style, and a cocky smile.

Twist leaned back and waited. His expression was hard, tired, and weary, and his eyes heavy and drawn. His hair was cut high on top and shaved close on the sides, and a deep scar cut across his ebony skin from his right eye to the corner of his mouth. Barely eighteen, he carried weariness and anger that came from needing things he couldn’t have while everyone else got what they wanted.

“How you want to do this?” Twist asked.

Cheese shot him another hard stare. “Been through this already,” he finally said. “Ain’t gonna be doing nothing different than the last time we talked about it. Do it just like we planned.”

“Just want to be sure,” Twist replied. “Don’t want no surprises.”

Cheese had five or six years on him – a lifetime of knowledge and experience Twist couldn’t match. He had lived in Newark his entire life, banged with the Skulls since he was thirteen, and spent an eighteen-month stretch inside East Jersey State for manslaughter. He had credibility and cool. He knew the neighborhood and knew how the streets worked; there were things he could teach guys willing to listen and Twist was one of those students. They called him Cheese because someone once said he snitched like a rat whenever the cops knocked on his door, even for things that had nothing to do with him. But nobody could ever prove he talked. There had been whispers that the cops used a bogus warrant to search his Mama’s house when he got out of East Jersey State and found a stash of drugs – that they had enough to bring distribution charges against her and Cheese’s little brother if he didn’t cooperate whenever they pushed him for info. Ten years with no early release for each of them. Cheese always claimed that there was no truth to any of that, but Twist wasn’t so sure. Ten years was a long time, especially for somebody’s mother.

Family was sometimes the only thing any of them had to hold on to.

You did what you had to do and protected what you got, Twist thought; he didn’t know who else to trust except family.

Cheese had been tight with Twist’s older brother Raphael. Together, they had jacked cars on South Orange Avenue, sold dime tins and nickel bags to commuters outside Penn Station, and knocked off convenience stores in Middlesex and Monmouth Counties. It all turned when Raphael got pinched for a gas station robbery in Elizabeth three months earlier – it had gone badly and somebody popped the booth attendant, but there wasn’t anything to connect it to Raphael. No witnesses, no fingerprints, and no evidence for the cops to analyze. Just him and Cheese pulling a job that left one of them locked up and the other one free. It was worse for Raphael because he was looking at three strikes, and a sentence that would leave him inside for a long time.

“Ain’t no snitch,” Cheese had said back in the Skull house on Murray Street. “Wasn’t me telling no Po Po about what went down in Elizabeth.”

The Skulls had grilled him for details anyway, wanting to know what happened and where it went bad. Raphael was important, especially with the Bloods trying to inch into their turf, and they needed everything he brought to the gang. With Cheese’s reputation, they couldn’t take any chances that he had snitched – it wasn’t just about what went down in Elizabeth but about trust and integrity. There was too much risk for all of them if Cheese had snitched. Twist didn’t care about that; at least not the same way the others did. Raphael was all he had left. He didn’t know how it had happened; all Twist knew was that he had to get his brother out, no matter what it took.

“Don’t know how the Po Po got him,” somebody said.

“Sure they didn’t get the gun?”

Cheese had pulled out his Nine for everyone to see. “No way,” he said. “I got it right here.”

“Not like there was anybody else who knew what went on.”

Cheese had shrugged. “The cops be tricky,” he said. “Got all kinds of CSI shit like you see on TV. Be figuring out fingerprints and DNA and all kinds of shit niggers don’t understand.”

“Don’t need none of that if somebody snitched,” somebody else put in.

“Cops just use that snitch’s testimony in court,” one of the Skulls said. “Put him up there like some kind of protected witness, hide him behind a screen so nobody can see him, disguise his voice, and get him to rat in front of a jury.”

“Wasn’t me,” Cheese said again.

Twist sat in the car now, taking a drag off his Marlboro and closing his eyes. He wondered what kind of chances his brother had left with the trial just a few weeks away, and how the cops would prove anything. No gun. No shell casings. Nothing left at the scene to tie his brother to the crime, he thought. At least nothing he could figure out. Just somebody’s words.

“Talk to your brother much?” Cheese asked.

Twist shrugged. “Not more than once a week. Can’t sneak a cell phone to him so he’s got to stand in line for a pay phone, and they got him in lockdown most of the time,” he said. “Told him it’s a gang thing. Don’t want Skulls mixing with Bloods or Latin Kings inside.”

A moment passed between them – an uncomfortable silence broken only by the sound of Twist blowing out smoke, then stubbing out his Marlboro before flicking the butt out the window.

Cheese looked at him and held his stare. “Know what you’re thinking.”

“Ain’t thinking nothing,” Twist said.

“Ain’t no snitch,” Cheese said. “Important you know that. I didn’t betray nobody.”

Twist looked away from Cheese and quietly focused his attention back on the liquor store. He kept quiet.

“Don’t know how they got him, know what I’m saying?” Cheese said. “But it wasn’t me who said anything.”

“Tell me again how we gonna do this job,” Twist said instead. “Want to make sure I don’t screw it up.”

Cheese took a breath then gestured towards the store. “We walk in there real slow and cool,” he said. “I’m gonna grab some bags of chips while you go to the refrigerated case in the back of the store. Pick up a couple of six packs.”

“What kind?”

“Huh?”

Twist turned to him. “What kind of beer do you want me to get?”

“Don’t matter,” Cheese said with a shrug. “Just get a couple of six packs, then bring them to the counter.”

“Like we having a party,” Twist said.

“Like I used to do with your brother,” Cheese said, turning away to stare at the street. “Maybe this works out, you and me can be a team. Just like him and me was a team.”

“You need to stick with me,” he added. “A lot you can learn.”

Twist stayed quiet – anything he could say about that he kept to himself.

“Just gonna be the clerk in there,” Cheese said. “Manager don’t pay more than minimum wage, so this guy ain’t gonna fight over somebody else’s money. Not with a couple of Nines pointed at his head.”

“What about security cameras?” Twist asked.

Cheese smiled. “Got ’em, but they ain’t been hooked up for months,” he said. “They just for show – scare people into thinking they on film, so you think twice about trying to rob them.”

“Got it,” Twist said with a nod.

“We in and out quick and fast,” Cheese added. “Be no problem. Just like always.”

Twist pulled up the hood on his sweatshirt and slipped on his Ray Bans to hide his face. The Nine was still in his pocket, tight in his grip in case they needed the firepower. They slipped out of the Sentra and crossed the street, slow and casually without attracting interest from anyone. Downtown Newark was quiet. There were a few cars on the street – still another ninety plus minutes until the rush hour exodus out of town – and nobody passing on the sidewalk paid attention to either one of them. There was nothing unusual nor out of the ordinary about two black guys ducking into a liquor store in the afternoon in Newark.

The blast of cold air that hit them when they entered the store was a welcome relief from the heat outside, and it cooled the sweat on their skin. The Pakistani guy at the counter, not much older than Twist, looked up when they walked in. He had a newspaper spread out across the counter and he eyed Twist for a moment, watching him make his way towards the back of the store, then went back to reading. Twist opened one of the glass refrigerator doors, hesitating for a moment before grabbing two six packs of Bud bottles. He tucked the beer under one arm and made his way to the front, still gripping his Nine while keeping it deep inside his pocket. Cheese was in the front of the store, lingering at a display rack of snacks and chips for a moment before grabbing a jumbo bag of Doritos and a handful of Slim Jims that he brought to the counter.

He held up the Slim Jim packages.

“Love these things,” he said to Twist.

The clerk watched them approach and slid his newspaper to the side, keeping it open to the section he had been reading. Cheese spread his chips and Slim Jims across the counter, and Twist placed the Buds alongside the snacks.

The clerk looked at Twist and said, “Need to see some ID.”

Twist looked first at Cheese then back to the clerk. “Don’t have none. Forgot it at home.”

“Can’t sell you nothing without ID.”

“Told you I ain’t got it,” Twist said.

Before the clerk could answer, Cheese had a familiar-looking Nine out of his pocket and leveled at his head. Twist hastily brought out his own gun and pointed it towards the clerk.

“Open the register,” Cheese demanded.

The clerk looked first at Cheese and then Twist, pausing for a moment to think through his options. Focusing on the guns pointed at his face – trying to answer the millions of questions racing through his head. Cheese reached across the counter and pressed the barrel of the Nine into the clerk’s forehead. He looked at Cheese with a wild eyed stare and his hands shook slightly as he reached for the register.

“Nothing to think about,” he said. “Just do it.”

“There’s not much,” the clerk said, opening the drawer.

Cheese smiled. “That’s why you’re gonna give us the bank bag with last night’s receipts in it.”

The clerk shook his head nervously. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Cheese said. “We all know you got a bag hidden underneath that counter with what you brought in last night. Know you ain’t gone to the bank yet, so that means its still there –”

“Think we need to stop wasting time,” Twist said, looking nervously to the door.

Cheese glanced at him. “Easy youngin’,” he said. “Stay calm.”

For a moment, there was something in the clerk’s expression – it might have been anger or even defiance, and it was hard for Twist to tell the difference between the two. But whatever it was, within seconds, the look passed and changed into one of resignation. The clerk bent forward, reaching slowly under the counter without taking his eyes off Cheese.

Twist and Cheese exchanged their own looks and Cheese gave him a slight nod.

When the clerk stood, he came up fast and determined, clutching a double-barrel shotgun in his hands. Twist dove for cover as the clerk pumped the gun and lifted it towards them, but Cheese never flinched and never moved. No fear nor remorse in his expression. There was no hesitation as he simply smiled and squeezed the trigger on his Nine. The first shot hit the clerk in the stomach and knocked him backwards. The shotgun fell from his hands and skidded across the floor as he staggered into a Plexiglas display filled with instant lottery tickets. He reached for the display to stay upright but could only grab a handful of tickets as he slid to the floor, pulling a string of scratch-offs down with him. He wound up sitting with one leg tucked beneath him with his back against the wall, looking up at Cheese. Trying to find something to say and clutching the hole in his gut as blood poured between his fingers – pleading with his eyes.

Cheese leaned over the counter and quickly fired two more shots to the chest. A geyser of blood sprayed from his body, arcing towards the counter and splattering the floor. There were no last gasps for breath; whatever words the clerk had tried to mouth died along with him on the floor.

With his smile still stretching from ear to ear, Cheese turned to Twist.

Twist struggled to get back to his feet. He looked across the counter at the corpse on the floor, blood slowly inching across the linoleum. “Wow,” he said with a low whistle.

“Guess he never learned the way it goes,” Cheese said, grabbing the handful of bills from the register drawer. He pocketed his Nine and swept the beer, chips, and Slim Jims out of his way as he leaned over the counter, pulling a zippered green bank deposit bag from beneath the register. “Shit happens, even when you think you’re prepared for anything.”

“Like it did with my brother?”

Cheese glanced up.

Twist had his Nine pointed at Cheese’s chest.

Cheese straightened up, shaking his head. “Boy, I told you I had nothing to do with that.”

“I know. I heard you,” Twist said. “That’s your story.”

“That’s the truth,” Cheese said. “Besides, what you think shooting me’s gonna do for your brother?”

Twist returned his stare, shaking his head slowly.

“Figure nobody gonna be able to rat him out on the witness stand,” he said. “Especially if the only other witness is dead.”

“Nigger, that ain’t how it works.”

Twist shrugged.

“Don’t know nothing about that,” he said. “But you still using that same Nine from the gas station hold-up. Cops find you here, holding that gun, it’s a good day for Raphael.”

“They don’t need no CSI stuff to put it all together and figure out they got the wrong man locked up,” he added.

“And what makes you think the Po Po gonna find me here?” Cheese asked.

Twist smiled, then shot him once in the chest. Cheese dropped to his knees, looking up at Twist – surprise and pain etched in his expression. Twist held his stare for a moment then took a step backwards and calmly shot him again, this time in the face. The third and fourth shots hit Cheese in the body as he slumped over on his side. Twist kept shooting until he had emptied the clip and could be certain that Cheese was dead. It was the only thing that really mattered, he thought. That, and making sure the Nine from the gas station robbery was still in Cheese’s pocket. He didn’t even bother taking the bank bag or the twenties scattered across the counter when he ran out of the liquor store.

BIO: Kevin Michaels’ stories have appeared in publications such as Word Riot, The Literary Review, Powder Burn Flash, 6 Sentences, Dogzplot, Darkest Before The Dawn, as well as A Twist of Noir. He is a writer and a surfer who lives at the JerseyShore.

A Twist Of Noir 260 - Todd W. Bush

BLUE NEON BITCH - TODD W. BUSH

The blue neon fit perfectly with the hot, driving rain. Summer in South Florida... home of sweat, showers, and sin.

Ruby’s wasn’t on the list of typical tourist traps they pushed in every rest stop from here to Orlando. In fact, about the only list you’d find this place on was the cops’ roll call of monthly raiding destinations. I stood under the eight-foot blinking bitch, trying in vain to keep from drowning in the midst of Joyce’s fury. Middle of hurricane season and this little floozy of a storm decides to spring up and drop a ton of water on us while barely moving a muscle. I’d lived here my whole life, so of course I didn’t own a single fucking overcoat. And an umbrella in a hurricane was about as stupid as trying to find a saint in a strip club.

And yet, here I was.

A door opened behind me and the dusty foyer looked better than my bed. The stench of stale beer, cigarettes and cheap perfume enveloped all who dared to enter these doors. To me, it just smelled like life.

The bouncer looked like part of the wall. Why all strip clubs made their hired male help wear all black was beyond me. Maybe so they could sneak up on anyone who got too close to the girls after having a few too many. But in Ruby’s wasn’t that the whole idea? His voice was too soft for his gargantuan frame. It tried to be dangerous, but fell just around creepy. Especially with his bald black head and the tufts of chest hair sprouting from his collar.

“You Vaughn?”

I only nodded.

“He’s in the back.”

I wish I could say that I was confused about what ‘back’ he meant. The back store room where the extra black shirts were kept, the back kitchen where they tried to cook bar food, or the back booths where what passed for gangsters and kingpins tried to look important in a way that made them look fake. But I knew the back was really the back curtain area, where ‘stuff’ happened.

The girl behind the front counter, with the name of Julie and the body of a porn star, was all smiles as I passed straight into the main room. I tried to ignore the fact that she knew me by name. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed. I’d passed that bridge a long time ago and blown the son of bitch up as soon as I crossed it. It’s just that occasionally I felt that little something in my gut. Something that tells me just how far down the road I’d gone.

‘He’ was Jerry O’Shea. Currently residing in Private #2 with the ‘lovely and talented Jasmine’, as she was called by the fast-talking, coke-dealing DJ. I’d seen Jasmine and one out of two ain’t bad as far as the truth goes in a place like this. Jerry O’Shea had his lips curled in what looked like a cross between a snarl and a smile, and his hands furiously groping at rocks that could have knocked him out if their owner had decided to shake her bon-bon. His pants were around his ankles, as were his tightie-whiteys. Jerry O’Shea was having the time of his life. He was also a local city commissioner with a sparkling record of morals and values, whose real name was Juan Alvarado.

Black hair, eyes the color of polished coal, and skin like a tanning booth worshiper. Jerry Fucking O’Shea. What a moron.

He was also my responsibility. Pete, my boss, and because of the multitude of legal and illegal campaign donations he’d steered his way, Jerry/Juan’s boss too, had put me on watchdog duty. It wasn’t my first choice, but then again, dogs rarely got a choice what kind of job they got. All we needed was to get fed, get some water, a scratch behind the ear, and, in my case, be well paid. Loyalty was the reward Pete got. And I was about to fuck the whole thing up, thanks to this prick sitting in Private #2.

I’d been called before, but this time was different. My boss wanted Jerry to move from the city commission to some sort of county position. And Jerry’s wife was a real Latina. Fiery is too tame a word. And dead would be too easy a way of describing what she’d make him if she knew he was here with his manhood in Jasmine’s talent and his political future somewhere around his briefs. I had to get him out of here before someone that wasn’t on Pete’s payroll came in and saw him. The chances of that in Ruby’s on a weekday night were slim, but that ‘slim and none’ shit had ruined more lives than any vice my boss could ever make money off of.

Gargantuan Bouncer Man was behind me as I looked at the councilman bouncing the bimbo on his lap. I could have done this without his help, but then he’d be down a lovely and talented Jasmine. Not that I tried to mess up women often, but I didn’t have time. Not even Pete knew when the cops did their raids. I tried my best to convey this with just a look. Apparently, my eyes spoke whatever language his did because he laid a hairy black paw on Jasmine’s shoulder.

She turned, saw me, but barely even noticed I was there. Eight lines of coke and a dozen highballs a night will do that to you.

Jerry O’Shea, aka Juan Alvarado, turned his half snarl/half smile into a whole frown. I kicked at his pants, and he made a show of whining as he pulled them up. Looked like a five year old who’d just gotten his toy truck taken away. Jasmine made sure to take the whole stack of money laying on the counter in Private #2. She’d need it to pay for line number nine.

Pete would have me cut into nice edible pieces for his other dogs if I didn’t get Jerry out of here.

I’d been watching him for just over a month without incident. He’d banged more tail in that month than he’d seen in his lifetime, but all of it was done either at one of Pete’s apartments or on my couch in my apartment. Why the asshole thought he needed to sneak off to Ruby’s for a piece was beyond me. My drug of choice this time was Jack Daniels, and it nearly cost me my life. If I didn’t get Jerry into my car and back to my place soon, it might still.

The addiction that normally called and killed me was the same one that had latched onto my politician friend tonight. I didn’t let Julie the Counter Girl even get a chance to look up as I pushed Jerry out the door and into Joyce’s teeth. The rain water dripping off the roof was doing a tap dance on his head. He turned to me and gave me the same frown.

“Pete’s pissed, isn’t he?”

I nodded again. Pete didn’t really know about this little field trip. But if a fear of Pete kept this guy out of Ruby’s until after the election next month, I wasn’t going to correct him.

I pushed him again toward my car, and looked back over my shoulder. The eight-foot blue neon slut was winking at me. Yeah, I’d be back. She knew me.

BIO: Todd W. Bush is the writer of the South Florida Noir series. His website is Todd W. Bush. He lives in South Florida.

A Twist Of Noir 259 - Mark Mellon

A GRINGO IN MATALO - MARK MELLON

The golden eagle soared above the rugged mountains, widespread wings borne aloft by a powerful updraft, sharp eyes on the lookout for a stray kid or other prey to provide food for her chicks, high over striped peaks and narrow, winding valleys that rose and fell like the folds of a carelessly tossed blanket.

BDAM!

There was the crack of a rifle shot. The eagle lazily spun in a widening arc that took her far away, past the horizon and out of sight.

“You figured you could hit that bird at that distance? Without even a scope? You’re too high to think straight, Chapo,” Lupe giggled.

Chapo lowered his Ruger MK III hunting rifle and favored Lupe with a scowl.

“I got him. I know I did, by all the saints’ images in Sinaloa. I hit him in the wing and the bird flew off to die,” he insisted. “You’d better not argue with me on this.”

Chapo’s bloodshot eyes bored into Lupe with fearful intensity.

“Yeah, sure,” Lupe conceded. “You shot him right through the heart. Now open another whale for me and one for yourself. We need some more parakeet, you son of a whore!”

Chapo bent down over an open cooler, thumbed back the brim of his black, broad-brimmed Stetson, and pulled out two quart bottles of Pacifico beer from the ice. He sat down on a lawn chair next to Lupe under an awning hung from the cabin and handed him a Pacifico. Lupe punched the CD deck’s play button. Loud, honking polka music filled the air. Accordions trilled and a man plaintively wailed.

I have no fear, I walk behind death. With a beautiful woman on each arm.

Lupe took a large baggie filled with cocaine and scooped out a handful. He handed the baggie to Chapo, who took a fistful for himself. Both men gulped down the white powder, licked their palms and fingers clean, and chased the cocaine with heavy drafts of beer. Already wired, the massive quantities of cocaine further numbed their mouths, set their hearts to pounding even faster.

Used by Mescalero Apaches as a staging ground for raids in the 19th Century, the mesa where they sat had more than one exit and a commanding view of the high Sierra Madre. Towering mountains and cliffs of striated gray and white stone, covered with green scrub, spread as far as the eye could see. Down far below, a bright, blue line snaked through a canyon, the Rio Fuerte wending its torturous way to the Pacific Ocean.

A gravel road zigzagged down one side of the mesa, north to their hometown of Mátalo, just barely visible in the distance, a small clump of whitewashed squares and rectangles.

The cocaine surged through Lupe's bloodstream, gained strength, and triggered a colossal dopamine increase.

“You think with your balls, not your brains, Chapo,” Lupe said, suddenly aggressive. “If you actually thought a little more, we wouldn’t be stuck here.”

Lupe glanced at the miserable, dirty twelve-year old tied to a nearby tree by his neck with a long rope. Chapo had sold a hundred kilos of mota to the boy’s father, prime smoke Chapo had grown himself, and been paid only half of the price. The boy was a hostage for the balance. Clad in what where once nice clothes, but now filthy rags, he was half-starved and curled into a silent, fetal ball in the dirt. He knew better than to complain anymore at this point after repeated kicks from Lupe and Chapo's ostrich skin cowboy boots.

“Hey, I had to do something!” Chapo protested. “If people found out I let Enrique off, nobody pays anymore. I don’t make money.”

Lupe grimaced and said, “So here we are stuck on this mountaintop when we could be in town getting laid! This has dragged on three days, ése. You got to think of something.”

Chapo was silent for a moment, broad brow furrowed, plainly trying hard to reason while high. He said, “Why don't we saw off one of his ears and send it to Enrique? That should get results.”

“Yeah, but, ése, what if he don't care about the kid?” Lupe demanded. “Maybe we should just sell him to some joto. There’s guys in Tijuana that’ll pay good money if we clean him and fatten him up some.”

Chapo finished his quart bottle. He threw it with all his might. The bottle arced past the mesa’s edge and fell thousands of feet to crash somewhere by the river without even a distant tinkle of broken glass.

“Hey, you hear something?” Lupe said.

There was a whine in the air, thin, distant, but steadily growing in strength, the unmistakable sound of a small engine in torment. Both men got up to investigate. They walked a short distance past the pines to get a better view of the road. The whine was loud now. Midway down the mesa’s slope, a once-white pickup truck laboriously negotiated one switchback after another. Obviously unaccustomed to driving a stick shift in such rough terrain from his timorous, hesitant pace, there was a hard grind of gears each time the driver clumsily shifted the clutch.

“Who is it?” Chapo asked.

“Nobody I know,” Lupe said. “We better get the goat horns.”

Chapo and Lupe ran back to the cabin. They came out with AK-47 assault rifles, both locked and loaded with a fifty-round clip. The two dealers waited by the cabin, hearts pounding as adrenaline, alcohol, and cocaine jacked their fight or flight instinct to the breaking point. Each man smacked and yawned, trying to muster some spit in a bone-dry, drug-parched mouth.

“Whoever this guy is, I hope he likes this place,” Chapo said.

“Why?” Lupe asked.

“Because it’ll be the last one he ever sees.”

“Quit bragging and get ready.”

They pushed the AKs’ safety levers down. The truck only had one more switchback to cross. The Toyota dipped into a shallow gully with a bone-rattling crash, rounded the last bend, and headed toward the men. They peered through the dust-covered windshield at the driver. Lupe frowned in distaste, arching his thick, black mustache sharply downward.

“Look, ése, it’s a gringo,” he said.

Chapo cursed foully and said, “How in the name of seven hells and seven suffering saints does a norteño son of a whore stranger come here to Sinaloa?”

The truck stopped next to the two men.

“Why don’t we ask him?” Lupe said. “Put down your goat horn. He doesn’t look like any threat.”

The men put their AKs down, fingers still on the triggers. A thin, young gringo got out of the truck and walked around to them. He wore a ballcap, plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and boots. His blue-eyed gaze was earnest and rabbity behind thick-lensed glasses.

“Good morning," he said, his gringo accent painful to Lupe’s ear.

“I don’t see what’s so good about it, with an ugly dog like you around ruining things,” Chapo replied. “Are you lost or something, gringo?”

The gringo visibly flinched, plainly puzzled and startled by Chapo’s rude response. Lupe grinned widely. El Diablo must have heard him complain about his boredom. He’d sent a toy gringo for Lupe to play with, just as roughly as he liked.

“Don’t be so rude to a stranger, Chapo,” he said, hoping to string the gringo along for a while. “Give the man a chance to explain himself. What brings you here, gringo?”

“I thought this was supposed to be the public campground. That’s what the fellow in Mátalo told me,” the gringo said.

“He was wrong,” Chapo said. “This is a private campground where strangers aren’t welcome.”

“Gringo,” Lupe said, “what brings you to Mátalo without even a pistol in your belt?”

The gringo said, “I’m an ornithologist.”

“A what?” Chapo roared. “Now this gringo son of a whore uses long words I don’t know. You’ll sleep under these trees tonight, my friend.”

“Chapo, you really are overreacting,” Lupe said, enjoying himself immensely. “I keep telling you. Give this young gringo a chance to explain himself.”

“You know, I’m a bird watcher,” the gringo said. “I’m with the University of Chicago. They sent me down here on a grant to try to observe the nesting habits of the eared quetzal. This actually looks like a pretty good spot for them to nest. Have you seen any?”

“Gringo, we don't know what you’re talking about,” Lupe said. “Any birds around here, we shot for laughs and to keep them from waking us up at night.”

“What is this ‘eared quetzal’ supposed to look like, you dirty cabron?” Chapo demanded.

“I can show you. That’s no problem,” the gringo said. “I’ve got a notebook with a full set of pictures in the bed. Just a moment.”

He turned and walked over to the truck, back trustingly presented to them. Chapo raised his AK-47, but Lupe motioned for him to keep it down. Chapo grinned. He pulled out his eighteen-inch Bowie knife and showed it to Lupe. Lupe drew a thumb across his throat and then shook his head ‘no’ to signal that Chapo should only wound the gringo, not kill him, so they could stretch out their fun with him. The big Mexican nodded his assent. The gringo undid a rope that tied down a corner of the tarp. He reached into the bed of the truck. Chapo crept toward him, Bowie in his right hand, rifle in his left.

Quick as wind, the gringo whirled. In his hands, the mouths of two sawed-off, blue steel, ten gauge tubes ominously gaped.

BADOOOMM!

Ten lead balls slapped into Chapo’s torso at point blank range.

“Aye, chingau, what has the gringo done to me?” Chapo hissed.

Vital organs riddled, holes agush with blood, Chapo dropped his weapons and fell to the ground.

Lupe ran and dove behind the truck. He hit the ground hard and painfully.

BADOOOMM!

A shotgun pellet smashed the Toyota’s right headlamp. Gasping for air, desperate to figure out his next move, Lupe still managed a derisive laugh.

“Ha, gringo,” he yelled. “You screwed up your own truck.”

Lupe had to move before the gringo reloaded the shotgun.

He got into a crouch, put the AK over the truck’s hood, and blindly fired off a short burst. Just as he was trained by a mercenary ex-Green Beret, he circled the truck and hosed down the area with automatic fire.

“I’ll kill you, you gringo son and grandson of a whore, for what you did to my brother Chapo!” Lupe cried.

The mountains echoed with the AK’s steady, deadly chug. Large branches and small trees were ripped to pieces by 7.62 mm slugs.

BDAM! BDAM! BDAM! BDAM! BDAM!

The first bullet hit Lupe just below his Adam's apple. The second shattered his sternum and punched through his back. A third slug tore into his gut, while the fourth ripped into his navel, and the fifth destroyed his crotch. Neatly zippered by an expert aim, kept erect only by the cocaine surging though his bleeding veins, Lupe gazed downward in shock and dismay at the shattered, bleeding wreck of what was once his strutting, cocksure self. He fell to the ground where he moaned with pain and self-pity.

The gringo got up from the dirt where he’d lain in wait for Lupe, a Colt's .45 automatic braced in both hands. He slipped the pistol into a pants pocket, slapped the dust off, and walked over to the dying Mexican.

“That might have worked if you weren’t too high to think straight, ése,” the gringo said.

“You cheating, lying gringo bastard. If you had the courage to fight me like a real man...” Lupe moaned.

“Guess I don’t. Just call me a coward,” the gringo said.

Veils of the palest red slowly descended over Lupe’s eyes to mercifully obscure his death. He tried to say a quick prayer to the Virgin of Guadalupe to intercede on his behalf, but couldn’t conjure the breath from ruptured lungs. The red veils turned to black. There was nothing.

Quique crouched behind the tree’s pitiful shelter. Stunned and disoriented by the kidnapping, abused and underfed afterwards to the point where he completely withdrew from the world into himself, the shoot-out and his captors’ murder had dragged him violently back into reality. Would the gringo kill him too now? He yanked frantically at the nylon rope around his neck, but the knots wouldn’t yield. “Chico,” the gringo called. “Chico, don’t worry. I’m Alex Pargrew. Your padre Enrique asked me to come get you.”

The boy cautiously tilted his head and peered from behind the tree with one eye. The gringo had traded his ball cap for a straw cowboy hat like the ones most Mexican men wore. He’d taken his glasses off, too. While his blue-eyed gaze was still open, he didn’t seem either innocent or defenseless now. Nonetheless, his smile was genuinely warm. Quique liked the man, the first person in days to show him any kindness. The gringo walked over slowly and calmly, arms out with his palms upwards.

“Just relax there, muchacho,” he said. He took a Buck knife from a pants pocket, opened the blade with one hand, and cut Quique free. Immediately, the boy flew into the gringo’s arms and loudly sobbed his gratitude.

“Easy there, son,” the gringo said. “You’ve been through an awful lot, more than a boy should ever have to, but you’ll have to be brave just a little bit longer. Those two scumbags’ pals in Mátalo are sure to have heard the gunfire. They’ll come on out to see what’s going on. We got a long drive ahead of us to what passes for an airport in Los Mochis. Better go while we can. Are you up to it?”

“Yes, Señor Pargrew,” Quique said.

He took the boy by the hand and gently led him toward the truck. Nearby, Chapo and Lupe lay supine in the dirt in their own dark-red blood, eyes wide open to the sky, mouths agape in astonishment at the fact of their own deaths.

“No need to get formal,” the gringo said. “Alex’ll do fine. Got some sandwiches and coffee in the cab. Hope you like ham and cheese. Can you believe I winged my own truck? Come on, son, get in, get in.”

The man and the boy got into the truck and left. His earlier pose of ineptness now abandoned, Pargrew drove steadily and surely down the mountain’s opposite side, westward to Los Mochis and escape.

Drunk and high on drugs themselves when the echo of distant shots rang out from the mountains that hot summer day, much time was wasted by Chapo and Lupe’s companions before they organized themselves sufficiently to go to the mesa and investigate. Over an hour had passed until a convoy of three gleaming, jet black Ford F-450 four wheel drive trucks slowly ascended the mesa. When they reached the top, the trucks pulled into the campground where their friends’ bodies lay. The men got out of the trucks, pistols and rifles ready to fire.

“What sort of filthy demon’s joke is this?” a man cried.

A gold eagle perched on Chapo, cruel claws dug into his broad forehead. The sharp point of her hooked, upper bill stabbed downward. The eagle brought her head up. In her beak, the sad, ruptured balloon of an eyeball drooped. Contrary to every instinct, rather than kill and eat her own prey, the raptor feasted on his dead remains. Two gory cavities gaped at the men where Chapo’s eyes once were. The eagle tilted her head back to swallow, shrieked, and took flight before the men could even draw a bead on her. On and on she flew with steady beats of her powerful wings until the puny affairs of landbound humans so far beneath her were no more important than the doings of the ants that they so closely resembled at this height.

BIO: Mark is a novelist and supports his family by working as an attorney for the FDIC. His work has appeared in publications such as Anthrolations; Albedo One; Aoife's Kiss; Hadrosaur Tales; Rope And Wire; and Premonitions. His most recent short story, The Brave Little Cockroach, was podcast on Anthrodreams. His Western novel, The Pirooters, has been published by Treble Heart Books. The Pirooters won the Books and Authors.Net Award for Best Western of 2008. More information may be found at: SDMellon. His novella, Escape From Byzantium was published last month by Withersin Press. Please also see Escape From Byzantium. A website featuring his writing is at Mellon Writes Again!

A Twist Of Noir 258 - Cormac Brown

RETRIBUTION - CORMAC BROWN

Originally appeared in the premiere issue of Crooked Magazine

“You’re a misogynist.”

I didn’t need to open my eyes to confirm that she was glaring at me; I felt her eyes boring into me, minutes ago. Since she got the better of our carnal give-and-take, I thought she’d sleep off the remaining time we had left together. This was spoiling my fun...I didn’t want her hating me too soon.

I rolled over and tried to kiss her on the lips, but she pulled back and skirted away from me on the bed as far as she could without falling off. I shrugged and mumbled, “That’s a good piece of fiction. You should be writing about robberies, instead of planning or participating in them.”

She leaned into me with a smile and said, “You can change the subject, but you can’t change the fact that you hate women.”

Not all women, just one in particular.

“What gave you that odd idea?” I whispered. I took her right hand and gently nibbled on it, because her hands were as close to a weakness as she seemed to have. She enjoyed that for all of ten seconds, until that tangent she was on resurfaced in her conscious.

“All of those things that you said last night—”

“You seemed to pretty much enjoy them.”

“Those are not the things that a man with even an ounce of respect for women would say.”

To one woman in particular, yeah, he would, and I did.

“Those words were spontaneous. They were of the moment, in the moment and you didn’t say ‘no’ or tell me to stop. You didn’t push me away, quite the contrary.”

She smiled at me without a hint of happiness. I imagined that her smile was like a dolphin’s sonar except it wasn’t echoes that were to bounce back to her, but my thoughts. Those words weren’t ‘spontaneous’ at all and they weren’t meant to be.

Those very same words were said to her in Spanish instead of my grunting and gasping English, or so a man told me a few months ago.

Two months ago in a motel room much like this one, she laid in bed with Domingo Zamora, a man that was almost the polar opposite of me, yet Domingo and I had something in common. I apprenticed under him and he taught me almost all of what I know now. I chauffeured for a friend of his and that friend said that I was both a good driver and trustworthy. So I eventually became Domingo’s go-to driver when he would hit jewel couriers and, after a few years, I became the number one man in his crew.

He was double-crossed in a hotel room much like this one, by this very woman, and she couldn’t just be content with keeping the entire haul for herself. She killed him in a particularly gruesome and painful manner that no one deserved, much less Domingo.

The lights from a plane taking off from Midway Airport shot through the curtains and lit her smile. That too-bright smile was fading into a snarl and I had to throw her off the trail, because she was adding things up a little too fast.

“You’ve got me wrong. I love women and everything about them. What I do hate is the way some men have tainted them. Rare is the woman that hasn’t been wronged or tarnished by some screwed-up asshole that couldn’t get a date in high school, and he spends the rest of his life taking it out on every woman that can’t quite see past his lies.”

With my lips, I moved up her hands and her arms to her slender shoulders. Her smile returned with just a touch of wariness. She was more concerned about her pleasure. She grabbed my head and we kissed. Ugh, her tongue running across my teeth seemed to me to be more of a brain probe than passion-related.

This heist came together by accident, and it had more to do with the right people vouching for each of us. Those of us that rob jewel couriers are a small and efficient group. We keep to ourselves. If Domingo mentioned me during their pillow talk, I believe that she would’ve done away with me right after the job. It’s happened to me before. I’ve been both lucky and smart in that during my first job that I was lucky that my partner for that particular job didn’t kill me. For the second job? I figured everything out before a pair of brothers could double-cross me.

We pulled this job off without a hitch, and the energy seemed to carry over into us pulling off each other’s clothes yesterday afternoon. While she was in the shower, I planned out, texted a message and set everything up in just under two minutes. Now came the hardest part, breaking this off while the rest of my body told my mind that it was crazy for wanting to stop.

“Um, wait.”

The look on her face said that she’s never heard that one at this stage before. I pretended to look through my pockets.

“I’m out of condoms. Do you have any?”

I already knew her answer before she said no, as I had checked.

“I’m going to get some.”

She grabbed my shoulder before I could get my boxers on and said, “We could do other things.”

I smiled and said, “Why do other things, when we can do the real thing? I’ll be right back.”

I put my clothes on and she pulled a gun out from under her pillow. She beckoned me over and she searched my pockets. She unzipped my pants and pulled them and my boxers down. She looked me over and bit her lip.

“Whoa, hold on! You’re not looking back there.”

“You didn’t have enough time to put anything back there,” she grinned, “but if you want me to look.”

“No.”

She looked down at my feet and grimaced. “Put your shoes and socks up here...slowly.”

I picked them up gently and I put them down just as gently, as if they were made of unstable nitro-glycerin. She searched them with the fingers of her free hand, while her eyes stayed on me.

“No jewels,” I told her as she passed my shoes back to me. “I wouldn’t rip you off, I trust you.”

My last three words stung her like a slap to the face. I guessed that she never trusted anyone in her life, nor had she given anyone a good reason to trust her. I put the money that she pulled out back in my pocket and winked at her.

“I’m just going to the store on the corner; I’ll be back in a few.”

Just as I got to the door, she blurted, “What makes you think that either I or the jewels will still be here when you get back?”

I nodded at her and, “Like I said...I trust you,” came out of my mouth.

I winked at her again as I closed the door, and she had that vacant smile again with a single tear to accompany it. Was it a crocodile tear? Look, Domingo couldn’t read her and like I said, he taught me almost everything I know. You figure that he was on this Earth almost twice as long as I was, and when a fifty-seven-year-old veteran criminal gets played like a twelve-year-old that hasn’t done a minute in juvenile hall, you know that you are out of your league.

I feigned an elbow to the door and that was the signal. I went down the stairs and by the time I crossed the small parking lot, there they were, Begley and Boyle. Two cops that didn’t even trust themselves, let alone me. Yet I didn’t have to trust them at all, Cryptic did. He was a debt collector and he owned them, lock, stock and barrel, and no one was dumb enough to screw him over.

They were both police detectives and Begley used to be skinny, while Boyle was fat. They got tired of the obvious comparisons to Laurel and Hardy, so they both decided to lift weights.

Begley got buffed up to ridiculous proportions while Boyle gave up after about a week’s worth of workouts. So now they were called ‘The Incredible Hulk and Hardy’, which didn’t have the same ring to it, though everyone called them that because it endlessly pissed them off.

I always had to work hard to hide that queasy feeling I got when I was around them. You should always be wary around thin-skinned people with guns and badges. I wiped my fingerprints off of the motel room key, handed it to Begley and walked past them.

Before they got too far, I said in a low voice, “There are three rubbers that shouldn’t be in the garbage when all is said and done.”

Boyle hissed, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What? I couldn’t have removed them without looking suspicious.”

“Well, I’m certainly not gonna—”

Begley shut Boyle up with a gesture and they went for the stairs. I chose this motel off of South Archer for a reason. The sound and lights from the Midway air traffic would help them out and they were going to need all the help that they could get.

I admired Begley. His eyes were on the curtains of the room, the whole time, and that was the kind of focus that would’ve made him an excellent stick-up man. I also figured it was just that kind of focus why, despite their shortcomings, those two assholes were still alive.

I pretended to go around the corner as they took the safeties off of their guns. I was as careful as I could’ve been with my fingerprints while I was in the room, and despite what the TV and movies tell you, it’s nearly impossible to find good latent prints in a motel room with so many travelers and maids going through it. I usually don’t like to stick around for anything, but I found myself lurking around the corner like a teen voyeur drunk on hormones.

Boyle crawled just under the window of Room 208 and Begley walked right past the door. He doubled back and slowly put the key in the door, and then four bullets tore through the wood from the inside. Boyle crawled forward and Begley quickly opened the door and blindly returned fire. He ducked low, peeked in and fired twice more, before he charged in. The lights went out or were shot out.

From my angle at the edge of the parking lot, I couldn’t tell what happened next, but I was amazed that a few pistols could hold that many rounds. The room looked almost like a disco gone amok; the flash from the gunfire was like a strobe effect. I decided to cut out at this point instead of waiting for the outcome. People would be looking out of their rooms and apartments right now and I didn’t want to become a ‘person of interest’ if those two didn’t succeed.

The next eleven hours were excruciating. I couldn’t figure out if there was some kind of media blackout when the morning papers, the TV and the radio failed to mention anything about the shoot-out. I went across the Illinois-Indiana border to Gary to lay low, and finally on the five o’clock news, they said there was a shooting...with more details to come at six.

Finally, at six, they mentioned two robbery detectives had stumbled onto a drug ring at a motel room and a shoot-out ensued. Begley was wounded and was in stable condition at the hospital. They didn’t mention Boyle by name, though apparently nothing happened to him other than the usual paid administrative leave pending an investigation of the shooting.

Of course you can guess that there were no drugs on me or her in the motel room. The agreement was that Begley and Boyle’s payment was to be the jewels, and they were to plant heroin in the precious stones’ place.

Finally, they talked about Claire Chambers, which I didn’t realize was her real name. She did a stint for attempted murder and another one for grand theft larceny. Domingo’s ghost could finally rest in peace, but I knew that I would now be haunted by a spirit that would be less forgiving than his and one that couldn’t be silenced by any other act of revenge, other than my death.

BIO: ‘Cormac Brown’ is my pen name. I’m an up-and-slumming writer in the city of Saint Francis and I’m following in the footsteps of Hammett...minus the TB and working for the Pinkerton Agency. Some of my stories have appeared at Powder Burn Flash, Six Sentences, Flash Fire 500, Clarity of Night, Thrillers Killers ‘n’ Chillers, Astonishing Adventures Magazine, and Crooked Magazine. You can find me at Cormac Writes.

A Twist Of Noir 257 - Mike Wilkerson

GULF COAST SWIMMER - MIKE WILKERSON

Dearest Daughter,

If you’re reading this, then my time has finally come and I’ve passed from this world. You came to me late in life - a mere ten years ago and your mother, although fifteen years my junior, left us soon after you arrived. You’re too young right now to understand the things I need to say, but already you’re smart and you’re strong and one day, you will indeed understand.

As I write this, the year is 2009 and it’s almost over. Soon, you’ll be eleven and I’ll be sixty-four. Time marches on. I suspect that when you finally read this, you’ll be well into your forties. And, while many would question the content of this admission, I know you will look beyond the unpleasant details and see only me - we’ve always owned that trust - and know that I’ve tried to be a good man. Memories from the past though, continue to remind me...

In my nightmares, I endeavor to drown but always fail. I just keep swimming out into the Gulf Of Mexico for seemingly miles and miles, but make no visible progress from shore. My mind begs me to stop, to simply give up, only my body refuses to correspond. I’ve spent my nights like this for over thirty years and I’m tired.

I’ll allow myself to go back and say that I was a different person before that day when it all began. That day...I was so young and optimistic, if not also a bit arrogant. Youth excused me from humanity. But since that day, shades of gray have camouflaged my world and I’ve been wide awake ever since. Affliction rides me, when all I want is to sleep. I regret saying this, with a child as beautiful as you in my life, but it is true just the same.

Through life’s journey, you will find that every person has a breaking point. We teeter on one leg for days, months or years and then we fall. Some get up, others never will. Vic Normandin took years before his tumble and this story is as much about him, as it is about me. I took mere seconds and I’m still falling. There’s a chance I might die tonight, finally ending the descent, finally ending the pain. As humans we all run the risk of death without warning. Deep down though, I know I’ll live well into my 90s or longer. Living is my penance. Regardless, there’s something I have to make right in my mind before I pass. I’m telling you this, because I want you to know the truth in my own words, the words I could not say to you while I lived on this Earth. I need that release.

*

St. Petersburg, Florida - 1979. Suburbanism was on the rise. Crime became concentrated into the mid and downtown areas. While a detriment to the city, transgression meant opportunity for me. I was moved to Homicide with only six years experience. I was on my way.

Vic Normandin was the big dog Homicide detective. He was only one year away from finishing his twenty. His physical characteristics said mid-forties. His eyes said a hundred. He was married to the same woman for twenty years and they were still deeply in love. They had two beautiful girls, one in her late teens, the other a late but cherished surprise - she was about your age. When his time was up, Vic was moving on. He wasn’t sentimental about his job. He’d seen enough. I needed to see more.

Vic was respected across the board by cohorts and higher-ups. Eyebrows were raised in unison, when he requested me for his partner - Vic liked working alone. The obvious question was asked: “Why the change of heart and why Mark Hertlein?”

His answer was as confusing as his choice: “The kid needs to understand.”

“Understand what?”

He never answered them. I thought I knew. I thought he meant I’d be learning the craft from a veteran. I wouldn’t truly understand until it was too late.

Vic didn’t talk much - actions speak louder than words. Vic’s actions blared in my ears every day on the job. Those first six months are still a blur. The hours we put in, the cases we investigated and the skill and patience he displayed. Still, I was disillusioned. I’d watched too many cop movies in my youth. I wanted to solve big juicy crimes. Vic would nod his head at my concerns. For six months, that’s all he would do; nod his goddamn head. I let it go.

Months later, I brought it up again, using a different tact.

“So why did you join the department? Obviously it’s not for the excitement.”

“Dichotomy.”

We were on Martin Luther King Street south. We’d just finished questioning eyewitnesses to a gas station shooting turned murder. I was reading my favorite business sign: “Bargain Phones and Shoes”. One of these days I was going to stop in, see what the deal was. The word jerked me back to life. I eyeballed Vic.

“What?”

“Do you know what it means?”

“I’ve heard the word, that’s about it.”

“It means a division,” Vic said. “To me, that means establishing good from bad, right from wrong. I wanted to do the right thing, be a hero. It’s cliché, but true.”

I sighed and went back to looking out the window, at people going nowhere. I liked Vic, but didn’t always get him. My thoughts were cancelled when the radio screeched: “Shots fired in the vicinity of 4th street south and 10th avenue south.” Vic let out his own sigh, pinned the pedal to the floor, nailed the siren.

We were there within minutes. People were standing around outside an old bungalow, the best kept house in the area. One cruiser was already there. Two more arrived within thirty seconds.

“What’s the story, Bob?” Vic asked the initial cop on the scene, who now directed crowd control.

“I heard shots fired. I was right around the corner and got here toot sweet. I didn’t see anybody, but there’s a hell of mess inside.”

I turned to the crowd. “Anyone see anything?”

Scared people looked at the ground. Scared people walked away. Fear of retribution in this neighborhood was all too real.

Vic motioned for me to keep working the crowd while he went inside. Five minutes later, I’d found a witness in a seventy year-old lady. Vic was strolling back outside, head down, hands in pockets. His look was that of contemplation.

“What’s it like in there?”

Vic looked up, shook his head, let out a breath. “What’ve you got?”

“She was walking her dog, heard gunfire and saw a man leave the house.”

“And?”

“White, medium height, medium build, only got a partial look at his face.”

Vic nodded, gave up a smile to the lady. “Ma’am, are you willing to look at some photos?”

The old lady was giddy - this was surefire bragging material. “Oh, sure!”

We took her to the station. Vic bought her coffee and turnovers from a downtown bakery. She called Vic a nice man. I agreed with her and winked at Vic.

We went through an hour of potential suspects. The lady said “maybe” to half of them. We arranged for her a ride back home, told her we’d be in touch. I rubbed my temples, drummed a pencil on my desk.

“Well, she gave us fucking zilch. So what happened inside the house?”

Vic stood up, checked his watch, nodded towards the door. “Let’s go. I’ll let you see for yourself.”

The house was roped off, Forensics inside. One of them gave a signal to stay back. I walked in behind Vic, stepped to the side for a better view. An audible breath escaped my mouth. I’d seen dead bodies before. This made me feel like a goddamn virgin. I felt my cherry go pop-pop-pop.

I looked them over: three victims, all black; one man, two women. The women were sprawled on the couch. The man was on the floor, a sandwich within arm’s reach - the last lunch he’d never eat. They were all missing the backs of their heads via large bore triple taps. Blood was splashed, pooled everywhere. Skull fragments, brain matter interlaced with the puddles of congealing blood - a grotesque pudding that spilled onto the couch and shag carpet. Doll eyes stared at nothing. Slack mouths lay wide open. They were speaking to me. They would never utter another word.

“I know them,” Vic said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s Tim Barnes. This is his family. He was my partner and best friend. Retired three years ago...only black detective on the force.”

I continued to stare. My knees were going into business for themselves. I locked them in place before responding.

“What do you think happened?”

Vic twitched. I caught it.

“Repercussions,” he replied.

Nothing more was said. We spoke with Forensics, looked over the house. It was an in and out job by the killer or killers. The place was clean. Vic beat me to the car. I walked from a dark house out into a sun-bleached day. Humidity blanketed me. Sunlight scorched my pupils. I donned shades and humped it to the car anticipating full tilt A/C. Vic was just sitting there. The engine was off. Sweat was soaking through his shirt, dripping off his chin. I got in, gave him a “what the fuck?” look.

“Let’s take a ride,” he said.

And then he told me.

He and Tim were working a rape case. There were no color barriers to the victims: Black, White, Asian, Hispanic - all early teens, seven in all. Two girls lived. Vic and Tim both had daughters. Seeing the dead girls grated on them. Talking with the survivors, hearing their pain, fucked with their heads. They made a secret pact to exact justice. They worked the case like madmen, leaving no stone unturned. Semen samples were taken from the traumatized/murdered girls. Tests revealed males with matching blood types from all the victims. Surviving victim testimonies rendered drawings of two different men with similar features. Two names, faces popped up: Jack and Joe Carson; career criminals, brothers - a perverted family affair. Mug shots were produced. Both surviving girls broke down at the sight of the brother’s real life photos. Watching them, Vic and Tim almost did the same. They kept the information to themselves.

One month later, they received a snitch tip - information for reprieve. The detectives agreed, if the information was good.

It was. They found the Carson brothers holed up in a midtown shit palace. Only they didn’t call for backup. They couldn’t take a chance on a trial. Instead, they tortured then murdered the Carson brothers. They set it up carefully then walked away, justified in their actions.

They went back to work but held their secret. The brothers’ bodies were found a week later, a simple drug-deal-gone-bad setup. The rapes stopped. Vic and Tim didn’t feel a moment’s sympathy for the two degenerates. They went on with their lives.

We drove for an hour as Vic let it go. He didn’t sob in disgust with himself. He didn’t try to minimize what they did. When he was finished, I cracked my neck.

“When did this happen?”

“Three years ago. Tim retired directly afterwards.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Dichotomy - I crossed that line. I blurred the divisions and I hope you’ll never do the same. I don’t feel we were wrong, but the law is not open for interpretation. I’ve made my mistake in that regard. You haven’t and I don’t want you to.”

He also knew I’d never turn him in. After seeing the faces of those girls, no cop would.

We sat in silence for several minutes, driving down sun-grayed streets. Vic was waiting for something. He was waiting for me to get the punch line.

“Carson. That name isn’t ringing a bell for you?” It was the first time he’d ever displayed exasperation.

I wasn’t getting the gist. “Should it?”

“Who was the previous Governor of this state?”

“Dan Carson.” It clicked. “You mean they were related?”

“Brothers.”

“But how would he know who did it? Why wait so long, even if he did know?”

“Listen, he knew his brothers were fuck-ups. The only thing I can think of is that there were people keeping tabs on them, running interference for big brother. Someone put together the rapes, the brothers’ proclivities and subsequent deaths, along with the investigators in charge of the case - me and Tim. One of his stoolies probably saw or heard something. Carson wouldn’t make waves while he was in office, though; politicians don’t take chances like that. Think about it: do you remember even hearing about his brothers’ death in the news? No, you don’t, because it was swept under the rug.”

I shook my head. “That’s a hell of a reach, Vic. I mean, you don’t really think he’s coming after you?”

Then something happened that I’ll never forget. Vic turned towards me in what I remember as slow motion. My unintended revelation dawned on him. He looked like a death row prisoner, finally realizing his stay of execution was over. For the first time in eight months, emotion smothered him. First his face became a wild caricature. Then it completely melted. He didn’t say another word. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the engine as it redlined. The only thing I could see were cars as streamlined, painted smears when we passed them.

28th Avenue north, mid-afternoon, sunny day, average house. Vic launched our car into the circular, shrub-lined drive, still doing 50. Shrubs scraped against the passenger side of the vehicle, trapping me in. Brakes squealed on the concrete driveway. Vic - out of the car before it was fully stopped. I reached over, jammed it in park, followed through the driver’s door. Two steps in, I heard Vic screaming. I was four steps in when I heard his gun go off. I couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds behind him.

I stood in the doorway, dropped to my knees. I felt my facial muscles lose their elasticity.

Sounds of life were muted and the walls closed in. I saw Vic on the ground, his head shattered, his blood sprayed on the wall. Across the front room window. Everywhere.

Then I saw the reason why.

All three of them were naked. All three of them were hanging from separate doorways - eyes bulging, tongues protruding and bodies strangely limp. They were his everything and now they were gone. It wasn’t like the movies; Vic didn’t trudge on to find justice. For Vic Normandin, there was nothing left to live for. In an instant, he made his final decision on life.

I looked around the room; smiling faces encased in blood splattered picture frames, belied the bodies in the room. Happy days at the beach. Warm summer nights at The Pier - never again. I recovered and called it in. Ten cruisers were there in less than five minutes. Neighbors came out to investigate. And, as the neighborhood came alive, I would slowly fall apart.

*

The number of people that Vic and Tim put behind bars was staggering. Of those people, half of them could’ve potentially murdered Vic, Tim and their families - they’d either served their time or were out on parole. We continued to sift through the evidence, interviewing suspects. When they petered out, we considered family member motive pertaining to those still in prison, or suspects of past crimes who were now dead. Dan Carson’s name was thrown in the trash, said not possible; he was the Governor, for God’s sake! I was there when they said it. I kept mum for Vic’s sake.

I began guzzling booze to help me sleep and forget. I put myself in Vic’s shoes at that moment of first seeing his family. I envisioned a lifetime flashing before my eyes. I tried to imagine living with that last, frozen image of them. Fifteen seconds to make a decision, based on what’s left to live for.

I couldn’t do it and that’s when I started to swim, every single night.

The sky was always overcast. The water was always calm, yet I was always pushed back. But I kept swimming, I never stopped. The water color changed between gray and red, red and gray. I changed between desperation and anger. Desperation to live, anger at my inability to give up and die. All night long I would swim, waking up to a pounding heart and drenched in sweat, every goddamn time. I was an emotional and physical mess. I was failing at my job, failing the people who counted on me. Two months in, on a drunken binge at 4:00 one morning, I made a decision. I planned long-term for my salvation: I drained booze down the sink. I ran for an hour, did a hundred pushups every day. I sweated out poison for the next year and a half. I lived with a new purpose.

*

I stayed on course. Just under two years after Vic killed himself, they found Dan Carson in his plush, Fort Meyers condo. Carson was lying in his bed while spread-eagle on his back. He wore smeared lipstick, eyeliner and rouge. A single strand of pearls were draped perfectly around his neck. They found an empty bottle of sleeping pills in one hand, a near empty bottle of expensive brandy in the other and a crystal dildo shoved in his mouth. The suicide note read:

“I cannot be the man I need to be, while living in this world. I no longer wish to hide myself, from those who I truly love. Pray for me and forgive me.”

Carson told me the names and whereabouts of the men he hired to murder Vic, Tim and their families. I promised I wouldn’t kill him if he gave them up.

I lied with gusto.

*

Time moved on. It was one year to the day since I’d murdered Dan Carson, when I made the decision to take a trip. I was still a cop and still on the wagon. Since Vic’s death nearly three years past, I’d saved up all of my vacation time. Due diligence was completed. I was ready to take some time off.

My first stop was near Kanopolis, Kansas. That’s where I met Clint and Justin Miley for the first and last time. They were killers for hire - Vic and Tim’s for sure. How many others, I would never know, would never care.

They owned the perfect cover - redneck brothers, living in Shitsville, USA. I wanted to know what ten thousand dollars and death can buy you. I caught them off-guard. I showed them a picture of Vic with his family. I made them beg for the quick death which they didn’t fucking deserve, which they didn’t fucking get.

From there, I went to Montana for a week. I’d seen the pictures my entire life. I was hoping that big, blue sky would grant me some peace and quiet.

At least it was quiet there.

Then I came back to Tampa Bay and back to being a detective in St. Petersburg, for almost twenty more years. I would go on to be involved in several other cases which would have a profound effect on me. Some might say they were even more brutal and terrible than what happened to Vic and his family. None of them, though, would affect me like Vic Normandin did. Does.

*

30 years...it seems so hard to believe. I’m 63 years old now and the good days are long gone. I try to spend as much time with you as possible. You are my center in an otherwise ambiguous world. Of course I’ve a few friends left, mostly old cops like me. I only allow them to visit when you’re off to school - I don’t want you to see our faces when we... Sometimes we talk.

Sometimes we say nothing at all, we just sit and nod our heads and drink the occasional beer. Most of them are in pretty bad shape, their bodies abused by too little sleep, too much booze and bad food. That’s what happens to a lot of cops, they worry about others, about the life and neglect themselves. They marvel at my physical condition. They ask me my secret and I can only smile. I’ll outlive them all by decades and I’ll live to see you become a beautiful young woman. Maybe that alone, will make this life worthwhile and possibly, you can look back and appreciate the blankness that sometimes comes over me now, while I am still alive.

I’ll also go on swimming, until one day the water and sky will finally turn an iridescent clear-blue. At that moment, I’ll stop the stroking of my arms and the paddling of my legs and feet. I’ll look back towards shore with the sun on my face and, as the Gulf swallows me, I’ll see progress. I’ll see you. Tranquility will replace desperation and I’ll cease to remember. This is my hope. This is the dream I am living to have.

With all my love,

Father

BIO: Mike’s work can be found at A Twist Of Noir and Thrillers, Killers 'N' Chillers. He also loosely maintains a blog at Writing the Hard Way.

A Twist Of Noir 256 - Alun Williams

JUST LIKE KATE... - ALUN WILLIAMS

She screamed, but no one could hear. She pounded the glass relentlessly until she tired. Her arms ached, her body ached, although her mind closed out the pain with adrenaline. Her prison, a box no more than eight-by-eight, was cold. She ran through the events of the last twenty-four hours over in her mind again. She had no answers as to who had abducted her and even less as to why. She remembered a bar, music, her friends. Someone bought her a drink...yes, a cocktail...that she remembered. She called out again. Her voice echoed around the four walls causing her to be disorientated. Panic! Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness that surrounded her prison. Someone was watching her, she sensed it. She slapped the glass with her hand and slowly fell to her knees, down into the foetal position. She protected her near naked body and wept.

Roy Lipton sat quietly in his chair, in the darkness, wishing he was someone else. He hadn't asked to be Roy Lipton. He wanted to be Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic. That movie had woken him up, made him feel alive. That scene, the one in the car with Kate Winslet, was etched in his mind. The one where they made love and her hand slapped against the window. Each time he thought of it...oh God. The pupils of his eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of the girl's nipple. This one was the best yet as she had that same innocent look that Kate did in Titanic. The ones that had been before had been street girls, rough and ugly.

“Why was she crying? Kate Winslet didn't cry!”

The girl's breathing was shallow and condensation was already beginning to cover the cold glass panes of his creation. He stood up and switched on his video camera and checked that he had positioned it to take the exact shot he wanted. He undid the belt on his trousers and walked over to the glass box.

Pretty soon, she would slap her hand against the glass in ecstasy, just like Kate...

BIO: Alun Williams, 55. Born and still residing in Wales. Member of Crittersbar (writing under maxieslim), Zoetrope and Scrawl (writing as Maxwell Allen) and has had several shorts published in Write Side Up, Bonfire, Twisted Tongue, Skive, The Legendary and various others. Loves noir and Charles Bukowski.

A Twist Of Noir 255 - Alun Williams

I DRIVE A BLUE FORD FOCUS - ALUN WILLIAMS

I drive a Ford Focus. It’s the most popular car in the UK other than a Volks Golf. I used to have a Fiesta, which is third most popular, but the Focus has a little more speed. It also looks like a lot of other models. That’s good.

I could buy something a little more sporty. God knows I can afford it but a BMW or Jaguar attracts attention, doesn’t it? No, a Focus is just right. It’s quick and unobtrusive, especially in the dark.

It’s dark blue. All my cars are dark blue. It’s invisible. Really. Look, try this tonight. A car goes by when you’re walking home at night. Can you tell what colour it is in the dark? Sure, if it's white then you’d probably get it right. But dark blue? Could be black, could be dark green or red even. You really wouldn’t know, would you? See, there’s method in my madness. You have to be careful and I‘m good. I’m very good.

Why am I going on about cars? Well, I do my homework. See, if I didn’t, well, I’d be in solitary in Strangeways. If you read all the reports, there’s always a white van reported in abduction cases.

“A white van was seen driving...”

“Police want to talk to the driver of a white van...”

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it’s just some poor sod driving home for lunch, but people still remember the white van. That got me thinking about how I could make myself as invisible as can be. A blue Ford Focus is the closest I can get.

I buy all my cars from the web. Great invention, that. The web. You can see the world from your little bedroom. You can buy anything and you can talk to anyone. I do that. Talk a lot. You’re invisible on the web unless you have a web cam. I’ve got one but I only use it sparingly. It just wouldn’t do to spoil the illusion.

I don’t use my real name. Well, you wouldn’t, would you, not unless you were stupid or something. I use various aliases and I use different computers, too, although not in internet cafes and libraries. I’ve heard they monitor those and that will not do. It’s very easy to slip into a persona. Occasionally, I’m Dave Hibbard, a 23 year-old from Hartlepool. Dave’s ex-Army. Served in Iraq, did Dave. Got wounded, too! A lot of girls like Dave. I guess it’s that macho man appeal.

I’m also Steve Allen, a 16 year-old from Liverpool. Steve’s in a band. The Wheelies. They play garage music. Then there’s Andy, who’s 17 from London and Chris, also 14 from Brighton. He’s the most popular of all. His dad owns a club in Spain. I’m thirty-three, by the way.

It’s remarkable how many people open up when you’re on the web. All their little secrets are divulged, bit by bit. You mustn’t really interrogate them or that can ring alarm bells. Just throw them a little something and it’s amazing how kids will open up to you.

I make certain I take my time. Rushing into a meet is not on. Six months is my absolute minimum time. It took two years to arrange a meet with that little Amy from Cardiff. It was on Crimewatch the other week. Well worth the wait, though.

Arrange a meet, don’t turn up, follow them. When the time is right, bang! Offer them a lift. You’re their father’s cousin, their mother’s sister’s husband. You know things about them because you’ve had at least six months to store it all up. They’re always taken by surprise. Never make a fuss, especially when you start talking about some family stuff. Can’t be a stranger, can it?

Don’t they listen to the warnings about talking to strangers? They don’t see me as a stranger. They don’t really see me at all.

No one sees a blue Ford Focus. Do they?

BIO: Alun Williams, 55. Born and still residing in Wales. Member of Crittersbar (writing under maxieslim), Zoetrope and Scrawl (writing as Maxwell Allen) and has had several shorts published in Write Side Up, Bonfire, Twisted Tongue, Skive, The Legendary and various others. Loves noir and Charles Bukowski.

A Twist Of Noir 254 - Tom Leins

BLOODY KISSES - TOM LEINS

People say that if you drive far enough out of Paignton the landscape starts to unravel. I wouldn’t know - I’ve never left.

*

It was a Friday night, and I was down at the Psycho-A-Go-Go, drinking away my pay-packet. The Psycho is one of those stark, deprived spaces that you’ve heard so much about. It first opened its doors two years ago as a makeshift strip club in the basement of a transient hotel called the Hotel Alaska. Last year, the Alaska was razed to the ground by a pair of meth-chefs called Gregg and Duane, who nodded out whilst boiling up their medicine. The roaches may not have survived, but the Psycho did, and ever since the place has gone from strength to strength.

*

I’m four drinks in, and the night is starting to bleed at the edges. The parlour snakes are practicing their frazzled seduction techniques in the bathroom mirror before slithering up to the stage and hitting on the one-armed go-go dancers. When all else fails, one or two just try hitting them... The Psycho-A-Go-Go is the place where a whole town full of lurkers go when they want to unwind. With this much subhuman scum in the vicinity, the club needs someone to dispense a little bit of tough love, and that’s where Half-Pint comes in. He’s the doorman – wider than he is tall, and twice as murderous. He lumbers around the club like a rhinoceros on a crack drip. Busting heads and taking names. Whenever he throws a punch, the DJ turns up the music to drown out the inevitable ruckus. As I reach for my fifth drink, he stands next to my booth, glaring at me through fat blank eyes. I don’t mind. Sex and territory are the only primal urges he truly understands.

*

Since I’ve been small, I’ve been good at finding meaning in meaningless places. I’d been going steady with Poppy for nearly six months. She was skag-skinny, but, unusually for this place, she still had both arms. When she finishes dancing, she weaves her way through the sweaty Friday night throng, beer bottle in hand, cigarette dangling from her bottom lip. She crunches the half-finished smoke underfoot and offers me a sultry look. I grin, and she forces her tongue so far back in my throat that I start to choke. She kisses me hungrily as a fist-fight erupts nearby. Within seconds, the club is drenched in sick feedback meltdown. Eventually I come up for air. Poppy offers me an unfamiliar brand of cigarette and I decline. Even after six months, she has difficulties grasping the fact that I don’t actually smoke.

“You want a drink, honey?”

“Sure. First I gotta see a man about a mule.”

She shrugs and drifts back into the crowd scene.

*

I slip out of the fire exit and circle back round to the front entrance. Ritchie is manning the ticket booth. He’s a dirt-bag booze-hound with a nasty habit of beating hookers. He used to own a chain of dirty video shops, but now he has fallen on hard times and pimps out runaways and derelicts for a guy named Swollen Roland. Weekends he works at the Psycho-A-Go-Go – presumably for the fringe benefits, rather than any kind of job satisfaction.

“Hey, Ritchie, is Roland around tonight?”

“No, not tonight.”

“Shit. I was hoping to talk business with him.”

“Business, hey?”

I shrug, nonchalantly.

“You still work for Ray Coody?”

I shrug, again.

“Shame. I heard that last year Ray Coody made more money than God.”

*

I make small-talk with Ritchie for a few minutes, staring over his shoulder into the belly of the building. When a group of drunken tourists pour through the double doors, I make myself scarce, brushing off Ritchie’s questions like dead fleas. When the Hotel Alaska burned down, Swollen Roland greased a few palms and turned the least charred downstairs bedrooms into a rudimentary office space. I’ve been here once or twice with Ray, and trace my way back without too much difficulty. The flickering filament bulbs cast increasingly freaky shadows as I edge down the corridor towards Roland’s office. When I arrive, I press my ear up against the door, but the only sound I can hear is the lazy rumble of Roland’s reinforced Jacuzzi.

I smile to myself. Reinforced Jacuzzi. Fat motherfucker.

I try the door handle and it creaks open first time. I grope for the light switch and the room is bathed in sick fluorescent light. I step inside and my eyes adjust to the artificial glare. The Jacuzzi in the corner bubbles with dirty water. A girl is perched on the edge, smoking a cigarette. She looks up and smiles, uncertainly. Her expensive cocktail dress looks as shapeless as a burlap sack on her bony frame. Her dirt-stained features look sketched out on something or other. I don’t recognise her face, but I recognise her shoes. She dances downstairs on Thirsty Thursdays. Her cracked lips frame a broken smile.

“Hello, Joe. Long time, no see.”

I’m about to respond, but I realise that I don’t actually know her name.

*

As I walk towards her, the door clicks shut behind me. I turn to see Luther Smart drifting into the middle of the room, clutching a choke-rope. Luther is Roland’s guttersnipe half-brother. He’s a pockmarked coke-fiend with a rictus grin. Crooked as a deformed snake and twice as ugly. He’s also really fucking stupid. I glance around for something to distract him with, and see a fat stack of cash sitting on Roland’s desk. I nudge the desk with my hip, and the stack of banknotes topples onto the carpet. The only thing that Luther likes more than cocaine is money. He eyes me warily and crouches to retrieve the cash. As he stoops down, I kick him in the throat. This boss-eyed motherfucker is dumber than a box of hair.

*

I prop Luther up against the Jacuzzi to stop him choking on his own blood. The motor whirs lazily. The carpet around the edge of the Jacuzzi is soaking wet. I retrieve the banknotes from Luther’s clenched fist and cram them into my jacket pockets. Even the ones splattered with his dirty blood. I take a cursory glance around the office before heading for the door. Before I can leave, the crack-whore in the corner drifts into my arms and presses her lips against mine. Her mouth tastes like cheap vodka.

“You don’t get it do you?”

“Huh?”

“This isn’t your story, Joe.”

“Huh?”

I try to pull back but the blade rips open my guts. I can’t seem to wriggle out of her bony grasp. She kisses me one last time before twisting the knife sharply. Two streets away, a prowl-car siren howls like a demented child. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness is her bloodstained cocktail dress. It clings to her scrawny torso as she walks out of my life and into someone else’s story. It doesn’t matter to me. Dead men don’t get paid...

BIO: Tom Leins is from Paignton, UK. His short stories have appeared online at 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, Straight From The Fridge, Beat The Dust, Savage Manners, Powder Burn Flash, The Flash Fiction Offensive and A Twist Of Noir.. He is currently hard at work on his first novel Thirsty & Miserable. Get your pound of flesh at: www.myspace.com/tomleins.

A Twist Of Noir 253 - Kieran J. Shea

THE DAMAGE DONE: A CHARLIE BYRNE SHORT - KIERAN J. SHEA

Shelia Hanson wrapped the gray percale sheets around her tiny frame and drifted toward the bathroom on refreshed but uneasy legs. The sudden coolness surrounding my naked flesh made me tug up the thick, red comforter.

The tap ran. I heard a plastic cup being slipped under a column of rushing water. One drink then another slip of the cup under the column. Swallows and a splash. The plastic cup slipped into a metal holster.

“How did you end up like this, Charlie?”

I looked at the stark, white ceiling thinking of the question and formulating a pat answer. There was a ceiling fan above me, still as a star.

“End up like what?”

“This. The way you are. What you do.”

Heck of question. Morning light softly hazed the bedroom’s minimalistic features. A mirror trimmed in gold. An original blue-green abstract painting of God knows what. Aquarium gravel? Bubblegum? Who knew?

I was in New York City’s Upper East Side canyons. A spacious luxury apartment that had a doorman dressed for regimental review, a concierge with Rivers Cuomo glasses, and a dog-walking service for the types who couldn’t be bothered with scooping up the poop from the sidewalks. Traffic thirty stories below sounded like ships drifting at sea.

More staring at the ceiling. More bathroom sounds. A brush whispering through vast Mahogany-colored hair. I checked my Timex Ironman. 10:37? Jesus.

“Charlie?”

I leaned over the bed and found my NJ Devils logoed boxer shorts on top of my heavy canvas work pants. I tugged both of them on, fastened my belt, and felt Shelia’s green eyes on my back as she came back into the bedroom. I didn’t turn around and kept looking around the room. Yoo-hoo, t-shirt? Where are you, t-shirt? She whipped you off here somewhere last night in the middle of this big mistake.

I hedged and scratched my amazing bed head. Meet Colin Farell on a bad hair day by way of a hung over Tom Waits scrounging for the first smoke of the day.

“Let’s just say it’s a long story.”

Shelia padded over and flounced down on the bed behind me, head propped on a hand that still dangled jewelry that surely cost more than my car. I swept two ripped condom wrappers off the bedside table and stuffed their frayed foil into the front pocket of my pants. The used condoms themselves, well, I figured I’d leave that for the building’s Hazmat team.

I stood and saw my black t-shirt crumpled like a sleeping cat in the corner. It made me wonder about my own one-eyed, three-legged cat back home down on the Jersey shore. Poor Chomsky. I never let the monster out last night to do his daily prowl beneath the boardwalk. Man, that feline was going to be pissed.

Shelia purred, “A long story? Ooo, I don’t like long stories. I like short ones. After Vassar I did go to law school, you know. Never practiced after I met my husband but I am a lawyer by training so humor me. Do a synopsis. A brief.”

I sighed.

“Shelia...”

“What? You can fuck me like a champ but you can’t tell me about your life?”

I crossed the room and picked up my t-shirt. Tugging it on, I turned and finally met her gaze. She was beautiful. Tussled, but still unconquerably beautiful from a world I could only imagine burning money in.

It would be so easy to fall back in bed with her, take another ride in the tumble and quick forget. I cursed myself for being such a dope. Broke the cardinal rule again. Never, ever get involved with a client. But, hey, a couple of Bombay Sapphire martinis and some carefully nurtured hydroponic weed...it kind of has a way of chucking the cardinal rules straight out the window.

I plucked my leather jacket from an arm chair. Shucked it on.

“Last night was great,” I said, “Really. And I really do appreciate the Cuban dinner and all the dancing and everything, but I think I really should, you know, be going. This is not—”

“Not what?”

“Not good. I mean, I think you’re great. Your husband is a shit. Yes, he was stealing from you and fooling around and that’s tragic, but you now have enough to take him to court and end your nightmare marriage. But I really can’t stay, Shelia. I shouldn’t. I really think I’ve overstepped some ethical lines here.”

“Was that before or after you agreed to tie me to my bed with my stockings?”

“Don’t wind this up.”

“Wind what up? I’m not holding you to some kind of moral standard, mister big-shot private eye, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“God. Look, I’m not some big-shot private eye, OK?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Investigative consultant. Isn’t that what you call yourself?”

“Yeah, actually I do. I think it has a ring to it.”

Shelia flopped back. “Oh please...”

With my fingers, I shoehorned my right boot on the hop and felt the weight of my gun bump heavily in my jacket pocket. With the left boot, I felt much less of a bump with my cell phone and fixed blade hunting knife. An overhead street maze-map of New York City scrambled in my head. The location of the parking garage where I stowed my car ten blocks away focused past the fuzz in my brain.

Then came the muffled metallic scratch of a key in the lock across the apartment. Shelia bolted upright in the sheets and me, I wondered where I could hide like a coward. Fucking marvelous. Now what?

“I thought you said he was in Chicago on business.”

The front door opened.

“Shelia? You here? I’m home.”

Frantic, Shelia shushed me under the bed and I dove like a missile for sanctuary. I could feel the vibrations above the box-spring and mattress as she quickly untied her stockings from the headboard.

Hiding for an hour until her husband decided he was going into the office was humiliating. But my guardian angels must’ve been working overtime. I had an image of Shelia’s husband slipping on one of the spent condoms like a banana peel as he moved about the bedroom, but as luck would have it he just breezed in oblivious, grabbed some clothes and popped into the shower. Shelia tried to egg me into leaving as the shower hissed but I told her I wanted to stay put under the bed. After they shared some coffee and some small talk off in the kitchen her husband left. Ten minutes after that I left too via the building stairwell, kicking out the alley door with anger and tripping the house alarm.

Anyway, the check cleared. Three weeks later I was shooting pool in a seaside bar in Atlantic City when Shelia called me on my cell.

“A close shave there, huh, shamus? Want to come up for another taste of the good life? I can make us reservations at Babbo.”

I looked out the bar’s window at the cold, ticking rain. The ocean beyond the boardwalk was a wide, slate canvas of oblivion. I chalked my cue.

“I wish you everything,” was all I said.

BIO: Kieran is haunted by this P.I. and wants him to straighten his act out but doesn’t think it’s possible. Oh well. Kieran blogs at Black Irish Blarney.

A Twist Of Noir 252 - Des Nnochiri

ACCESSORY TO MURDER - DES NNOCHIRI

Fifteen minutes. Not good.

The subway? No.

He palmed sweat off his brow and jammed a moist hand into his pocket. Felt the reassuring weight of it again.

The moisture wouldn’t affect it. Because of the leather pouch.

That was what had drawn him in the first place. The little sleeve, tooled in genuine cowhide. Tiny metal studs set into the surface. They gleamed like silver; could have been stainless steel, for all he knew.

Looked valuable, though.

An iPod in a case like that? Should be worth something on the street.

So he’d palmed it off the desk. And waved a cheery goodbye to the receptionist - who was already gnawing her third slice.

He’d slung the pizza satchel over his shoulder as he left the building. Got on his bike. And blazed.

He bought an hour at a cybercafe up the street. Just to have a quiet corner, to check out the iPod. Make sure it was working, maybe see if there were any juicy videos on it.

Understatement of the decade.

He'd had to Google a little and visit some of the major news sites. Just to confirm.

On the iPod, enough evidence to blow one of the biggest corruption cases in living memory out of the water.

So he’d made some calls. Negotiated a price. And set up a meet.

He was going to be late, though. Crosstown traffic was murder. He’d been weaving in and out of stationary vehicles for the better part of an hour. Had to pause for breath.

That’s when he considered taking the subway, but, no.

There were some heavy hitters involved in this thing. Wouldn’t do to be stuck in a confined space, lot of strangers around. Not cool.

He set the kickstand down and got off the bicycle. Just to rest. For a minute.

A flood of pedestrians pushed past him. Surly and agitated, for the most part. It was the heat.

“Oww!”

Mid-twenties, bleached blonde. Pancake make-up and blood red lipstick. All this up close and personal, as she stumbled into him, then pawed him as she straightened up.

A cracked leather jacket, zippers and studs all over. The studs, they looked like stainless steel now. Must have been one of those that jabbed him.

“Sorry.”

She flashed him a grin as she sashayed into the distance. Leather micro-skirt and fishnets. Hot.

It suddenly occurred to him that --

“Oh, shit!”

He’d pulled the exact same move to lift the cellphone off that executive babe last week.

He checked his pocket. Gone.

When he looked up again, the blonde had vanished. Blocked from view by an unremarkable-looking guy in a lightweight suit.

Guy was looking straight at him. He’d be the observer.

Heavy hitters.

They wouldn't want a scene. They’d want it to be discreet, so...

His vision swam and his head began to spin.

The stuff the blonde injected him with. It would be untraceable. Like the guy in the suit.

A brain embolism or no... Heart attack. Or heart failure. They knew he was on the bike. And, with the heat and all...

He was dead before he hit the ground.

BIO: Desmond (Des) Nnochiri spent his early years traveling with his parents, and was educated in England, the USA, and the Republic of Ireland (Eire). He writes freelance now, and has taken his first steps into the world of screenwriting. He has contributed stories to A Twist of Noir, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and Powder Burn Flash. He blogs at Des Nnochiri’s Write to Speak.