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Spinetingler: Summer 2006 Volume 2 Issue 2
Letter from Publisher
2
Fiction: And The Devil Will Drag You Under by Stephen Blackmoore
3
Fiction: Demon in the Storehouse by Megan Powell
20
Fiction: Cursive Three by Joe Swope
30
Fiction: A Dream by Erato Sahapoglu
39
Fiction: The Kiss by George Burden
41
Fiction: DJ’s Girl by Sarah Weinman
46
Fiction: Downdraft From Tokyo by Michael Obilade
63
Fiction: Tigergirl by Daniel Arenson
68
Fiction: Domino by M.G. Tarquini
82
Author Profile: Margaret Murphy by Chris High
86
Interview: Colin Campbell, by Chris High
91
* Chris High reviews Through the Ruins of Midnight by Colin Campbell, Gone by
95
Lisa Gardner and The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
* Sandra Ruttan reviews Rhapsody in Blood by John Morgan Wilson, The
99
Forest of Souls by Carla Banks and The Field of Darkness by Cornelia Read
Interview: Cornelia Read, part 2 by Sandra Ruttan
104
* Andrea Maloney reviews Murder @ Work by Yvonne Eve Walus
126
* Martin Edwards reviews Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
127
BONUS:
Book Signing: On The Road with Lee Child and Cornelia Read by Angela Lynn
129
In Moderation: Sandra Ruttan interviews Forum Moderator Jayne Massey, with
133
comments from John Connolly and Mark Billingham
Staff Profile: M.G. Tarquini
141
CONTEST:
Announcing the COZY NOIR writing contest
143
Cozy Noir: A Fistful of Cozy by JA Konrath
148
Cozy Noir: Favourite Things by K. Robert Einarson
152
Cozy Noir: Childhood Dreams by Sandra Ruttan
156
Cozy Noir: Unstuffed by Bill Blume
162
Spinetingler Magazine
Summer 2006
LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER
VOL. 2 NO. 2
PUBLISHER/ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
K. Robert Einarson
EDITOR/SUBMISSION DIRECTOR
Sandra Ruttan
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS:
Marsha Garelick
Sandra Ruttan
Tracy Sharp
M. G. Tarquini
REVISIONS EDITORS:
Sandra Ruttan
Tracy Sharp
M. G. Tarquini
INTERN
Arriel Edwards
Spinetingler Magazine is
published by:
SPINETINGLER PRESS
A Division of
Bootstrap Technologies Inc.
ISSN No. 1712-6703
GST Registration No. 889478327
Produced in Canada
Spinetingler Magazine will
soon be available for
purchase in print.
Please check our website at
www.spinetinglermag.com for
more details.
Back in April of this year, Lee Goldberg brought to light a fan fiction
Star Wars novel called “Another Hope” that was being sold on Amazon and
Barnes & Noble.
There is no point rehashing the details of this tale, as there are
dozens of articles discussing this in depth. My concern is with the amount
and accessibility of fanfic these days. For fun, I typed “Harry Potter” into
Google. Within the first twenty responses was a site that included Potter fan
fiction. I took a look at the story abstracts with included parental ratings.
Little Harry and his friends went on all kinds of adventures beyond those
envisioned by J.K. Rowling. As I looked at it, I remembered something I
heard Val McDermid say at Wordfest in Calgary a few years back. The
producers of Wire in the Blood wanted to kill Carol Jordan’s cat. Val
opposed this move and because of her contract with the show, it was
shelved. One of her reasons was that readers might be confused when they
see the cat in a later book.
Unfortunately in the world of fan fiction, no such prohibitions exist.
For example, I could write a story where Tony and Carol (Val’s characters)
sleep together and then Tony kills Carol because it turns out he is actually
the most prolific serial killer in UK history called “Tony the Terror”. I can then
put my little story up on my personal blog and make it available to
thousands of fans of Val McDermid’s Tony and Carol series to read. After
all, what’s the harm? I am paying tribute to her and her characters and I
don’t make money on it, so why is this a big deal?
Simply put, the big deal is that these are not my characters and I
have no right to them. Val McDermid created these characters and made
them into living, breathing people for millions of readers worldwide. If I
“borrow” them for my little tale, I am making them my own and take them in
my own direction while leeching off her hard work and success to give
myself some unearned attention. If I write the same story with Terrance
Hillman and Charlene Jackson, it suddenly is much harder to get the same
amount of attention.
I once read an article that claimed some of the best writers out
there are fanfic authors. I disagree. Just as any new writer is strongly
discouraged to not use stereotypes, an author who takes someone else’s
characters with their mannerisms, features and relationships and then
writes a story lacks the two fundamental features that defines a writer:
creativity and a unique voice.
If I can write a story that is worth telling with someone else’s
characters, then I can write my story with interesting unique characters of
my creation.
I am not saying I oppose fan fiction, but rather that the best way to
pay tribute to an author is to buy their books. Help the characters you love
continue by supporting the author. It is the most honest way to show your
admiration.
K. Robert Einarson
Publisher
SPINETINGLER Magazine
publisher@SPINETINGLERMAG.COM
AND THE DEVIL WILL DRAG YOU UNDER
By Stephen Blackmoore
Julio’s on his sixth drink of the day,
and it’s not even noon.
Empty shot glasses lie on their sides in front of him like wounded soldiers. He’s a
tequila man, likes Patron when he can get it, Cuervo when he can’t. Me, I’m a scotch
drinker. I toss my jacket on the bar, slide onto the vinyl stool next to him, order a
Johnny Walker Black, neat.
“The fuck you doin’ here, man?” he says, taking a sidelong glance at me through
unfocused eyes. Besides the bartender, we’re the only ones here. Cozy’s Bar and Grill
on Magnolia isn't the worst in town, but damn close. Everything’s done up in faux red
leather and brass tacks; walls, seats, the bar itself. Looks like Hell if Satan were a
lounge singer. Julio’s a regular. If he isn’t working or at home with his wife, Mariel, he’s
in here tossing back a few.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I say. “You were supposed to be at
Simon’s last night. You talk to the Italian?” Simon’s this English guy we do jobs for.
Pick ups, drop offs. Find people who don’t want to be found. He arranges deals
throughout the city, has fingers in more pies than I can count, and a few I don’t even
know about. Need something, talk to Simon. Don’t pay him back, talk to us.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I talked to him.” His voice trails off and he gets that
thousand yard stare over his shot glass. After a moment he looks up at me, a plea in
his eyes so pathetic, I have to pull my eyes away. “I can’t do it, man.”
“Do what?” Julio just shakes his head, starts muttering in Tagalog. I look him
over a long moment. He’s a mess. Eyes are bloodshot, he hasn’t slept. Jumpy, more
skittish than I’ve ever seen. Hands are shaking. He’s the biggest Filipino I know. Sixfoot-two, about as bad-ass as they come. Benches three-fifty, dragon tattoos on his
shoulders, breaks two by fours with his head for fun. If Julio’s scared there’s one hell of
a good reason for it.
Last night Simon tells him to lean on Sandro Giavetti, this Italian guy from
Chicago.
Head down to his hotel, bring him back for a talk.
Simon knew him in
England way back when. Has a scary rep that has Simon worried. I tell him Julio can
handle himself.
Last week Giavetti comes into the store that Simon fences stolen goods out of.
Looking to buy things that don’t get bought. Figures Simon can help. Turns out he can,
so he hooks Giavetti up with three boys he knows are good at breaking and entering
and gets a nice fat cut for being a middle man. As usual, no questions asked.
Well, now Simon’s asking. Word’s getting around that Simon got these boys bad
jobs. Two of them have gone missing, the third one’s dead. Blew his own brains out
night before last. Guy I know on the LAPD says they found a clip’s worth of shell
casings, but only one bullet. Giavetti might know something, might not.
Looking at Julio, I’m thinking Giavetti knows a lot.
My phone chirps at me from my jacket pocket.
It’s Simon.
“Joe,” he says,
cockney coming through like he hasn’t spent fifteen years stateside. “Have you found
him?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Got him right here. Says he talked to Giavetti, but I can’t get
anything else out of -- ” I jump to the sound of shattering glass. Julio’s reached over for
his bottle of Cuervo and smashed it against the bar. I can’t imagine he would come at
me with it, but I roll off the barstool anyway, torquing my left knee in the process.
He shoves the splintered bottle into his throat, tears a ragged gash from adam’s
apple to jugular. He’s bleeding out like an oil derrick. I drop the phone. Try to stop the
bleeding. I can hear Simon’s tiny voice from the phone saying, “What? What?” over
and over again. I’ve got bar towels, my jacket, anything that can stop the flow.
Julio’s eyes roll up into the back of his head, his life bubbling red down the front
of his shirt.
***
“You’re full of shit,” Detective Tanaka says. He’s pacing and yelling at me in one
of the interrogation rooms at the North Hollywood police station. They did a crappy job
with the sound-proofing and I can hear the traffic on the 170 freeway a block away.
Frank Tanaka’s one of those little Japanese guys that martial arts students get
warned about. He’s small and wiry and I have no doubt he can kick my ass.
“Talk to the bartender,” I say for the fifth or sixth time. “He’ll tell you the same
thing. Julio killed himself.” By the time the cops get their act together it’s already 4:00
in the afternoon. I’ve managed to clean up a little, but there’s still this stickiness on my
hands that won’t come off no matter how many times I scrub. My shirt’s caked with
Julio’s blood, and my knee’s swollen from where I twisted it at the bar. The damn thing
throbs if you look at it funny ever since I tore it wrestling in high school. It’s usually not a
problem, but I really tweaked it back there. The least these bastards could do is give
me an Advil.
“Don’t bullshit me, Sunday.” Tanaka sits in the chair opposite me, the sleeves of
his salmon oxford rolled up to his elbows, his Mr. Miyagi mustache twitching. Why do
cops always have such ugly ties? “Julio Guerrera’s not the kind of guy to kill himself.”
He’s got me there. Four hours ago I would have agreed with him. Hell, I agree with him
now. Julio and suicide are not two things that go together.
“Maybe he was depressed.” Tanaka’s looking at me sideways. He knows I’m
holding something back. He knew Julio almost as well as I did. God knows he’s
arrested both of us enough times, just never with enough to make it stick.
We go back and forth like this a couple more rounds, as if he thinks repetition’s
going to get me to change my story. Then he drops a grenade into the conversation.
“So what’s the deal with Sandro Giavetti?” I almost jump when he says it, but
I’ve been in rooms like these since I was selling pot down in Venice twenty years ago.
“Sandra? Never heard of her,” I say. “Julio’s wife’s gonna be pissed.”
“He. And don’t hand me anymore crap. I know Julio was with Giavetti last night.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Tanaka shuts up and does the Stare.
Every cop’s got one. Most folks will spill their guts just to fill the void. I’m not that easy.
Five minutes later there’s a knock, and a uniform sticks her head in. “Counsel’s
here to see him,” she says. Her and Tanaka glare at each other with the kind of look
that screams bad break up.
Lucky me.
She ushers Simon’s lawyer, Norman
Wertheimer, into the room before Tanaka can so much as open his mouth.
Norman’s got on a bright blue Armani suit, conspicuous Rolex. His comb-over’s
looking better these days. “Detective,” Norman says. He gives Tanaka a look like he’s
caught him sneaking peeks into the girls’ locker room. “Good to see you again.”
“Counselor,” Tanaka says. He knows he's got nothing on me. This interview's
over. He stands, pulls a card from his pocket, scribbles a number on the back. “You
want to talk some more, call me.” He drops the card in front of me and leaves, the door
slamming behind him.
“You certainly know how to make friends, don’t you, Mr. Sunday?” Norman says.
He sits down in front of me, places the calfskin briefcase on the table, pops it open.
“Sorry to hear about Julio,” he says with as much emotion as if he’s ordering a
sandwich.
“Yeah. It sucked.” The business card is glaring at me from the table. I stick it in
my jacket pocket just to get it out of my sight.
“Did you kill him?”
“Christ, not you, too.”
He holds his hands out, placating. “Just have to ask,” he says. “I take it that’s a
no, then. I have it on authority that the bartender is giving the same story. We should
have you out in no time, considering that you haven’t been formally charged with
anything.”
“How long is ‘no time’?” I say.
He looks behind him at the door. “Give it a few hours. The detective's pretty
pissed.”
***
I’m on the deck of Simon’s place near the old Getty museum, overlooking Pacific
Coast Highway.
Watching the long line of headlights snake their way along the
oceanfront, wondering what the hell is going on.
Simon’s not here. I let myself in with a spare key and alarm code. After Norman
got me out, I headed home, iced my knee and cleaned up. Spent the whole time
wondering what I was going to tell Julio’s wife. Didn’t know if the cops would do it, knew
Simon wouldn’t. Oh, she’ll be taken care of. Simon’s got this thing about loyalty. Once
you’re in, you’re in. But no way was he going to talk to her.
Julio never told her what he did for a living. She thinks he’s a manager for a
construction company in Hollywood. Julio met her back in Manila where she grew up
thinking she couldn’t do anything by herself. Thinks she needs a man around to make
things happen. If nobody told her to leave a burning building she’d just stand there and
go up with it. Julio told me once that she made him feel necessary. I told him it was
fucked up.
On the way over to Simon’s I called her, got an answering machine. Julio’s
gravelly voice telling me to leave a message, so I did. Started to say that Julio killed
himself, but it felt weird telling a dead man’s voice what it should already know. Told
Mariel to call me later, that it was about Julio.
Keys jangle at the front door. “Joe,” Simon says, coming onto the deck with
Norman in tow. “Wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. Norman, get the man a
drink.” I raise the beer I helped myself to and he nods. “Then get me one.” Simon’s
built like a fireplug, squat and solid, but a good twenty years older than he looks. His
hair is thinning and he likes boiled British food a little too much for his doctor’s comfort,
but he doesn’t care. He’s got deals running all over the place. He can afford to live
large.
He claps a thick hand on my shoulder. “You all right?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just been a long day.”
He hangs his head, nods. “It has been,” he says, peers up at me. “Going to be
longer still.” I knew this was coming, had hoped it wouldn’t.
“What the hell’s going on?” I can feel my anger bubbling just below the surface.
“Do you know why he did this?” I show him my hands. Blood is caked under my
fingernails where I couldn’t scrub it all out. “He tore out his own fucking throat.”
Simon steps back, face impassive, almost sad. “S’pose I owe you that,” he says.
He looks around, peering into the hazy shade of blue that passes for a dark night in Los
Angeles. “But not here,” he says and heads back inside.
He slides the door closed. Locks it. “I don’t know if that’ll help,” he says, more to
himself. Norman hands him a scotch and soda. He tosses it back like water, throws
himself into one of the leather Manhattan chairs.
“Giavetti killed Julio,” he says. Holds up a hand when I open my mouth. “Let me
finish, Joe. Please. I don’t know how, but I know he did it. He and I, we go back quite
a ways. Truth is when he came to see me I near about shit myself. I’m sixty-four. Met
Giavetti when I was eighteen. He looked just as old then as he does now. Are you
following me?” He pauses a moment, to let it sink in. It doesn’t.
“I saw the guy,” I say. “When he first came in to see you. Got to be in his
eighties.”
“I said the same thing back in 1959.”
“You sure it’s the same guy?”
He laughs. “Oh yes. Man like Giavetti, you never forget. I did odd jobs for him.
Much like you do for me. Had his hands in a couple of brothels in London, horse racing,
poker clubs. That sort of thing.”
He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Queer thing. Spent a lot of time down at the
libraries at Oxford. Aside from the occasional roughing up of a man who hadn’t paid, I
used to deliver books to him he got from overseas. Pick them up from the dockside,
take them to his flat.
“One night,” he says, “pal of mine gets the bright idea to bump him off. Gonna
hide in a closet, strangle him in his sleep. My job is to get him in the house. I’ve got
keys, I know when the ol’ bugger goes to bed.”
“You tried to kill him?”
“Not tried, Joe. Tied him up good, slit his throat. Let him bleed out on his
Persian rugs. Stuffed our pockets with a bit of scratch and anything looked valuable.
Set the place alight. He was dead, Joe. I watched him burn.”
I look over at Norman to see if he’s buying any of this. He’s looking like a kid at
camp hearing ghost stories. “Bullshit,” he says.
“You’re saying Giavetti’s back and he killed Julio?” I say. “Come on, Simon.
Nobody lives forever. Sure, it’d be nice, but it just doesn’t happen. You killed him,
what, almost fifty years ago? It’s somebody else. What about the guy you did this
with?”
“Lost his nerve,” he says. “Threatened to go to the police.” Knowing Simon that
meant he was at the bottom of the Thames. Scratch that lead.
“Who else knew?”
“Christ, besides you two, I’ve never told a soul. Giavetti had connections. Word
got out we’d done the deed, we were good as dead. No one else knew.”
“All right,” I say, a scenario coming together. “Somebody’s screwing with you.
The three guys you hooked him up with were in on it. Have to be.”
“What about the dead one?” he says.
“Lost his nerve, like your buddy in London. They took him out. You’dve done the
same.”
“The missing bullets?”
“Vests. Lead’s stuck in these poor bastards’ Kevlar.” Starting to make sense,
pieces all lining up. Norman’s nodding like a bobble head car ornament on a bad road.
Simon’s looking from him to me and back again.
You can almost hear the gears
working.
“All fine and good,” he says after a moment. “So why’d Julio kill himself?”
***
It’s after midnight when I leave. Norman’s taking Simon out of town. Road trip to
San Diego.
While he’s out, I’m going to have myself a chat with Mr. Giavetti, or
whoever the hell he is.
I head up PCH, windows down. Cold air blowing in the smell of the ocean keeps
my mind as sharp as exhaustion will allow. My knee aches past the beer and Advil and
my brain's working overtime. Every scenario I come up with leads me back to Simon’s
question. Why'd Julio kill himself?
I hang a right, beginning the long, curvy wind through Topanga Canyon. My cell
phone chirps. I fumble it out of my jacket, flip it open.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I just got home.” It’s Mariel. “You called.”
I need this right now. “Have the police spoken with you, yet?”
“Police?” she asks, wariness creeping into her voice. “Is Julio with you?”
“No,” I say, not sure how to proceed. “He… Look, Mariel, are you gonna be up
for a while? I think I should come over.”
A considering silence. “What happened to Julio?” How do you tell someone that
her husband ripped through his own throat with a broken bottle?
There’s a noise on the other end. “Hang on,” she says, puts the phone down. A
few seconds go by. “God, Joe, you had me scared there.”
“Sorry?” I say.
“Julio,” she says. “He just walked in. You want to talk to him?” Her voice fades
in and out as I drive through a dead patch and start to lose the signal. “Honey,” she
says away from the mouthpiece. “Joe’s on the phone.”
“Mariel. Listen to me. Whoever that is, it’s not Julio.” But I get a burst of digital
static and the line goes dead. I throw the phone into the passenger seat, stomp on the
gas and tear through the canyon as fast as my car will take me.
***
I pull into the driveway of their tract home, skid to a stop behind Mariel’s Acura. I
don’t bother to knock, just hit the front door at a full run. There’s Mariel, sitting on the
floor at the foot of the sofa.
And there’s Julio sitting on the couch, Mariel’s hand in his, head moving from
side to side. He’s got wide eyes, like he can’t remember how to blink, a ragged flap of
snake-belly white skin and muscle where his throat used to be. His mouth is working
like a grouper, trying to make a sound, but nothing’s coming out, not even a wheeze.
Takes me a second to realize it’s because he’s not breathing.
Mariel turns to me when I come in, tears streaming down her face, mascara
painting dark lines down to her chin. “Help him,” she says to me. “Oh God, please help
him.”
I have no idea what to do. Call Simon? No. Need to keep him out of this. He’s
too spooked as it is. He’d hit San Diego and just keep going. Paramedics? A little late
for that.
Then I have it. I dig around in my jacket for Tanaka's card. Grab Mariel's phone,
dial the number.
Mariel’s obsessively patting Julio’s hand, rocking back and forth, saying, “It’s
okay, baby. It’s all gonna be okay.” From the look of her, I’d say she knows it’s not
going to be.
“I heard him come in,” she says, her eyes fixed on her husband. “After you hung
up I came out here. He was sitting on the couch. Like this. I didn’t know what to do.”
Her body heaves with fresh sobs. “I don’t know what to do.”
The phone rings once, twice then clicks as Tanaka comes on the line. “Hello?”
he says, voice groggy with sleep.
“Frank,” I say. “Joe Sunday. Look, Julio…” I’m not sure what to say. I’ve got a
dead man on the sofa and I need some help? I think Giavetti might have something to
do with it, and, oh by the way, my boss thinks he’s the ghost of a guy he murdered in
London fifty years ago. And did I mention that the dead guy is still moving around?
What the hell am I doing, calling him?
“What?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. I need somebody who can think straighter than I can, and
right now he’s the only one who comes to mind. “It’s Julio,” I say. “He’s-“ There’s a
loud click, and at first I think he’s hung up on me, until I realize that I’m not getting a dial
tone.
“You can put the phone down,” says a voice. Giavetti steps out from the kitchen.
He’s got a Beretta pointed at my chest. I do what he says, put the phone back in its
cradle.
Tall guy. Wrinkled and balding, liver spots on his hands and face, but there’s a
sharpness in his eyes that has me worried. His hands and neck are all wiry muscle,
and he’s standing up straight as a Marine. I’m sure I can take him, but I need to get
closer. At this range it’s a crap shoot whether he’ll miss. And if he misses he might hit
Mariel. Something tells me Julio won’t mind it much if he takes the bullet.
“Joe, who is this?” Mariel asks. Giavetti smiles at her.
“Sandro Giavetti,” he says. He grins at some inside joke only he seems to know
about. “You could say your husband and I are close.”
She stands up. Steps toward him. “Can you help him? He came home like this.
I don’t know what to do.”
Giavetti moves to the side, the gun trained on me the whole time. “Nobody can
help him now. I was hoping this time would be different.” Mariel looks even more lost
than before.
“You did this to him, didn’t you?” I say, more statement than question. “Who
else? The two guys who stole for you? You tried to get the other one, but he killed
himself before you got to him, didn’t he?”
“I’m not having this conversation. I only want my property.”
I look back at the mess on the couch that used to be Julio. “Your property?” I
lower my hands. “You’re not taking him anywhere.”
“Is this where you say something like ‘over my dead body’? Because we can do
that.”
“With what?” I say, trying to stall him. “That? All these houses? You pull that
trigger, cops’ll be down on you before you step out the door.” Still too far away. With
my knee in the shape it’s in I won’t get to him before he gets a shot off.
He thinks about this. “You’re right. Julio, kill him.”
Julio lurches off the couch with an inhuman speed he never had when he was
alive. Mariel screams, beats her fists against his chest. He backhands her with the
force of a bulldozer. She hits the wall like a rag doll and her neck snaps with a loud
crack.
Bad knee or no, I’m moving. I duck around Giavetti’s arm, grab for the gun, pull it
out of his hand before he can pull the trigger. It clatters to the floor.
He’s quick for an old man, slips out of the wrist lock, drops down and twists,
throwing me off just enough for my knee to seriously pop out this time. I go down in a
wave of agony and torn tendons. Before I can get up, Julio’s hands are around my
throat. He lifts me off the floor and shakes me like a dog with a gopher.
I’ve got no air. My kicks and punches are useless. I snag the skin flap at his
throat, tear a chunk off. He doesn’t even blink, just squeezes harder. He’s crushing my
windpipe and I can’t make him let go.
My lungs are screaming. I can feel my eyes bugging out, blood and pressure so
tight in my head that my face is burning. My entire chest is ablaze and I get tunnelvision, shades of gray fading in from the edges. I can’t even raise my arms to fight him,
anymore, just this compulsive empty gasping as my body tries to get some oxygen.
In the distance, a thousand miles away, I can hear Giavetti laughing.
***
When I open my eyes I’m sitting on the cold tile floor of a busted up shower
room, hands cuffed over my head to some pipes poking out the wall. One overhead
fluorescent flickers gray shadows across the room, highlighting graffiti sprayed over any
surface that can take it.
There's a stink in the air, like meat gone too long in an
unplugged fridge.
The last thing I remember is Julio crushing my windpipe, squeezing me like an
over-ripe tomato. Breathing feels funny, air not coming in quite right. And something
wrong with the sound in the room. Quiet in some way I can’t place. Something’s
missing.
I run through my catalog of injuries and they’re all coming up blank. My throat,
my knee, all those aches and pains that I’d learned to ignore are gone, conspicuous in
their absence. What the hell is wrong with me?
I pull on the cuffs, more to give me something else to think about than any
realistic hope of getting out. Solid, police issue. No way I’m pulling these things off.
Giavetti steps into the hazy pool of light, footsteps echoing on cold tile. He's
wearing a blue polo shirt, chinos, a pair of slip-on loafers. Aside from the Beretta in his
hand he looks like somebody's grandfather. “I was wondering when you'd come back.”
I give the cuffs a theatrical tug. Like I could be anywhere else.
"What the hell is Simon's problem, sending his monkeys after me? We made a
deal. I got no beef with him." I'm not sure whether to believe him or not.
“He just wanted to talk,” I say. “Find out what happened to the boys you hired.”
He rubs his face with one hand, squinting with exasperation. “Just talk,” he says.
“So he sends that goddamn gorilla over with a pair of brass knuckles?
Just like
London." He twists his mouth and a pretty good impersonation of Simon comes out.
“‘No ‘ard feelins. Bygone's ‘n all that.’ Limey cocksucker. Well, they're dead. Figured
they could rip me off for your boss.”
“What the hell could you possibly have that Simon would want?”
He laughs. “You don't know what this is about, do you kid?” he asks. “It's about
immortality. Livin’ forever. Simon knows I can do it, too. Thought he offed me back in
London. Little this, little that, I’m fifty years younger and good as new." He looks down
at the sallow skin hanging off his arms, the liver spots on his hands.
Things start to click into place. The missing burglars, Julio. Like it or not, the
answer’s staring right at me. “You got old again,” I say. “You needed something that
would make it permanent, something here in L.A. So you get Simon to give you some
muscle to make it happen, and they try to take it from you.” When I find Simon we’re
going to have a conversation. I don’t like being lied to.
“Used to be, you made a deal, it was done,” he says. “Backstabbing son of a
bitch.” He fishes an opal about the size of a plum from his pants pocket. “There's only
three of these in the world. British snagged ‘em from the Aborigines in Australia a
hundred years ago. Simon's boys got it off a collector in Beverly Hills. Doesn’t look like
much. But this baby’s what makes it all possible.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, remembering Julio. “Works great.”
His face twists into a frown that makes him look even uglier. “It’s taken me a few
tries but I think I finally got it right,” he says. “Those buddies of yours were my screw
ups. They've already fallen apart.”
Has Giavetti gone and done this to himself already?
Julio was goddamn
unstoppable. If this is Giavetti as a zombie, I’m screwed. “You finally work out the
kinks?”
“I don't know,” he says, giving me this look like I'm a fish in a bell jar. “You tell
me.”
The world drops out from under me. I tell myself that I don't feel any different,
only I do.
My lungs, the missing aches and pains, my knee.
My body feels like
somebody threw the off switch, but forgot to tell me about it.
Bastard laughs at me again. “Yeah, I’d say I worked out the kinks,” he says.
“Oh, one last thing.” He points the gun at my head and pulls the trigger.
There's a blast of light and sound, an echoing boom that reverbs across the tile
and whips my head back like it's been hit by a semi. I can feel bone shatter like glass,
leaving an abstract painting of blood and tissue where my head hits the wall. No pain,
but I'm blind in one eye. Can't move.
And then, like one of those reverse time lapse nature films back in high school, I
can feel the bones of my skull start to knit back together again, skin and brain folding in
on themselves, swelling like a balloon. There's this disgusting slurping sound as it all
pulls together, and in a few minutes I'm covered in my own gore. Blood and bone
matted in my hair. Not even a scratch on me.
Giavetti's got a look on his face like I just shit out the Vienna Boys' Choir.
"Jesus," he says. His face is gray and he looks like he's about to hurl.
It takes me a minute to find my voice, overwhelmed panic freezing up my vocal
cords. "Gimme the gun,” I croak, “and I'll show you what it feels like from this side.”
He swallows, and I can see that he's sweating. "Nah. Think I'll just toss you
down a hole and pour cement on top of ya. See what an eternity buried in rock does for
your attitude." He pockets the gun with a shaking hand, grips the stone with white
knuckles. “Gotta prep a few things," he says and backs away into the darkness.
Any doubts I might have had are gone. I hold my breath. A minute stretches into
ten. Instead of that tight, chest-crushing feeling there’s nothing. I feel my left wrist with
the fingers of my right. No pulse.
My panic fades as I think things through. It occurs to me, as I’m wondering if I’m
dead or not, that it doesn’t really matter. I’m still moving. I can think. I’ve had my head
blown open and resealed like a run-flat tire and I haven’t turned into that thing that used
to be Julio. There could be some benefits to this.
Giavetti wants to drop me down a hole and leave me there? I’d like to see the
little fucker try.
***
The place Giavetti’s holed up in is huge. Lots of trashed white tile, boarded up
windows, and industrial walls. No lights, but I don’t seem to need any. Everything’s
clear as day. No freeway noise, either, a virtual impossibility in this town. Makes me
think we’re up in the Hollywood Hills, somewhere. Used to be some sanatoriums in the
canyons built in the Twenties and Thirties. Guess they didn't all get bulldozed.
I flex my hand, feeling new ligaments where I broke the thumb at the joint to get
out of the cuffs. Didn’t hurt, but there was this sickening pressure and grinding snap
that made me wince. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, which somehow makes it
worse.
I don’t know what Giavetti did to me. Everything feels empty, cored out like a
jack-o-lantern.
My body feels too still, all those unconscious little pulses and
movements missing.
Reminds me of the first time I spent a night out of the city.
Couldn’t sleep for all the quiet.
And there are questions. Am I going to age, like Giavetti did, or am I stuck like
this? I run a hand over the half day’s growth of beard on my face. Am I stuck with that,
too? Do I eat, sleep? I bring in a large chestful of air, enough to bring my lungs to
bursting, but I don’t feel it. I never thought I would miss breathing.
The hallways zig one way, zag another. I double-back twice when I hit dead
ends.
Eventually I hit a staircase littered with burned out bed-frames and rotting
mattresses. I pick my way past them, make my way up to the next floor, the smell of rot
stronger than down below.
There’s a dim, yellow light in a room at the end of the hall, and I can hear voices.
Clearer as I get closer, I realize that it’s Giavetti and, of all people, Simon. Simon who
should be in San Diego.
“We had ourselves a deal,” Simons says. “Both of us. I help you get the rock,
you do both of us.”
“The deal changed,” Giavetti says, “the minute you sent your monkeys over.”
“Well, you didn’t have to turn ‘em into fucking zombies.”
I step into the room and all conversation stops. Giavetti standing there, Beretta
in hand. Simon, sitting on the floor, hands on his knees. Over in the corner there’s
Norman, the back half of his head blown off, lying face down next to the corpses of Julio
and the two burglars. Giavetti turns the gun on me. Fat lot of good that’ll do him.
“Joe,” Simon says. “Thank god you’re all right.”
“Don't,” my voice climbing, angry. “When were you gonna tell me about this? Or
were you? Afraid I’d horn in on your little deal here?”
He puts his hands out, placating. “It’s not what it looks like. I didn’t know about
all this until just now.”
“Then how’d you know to come here? How come you’re not in San Diego?”
Simon stammers, looks for a way out of the hole he’s dug himself.
Giavetti rolls his eyes. “Christ, you’re a piss poor liar,” he says and shoots him
through the chest. Blood pours out in a thick, dark stain as he pitches forward. Giavetti
and I stand there, staring at each other.
“Guess that just leaves us,” Giavetti says. “You wanna deal?”
I look around the room. The corpses are piling up. It occurs to me that Giavetti
is the only one left alive in the room. “I don’t see you having much to deal with.”
He pulls the opal out of his pocket. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he says. “What I
did, I can undo. Or not. You want, you can live forever. Or you can be among the
living again. Settle down, grow old, die with dignity.”
That empty feeling, like I’ve been ripped open and hollowed out, flares like
lightning inside me. I’m Pinocchio in reverse.
The real boy turned into a wooden
puppet. “I can go back to breathing,” I say. “Or I can have this for eternity.”
He nods. “Or I can turn you inside out and make you rot where you stand,” he
says. “I give you what you want and you leave me alone. You screw with me, and I’ll
make what I did to your buddies over there look like Club Med. Your choice.”
Yesterday, if someone had given me the option of living forever, I’d have jumped
at it. But now, having a taste of it, I’m done. I want to go home, I want to go to sleep. I
want to take a deep breath and not have it feel like I’m just going through the motions.
Maybe he’s bluffing. Maybe he can’t do it, but I want my life back.
Before I can answer, a voice behind me says, “Drop the gun.” Tanaka steps into
the light, his eyes watering at the smell of days old corpses. The cavalry has arrived.
Too early or too late. Either way the timing sucks.
Giavetti doesn’t listen. He empties the clip. I jump between them. Yelling at him
not to shoot, trying to shield him from the inevitable return of fire. I can’t have him die
on me. Not now. Bullets pepper the walls, the doorway. Two of them tag me. One in
the chest, and the other in my kneecap, yanking my leg out from under me.
Tanaka takes his shot, snapping Giavetti's neck back with a well placed bullet to
the head. I drag myself over to the body, my wounds already closing up, the bullets
worming their way to the surface. I grab him, shake him, but it’s too late.
The opal falls from his fingers and I snatch it up. Without Giavetti, it’s just a
useless chunk of rock, but I hide it in my hand, anyway.
“You all right?” Tanaka says, coming over to me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.” I pull back the urge to kill him, stand up. The bullets fall
to the floor from my rapidly sealing wounds. Tanaka looks at them. Looks at me.
Leaves it alone.
“Thanks for covering me,” he says. If he only knew. He takes in the blood, the
wild hair, the cuffs dangling from one wrist. “Caller ID grabbed Julio’s number. We
found his wife over there.”
“How’d you find this place?” I’m running scenarios through my head. I could kill
Tanaka, hide out. But then what?
“Luck.” He unlocks the cuffs hanging from my wrist. “Put an APB out on you and
your car. Couple of uniforms found it up the road.” He looks at the carnage littering the
floor.
Voices and running footsteps. Four cops come down the hall, guns out. Any
thoughts of killing Tanaka go out the door the second they walk in. One of them throws
up right there. Another looks at me, starts to call for paramedics. Tanaka tells him no,
gives me a look. The last thing I need is to have the paramedics check me over. How
does he know?
Tanaka pulls me into the hallway, out of earshot of the uniforms. “I know there’s
more going on here,” he says. “Giavetti was into some weird shit, weirder than you
probably know.” He looks behind him at the uniforms efficiently closing off the scene.
“Go home. Get some rest. I’ll get a statement from you later.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says. “But I can guess.” I start to deny
anything, but he puts up a closed hand to stop me. “I saw what I saw. You tried to
cover me. Got in his way and it fouled his aim.” He opens his palm showing two blood
covered bullets, drops them into my hand. “You never got hit.” He points me down the
hall, gives me a little shove. “Get outta here. And get yourself cleaned up.”
I make my way through a set of open double doors at the end of the hall,
confused and lost. Dead men walking, cops helping me out. I step outside onto a
gravel patch. Morning sun peeking up over the hills, the light just a little too bright for
comfort.
About the Author:
Stephen Blackmoore lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two immense dogs, writing
about his city more than is probably healthy. He is currently working on a novel. He
can be reached at his website, L.A. Noir, at http://la-noir.blogspot.com.
THE DEMON IN THE STOREHOUSE
By Megan Powell
The air was filled with the croaking of one thousand
frogs,
and no work songs. Midway between planting and harvesting, rice did not
require much attention.
But based upon his recent observations in other villages,
Hirokado would have expected to see more farmers at work. Instead, he found a small
boy playing with a stick, and peering ahead he could see villagers flitting from house to
house.
"What has happened here?"
"A demon!" The boy slashed at the air. Evidently the stick was a sword. "It ate a
girl, everything except her fingers and toes."
"How gruesome. Can you take me to the family of this poor unfortunate? I would
like to offer my condolences."
"She was a stranger."
Hirokado guessed that any stranger would cause gossip in a village so small as
this, even a stranger who did not meet a grisly death. "Surely she did not travel
alone?"
"She traveled with a man. Her brother. He's very upset."
Hirokado wondered if the man had represented himself as the girl's brother, or if
the description was a result of the boy's innocence. "I can imagine. Is he still here?"
"Jiro found him." The boy shouted and ran toward a young man, who abruptly
lost interest in an animated conversation with another villager. Hirokado saw no reason
to hurry after him.
"Has this demon caused any trouble before?"
"Not for a long time."
Like the other villagers, Jiro wore a cloth jacket over
trousers, both garments patched and stained from working in the fields. Dung clung to
his clogs. By the village's standards, perhaps the young man was rich, if he spent his
time tramping through valuable fertilizer. "It lives in an old storehouse. Nobody's used
it for years, but we don't want to tear it down. The demon might get angry."
Jiro's manners were no better than the boy's. A man old enough to be his father
deserved respect. "Sometimes it is wise to let well enough alone," Hirokado said. A
man might easily take offense at the lack of deferential address...but in Hirokado's
experience overly familiar speech could yield useful information.
"Do you know anything about demons?"
"My name is Hirokado. I am a diviner." Though their manners were rough,
Hirokado had learned to appreciate the natural credulity of rustics. "I was a student of
the Chinese master, Chu."
"Ah." Jiro's eyes widened in a gratifying manner. "Let me take you to him."
"Thank you.
I will do my humble best to help." The young boy ran off,
presumably to spread new gossip. Before the day ended, Hirokado expected to find
himself promoted to the imperial court.
"I'm sure he'll be very grateful for any help you can offer. He's quite upset about
the girl's death."
Just "the girl," not "his sister." Until he knew more, Hirokado decided not to
encourage speculation about the young couple's relationship. "You found him?"
"I was going out to the fields when I heard shouting." Jiro waved his arms about,
presumably in imitation of the man. "He was raving like a madman."
"You were very brave to approach him. Many men would have been afraid he
was the demon."
"The poor man would have aroused anyone's compassion," Jiro explained with
painful modesty. "He didn't look like a demon, and I think I'd be able to tell."
Wails emerged from a nearby home.
Villagers hovered near the veranda,
whispering amongst themselves. "This is my sister's home," Jiro said. "She and her
husband took the man in."
A woman met them in the doorway. "What's this, more strangers?"
"He's Hirokado the diviner. He's going to drive off the demon."
The woman was less easily impressed than her brother. "He's had a terrible
fright. I don't imagine this lot helps." She cast a withering look in the direction of certain
gossiping villagers.
"Might I speak to the man?" Hirokado asked, before Jiro had the opportunity to
antagonize his sister. "I fear for his health. Demons can be wily. Sometimes it takes
weeks for their victims to sicken and die."
She stood aside and let Hirokado enter. "Try not to upset him any more."
Hirokado removed his sandals and stepped up onto the wooden floor. To his left,
a man huddled before the fireplace, despite the morning's warmth.
The young man was handsome and clearly wellborn. He did look distraught,
eyes reddened and puffy with tears. At the moment his sleeves were wet enough to
prove his sincerity to anyone, and Hirokado imagined the effect he could have on a
young girl. Even a girl who could have had a husband of higher rank, who should have
known better than to shame to her family.
"This is Hirokado the yin-yang diviner." Jiro patted the young man's shoulder. In
a different setting, such familiarity would have earned him a thrashing or worse
punishment. "He's going to kill the demon."
The young man snuffled miserably. "But that won't bring her back."
"I regret that it is beyond my power to raise the dead." Hirokado studied the
young man, who showed no evidence of having recognized his visitor. "Can you tell me
what happened?"
"We were traveling east. It was getting dark and clouds were gathering, so we
decided to take shelter. We found the storehouse...it was empty, and we didn't think
anyone would mind if we stayed the night." A sob interrupted the tale, and Jiro's sister
shook her head.
"Strange places are dangerous. And to think of spending the night--" Jiro made
shushing motions; she fell silent and glared at him.
"The instant we entered, there was a great crack of thunder," said the man who
had so recently been a guest in the house of Hirokado's lord. "Lightning lit the place as
bright as day. Rain poured down. There was no question of leaving before dawn. I
decided to keep watch. I had my sword, and I sat by the door."
"Were you worried about bandits?"
The man shrugged, as though he were an innocent with no need to fear any
man. "I didn't want anything to hurt her--" His voice broke again. "I told her to go to
sleep, that she didn't have to worry about anything. All night, I stared out into the rain.
And then, at dawn, it stopped. I went to wake her, and--"
"Shh." Jiro's sister maneuvered around the men to clean the fireplace. "It's all
right. You didn't know."
"The demon, it had--" The man took a deep breath. "She was gone, everything
but her hair and her clothes. I didn't even hear it."
"You should rest, after such a fright." Hirokado bowed to the young man, though
it galled him, and retrieved his sandals. "I am sorry for your loss."
Outside, he noted the villagers' stares. The grieving man, shut up inside the
house of Jiro's sister, no longer made good theater, but a yin-yang diviner could put on
a good show. If Hirokado played the part well, the villagers would remember the drama
of the exorcism more vividly than the death of a strange girl.
"Please take me to the storehouse."
"Of course." Jiro set a brisk pace past terraced rice fields. They were not quite
so deserted as the fields Hirokado had passed coming into the village. A pair of farmers
set their backs to hoeing, and one man inspected the embankments, but the demon
seemed an adequate an excuse for a holiday.
"You villagers all know to avoid the storehouse, but what about travelers? A
posted warning, perhaps?"
"Most people have the good sense to avoid strange abandoned buildings. All the
same, we warn travelers we encounter. I myself told a man about the demon just last
month."
"Which way was he going?"
"West. He was an old man. He walked with a limp, and he was hunched halfway
over. I offered him a meal and help reaching the next village, but he said he didn't want
to be a bother. Perhaps I should go to the next village, just to make sure he arrived
safely. And to tell them about this poor girl. I'd hate for anyone else to fall victim to the
demon."
"As you said, most people have the good sense to avoid such places, and all the
warnings in the world won't keep fools away. I take it that is the storehouse?" Hirokado
pointed at a ramshackle building surrounded by curious folk not quite brave enough to
enter. Even without rumors of demonic residents, a sensible person would think twice
before going inside. Gaps yawned in the thatched roof, and Hirokado wondered at the
state of the timbers supporting it.
"Yes, that's where it happened."
The crowd stepped back to let Hirokado pass, even before Jiro could begin
introductions. "We know," one of the villagers said. "He's the Chinese wizard. We
haven't touched anything in the storehouse."
"That was very wise." Hirokado doubted any of them had entered the building at
all, which was just as well. "I will enter alone."
None of the men argued. The interior of the storehouse proved to be in as poor
repair as the exterior. The storehouse door had broken free, and someone had
propped it up against a wall. Refuse littered the floor. Hirokado stepped around
puddles, testimony to the previous night's storm and the condition of the roof.
The girl's clothes drew his attention immediately. The silk indicated wealth
beyond any peasant's means. The shoes were also fine, never intended for rice fields,
and he imagined the tiny, well-formed feet of the girl who had worn them.
"Are you all right?" Jiro peered inside, but did not cross over the threshold. "Is
there any sign of the demon?"
"I see the signs of its passing, but it doesn't seem to be here right now. It's
probably nocturnal. Eating the girl may have sated it for the moment."
Beside the girl's clothing lay a pile of hair. Long and sleek, it still smelled faintly
of perfume. Hirokado remembered the scent leaking from behind the girl's screens,
tantalizing but never immodest. He could not ignore the dirt and pine needles tangled in
the once-beautiful hair, which testified to the inexcusable way she had spent her time
since the night she left her father's house.
Hirokado gently lifted a few strands and examined the ends. No roots were
visible. The demon had not torn the hair from the girl's head, but had thoughtfully used
a blade to cut it.
Hirokado stood and began pacing around the room. He felt uncomfortable, as
though someone watched his every action.
"Have you found anything?" Jiro called from beyond the threshold.
"I feel a great malevolence." Hirokado knelt once more. Someone had spread
soft pine boughs in a dry corner of the room, and a crusted substance proved to be
semen.
Hirokado stepped out into the sunlight, the villagers parting before him. "Who
owns this building?"
"It used to belong to a rich family," Jiro said quickly, protecting his role as
spokesman. "But they all died before I was born."
"Well then, if no one will be hurt by the loss of the building, the easiest thing is to
burn it." Hirokado wiped his hands clean.
"Won't that make the demon angry?"
"Yes, I suppose it will. But the demon is very firmly attached to this place, and
once the storehouse is gone it won't be able to cause any more harm."
"Bless you!" one of the villagers said. "If only you had come to us years ago, we
could have averted so much sadness."
"But I am here now," Hirokado said. "I learned the art of exorcism from my
master Chu, a wise and learned man, and I am confident that I can drive off this
demon. I do need time to prepare, however. I would like to perform the ceremony while
the sun is in the sky."
"Of course," Jiro said. "What can we do?"
"Go home and purify yourselves," Hirokado said. "Remain inside for the next few
hours. Come back at midday, and we will burn the storehouse to the ground."
"All right, we can do that," Jiro said, and the crowd dispersed.
Hirokado shook his head and walked back into the storehouse. He fixed his eyes
on the detached door. It was propped against the wall at an angle that allowed plenty of
room for a person to hide beneath it. "Your father is very displeased."
After a moment, he heard someone move--but from above, not from behind the
broken door. Hirokado looked up and watched Ishibashi no Kunimoto's daughter
awkwardly climb down from the rafters. He would not have expected a wellborn girl to
even think of climbing, much less succeed.
She wore a simple shift, probably taken from one of her maids, and her hair was
short and jagged. It offended Hirokado's sensibilities to witness how far she had fallen.
Hirokado had never seen her face before, but could see something of her father
in the girl's features. Especially when she lifted her chin in defiance. "My father is often
displeased."
Her face and hands were smudged with dirt, she had cropped her hair, she had
allowed herself to be seduced by a cad, she had shamed her father by running
away...and she was the most beautiful girl Hirokado had ever seen. "You have to return
with me."
She shook her head. "I won't go back."
"Don't be ridiculous. You'll go back, you'll get married. Somehow your father will
explain this."
"I will not marry that old man and play stepmother to his children!" Kunimoto's
daughter stomped her foot. "I will be no one's nursemaid, I will be no one's lesser lady-"
"Mochiharu is a good man. He'll look after you. It's a good match--it's better than
either you or your father had any right to expect," Hirokado said recklessly. It was not
his place to comment upon his lord's brokering of the marriage, but the girl's flight had
upset the rules by which the world ran.
Hirokado could improvise; that was one of the qualities his lord most valued. And
if he could talk sense into the girl, the girl whose face he should never have seen,
perhaps he could salvage the situation.
"I will not marry Mochiharu."
"Then you'll take vows! That at least will explain the hair," Hirokado said. "What
were you thinking? Women have affairs all the time, but they don't run off with men.
What you did is shameful."
"What I did is unforgivable," she said evenly. "But it is only as shameful as you
allow. The girl who ran off with Fushimi no Nagayori is dead. The whole village will
attest to it."
"But she still ran off with Nagayori," Hirokado said. "He's beneath you, no matter
how pretty his words."
"Pretty words can also be true. He loves me, and I love him. Do you think I am a
fool?" she demanded. "Do you think I am deceived? A seducer could have entered my
room and left before dawn. By taking me away, he risks so much more. But we will
have more than a few stolen nights and elegant love letters."
"You'll not like life outside your father's house," Hirokado told her. "You're not
raised for it. You won't have maids to do everything."
"And how wonderful that will be!" she declared. "Do you have any idea how
happy I was this morning after Nagayori left? For the first time in my life, I was alone."
Was it not terrifying for her? Hirokado wondered. Or was she naive enough that
it never occurred to her to fear the dangers of the world? And how much could she love
Nagayori if she delighted in his departure?
"I'm well rid of servants," she said, "and no screens will stand between me and
Nagayori-"
"Stop it! Such talk is indecent." Hirokado looked away from her. He should
have averted his eyes sooner, but she should never have allowed him to see her in the
first place. "You shame your father."
"Ishibashi no Kunimoto's daughter is dead," she repeated. "She cannot shame
anyone."
Hirokado frowned. A meek, repentant girl could perhaps have been explained, or
at least bundled away to a convent. The girl before him could not be presented to
anyone as the daughter of Ishibashi no Kunimoto.
"You do not want to be here at midday," Hirokado said. "If I tell them you're the
demon in disguise, they'll believe me. If I tell them to tear you to pieces, they'll do it."
Her eyes widened.
"Ishibashi no Kunimoto's daughter is dead," he said. "I can hardly kill her again."
She could not bring herself to call his bluff, not entirely convinced that it was a
bluff. She might believe she had worked out matters of love, but she was not remotely
prepared for life outside of her father's house.
"Get away from her!" Nagayori yelled from outside the storehouse. He carried
his sword, but didn't look very threatening leaning against the doorway to catch his
breath. He must have run all the way from the village. "I won't let you hurt her."
Hirokado locked gazes with Nagayori, and the younger man looked away first.
"You'll find me a difficult target."
"I told them I was going to kill the demon," Nagayori panted. "If it can disguise
itself as a girl, why not a diviner?"
"Finally, one of you is talking sense," Hirokado said, a bit uncharitably. Their
plan was more sophisticated than the typical lovers' flight. Nagayori had surely been
the old man traveling west, the same direction as Kunimoto's mansion.
Manipulating a local superstition demonstrated at least a little ingenuity. Most
people would willingly believe the story of a demon devouring a girl. Skeptics who
investigated more closely might suppose that an old wanderer had been responsible for
her disappearance. Whether by supernatural or worldly means, the girl's death was a
reasonably convincing conclusion to the tale.
"I will do it." Having caught his breath, Nagayori made the threat sound credible.
Probably he believed himself capable of carrying out murder. "Step away from her
now."
Hirokado didn't move. Nagayori lunged forward. He had clearly practiced with
the sword, but Hirokado doubted he had ever used it against a target prepared to fight
back. Hirokado easily avoided the blade and disarmed the young man before dealing
him a single blow. Nagayori folded up and collapsed to the floor, wheezing and in pain.
"No!" Kunimoto's daugher reached for the fallen sword. Hirokado kicked it away
before she could embarrass herself further. He grabbed hold of her hair and dragged
her upright. Her protests, equal parts outrage and pain, enraged him.
Hirokado shoved her against the wall and took hold of her jaw, forcing her to look
at him. "Do you think I hurt you just now? Do you think I hurt him?" She struggled and
he caught a wrist in his hand and twisted hard enough that she understood the threat.
"You don't know anything of the world. He barely knows anything."
She was still defiant--afraid, yes, she was smart enough to be afraid. But she still
thought she was right. There was no way to argue with such self-assurance. Time and
experience could prove her wrong, but never Hirokado.
It was frustrating. But from a certain perspective, it simplified matters.
"I could do anything to you," he told her, and gave her time to consider what he
might mean. "Ishibashi no Kunimoto's daughter is dead. No one cares about you. I
want you to understand that. No one cares. No one will protect you."
As if on cue, Nagayori lurched to his feet, willing to defend his lover unarmed.
Hirokado had little patience for bravery or stupidity. He kicked Nagayori in the face.
The young man fell heavily and moaned, clutching his broken nose.
"Stop it," the girl begged.
"Why? What can you offer me?" Hirokado demanded. "You have no money, no
family."
"My body," she said softly.
She wasn't quite as naive as he'd thought. "I already have that."
Tears welled up in her eyes. Hirokado threw her to the ground and she crawled
to Nagayori's side.
"Ishibashi no Kunimoto's daughter is dead," Hirokado said. "There will be a
funeral, and mourning for a well-bred girl. When that is done no one will ever think of
her again. Fushimi no Nagayori had best die, too."
The girl stood and placed her body between her lover and Hirokado. Nagayori
tried to pull her back, evidently still intent on playing the defender no matter that he had
proved ill-suited for the role.
A guest should never have been able to abduct the daughter of the house. The
whole situation reflected badly on Kunimoto and his household. Hirokado wanted to kill
Nagayori for the insult, or at least continue to beat him. But he refused to surrender to
such impulses.
"I won't have Fushimi no Nagayori taking some stranger as his wife--or even as
his lover," Hirokado added cruelly. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing that
Kunimoto's daughter would regret her decision. Let her wonder whether Nagayori had
truly intended to marry her and keep her in fine style...and let him know that she
wondered.
"He should donate his money to a worthy cause," Hirokado continued, "before
succumbing to some wasting disease. A poor young couple can wander the land. No
one of importance will take notice of such lowly people. But if that couple ever comes
anywhere near the Capital...if this story of a demon ever becomes anything more than a
cautionary tale about spending the night in strange places...then I will take notice."
Nagayori snuffled, but chose not to protest. Perhaps he was learning wisdom.
"The distraught young man foolishly fought the demon," Hirokado said, "against
my best advice. His death was gruesome and painful." He pointed at the door.
Nagayori cast a glance in the direction of his sword. Hirokado stood between him and
the weapon, and the young man thought better of the impulse.
"Is this your mercy?" the girl asked. "Or do you fear my father's wrath?"
Hirokado fixed her with a stare. He wondered how long the scent of her perfume
would linger in her father's house. "I told your father I would find his daughter and keep
him from being publicly shamed. This is how I chose to fulfill my word. It is the final
kindness anyone will ever do you because of your birth."
She met his gaze, defiant and resolutely unladylike. Good. No one would
believe that a woman so poorly behaved had been raised in an illustrious house. She
was beautiful and unmarked by physical labor, but time would soon erase that.
The young lovers clasped hands and fled the storehouse, leaving Hirokado to
prepare an exorcism and conflagration to impress the villagers.
About the Author:
Megan Powell lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and assorted pets. Her
short fiction has appeared in various small press magazines and anthologies. Recent
projects as an editor include the cross-genre anthology Crossings (Double Dragon) and
the mystery/crime webzine Shred of Evidence (www.shredofevidence.com). Last fall
Zumaya Publications released her paranormal romance, Waxing. She maintains a
homepage at www.meganpowell.net.
CURSIVE THREE
By Joseph Swope
Normally he wouldn’t spring for the cab, but today was the day.
He was going to do it. James Cursive got out of the cab and dutifully joined the mob of
dark-suited nine-to-fivers plodding towards the glass revolving door.
As he crossed the spinning threshold into the too opulent lobby, he wondered if
what he felt was how adulterers felt on the morning of their first fling. He did his best to
distract himself. If he didn’t think about what he was planning, perhaps he could escape
some of the consequences.
Twenty-six and a career ladder with way too many rungs above him. Struggling
with rent, unable to afford regular Starbucks or a cab was no way to live. Manhattan
was a brutal city. Either prey or be preyed upon. After only a few years, he was finding
out that he was a sheep.
With his off-the-rack suit and his bland tie, he knew he was unremarkable. Not
one of the lawyers or overpaid consultants noticed him. With brown hair, medium build
and a face that few women remembered, his whole being was simply average.
As he stood amongst the silent throng staring intently at the polished brass
doors of the elevators, he sent out a quick thought to the coffee-sipping, sneakerwearing businesswomen next to him.
It was a simple thought. James simply pulled together a memory of what it was
like to flop down on his couch on a Friday evening at the end of a workday. He exhaled
in relaxation as he embraced his family’s gift. As his thought of comfort silently and
invisibly floated towards its target, James waited.
He knew the woman would be receptive to it.
If she wore such atrocious
sneakers with her power suit, she must value her comfort.
He didn’t know how it
worked. He had avoided even thinking about it for most of his life. But the few times he
had flirted with it, it came easily to him.
The subtle change in her posture and the smile that snuck into her expression,
told him she felt his covert gift. He didn’t know the woman and didn’t know what a slight
suggestion of contentment would do for her or to her. Perhaps it would allow her to deal
a little better with an overbearing boss. Perhaps it would dull the edge of her wellpracticed and crucial presentation.
The ramifications for other people were hard to predict. The ramifications for the
practitioner of his family’s curse weren’t. He would soon feel a response. Somehow and
at sometime, the magic would punish or reward him three times for what he did to her or
for her.
As the doors opened with a chime and the herd silently stepped into the
predictably silent elevator, James thought about his family, his father specifically. He
knew more about his father from stories and warnings than he remembered from actual
childhood encounters.
The gift his father’s chromosomes had passed to him was more seductive than
the first innocent sip of liquor snuck by a future alcoholic teen. The warnings of his
mother and aunt as well as the crushing poverty and shame his father left him with were
almost enough to make him avoid temptation throughout his adolescence and early
twenties.
For eight years he had paid for his adolescent ploy to beat the curse. Knowing
the gruesome details of his father’s death wasn’t enough to overcome being ignored in
high school. His friend, Abby wasn’t outgoing or popular. But, she was pretty enough to
want. With his teenage mind, James figured if he gave the girl confidence, he would be
rewarded for his benevolence. They were best friends; he couldn’t imagine her not
turning to him when she realized what she had to give a male.
Abby got noticed by many boys at school.
Almost overnight, she inherited
beauty and the esteem of others. It was too much for a shy girl who believed people
where genuinely good. For a while, too many members of the football team enjoyed
her. Displaced cheerleaders spread the seeds of rumor which grew into immovable
oaks.
Her undatable status lasted throughout high school until she moved on to
college.
Now, as he strode to his gray, feature-less cubicle he was preparing to give into
temptation. But, he would take control, rather than fight a losing war. Weakening here
and losing a little battle there, was no way to live. If he was damned, he figured he
would use it for his own amusement.
He stopped at the kitchenette more from routine than because he needed the
cup of gourmet coffee his firm saw fit to provide. Despite his attempts at not being
hopelessly smitten, he glanced toward her cubicle.
She was there, heart-stoppingly beautiful as always. From his vantage point in
the kitchenette, he could only see the back of her blond head. With a deep breath and
a reminder to be cool, he walked through the maze of cubicles until he came upon hers.
What in the world was someone like her doing working at her job? She could
easily be a model or an actress. Even her little upturned nose was perfect, as if she
could cutely wiggle it at will. The effect of her perfume and her fitted skirts was a
conversational staple at the office happy hours. She had to know how good-looking she
was. Still, she was nice enough to pretend she didn’t know.
“Hey Kathy, how was your weekend?”
“Oh, you know, never as much fun as it should be. But I’ll take it. How was
yours?”
“Oh, tons of fun. I spent most of Friday night doing laundry and most of Saturday
reading the stupid TPS reports.” James didn’t want her to know that that he often had
to do catch-up work on the weekends and had nothing to show for it.
“Oh well, you need to plan something fun. Otherwise it won’t happen. I know,
I’m a dork for planning fun, but I’m the same way, if I don’t make myself do it, I’ll find
something boring and productive to do.”
“Yeah, that’s a good plan.”
He said lamely.
It was his opening; maybe he
could’ve asked her out. But no, he just backed away and headed towards his cubicle.
Besides she had so many rich and good-looking guys taking her out, he couldn’t offer
anything that would compare to what she was used to. When she casually mentioned
how her dates wined and dined her, it was as if she was nailing the coffin shut on his
hope of ever seeing her socially.
He sat down and logged in to his terminal and tried to forget what he was about
to do. Relaxation, he knew, was the key to sending feelings.
He wasn’t an expert at using his gift. He had avoided it for so long. But, more
and more, he felt the pull of it. It was only a matter of time before he succumbed. Why
not jump in instead of resisting an irresistible temptation?
“Mr. Cursive?”
James was startled by the sudden attempt to get his attention. For the zillionth
time in his life, he was glad others could not read his mind.
“Yes sir,” he replied to his boss.
“I’ve been noticing that some of your work has been top notch. Really good. I
just wanted to let you know I passed on that sentiment to my boss. I don’t know if
anything will come of it, but I thought you’d want to know.”
With that, his boss walked off down the maze of cubicles.
James was glad his boss walked off, so that his blush and his goofy smile
weren’t seen.
Well, that was certainly unexpected, James thought to himself.
Immediately, he wondered if it was a consequence of helping the lady relax earlier.
Was the good word from his boss three times the good she received by being relaxed
on the way to work?
If it was a result of his earlier action with the women in the lobby, it should have
been enough of a warning to convince James not to do what he was about to do. But,
decisions, especially important ones, are rarely made with the mind. Emotion hidden in
rationalization was what tipped the balance in most decisions.
James was tired of working in a futureless job with no girlfriend.
He was
frustrated with having nothing to do on the weekend. And, most importantly, he was
sick of being ignored by Kathy. Not that she was rude or mean to him. It was just that
no thought of him being attractive or a sexual possibility had ever entered her mind.
He pushed down all of the arguments his conscience threw at him. He was
going to do it. It wouldn’t really harm her. He would be the one to pay for it three times
over if it was, in fact, bad. And, the line between what was good and bad was so
blurred these days.
Besides, if it got him into trouble, he could always influence his way out. He
would just be smarter about it than his father had been.
James Cursive began to think. He stared at Kathy’s cute hind end as she bent to
load paper. The pert way it stretched the little zipper running up the back. The skirt
was tight enough to make James think about what she wore underneath. Thoughts of
his many fantasies about her rose to the surface of his mind. Too many dateless nights
spent thinking about her gave him ample material with which to construct his erotic
concept.
Sitting in his cubicle, covertly staring at Kathy from behind, James Cursive
remembered the many websites he had visited. The models all displayed expressions
of ecstasy. Whether they were real or not, did not matter. James could use them, form
them into the thought he would soon send her.
He had denied himself release for days in preparation for this moment.
He
resisted the urge to touch himself under the desk. He needed to keep focused. He
could feel his face flush as blood rushed to and filled other parts of him. When he could
stand the temptation no longer, he exhaled and sent the bundle of eroticism out.
He didn’t know how it traveled across the office. He didn’t know what would
happen if someone were to inadvertently walk into his floating gift. The seconds it took
for the thoughts to float invisibly across the dull gray carpet seemed like eternity. Right
before he gave up, he saw her twitch.
With certainty, he knew she received it. She slid into her swivel chair delicately,
as if unsure. Her strapped heels crossed each other as she brought her knees together.
James was just quick enough to look down at his keyboard as she looked over her
shoulder nervously. When he risked a quick glance, he could see she was biting her
lower lip. Again, she looked around to see if anyone was noticing her enjoy her hidden
pleasure.
James wondered if she was fighting with herself as her hands fidgeted in her lap.
Did she regret the fabric was stretched so tight across her thighs? Would she fight it if
she thought she was alone? He wondered if she would scurry to the bathroom to have
some privacy and quiet enjoyment.
Kathy shifted from one hip to another. A third time she looked over her shoulder,
this time with a guilty expression on her face. As she turned her vacant stare to the
monitor, her manicured fingers gripped her desk. She arched her back for a second or
two then relaxed.
It worked! He did it. What else could he do? How far could he take it? James’s
head swam with a joy he was sure exceeded what Kathy had just felt.
In a rush, Kathy swung around in her office chair and rushed down the cubicle
maze. The euphoria James Cursive felt was slammed out of him when he saw the look
on her face. Tears filled her eyes and threatened to spill over her bottom eyelid. Her
flushed expression only highlighted her panicked expression.
Holy shit, what had he done? She had lost control of her body because of him.
Did she even want it? Holy shit, he was a rapist. He had forced his will on her. Guilt
heavier than any boulder crashed on him again and again. It was irrational, he knew it.
But, the curse took his thoughts away and shoved in what it wanted him to feel.
He had just raped someone! Like anyone else, he had thought he was a good
person. How could he be a good person if he just raped someone? What would he do
next he wondered in despair. Would he murder, go after children? Was he going down
his father’s road, only making up for lost years by taking giant leaps?
No, wait, what if he used his gift for others instead of on others? Could he live on
the consequences of good deeds for others? Could he soothe Kathy when she came
back? Would that make up for it? Would it make up for it three times?
It didn’t matter. Despair crashed on him again. The curse was irresistible. He
might fight it, but he would lose. He would chase his own salvation at the expense of
others and feel their pain three times over.
He could feel the pull of it already. The curse was burying him in an avalanche of
guilt. A cold lump in his throat only emphasized the hot tears of shame that were
brewing in his eyes.
There was only one way. He had to end it now. Was it the curse that made him
decide or the last shred of nobility he had? He seized on a spark of willpower before it
vanished. Clumsily, he bolted up from his chair and ran through the office. He chose
the stairs because the elevator would give him time to think, to quit.
If he was dead, he could not harm others. Damn the curse. He was a passenger
in his body. The curse was the conductor. Like a rocket, he burst out of the stairs and
sprinted out of the marble lobby. The traffic in the street would be quick and painless.
He barely lost speed as he went through the rotating door. He heard the bus as
soon as he left the door. It was down the street and moving slow, but it would do it the
job. Was this really going to be the end?
He forced his mind to be empty. He had to do this. He would not harm others
as his father did. The curse flooded his mind. Were any of his thoughts his own?
James Cursive wasn’t scared at the prospect of diving under the bus’ front tire. It felt
strangely liberating. Standing on the curb waiting to die gave him a myriad of thoughts.
He would not weaken. Almost time. The bus was moving slowly enough that he
could see the tread on the tire. He regretted causing the riders, the driver and the
spectators the inconvenience of seeing him die, but they would soon forget it as they
went on with their lives.
This was it. He crouched to leap. As he jumped, he heard a scream and felt his
arm being yanked backward. It wasn’t enough to stop him. It just changed the angle of
his dive.
James Cursive surprised himself with how calm and reflective he was as he felt
the bus’ headlight implacably collide with the back of his head. Time was distorted. Did
he notice his body land on the sidewalk? Did he hear the screams or just imagine
them?
He couldn’t see! He heard the cacophony of agitated onlookers. There was no
pain. But he couldn’t see. Were his eyes open? He thought so. He was blind.
“Someone call an ambulance.”
“He’s breathing.”
“Sir, Sir. Can you hear me?” The voice was close to his ear. “I’m a doctor.
James Cursive couldn’t see, but he knew the man was kneeling over him.
A distant voice announced, “The paramedics have been called.”
“What’s your name?” The doctor asked. His voice was thick with worry. James
wished he could see the kind Samaritan.
James tried to speak, but his tongue felt too big, too unresponsive. His mouth
just wouldn’t work.
“It’s OK.” Just stay with me.”
Panic began to rise in James as the guilt of the curse receded into its dark
corner.
“Sir, can you squeeze my hand?”
The doctor was holding his hand? It didn’t feel like it. Fear lent him strength. He
squeezed with desperation.
“Come on you can do it, just one little squeeze.”
Right as he was about to try again, it hit him. The curse of three. Was this three
times the helplessness Kathy had felt?
About the Author:
Joe Swope’s story, A Puppet’s Soul, appeared in the first issue of Spinetingler
Magazine and is included in our anthology.
A DREAM
By Erato Sahapoglu
It is the eve of St. Catherine’s feast,
the 24th of November 1984. Nine
years after my mother Katina entered the hospital, succumbing to a massive coronary
heart attack, I have a strange dream:
I am at the end of an unexpected trip, in an unknown place. I stand in the white
marble hall of a temple. There are no windows, just a stream of soft iridescent light
which pours from nowhere and embraces everything. The hall reminds me of a Turkish
hamam, only without running waters or hot steam. As if it were a dry cleansing bath of
light! … Or a “baptism” of light… Around me are people of all ages, wearing sparkling,
white, toga-like robes.
I detect, at the back, a half-open thick metal door. Someone signals me by hand,
invites me to come close. I advance, stride through the gate, and go down a few marble
steps, to a passage-way inundated in a soft filtered light and adorned with flowers. At
the end of the corridor I see another door.
As I approach, the heavy door opens by itself. Suddenly I am engulfed in a
blinding light! When my eyes adjust to the brilliance, I see, in front of me, a fairy
landscape: green mountainsides, lush woodlands, sweet-scented flower-carpeted hills,
waterfalls that tumble in an hypnotic rhythm, glinting brooks, and, far away, a long broad
river that shimmers under the sun as it laps at misty, fading shores.
No houses, huts or buildings anywhere. Only people—people of all ages: men
and women, young and old; young girls and teenage boys; children large and small.
Alone, or in small groups, they walk, talk, perform various activities. All are smiling; all
appear happy. I hear laughter, some of it loud. Children dance in circles. Young boys
and girls run after each other with shouts of joy. Others bring baskets full of fragrant
flowers or luscious fruits to dress the tables for a country feast. Clay pitchers are filled
with fresh water…
Suddenly, my mother is by my side! She is young, beautiful, happy—very happy!
Her lips part in a bright smile, and her black eyes twinkle from an unspeakable joy and
inner peace. Her whole being is vibrating with an indescribable beauty… She embraces
me with that tender gaze that was so much a part of her. She finally speaks in a low,
soft, soothing voice: “You see? We are all blissful and carefree, here! Are you relieved
now?”
I whisper, in wonder, “But then, life continues?”
“Yes, Life continues!”
I look around. “It is so beautiful! Why do they forbid us to come?”
“Nobody forbids you to come. The door is always open. However, one has to be
ready to be able to step in. And once one is in, there is no going back. In reality, there is
nothing to stop us from going back. But we know well that we should not.
“And why not?”
“That would disturb the order of things! Everything has its time. And only those
who are ready can come here. That is why we don’t communicate with your world.”
“And me?”
“You must go back. You are not ready yet. You will return here later…”
As we talked, we had retraced our steps back. I again stand at the threshold of
the flowered corridor. I step through. My mother stays on the other side, below the
blinding light.
I force myself to walk towards the white marble hall—the temple, perhaps, of
spiritual catharsis.
I wake up with a feeling of indescribable peace.
Was it only a dream? Or a message from the hereafter?
About the Author:
Erato Sahapoglu is a Canadian of Greek Origin, born in Istanbul, Turkey. She lives in
Brossard, Quebec, with her engineer husband. This is Erato’s fourth appearance as a
contributor to Spinetingler Magazine. Her story, Melek, is also included in our print
anthology.
THE KISS
By George Burden
“You lazy bitch, get
your damn ass out here and get this mess cleaned
up!”
Darlene hoped her husband was in a good tonight. If he was then all he would
do was yell.
“Yes, dear!” She hurried into the room to clean up the mess from Harry’s spilled
beer and overturned ashtray.
Harry belched and his ample belly jiggled in counterpoint as he giggled. He
seemed to think his burps were the height of witticism, equaled only in eloquence by his
frequent expulsions of flatus.
“Good,” thought Darlene; “He hasn’t got that look in his eye. Maybe things will be
okay.” Not that she couldn’t handle him whacking her once in a while, but lately he’d
taken to punching nine-year-old Randy when he got angry, and she’d seen him eyeing
the baby in his malevolent way when little Valerie was crying. “God help him if he ever
hurt the baby,” she thought.
Harry downed his twelfth beer of the evening and gazed blearily at the TV
screen. He’d rented “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” again. Darlene hated blood and
gore movies, especially when the kids were up, being exposed to senseless violence.
Of course they saw enough of the real life kind from their dear old dad.
“Harry, Honey. Couldn’t you wait until Randy is in bed before you watch that?”
“Don’t you tell me what the f… to do!” He took a swing at her. Luckily, he was
too drunk to hit as hard as usual, but she knew there’d be a bruise in the morning…
…and more questions at work.
Darlene worked as a C.N.A. at the Mill Creek Hospital. Good thing too, as her
husband hadn’t worked in years, due to his “bad back”. Funny how he could get out
during hunting season and drag home a 200-pound buck. On the other hand, Darlene
would work a twelve-hour shift, then get the kids from the sitter. She’d come home,
cook dinner, put the kids to bed and try to get some rest. Presuming Harry didn’t try to
get “amorous”. Fortunately he would usually fall into an alcoholic stupor before he
formulated the idea of “making love.”
Harry was Darlene’s biggest mistake in life. She’d only been 18 and he seemed
so cool with his own car, a job at the mill and his swaggering self-confidence. She’d
been pregnant with Randy when they’d gotten married and she found out quickly that
she was on her own. Harry would take off on most weekends to go “out with the boys,”
and often she wouldn’t see him until the next morning, disheveled and smelling of stale
liquor and cheap perfume.
She should have known better.
Harry’s jealous rages and insistence on
controlling her every move started soon after they’d begun dating. Darlene’s father had
treated her mother in exactly the same way. She always tried to deflect dad’s rages to
herself and away from the kids. Mom’s desperate efforts to placate her brutish husband
had disgusted Darlene, but she had insisted that this was the only way to keep the
family together.
It was funny how there had been a perverse familiarity about her relationship with
Harry, that somehow seemed to draw her to the man, almost against her will. Of course
Dr. Bill, the TV shrink, said many women are attracted to the same personality type as
their father. Lessons learned to late.
A few years after they married, Harry lost his job at the mill for showing up drunk,
then milked every disability plan he could until nothing was left, getting nastier every
day, blaming everything on his wife and kids. What was it Brando had said? “I could’a
been a contenda!” No, that wasn’t right. Harry was never in the running for anything.
Darlene stifled a high-pitched, despairing sob and blotted her eyes with a scrap
of tissue. Then she heard the front door open and Randy enter the house. Hurrying
protectively into the living room she saw him quickly lose his boyish grin as Harry’s
attention focused on him.
“What ya got there boy?” Randy tried to hide the object behind his back, but too
late. Harry grabbed his son’s arm and twisted it, then snatched the object from Randy’s
hand, cuffing him across the side of the face for good measure. “It’s j-j-j-just some c-cc-andy, Daddy.”
“Yeah, Nelson’s Peanut Clusters, they’re my favorite!”
Harry opened the
package and contentedly munched on the treat.
“Bastard,” Darlene thought. Then Harry started gasping…within minutes welts
covered his body and his lips and face ballooned. Darlene hesitated a moment, then
grabbed the phone and dialed 911. There seemed to be a long delay as Harry gasped
for breath, before the ambulance pulled into the driveway. The uniformed attendants
came rushing in. One was a young woman named Heather. Darlene recognized her
from the hospital. She placed an oxygen mask over Harry’s face and then helped wheel
him out to the ambulance.
The hospital was only a short drive away and soon the ER physician, Dr.
Taswell, had given Harry a shot of adrenaline. He was starting to settle down and was
breathing more easily. Taswell injected Harry with some antihistamine and had him
admitted to the third floor in the medicine wing for observation.
The next morning Darlene brought 16-month-old Valerie in to visit her father,
hoping it might cheer him up. They sat down next to the bed and saw that Harry looked
considerably better, little the worse for his ordeal. He did not look happy.
“How are you doing Honey?” she asked.
“You stupid moron!” he bellowed at Darlene. “They told me I had some kind of
anna f’in lactic reaction from peanuts and I could have died. All I need is a sniff of the
stuff and it could happen again. Now I gotta wear one of them faggoty Medic Alert
bracelets. How could you be so stupid to let Randy bring that stuff into the house?”
“But you never reacted to peanuts before, dear.”
“Don’t you EVER talk back to me!” howled Harry, shaking his fist. Baby Valerie,
who was sitting on the bed, stared wide-eyed at her dad, then started to weep.
“Stop that you stupid little turd!” he snarled, swinging the back of his hand and
hitting the child across the face. The baby went silent and a trickle of blood traced a
crimson line down her pale cheek. Darlene quickly bundled the stunned infant into her
arms and hurried out of the room, beyond her father’s reach.
“They’re sending me home this afternoon and you damn well better be ready for
me!” yelled Harry after her.
Darlene was just finishing her lunch when she heard the taxi pull up. “He’s finally
here. Good.” She smiled to herself. The baby was asleep, Randy was at school and
she planned to give Harry a very special welcome indeed.
She heard the front door thrown open. Taking a final bite of the thick, gooey
peanut butter sandwich, she rushed to the door, grinned and gave Harry a deep,
passionate kiss goodbye.
About the Author:
George Burden is a family physician, a graduate of Dalhousie University, who has
practiced for over twenty years in the small village of Elmsdale, Nova Scotia. In his
spare time he loves to write. He has published in genres ranging from humour, horror
and historical fiction to medical history and on-the-edge travel. His writing has taken him
from the depths of the ocean to the cockpit of a CF-18 fighter jet, from Antarctica to the
palace of the King of the Ashanti. He was recently named by the Explorers Club as
regional chairman for the Atlantic provinces, and published his first book, Amazing
Medical Stories in May of 2003.
DJ’S GIRL
By Sarah Weinman
The girl wouldn’t stop staring at me.
I was trying to concentrate, to make sure I had my timing right so that I could go
from one song to the next. It was 80s night, which meant a medley of Duran Duran,
Flock of Seagulls and every other one-hit wonder most people loved then but make fun
of now.
But just as I was about to transition from the Go-Go’s to Tainted Love, I saw her.
She was on the dance floor, sort of by herself, not really looking at the other people
around her. Instead, she was looking up at me. Did I know her? Did she know me? I
couldn’t tell from the distance and being so far high above ground, but she didn’t look
familiar.
I made the transition. The crowd screamed appreciatively and I started
rummaging around for my next playlist.
The bartender moved over and tapped my shoulder. “So who is she, Gilbert?”
I didn’t really feel like talking to him, but when Chris Leach got going it was hard
to shut him up. “Who?”
“That chick on the dance floor.” Chris waggled his eyebrows, Groucho Marxstyle. It made him, a university brat with electric blue hair and tattoos running up and
down his arms, look even more ridiculous. “She won’t stop looking at you. You bang her
or something?”
“Jesus, Chris, you think a girl looks at a guy that means they’re sleeping
together?”
“Been my experience,” he drawled.
I turned away. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to work here. Don’t you have
customers to serve?”
Chris took the hint. Then I got mad at myself because I could have used the
drink. I’d already been working for a couple of hours on half a bottle of water, and I was
thirsty.
My eyes locked onto the girl’s again. She was dancing now, and as she moved
her hips to the beat and I felt something stir. Who the hell was she and why wouldn’t
she stop looking at me?
I forced myself to break contact, but not before I saw her lips move. I couldn’t
make out what she was saying so I went back to the wall of sound.
I like working clubs. I tell myself it’s to pay the bills, but the real reason is
because no one cares about the DJ. No one cares that he might be watching, taking
notes in his head so he can use the information someday.
That’s why the girl bothered me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she got what I
was really about, knew why I was there. I must have had at least fifteen years on her,
enough of a difference that her continued focus on me was out of place.
I checked my watch. The club would be shutting down soon, and the kids would
leave or go to some after-hours bar next. I just wanted to get my paycheck and go
home.
Chris came over again. “That girl still staring at you, huh?”
“You got a one-track mind?”
“Hey, come on –“
I didn’t want to prolong the banter. “Never mind. Just get me a beer.”
Chris mumbled something under his breath but threw a Molson’s to me
nonetheless. I drank it down in three gulps, thinking ahead to when I would get my
hands on the check. I ran down the back steps and opened the door to the office. Then
almost jumped.
With only a few feet separating us, I finally got a good look at the girl from the
dance floor. Early twenties, a couple of inches removed from five feet, red hair mixed
haphazardly with brown cascading over her shoulders. Not quite beautiful, but other
guys would have been happy staring right back.
Not me, not when I was so close to leaving. “What do you want?”
“You have to help me,” she gasped out. “I need to hire you.”
“Hire me?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Cut the bullshit. I’ll pay you a grand up front and whatever your asking price is.”
She fished into her purse and pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills, then waved them
in front of my face.
I drew back. “I never do my business here.”
She continued to hold the money in front of me, but her arm started shaking.
Finally, she put it away.
“Look, I’m really –“
“Desperate, I know,” I finished. “But that’s why I have a real office, with real
hours. I don’t like getting approached late at night when I’m working.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears, but a couple of strands escaped. “But that’s
exactly why I wanted to hire you,” she said, furiously tugging at the loose strands.
“Because the guy I’m looking for, he was last seen in the club.”
***
Twelve hours later Marilla Warner was spilling her guts about her missing brother
in my office, a tiny ground-floor affair in an apartment building on Lisgar between Bank
and O’Connor. Ottawa rental prices had skyrocketed over the last few years and I’d
been lucky to get anything in the downtown area.
Not that it impressed Marilla; as soon as she walked in the door she hugged her
arms to herself as if she was trying to ward off a blow.
“I thought a private detective could do better than a closet,” she said.
So had I, once upon a time, but I said nothing. It was more important to listen to
her story, even though I couldn’t shake the conclusion I’d arrived at almost immediately.
“Frankly, I don’t think I can be much help,” I said when she was done.
“What do you mean –“
I spread my hands. “Hear me out, Ms. Warner. You’ve been to Barrymore’s. You
know it gets crowded really quickly.”
Her face fell. “Especially on a Saturday night, I know.”
“Exactly.” She might be starting to get it, I thought. “Considering Matt’s history of
running away, he might not want to be found this time.”
She placed her clenched hands on the desk. “And something awful might have
happened to him, Mr. Gilbert.” Her voice thickened with emotion. “Can’t you understand
why I might want to know what that is? The last time, he would have jumped from the
Locks into the Ottawa River if I hadn’t gotten there to save him.”
An image flashed, just long enough for me to pinpoint what it was: a young man
standing on the precipice of the river’s mouth, screaming for help. A young man on the
brink of falling into water. A young man I couldn’t save.
I shook it off. “Of course I can, Ms. Warner.”
“Marilla.” She moved her hands back onto her lap. Her eyes clouded over. “If
you’re going to spend my money looking for my brother’s dirty secrets, you might as
well call me by my first name.”
I wasn’t expecting so much pain in her voice. Our eyes locked, and the image
returned, along with the distant sound of a horrible splash. I’d done my best to forget the
last thirteen months ago, to forget that client. My last one.
I didn’t like Marilla Warner. I wasn’t sure I could work with her. But I knew I
couldn’t say no.
“That seems fair,” I said, the decision becoming more concrete in my mind. “But
before I take this on, I need to know why you’re so sure something bad happened to
Matt. So far you’re not giving me much to work with.”
Marilla didn’t hesitate. “Because he always updated his blog.”
“Excuse me?”
“Even when he was at his worst, even when he would run away, he’d always
write something on the site. He’d told me about it one night when he was drunk and
then forgot all about it, but occasionally I’d go check what he had to say. Nothing too
much, usually about his favorite bands and what girl he happened to have a crush on
that week, but he always had a post up per day, even if it was only a link.”
“Every day?” That surprised me. “Even when he ran away from home?”
Marilla nodded. “I’d always check. It was his signal to me that he didn’t want to
call or email but that he was OK, that he was safe. That my mother didn’t have to
worry.”
I ran the scenario through my head. Internet cafes, other people’s houses. “He
never took his laptop along, did he?”
“He didn’t own a laptop,” Marilla said. “Usually he used my mom’s computer in
the living room.”
I swiveled my chair to the screen, then asked Marilla for the URL.
“You want to see it right now?” she asked, startled.
“Why not?”
She told me what it was. I typed it in and got a request to enter a username and
password.
“He protected the site?”
Marilla shrugged. “It was supposed to be private.”
“You know who else had access?”
“He never told me. Maybe some of his friends, but honestly, I don’t know.”
I made a mental note to check the site statistics, and inputted the password
Marilla gave. A stark black background with white text appeared on the screen. As soon
as I started reading I understood why she was so crazed with worry.
“The last entry was the night he disappeared,” I said.
“And there’s been nothing since, not in over a week.” Marilla began to pace
around with her hands behind her back. I wanted to say something, offer words of
comfort, but there was no point. It wasn’t my job.
She turned back. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
A small part of me didn’t want to, because I knew what faced me: constant
dreams, obsession about saving my client, and futility. Revisiting that territory made my
throat constrict.
Then, slowly, I found my voice again. “It’s been a long time. No one knows who I
am anymore, and I like it that way.”
Marilla rolled her eyes. “If I could recognize you straight off, what makes you
think others wouldn’t?”
She had a point, but I had an answer. “Most people who think they know me start
gushing about how much they love watching This Hour Has 22 Minutes.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She choked back a laugh. “You don’t look anything like Rick
Mercer.”
“You’re seeing me in the middle of the day.”
She was silent for a while until recognition dawned on her face. “So you can
blend in.”
“Exactly. That’s why being a DJ works for me. I’m easily ignored. And why it’ll be
easy to ask about Matt. Trust me, Marilla. I still know how to do this.”
“I trusted the police and they didn’t do a damn thing.”
“But I’ve got one thing the police don’t: time.”
She quieted down and we moved on to the business of arranging terms and
times. I said I would call her later tomorrow, after my next club shift was over, and didn’t
make any further promises. She said she could accept that.
Naturally, we were both wrong.
***
I spent the time in between Marilla’s departure from the office and my shift at the
club sifting through online archives of the Citizen and the Sun for any mentions about
Matt Warner’s disappearance. There wasn’t much – only a couple of two-line blurbs.
And while the Barrymore’s sighting checked out, there was nothing about him running
away from home, or where he might be now.
Then I moved over to read more of his blog. The entries were almost uniformly
depressing, even the outbound links. But there was something about his writing style,
his personality that got to me. I recognized the guarded tone, the shuttering of what was
really going on in his head. If my brother had been the one to go missing, I’d be worried
sick, too.
I was so caught up that I was almost fifteen minutes late for the 8 PM start time,
barely making it before Nedda Claremont, Barrymore’s manager, would start docking
my pay. I spent the first hour in a sweaty haze and the next only slightly less pissed off.
Thankfully I knew the playlist practically off by heart so I could move through each song
without having to scramble for the next one.
“That chick’s staring at you again.”
Chris’s voice cut through my inner thoughts, and I glared at him in response. “Get
off it, I’m trying to work,” I added for good measure.
“No, I’m serious. Last time, I thought it was funny. Now it’s getting creepy.”
I scanned the crowd and didn’t see anyone looking at me, let alone Marilla.
“What the hell are you talking about? She’s not down there. Why don’t you keep
your mind on making sure everyone gets the drink they want, all right?”
Chris gripped a nearby beer bottle and swung it in my direction. He grumbled
something under his breath.
“Say that again?”
He put the bottle down and looked at me. “Fine, I guess it’s worth repeating. Just
because you’re a fucking DJ doesn’t mean you have to be all attitude and shit.”
I clenched my fists, willing myself to calm down. It would have been easy to pick
a fight and get distracted, like I used to do when I was younger, but I needed to keep my
eyes open and my profile low.
“Sorry, Chris,” I said half-heartedly.
He shook his head. “No, I am. I’ve just been on edge lately, ever since my friend
Matt went missing.”
That got my attention. “Wasn’t that in the papers last week?” I asked, keeping my
voice even.
“For about two seconds.” Chris’s mouth twisted in disgust. “When a hot blonde
girl disappears in Green’s Creek, they give a shit all of a sudden. When it’s a nineteenyear-old college student –“
I had to cut him off before he could start ranting in earnest. “I know, but Ardeth
Wood sells more papers than Matt Warner.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? That people care less about Matt? Just because
he had some problems, just because he almost got arrested –“
“Arrested?” Something else Marilla neglected to tell me. Maybe she didn’t know,
but I doubted it.
“It wasn’t anything, really. Ever since they changed the pot laws having a couple
of baggies can’t get you in trouble. But the cops acted like it was a huge deal,
threatening him and everything.”
“You were there?”
“Of course not. Matt told me the next day. How they made threats like if they
caught him with even a speck there’d be no telling what they would do next.”
I thought of pressing further but I didn’t want to raise his suspicions. One more
back-and-forth and he’d start wondering why I was asking so many questions. Instead, I
filed the information away, remembering another reason why I didn’t care for Chris: his
constant belief that anyone wearing a police uniform was out to get him, and by
extension, his friends.
But he surprised me; the intervening silence seemed to make Chris want to keep
talking.
“I saw him the night he disappeared. Here.” He pointed to me.
“In the DJ booth?”
“Yeah. Sometimes we’d goof around and he’d come up to help me bartend.” He
saw the look on my face. “Matt was nineteen, so it wasn’t a problem.”
“That’s not the issue. You know unauthorized people aren’t supposed to be up
here. Where was Anne?” She was Barrymore’s other main DJ, working the bigger
crowds on Thursday and Friday nights.
“Dunno,” said Chris, “Probably in the bathroom snorting something. Look it
doesn’t matter. The point is that we were having a good time, and then all of a sudden
he looks out in the crowd, his face goes white and says, ‘I gotta go.’ He ran off before I
could ask why.” Chris’s face was ashen. “And that’s the last time I saw him,” he
whispered.
Investigative instinct took over. “What do you think happened?”
“Something bad, really bad.”
It was only a coincidence that Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” was next up in the playlist.
Chris scowled at the turntable. “It was my own damn fault.”
On the one hand, I was glad to have more information; on the other hand, I was
so used to the asshole edition of Chris that I didn’t know what to make of his sudden
candor.
Then I saw Marilla, smack in the center of the dance floor. She was waving both
arms in my direction and people around her were looking at her, then up at me. This
wasn’t good.
“Be right back.”
“Wait a minute –“
I put up my hands. “Can’t. That girl’s down there and I need to deal with it.”
“So you are fucking her.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. “No, you dumbass. That’s Matt’s sister.”
I raced down the stairs and nearly smacking myself headlong into someone’s
chest.
“Jesus, what are you in such a rush for?”
It took a moment to place the gravelly voice with the silver-haired anorexic
standing in front of me. “I’m taking my half-hour break a little early, Nedda,” I said,
daring her to bitch me out.
She didn’t. “It’s your life, Gilbert, but if you can do something about that redhead
on the dance floor –“
“What do you mean? She bothering people?”
Nedda grimaced. “Put it this way: I’m this close to throwing her out of here.”
It had barely been two minutes from the time I left the DJ booth to running into
Nedda. What could have possibly happened? “I’ll take care of it,” I said, the weariness
suddenly hitting me.
She raised an eyebrow. “I see.”
“No you don’t, Nedda, I don’t have time for this right now. I’ll talk to you after
closing.”
I hurried down the rest of the flight of stairs. Then when I saw what was taking
place on the dance floor, I almost wished I hadn’t.
“What the fuck do you mean, asshole?”
“I mean I don’t like your fucking questions, bitch. You want me to make that any
clearer?”
“Sure, why not. Spell it out for me.”
Marilla had positioned herself inches from a Goth-influenced kid with tattoos
covering most of his arms. Another couple of exchanges and the fight would begin
properly.
I waded through the crowd towards them. “Hey, what’s this all about?” I shot a
glance to Marilla, hoping she’d keep her mouth shut about me.
“This stupid bitch keeps asking me questions. Same ones, over and over, fucking
over again.” He glared at Marilla. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know what the fuck
happened to Matt. Why do you keep insisting I do?”
“Because you were there with him that night, Kelly! Because you know
something bad happened to him and I want to know what it is.”
I stepped closer, putting my hand on Kelly’s shoulder. “Look, she’s distraught and
there’s no sense in keeping the argument going. Understand?”
Kelly’s macho posturing disappeared. “Yeah, no problem,” he said, shrinking
away from me. “But this isn’t finished, Marilla.”
“You bet it isn’t,” she snapped.
I grabbed her hand and led her off the dance floor. “What the hell’s gotten into
you? If you’d kept that up much longer Barrymore’s would have had to call the cops.”
She jerked her hand away. “I was trying to get your attention.”
Oh, this was rich. “And calling me on my cell phone wasn’t good enough?”
She fumbled for a lie, but I cut her off. “It’s a little too late for excuses, Marilla.”
“But –“
“Let me finish. Do you want to be remembered as the crazy psycho who nearly
got into a fight on the dance floor? How’s that supposed to help find Matt?”
Her defenses evaporated. “It’s just that I hadn’t heard anything,” she said in a
near whisper, “and I keep texting his cell phone and checking his blog every hour,
hoping he’ll magically post something new or write me back –“
“Marilla, you have to let me do my job. You can’t go around antagonizing people.
Now if I try to ask Kelly anything he won’t give me a real answer.”
I led her towards the main bar and signaled the bartender there for a couple of
Molson’s. “It’s okay for now, I think. And as it happens, I have something to tell you.” I
filled her in on Chris’s comments. Her eyes went wide.
“So Matt really was at the club.”
“Why would you think otherwise?” I asked, caught off guard.
She leaned back on the stool and dropped her shoulders down. “Because all I
had to go on was what Kelly said the day after Matt disappeared,” Marilla said. “The
cops didn’t believe him, especially after he changed his story a bunch of times. And
when I saw him here tonight I freaked. I needed to know what the deal was.”
“I know it must be difficult –“
“Don’t tell me what difficult is!” She snatched the Molson bottle closest to her and
took a long gulp. “You couldn’t possibly understand. You don’t have to go home every
night and watch your mother’s eyes brim with tears because her son hasn’t come
home.”
Even if I’d wanted to get into how well I understood, Marilla was in no mood to
care about my past problems. “I know I can’t. What I can do, though, is help you. Got
it?”
“Got it.”
“I have to get back now because my break’s over. But from now on, if you come
back to Barrymore’s, keep yourself out of potential bar fights.”
“I just want to find Matt,” she said plaintively. “I just want to know what
happened.”
She got up before me and ran towards the front door. I thought of watching her
go but, knowing it would be futile, returned to the DJing booth high above the floor.
The lateness of the hour meant switching to more ambient electronic music. The
mindlessness of the repetitive beat helped me concentrate on the facts, what little there
were. Matt Warner had disappeared. He’d last been seen here by Chris, possibly by
Kelly. After that, nothing. His sister was devastated, his mother understandably frantic
with worry, and the police didn’t much care to investigate further, never mind bother with
the likes of what they viewed as pesky amateurs.
Maybe if this were New York or LA I’d have more avenues to explore, more
mean streets to travel down. But this was Ottawa, where the sidewalks stayed out a
little longer than they once did but still effectively rolled themselves up by 10 PM on
weekdays and not all that much later on weekends.
Long story short, there wasn’t much of a story. Frustrated, I turned to ask Chris
for another beer, only to find somebody else looking extremely unhappy to be working
behind the bar.
“Where’d he go, Dalia?” She was Nedda’s office assistant, a thirtyish redhead
going quickly to fat.
“Beats me,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Nedda was actually pretty pissed
that he’d taken a runner and asked me to stop working on the accounts and get over
here.”
“Fuck.” And in my mind, I heard the echo of Chris’s words: something bad, really
bad.
“Look,” I began, “I gotta –“
“Get out of here?” Dalia finished. “Figures. Nobody ever wants to stick around.
This place toxic or something?”
“More than you know.”
I’d never been up and down those stairs so much in my life. But the extra bit of
exercise allowed me to sprint out towards the front door where several police cars were
waiting. The sirens flashed angrily and a throng of people – mostly college kids and
those who pretended to be to get in with fake ID – milled about the “DO NOT CROSS”
yellow tape.
“What happened?” I asked the one standing closest to me.
The girl visibly shuddered. “I don’t know why I’m still standing here. It was awful.
Just awful!”
“What was?”
“Watching him die like that. Two bullets in his chest and bam! That was it.”
I felt my phone vibrate against the back pocket of my jeans. I picked up, not
recognizing the number.
“Mr. Gilbert?” asked a familiar voice. “I’m really in trouble now.”
***
It was a repeat of our first meeting just twenty-four hours earlier. But this time,
Marilla Warner and I were separated by a glass booth and a telephone.
“You should have gotten a lawyer,” I insisted for the fifth time.
“I don’t need one yet.”
“Like hell you don’t. Do you realize how bad this looks to the cops? You were
seen arguing very publicly with someone who then got killed right outside where the
argument took place. No wonder they found you so quickly.”
“But I didn’t do anything! I don’t need a lawyer to start making me look worse.”
Maybe the problem was the separation, that her facial features were distorted by
the glass. Or that her voice was completely disassociated from her moving lips, making
everything seem even more dramatic than they really were. Whatever it was, I could
see I wasn’t getting through to her.
“A lawyer might actually advise you on what you should do next.”
“I know what I need to do next,” she insisted stubbornly. “Find Matt.”
“And he’ll explain everything to the cops? That might be hard to do.”
“Why are you being so mean to me?” she shrilled into my left ear.
I took a deep breath. “I’m worried, I’m trying to help, and unfortunately you’ve just
made things a lot more difficult. So what aren’t you telling me, Marilla? Because now I’m
certain you’re hiding something.”
She paused for a moment, the frown lines deepening on her face. “Forget it. I
knew calling you would be a waste of time.”
I watched her slam the phone down. She signaled for the guard, my cue to leave.
I got up and stretched my shoulders, hoping the massive tension would dissipate.
I’d barely slept in days and knew the cycle would be repeating itself for the next few. I’d
gone to visit Marilla to tell her one thing – I’d be dropping the case – and instead the
opposite had happened.
Back in my car, I quickly found the 417 West exit for the Queensway. I switched
on the radio to a classical music station for something calmer, but Mozart’s Requiem
wasn’t quite what I had in mind. At least the Dies Irae finished up by the time I got to the
Metcalfe exit. By the time I found my usual spot along Lisgar, I’d had enough of death
and depressing music.
I walked down the hall towards my office. Chris was waiting for me, arms crossed
at his chest and looking more scared than I’d ever seen him.
“I really need to talk to you,” he said.
I couldn’t believe this. “What the hell are you doing here? Does everyone know
what I really do for a living?”
He shrugged. “I’ve known the whole time.”
Great. So much for keeping both of my lives separate.
“Why are you here, Chris?”
“Because Matt’s sister shouldn’t be in jail for something she didn’t do. Can I
come in? Please?”
I hesitated, and he continued whining. “Dammit, Gilbert, there’s no one else I can
talk to, you’re the only one, please –“
“Cut that shit out,” I snapped. But I opened the door and let him in.
He took a look around, not bothering to hide his contempt. “Some office,” he
cracked.
“I’m sure I’d do better in San Francisco.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” If he didn’t get it, I wouldn’t enlighten him.
Chris parked himself in the chair across from me, splaying his legs out to both
sides. “That murder, man, it freaked me the hell out. I saw it happen.”
“Funny,” I said, “Because Dalia said you ran off without telling anyone where you
went.”
He slouched back into the seat. “You went downstairs to talk to Matt’s sister and I
got a call, saying I had to leave. I asked why but I didn’t get an explanation, just another
order to get out of the club. So I went outside and saw Kelly get shot.”
I’d never seen him so completely spooked. “Why are you coming to me and not
the police?” I asked.
“Because Matt shot him.” When I didn’t answer, Chris repeated himself. “Matt
shot Kelly and took off.”
“And he called you to say he was about to do it?”
Chris nodded, keeping his eyes to the floor. “I didn’t believe him. I thought he
was crazy, acting up, but then I saw it and I couldn’t lie to myself. How could he have
done something like that?”
I didn’t know, but I thought of one answer. “Maybe he was afraid.”
“Of the cops?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. But I’ll ask again: why did you come to me, Chris? What
made you think I could help?”
“Because Matt talked about you, about the cases you used to work on. He said
you were a good guy, even if things didn’t always work out.”
That didn’t make sense. I didn’t know him. Then my brain made some
connections and I began to figure it out. Something must have shown on my face
because Chris asked, “what is it?”
“I think I know where he might be.” I got up, grabbed my bag and started for the
door.
Chris stopped me. “I’m coming with you.”
At first I was going to say no but he had one advantage: he knew Matt. I didn’t.
“All right,” I relented, “But do as I say. Don’t question, don’t whine, and don’t change
anything.”
He nodded his head like a puppy eager to please. “So where are we going?”
“The Locks.”
***
Chris and I didn’t say anything on the drive down. Thankfully traffic was pretty
light because it was still mid-afternoon on a weekday and rush hour hadn’t begun yet. I
found a parking space on Colonel By Drive and we both jumped out of the car, making a
dash down to where the mouth of the Ottawa River was banded by a series of gates.
Hence, the Locks.
A boy with bleach-blond hair and a torn black shirt stood at one edge. A wave of
dizziness hit me, and I desperately wanted to run back to the car.
“That’s Matt.” Chris’s words brought me back to attention. “What should we do?”
“You’ll stay behind.” Chris opened his mouth to respond but then clamped it shut,
probably deciding it was better not to argue.
I didn’t like the scene in front of me. Matt teetered precariously on the precipice
of the Locks, his hair wildly unkempt and his eyes darting all over the place. A single
step forward and he’d fall in. I didn’t know if I had the ability to talk him away from the
edge. If I could right past wrongs.
I took a small step forward, then another. Matt turned around.
“Who the hell are you?” Then his scrutiny gave way to recognition. “You’re
Gilbert.”
“Marilla sent me to help you,” I replied.
“Like hell she did. She’s given up on me. Everyone has.”
“No one’s given up on you. You’ll get the help you need, Matt. But you have to
step away, come towards me.”
“No way! It’s better in the water.”
“In the freezing cold? There’s medication, Matt. It can help.”
He shook his head violently. “It’s too late. I thought Kelly was doing something to
hurt me, to bring those cops after me. It’s too fucking late!”
I couldn’t wrench my gaze away from what happened next, which seemed to take
place in slow motion. I heard someone yell in the background but didn’t place it as
Chris’s anguished scream until a long time later. I didn’t hear the throng of tourist rush
forward, nor the distant splash, until I was back in my office, trying to make sense of
everything.
Most of all, I wondered why once again, I’d been a step behind at every point.
***
She stared at me again from the dance floor the following Saturday night. I knew
she’d be back, and I knew what would follow: me keeping the playlist going, scanning
the crowd for anything amiss, grabbing a beer or few, then shutting everything down
near the 1 AM closing before getting my pay for the night and going home.
But it didn’t quite go that way.
I walked into the office and Nedda stood there with her arms folded. “There’s
someone to see you.” She didn’t have to say the rest out loud: get her the fuck out of
here, now.
“Thanks. It won’t be long.”
“Good.” She opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a check. Once
she’d signed it, she handed it to me. “Never seen someone look like hell as this one,
Gilbert.”
A few moments later, Marilla poked her head around the doorframe. Nedda was
right: she did look like hell. I’d spent days thinking about what I would say, and now that
she stood in front of me, I couldn’t find the words.
But I didn’t have to. “This is for you.” Marilla held out a trembling hand clutching
a piece of paper.
I could have refused, giving reasons like I didn’t want to be paid by people who
kept secrets. But everyone kept secrets, and people usually believed they had good
reasons to do so. I know I did.
I took the check and asked how she was doing.
Marilla narrowed her eyes. “How do you think?”
“You couldn’t have saved Matt. He was too far gone.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Of course I could have. I could have stayed away from
Kelly and not brought Matt closer. I could have kept a greater watch, made sure he
could come back when he had his medication regulated again –“
“You really believe that?”
Her blue eyes were so bleak now, and I knew I’d never forget that look. Like
many other things about her.
“I don’t know.”
She turned around, giving me one last full-on stare. “I’ll be okay, Gilbert. I know I
will, someday. But my mother? She never will be, because her son’s not coming back.”
With that, she was gone. I stared at the two checks, from two different parts of
my life. I’d done my best to keep them from merging, but I knew better. They’d never
stay separate again.
About the Author:
Sarah Weinman is the crime fiction columnist for the Baltimore Sun, co-editor of the
publishing industry news blog Galleycat, and probably best known for "Confessions of
an Idiosyncratic Mind" (www.sarahweinman.com) hailed by USA Today as "a respected
resource for commentary on crime and mystery fiction." Her stories will appear this year
in BALTIMORE NOIR (Akashic) DUBLIN NOIR (Akashic) DAMN NEAR DEAD (Busted
Flush Press) and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. She lives in New York.
DOWNDRAFT FROM TOKYO
By Michael Obilade
When the officials in charge of our joint business venture introduce us to the
men and women of Tokyo-Pacific Investment, I will not stare at the women of Osaka, of
the city and the countryside. I will not lust after each black-haired goddess, one by one,
until I see the one I am meant to fall in the deepest love with. I will not have to do any of
this, because when I see her, I will know. From then on, it will only become a question
of how to win her heart. I will not fear this complexity. I will chew shin-zi bubblegum,
and tuck the wrapping in my back suit pocket. The other men under my command will
begin to talk amongst themselves, trying to learn to seduce in Japanese. The women of
Tokyo-Pacific Investment will hear my men, and they will laugh.
I will not meet her and become tongue-tied. My eyes will not trace the outline of
her body in the sunset like so many men who have done so before. When she smiles at
me, I will smile in return – but only barely. Not like a fool so hopelessly in love. Not like
the ten year-old boys in Okimino who rush to sell her newspapers when the lights turn
red. No. She will not know of my affection. No thoughts shall pass of my devotion.
She will smile and I will smile, and that will be enough.
When we leave the hotel in search of dinner, I will not take her to kaiten-zushi
and have us grab at sushi on conveyer belts like greedy Americans. I will not take her
to kare-ya when we travel through the underground, for she might be allergic to curry
rice. We will dine at Izakaya. We will share a large meal of the finest meats and
salads. But she will not be impressed. She will not be impressed because she will
know that I am trying to impress her – so I shall cease trying to impress her, and
apologize profoundly.
“Let me turn over one last leaf,” I will tell her. She will smile.
When the men and women of our mutual groups engage in conversation, I will
not be thwarted by the barriers of our language. My Japanese shall be fluid, effortless –
but I shall not need to use it, because her English shall be like that of a native daughter.
The love and life of late afternoon shall surround us when we step outside to avoid the
cigar smoke inside the Izakaya. We will sit on a soft bench made of Brazilian Koa, and
pretend not to notice when tourists take pictures of us together. We shall not talk of the
Nissei, of capital and investment, for such things will bore her at dinner.
No.
In
between bites, we will talk of what it is like to see the sun rise from the top of the TokyoPacific Investment tower, and to know that no one will see the new day before your
eyes have had the pleasure. She will make a casual remark about seeing it with me
someday. I will not make that into more than it is.
“You are different from them,” she will say, twirling ten thousand yen chopsticks
between her fingers. “Why?”
I will promise to tell her someday. We will tell each other dirty jokes, and blush.
When it is dark, and the sun has set, the other members of our entourage will
retire for the evening, yawning like tigers and unfastening their belts. They will take
small and speedy taxis back to the Hyatt. But I shall not go with them, and neither will
she. I will not ask her to stay, for she will not stand a needy man. I will not demand her
company, for she is as independent as the great mountain that towers over the city. But
there will be no need for cunning, for force or vexation. I will merely stand as still as a
samurai statue in the twilight, and hold out my hand to her in the setting sun. The noise
and traffic of Tokyo will drown out the voices of our companions as they belch and pass
offensive fumes, waiting for their taxis to arrive. I will stand on the sidewalk and face
her with the honor and dignity of an elder; of a man with far more years than mine. And
she will wait.
“Do you have plans?” she will ask me with an eyebrow raised, with the smallest
of smiles.
I will whisper something into the air, something only she will hear, before it is lost
among the blood and bone and heart of evening Tokyo. But she will hear it, and it will
be enough.
When we walk down the streets, I will not try to hold her hand, and she will not try
to hold mine. We will not have to try. People will rush past us, in both ways, in direction
upon direction. The lights will flicker, on and off and red and white and neon green and
blue. But I will not shake, and she will not shudder, for we will both have overcome the
terrors of our childhood. We will enter skyscrapers, ride their elevators to the highest
floors and look out over the city from impossible heights. If she shivers, I will wrap my
business jacket around her bare shoulders until we ride down, a hundred floors to the
street. If she is pleased, we might walk among the masses, past ancient theatres and
late night showings of the most fashionable films the East has to offer. She might stop
me, and whisper sweetness in my ear.
“Show me everything and nothing, all at once.”
Her lips will brush past mine as she steps away. My heart will not explode.
I will not have to lead her down endless streets of smell and sound and sweat
and heat in the cool and noisy night. But if she is in the mood to sing (and how could
she not), she will find a bar; one with karaoke. We will go in together, and everything
will cease for an infinite moment as every man and woman inside realizes that he or she
has not seen a more beautiful woman than the one before their eyes. The person with
the microphone, a young man with a fondness for Sam Cooke melodies, will stop and
stare, lips halted in mid-note. One look from her eyes will convince him to continue.
And everyone will go back to his or her business, to his or her lover, to his or her
convictions and agitations of life. I will order us drinks from the bar. She will turn to me
inquisitively, and wonder how I know her favorite beverage is a blend of saki and
pineapple. I will tell her something other than the truth. I will tell her something daring,
upon which the entire evening will hinge. I will draw the color rose into her face. I will
make her blush.
“It is how I imagine your lips must taste.”
The entire city will pause, waiting for her answer. Gamblers might place bets
through underground connections concerning her response. The earth may tremble,
but no one will be afraid. Lusting men will crowd around the two of us, trying to devour
her with their eyes, with their hearts and hands if she lets them. Photographers will wait
for the world to crumble between us, reporters at the ready for tomorrow’s headline. I
will not make a move.
We will kiss.
She will take my hand, and lead me out of the karaoke bar. I will not refuse to
follow.
She will find a helicopter waiting for us, one parked in the middle of the street.
The downdraft from the rotors will make children crouch low and policemen cling to their
hats. Traffic will be backed up for miles out of the city, but no one will frown, or shout in
anger. The people will be sitting on the roofs of cars, on the sills of windows and on the
tiles of restaurants and apartment dwellings.
She will gasp, but she will not be
surprised. By now, she will have learned to expect the impossible. We will climb into
the helicopter, together, and we shall fly away.
About the Author:
Michael Obilade is a fan of the guitar, the banjo, and the short story. His work has most
recently appeared in Cafe Irreal and Joyous Publishing. He attends MIT, but lives for
summer in Kentucky.
TIGERGIRL
By Daniel Arenson
“Hey, Thomson, you geek!” cried Elva Easley, her voice echoing in the gym.
“What are you dreaming about?”
Taylor realized she had missed the volleyball Elva had tossed her way. She felt
her cheeks flush, and she wanted the ground to swallow her.
"I’m not a geek!” she objected meekly.
She was lying, she supposed.
At
seventeen, her only friends were the comics she secretly drew, and the only boy she
liked didn’t know she existed. Her hair was black and knotty, her cheeks freckled, her
eyes always downcast behind huge glasses. She owned every Monty Python movie
and could recite “Uncle Buck” by heart.
“Taylor’s been dreaming again!” taunted Elva. “Dreaming about dragons and
knights.”
“I was not dreaming!” Taylor said, close to tears, too meek to even raise her
head. She was lying this time, too. Her latest comic book told of dragons and knights,
and she had been reflecting upon it, seeking escape from dreadful gym class.
Taylor hated gym more than any other class. She was clumsy, could not catch
or toss a ball, and often tripped over her shoelaces when she ran. She was always the
last one chosen for a team. Elva, meanwhile, was the most athletic girl in school--not to
mention the prettiest and most popular, too.
When the game resumed, Elva spiked the ball right at her. It hit Taylor’s face
and bounced away, drawing laughter from the other students.
“Thomson, you nerd,” Elva laughed, and the other students snickered.
“It’s not my fault,” Taylor whispered, too shy to speak any louder.
Taylor could not wait to graduate high school, so she could move to New York
and become a professional comic book artist. She loved comic books, especially the
classic ones like Spiderman. They always comforted her when her classmates taunted
her.
Elva sighed and turned toward her boyfriend, Rob Rawland. She leaned on his
shoulder, mumbling, “That girl is so annoying, I swear to God.”
Taylor watched them wistfully, wishing she could lean on Rob’s shoulder instead.
She’d had a terrible crush on Rob for years. Rob, however, was the most popular boy
in school. Of course he paid her no attention. Of course his girlfriend was Elva. Who
else could it be?
Taylor sighed. I wish I weren’t so clumsy and awkward, she thought. I wish I
were athletic like Elva, maybe then Rob would like me. I wish I could play volleyball
instead of drawing comics.
But what could she do? Some girls were born pretty and popular. Others were
born freckled and geeky. That’s just the way of the world, Taylor knew.
When school ended, Taylor headed toward Old Man Derwent’s costume shop,
which was also her home. When her parents had died years ago, Derwent--a distant,
long-lost relative--had adopted her. She had lived in his shop since.
Taylor often wished she had teachers like Derwent. Derwent taught her more
than any teacher at school. He seemed to know everything, from science to philosophy
to art. He was the smartest person Taylor knew.
When she reached his costume shop, she felt better already. The shop lay at the
south end of Greenlawn, NJ, Taylor’s hometown. Few customers visited it. Few people
even knew about it. A cobble path led to the small, Victorian building which nestled
behind three maples. Bats flew between the branches of those trees even during the
day.
When she opened the door, a bell rang, and Derwent turned from some costume
he was sewing. The old man had long white hair, round glasses, and a ridiculously long
nose. He looked like some wizard elf from the fantasy novels Taylor sometimes read.
“Good afternoon, Taylor,” he said, speaking around a long, mahogany pipe he
smoked.
Costumes of all kind filled the shop: fairies, gorillas, cowboys, clowns, ballerinas,
monsters, and a hundred others. Derwent hand-sewed them all. He took pride that he
prepared all the costumes himself, ordering none from factories. The shop smelled of
leather, fur, and tobacco, which Taylor thought the best smell in the world; it was the
smell of home.
“Hey, Derwent,” she said glumly.
“What’s wrong, Taylor? Elva Easley giving you a hard time?”
She nodded and told Derwent about gym class. It seemed every day she had a
glum story for him.
He tsked his tongue all through the story, and finally said, “Taylor, a girl your
age... you shouldn’t just stay home drawing comics. You should go out more, try at
least to make friends.”
She sighed. “If I could be popular like Elva Easley, I would. But I can’t. I’m
Taylor Thomson, I was born that way, and I just have to accept it.
I’ll always be
awkward and shy and weird.”
Derwent heaved a sigh. He looked so sad, that Taylor sat beside him, put her
arm around him, and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“I’m all right,” she said.
“Don’t you worry about me.
Now, let me see the
costume you’re making.”
It was a tiger-skin bodysuit, wonderfully sewn, flawless, its seams invisible.
Designed to cover the entire body, including the hands and feet, it radiated
wonderment. Taylor ran her fingers through the fur, marveling at how soft and smooth it
felt.
Derwent leaned close to her and whispered into her ear as if there were others
who might hear. “It’s made of real tiger pelt.”
“Oh, gross!” Taylor said, but stared at the suit with more curiosity. “A tiger died
for this?”
Derwent shook his head. “He died of natural causes. I made sure of that. I
know how you feel about killing animals for fur.”
Taylor nodded sternly. “Good.”
Derwent leaned back and took a long puff on his pipe. “You know,” he said,
“there’s an Indian legend about wearing tiger fur. The legend says that if the tiger likes
you, he’ll grant you his powers.”
Taylor laughed. Derwent was always talking about ancient myths and magic.
She loved him all the more for it. Sometimes, she thought he might be even kookier
than she.
That night, Taylor could not sleep. As she lay in bed, she kept thinking of the
tiger suit, wondering how it would feel against her skin. The tiger seemed to call her, to
whisper her name in the darkness.
At midnight, when she tiptoed downstairs for a glass of water, she glanced into
the workshop. The tiger suit lay on the counter, beckoning. Hey, why not? Taylor
thought. It’ll be fun.
Two minutes later, she wore the tiger suit, examining herself in the mirror. It was
skin tight, and Taylor felt naked. It was not like wearing clothes; it was like wearing a
second skin. The tiger’s skin. The tail, sewn onto the suit, hung to her knees behind
her.
The costume had a hood. It pulled right over her eyes; there were two holes to
see through. The hood left the bottom half of her face free, from nose to chin. The fur
covered everything else, expect for her fingertips, which fit through holes in the gloves.
Nobody would recognize me in this costume, Taylor thought. She liked that.
Tiger ears protruded from the hood, and Taylor touched them thoughtfully.
Wearing this suit, hidden behind the mask, she hardly felt like Taylor Thomson. She felt
powerful. Confident. Funny how costumes can change you.
She yawned then, stretching her arms over the head, finally ready to sleep. She
removed the costume, climbed upstairs and into bed, and fell asleep instantly.
When she woke up, it was 8:00 in the morning.
“Yikes!” she cried, leaping up from bed. “I’m late for the final!”
How could she have slept so much? Taylor cursed herself. Any other day, she’d
have skipped school all together, but not today. She could not miss her exam.
She slipped on a sweater and skirt and ran out the door.
School was a mile
away, and Taylor often walked. Today she ran.
I wonder why the cars are driving so slowly, she thought. She was running faster
than them. She lowered her head and ran even faster.
“Oh, God, they’ll all make fun of me if I’m late...”
Finally she reached Greenlawn High School, and paused outside its entrance.
She wanted to catch her breath and fix her hair before stepping in.
Strangely, though, she was not out of breath. When she ran a hand through her
hair, it encountered no knots. Weirdness... Usually, her hair was frowzy and tangled,
yet today it felt smooth and soft as the tiger suit.
As she ran her fingers over her ear, she felt something missing. Taylor realized
that she had, in her rush, forgotten her glasses. But how--? Without her glasses, she
should be blind as a bat. How could she see clearly now?
The bell rang. There was no time to ponder. Taylor rushed inside and toward
her classroom. When she opened the classroom door, everyone stared at her from
their seats.
“Ooh, look, Thomson put highlights in,” Elva Easley said mockingly. “She thinks
she’s a hottie now.”
Everyone laughed. What is she talking about? Taylor wondered. She held up a
strand from her hair and gazed at it. She gasped. Indeed, her black hair was now
strewn with orange stripes. Had somebody messed with her hair while she slept? Had
color from the tiger hood come off onto her head? That must be it, Taylor decided.
“Ms. Thomson, please don’t stand there like a scarecrow,” said Mrs. Lobby,
drawing more laughs. “Go to your seat.”
“Daydreaming again!” said Elva. “Daydreaming about knights in silver armor!”
Everybody laughed. Taylor stepped toward her seat, her face hot, tears stinging
her eyes. She hated to be embarrassed in front of Rob. As she sat down, she glanced
furtively toward him, smiling hesitantly. He did not spare her a glance.
Suddenly, Taylor felt something wet hit the back of her neck. Elva had spat a
spitball onto her, Taylor realized; this was an old prank. As usual, she ignored it. As
usual, she ignored the giggles that followed. What else could she do?
Throughout the exam, Elva kept spitting spitballs at her.
Taylor could not
concentrate, could not remember any of the answers. I cannot fail this exam! she
thought. Derwent would be too disappointed. Suddenly, anger flared inside Taylor.
Usually when this happened, Taylor simply swallowed that anger, letting herself be
pushed over. After all, whenever she tried fighting back, everyone just laughed at her.
Today, however, was different.
Before she could control herself, she spun
around to face Elva.
The words hissed through her lips. “Stop. It.”
Elva stared at her, her face blanching. Taylor was shocked, both at herself, and
at how pale Elva suddenly seemed.
“Your eyes...” Elva whispered, before shaking her head as if to clear it. She
seemed to force a smile onto her face. “It wasn’t me,” she said, and her own eyes
burned balefully.
“Taylor Thomson!” Mrs. Lobby said. “Are you cheating? Eyes on your own
paper!”
Taylor returned her eyes to her exam quickly. She could feel the other students
staring at her. Elva snickered, but the others seemed uneasy.
After the exam came dreaded gym class.
Elva and Rob were the captains of opposing teams.
Coach Wortley always
chose them to be captains; they were the most athletic students in Greenlawn High
School. They each chose players in turn. As usual, Taylor was the last one picked.
“Heh, Rob!” Elva said, laughing, her hands on her hips. “You get stuck with the
geek this time.”
Taylor looked at her toes. She wished she could play well and impress Rob.
She knew, however, that she would only humiliate herself as usual.
As Taylor walked toward Rob’s team, she thought he might be watching her.
She dared not check to see. When she glanced at Elva, however, she found the girl
staring at her with a strange, dangerous fire in her eyes. Elva’s perfect eyebrows were
pushed down, and her lips were a narrow line.
They started to play. Elva ran forward, a snarl on her pretty face, her eyes
malevolent. She spiked the ball right at Taylor, so hard it could break one’s nose.
Taylor ran forward, leapt up, and slammed the ball right back over the net.
The ball hit the ground at Elva’s feet.
Silence fell. Everybody stood still, staring at Taylor, and the only movement was
the volleyball rolling slowly away. Taylor felt her face burn, her heart flutter. Had she
really done this?
It was Rob who finally broke the silence. “Hey, good work, Taylor.”
Taylor’s heart fluttered faster than before.
She thought she might die with
happiness. Rob had spoken her name! It was the first time Rob had ever talked to her.
Taylor looked at Elva, and actually took a step back in apprehension. Elva’s face
looked... evil. Her eyes burned with hatred.
“It was luck,” Elva spat out. Her fists were clenched. She walked toward the ball,
and when she picked it up, she gasped.
“Jesus...” she said.
The students all gathered around, and Taylor felt her blood freeze.
Four long slashes had been cut into the ball, depleting it of air. They looked like
claw marks.
Taylor stared at her hands. Her fingernails, once bitten, were long and sharp.
They didn’t even look like human fingernails.
While her fingers remained slim as
always, the nails now looked like claws.
It was too much. Taylor turned and fled the gym.
She ran through the hallways, fear nipping her ankles. What had happened to
her? The fingernails had not been there an hour ago; Taylor was sure of it. How had
they grown so quickly?
Something felt wrong in her mouth. As Taylor passed by a mirror in the hallway,
she paused, panting. She bared her teeth at her reflection. In her mouth glistened
large, white fangs. Her hair was nearly completely orange; only a few thin, black stripes
remained. It flared out from her head, thick and wavy.
The most shocking, however, were her eyes.
Her eyes had always been gray. Now, they shone a bright, startling green.
What’s going on here?
Feeling faint, she ran all the way home.
***
When she reached the costume shop, she stood outside, panting with fear. Her
head spun. What had happened back there? Taylor could not guess. Was this a
dream?
She shut her eyes and took deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down.
Everything will be all right, she told herself. Just calm down and think clearly. Slowly,
her hands stopped trembling and her heart slowed.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw that her claws were gone. Her
fingernails still seemed harder and sharper than usual, though. She focused on them a
moment, and--she gasped when it happened--the claws sprang out again. She pulled
them back in. They retracted at her command.
Retractable claws. God...
Taylor knew of no disease that gave you tiger symptoms. Had the tiger suit
cursed her?
“I can’t tell anybody about this,” she said shakily. Everybody thought her a freak
already. If they knew she had fangs and claws, well... they’d put her away, study her in
some laboratory.
Most importantly, Rob would never love her if he knew. He had spoken her
name today for the first time. If he knew of her claws and fangs, he would be disgusted,
and all hope would shatter.
Taylor vowed to tell no one of her transformation, not even Derwent. She would
keep her claws retracted, her fangs hidden behind her lips. And as for her eyes and
hair? Well, she’d just tell everybody she got highlights and contacts. They needed to
know no more.
“God, I’m a creature...” she whispered, hating herself more than ever.
But
nobody had to know of it. Maybe the symptoms would just disappear on their own.
Taylor prayed they would.
***
Over the next few days, Taylor discovered new powers.
Her senses were incredibly sharper. She could see in the dark. She could hear
the bats fluttering in the maple trees. She could smell apple pies cooling on window
ledges all the way down the street. Even more astoundingly, she could now run thirtyfive miles an hour, leap ten feet upwards and thirty feet across, and move silent as a
ghost. She was strong, too; inhumanly strong. Once, when nobody watched, she lifted
the sofa over her head.
These new powers frightened her, though Taylor would be lying if she said she
didn’t, deep inside her, also like them. Who wouldn’t? Of course, she kept them just as
secret as the claws and fangs.
Whenever anybody asked Taylor about her new hair and eyes, she lied. I put in
contacts, she said, and highlighted my hair. And have you been working out? they
would ask, and she’d nod shyly.
Only two people seemed to suspect anything.
One was Derwent. When she lied to him, he only smiled knowingly and nodded.
“Sure, Taylor, you look good this way.” When she turned away, Taylor could swear she
caught him shaking his head and stifling a grin. Does he know? Taylor wondered. If he
did, he gave no sign, and Taylor was content never to discuss matters further.
In fact, she was content to forget about this whole tiger business all together.
She had never wanted any special powers, just to graduate quickly and devote her time
to her comics.
The second suspicious person was Elva Easley. Since that day in the gym, Elva
grew even crueler, something Taylor had thought impossible. Sometimes, she felt like
Elva was stalking her. The girl watched her constantly. “Something’s up with you,” Elva
said. “You be careful, Thomson. I’m watching you.”
Derwent, of course, claimed that Elva was just jealous, because Taylor was
becoming “such a beautiful young woman”. Taylor laughed at this. “You must be blind,”
she told him.
A week since first trying on the tiger suit, Taylor thought she could safely forget
the whole issue.
Then, her world collapsed around her.
***
She returned from school that day with a good mood. She had received an A for
her final, that same exam Elva had tried ruining for her. Skipping down the road, light
and agile as a feline, she approached the costume shop with a grin. When she stepped
in, she found Derwent in the living room behind the workshop.
“Taylor, dear,” he said. “Come sit down, we must talk.”
Taylor frowned. Derwent sounded strange, too serious, unlike his usual, jovial
self. The wind leaving her sails, Taylor tiptoed to the couch and sat before him.
“Do not be alarmed,” he said and, with a long sigh, changed.
Taylor screamed when it happened, leapt and hit her head against the ceiling.
Before her, Derwent melted, bubbled, then reformed into the shape of--Taylor nearly
fainted--Elva Easly.
Trembling, her claws whooshing out, Taylor pushed herself back against the wall.
Grimacing, she whispered, “How--? Derwent, what--?
“There is no Derwent,” Elva replied, sitting neatly with her hands on her knees.
“There never has been. Nor is there an Elva.”
Elva shifted, melting and bubbling, and finally became a gray, hairless creature.
Taylor bit her fist, struggling to keep her lunch. Her head spun, and she wanted to flee,
but forced herself to stay. She must understand this nightmare.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
“My name is Doppel,” the creature replied, its voice soft, androgynous. Its mouth
was only a slit in its leathery face, its eyes large, black orbs. It had no nose, only
nostrils. “I am the first supersapien. You are the second. Please, Taylor, sit down.
You’ve lived with me for years; you have no reason to fear me now.”
Gingerly, Taylor sat down, curiosity overpowering her terror. She kept her claws
drawn. “Why are you here?” Her voice trembled. “What do you want from me?”
Doppel folded his wide, long hands in his lap. He was so thin, Taylor could see
his ribs under the gray skin. Somehow, she thought of Doppel as a ‘he’, though she
could spot no signs of gender. “I am creating a race of beings like myself,” he said.
“I’ve been nursing you for years. As Derwent, I taught you knowledge, compassion. As
Elva, I taught you to live as an outsider--something you had to know, to survive as a
supersapien.” Doppel smiled. “We are the first of a new race, a super race to rule this
world.”
Taylor could not understand, and fear pulsed through her. Surely, this was a
dream. Surely, no such shapeshifters could exist. But then... if tiger magic existed,
maybe anything was possible.
“What have you done to Derwent? To Elva?” she asked.
The creature sighed. “Still you don’t understand? Elva never existed. She was
me all along.
Derwent never existed, either.
I became Derwent after killing your
parents, so that I may adopt you, mold you before granting you powers.”
Taylor’s mouth fell open. She rose from the couch. “You... killed my parents?”
Doppel nodded. “I’m sorry, Taylor. In time you will forgive me, I promise. It was
a necessary sacrifice. They were mere homo sapiens, expendable. But you and I,
Taylor... we--"
Taylor could listen to no more. Rage filled her, exploded through her, spilled
tears from her eyes. With a roar, she leapt forward, slashing her claws at the creature.
Doppel leapt aside, shifted into a vulture, and landed on the mantelpiece. “I am
not your enemy!” the vulture shrieked. “I am the only friend you have. To humans you
are a freak now.”
Taylor was weeping, tears flowing into her mouth.
“You are lying!” she
screamed. “You are not Derwent!”
“No, I am not,” the vulture agreed. “And now that you’ve gained and explored
your powers, I will teach you to use them.” The vulture took flight, and before fleeing
the window, it screeched, “To save your beloved, you will have to show the world your
might.”
The vulture flew away, shrieking horribly.
***
For long moments, Taylor lay stunned, sprawled on the rug. Still, she could not
believe this was real. When she pinched herself, it hurt, but surely, this was just an
intense nightmare. It had to be.
What was that gray, ugly creature? Had he really murdered her parents, so that
he might turn her into some “supersapien”, or whatever he called it?
Real or not, soon Taylor noticed that the television was on, her own school on
the screen. On the bottom of the screen, a caption appeared: “BREAKING NEWS:
School Coach Holds Gun to Student’s Head.”
Indeed, Coach Wortley stood on Greenlawn High School’s roof, holding a gun to
somebody’s head. The cameras zoomed in, and Taylor leapt up.
It was Rob! Wortley was pointing a gun at Rob! As Taylor watched, Wortley
turned toward the camera. His eyes seemed to stare into hers, and his mouth worded,
“Come stop me.”
Taylor bit her lip. Cops surrounded the place, but dared not approach. Only I
can save Rob, Taylor knew. Only I, with my tiger powers, can sneak up on Wortley.
But no, she could not reveal her powers! She had sworn to keep them secret.
Suddenly it hit her: the costume. The costume would hide her identity.
Ten minutes later, Taylor was at school, dressed in the tiger suit. The hood was
over her eyes. Her tail swished behind. The only parts uncovered with fur were the
bottom half of her face, and her fingertips.
Nobody will recognize me.
As she walked through the school, everyone stared in shock. They mumbled
among themselves and pointed at the strange, costumed girl.
She entered a classroom below the roof, then stepped onto the windowsill. She
tried to ignore the distant, dizzying ground. It’s the only way. Only I can creep up on
Wortley.
Effortlessly, she leapt ten feet into the air, landing on the roof behind Wortley.
She landed silently; he did not notice her. She crept behind him. He was still clutching
Rob, holding the gun to his head.
Rob saw her. His eyes locked onto hers. “No, run...” he whispered.
Wortley turned around at once.
Taylor pounced.
She grabbed his arm, pulling him down. The gun went off. Taylor slashed her
claws, and the gun came free from Wortley’s hand.
Wortley, lying on the ground, smiled at her. “Good work, Taylor,” he said, then
shifted into Doppel’s gray and gangly form. “I’ve trained you well.”
The policemen were running forward.
“Freeze, girl!” they shouted, and Taylor watched them in horror. Leaving Doppel,
she leapt back, then jumped off the roof. She landed on the cafeteria roof below, ran
across it, and leapt onto a parked car.
The cops were still shouting from above. Taylor turned to face them. The wind
caught her tail, flapping it behind her. She looked up toward Rob, then turned and ran.
***
She spent the night in the park.
When hunger filled her, she scented a rabbit, pounced onto it, and devoured it
raw, ripping the flesh with her fangs, covering her face with blood. When lovers strolled
in her direction, she growled in the darkness, sending them fleeing from her territory.
All night, fear pulsed through her. Where could she go now? Not back to the
costume shop, not back to Doppel... Helplessness filled her and brought tears to her
eyes.
The next morning, it covered front pages across the nation. Masked Heroine
Saves Student, or Real Life Superheroine, or Tigergirl Saves The Day.
Tigergirl, Taylor thought, feeling sick. She had never wanted such attention.
They must never know it’s me. I can’t allow that.
She snuck into school before the first bell, climbing through the window, silent as
a ghost. She dressed in gym clothes from her locker and stashed the tiger suit into a
plastic bag.
I must flee Greenlawn. I will not join Doppel. The shapeshifter had murdered her
parents, wanted to rule the world. Taylor would never join such a creature. This was
her last day in Greenlawn.
Students began entering the school. Dressed in her gym clothes, Taylor walked
down the hall, heading toward the exit. She was about to leave, when she bumped into
Rob.
“Taylor,” he said. “Hi there.”
Taylor tried to steady herself. Her fingers trembled. “Hey, Rob,” she said quietly.
She had never spoken to him before.
Even with all her troubles, it was exciting,
wonderful, and terrifying. Her heart raced. “Hey, are you all right? I heard about
yesterday.”
“Wasn’t it amazing?” he said. “Did you see Elva in that tiger suit?”
Taylor frowned and took a step back. “Elva... is the girl who saved you?”
“Isn’t she the greatest? She told me this morning; she was at a costume party,
when she turned on the TV and saw me. What a girlfriend!”
Taylor’s heart sank to her feet. She turned her head away, feeling the tears
gather. She wanted to tell Rob the truth, but bit her lip. Doppel wanted her to reveal
her identity. She would not fall for the trick. “Yeah, Elva’s some girl,” was all she said.
“What’s in the bag?” Rob asked, and before she could stop him, he had reached
toward it and peeked in.
Taylor leapt back, but Rob had seen the tiger fur. They stood, staring at one
another. For a moment, they were silent.
“Taylor...” Rob finally whispered. “What...?”
She lowered her head. “Be careful, Rob,” was all she said. “Just be careful.”
As she fled the school, tears blurred her vision. Doppel had nearly killed Rob,
just because she loved him. I must never see Rob again. Otherwise, Doppel might try
to harm him again.
She hitchhiked across the river into Manhattan, slunk into Central Park, and
walked along the paths until night fell.
In the moonlight, she devoured two pigeons, then lay huddled under a bench.
She shuddered about what she had become, a clawed freak who hunted animals and
ate them raw. She shuddered about the life she now lived, an outcast in hiding. She
shuddered about Rob, left alone with Doppel for a girlfriend.
I will never serve Doppel. I will never use my powers for his goals.
When morning came, Taylor bought paper and a pen, and began drawing a new
comic book. It was about a shy girl who, instead of joining her evil master, used her
special powers to help people. She named it Tigergirl.
About the Author:
Born in 1980, Daniel Arenson spent his life moving around a lot. During one five-year
stretch as a kid, he spent each year at a different school. By now, he has moved
between continents five times, between cities even more often. His experiences include
spending a war gas-masked in a bomb shelter, art classes in Manhattan's Greenwich
Village, and wandering around war zones with an M16 over his back. He currently lives
in Toronto, where he holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and works in the
IT field.
DOMINO
By M. G. Tarquini
Tony dropped Darlene by the Corner Pocket in Jackelope Junction without so
much as a goodbye, an adios, or a so long sucker. He took her cellphone with him.
She had to call her friend, Cheryl, to come get her, which meant she had to edge past
drunk cowboys and drunker businessmen, who were attending the tool and die
convention, to get to the payphone in the back of the pool hall.
“Hey, sugar, got change for a twenty?” The patron tucked it into her blouse,
caught her about the waist and pulled her close.
“Nothing so small as what you’re toting.” Darlene kicked him in the balls,
retrieved the handset and continued dialing.
The patron regained his posture, nostrils flaring.
He charged.
Darlene
sidestepped him, so he plowed into the guy behind her, a pug-faced fellow with a scar
down his cheek, who was missing the pinky on his left hand. Pug-face shoved the
guy back, catapulting him into one of the waitresses.
A nice gal with tiny boobs, Maribel was raising two kids on her own after her nogood husband tossed her over for the new checker at the Stop-n-Save in the center of
town, a fact Maribel was keeping to herself. Maribel's tray of drinks toppled onto the
breast of a businessman's wife.
The businessman's wife had accompanied her husband because she didn’t
want him to bring her replacement, his sweet young thing on the side. It was the best
the wife could figure until she came up with another way to save her marriage, fancy
house in the suburbs, and revolving credit account at Adiposity, the upscale clothing
store for large women she’d discovered two years previously when she first worked
out her husband’s infidelity and started overeating.
The whiskey made the wife's white cotton blouse cling to her nylon bra cup. It
exposed a clear outline of her size-D nipple to the businessman's colleagues in the
tool and die trade. The cowboys blushed and looked away.
A drunk businessman poked the nipple. Mr. D-cup pretended not to notice.
That got Mrs. D-cup mad.
She smacked her husband and slapped the drunk
businessman. The drunk businessman jerked his arm to block his face, but too late.
He accidentally slugged the cowboy next to him who was stooping to help Maribel, the
waitress, pick up the broken glass.
The cowboy's mama taught him to treat a lady nice. Jeb decided the nicest
thing he could do was toss the drunk businessman over the bar and punch Mrs. Dcup’s husband in the nose.
The drunk tool and die guy landed on Chuck, the bartender. His tips had been
lousy all night because tool and die guys are cheap and cowboys don’t have no
money.
Sick of putting up with the bullshit, he dialed 911 to report an incident,
shouting to be heard over the din of barstools upending and Waylon Jones' wailing.
Somebody hollered a warning. The cowboys headed for the door. The cops
weren’t going to take kindly to all the gambling going on in the backroom around the
pool tables.
Frank, the bouncer, a man who took his job seriously, raced them. He worried
the cowboys were really trying to run out on their tabs, which was probably true.
Darlene hung up the phone. She leaped over a table and under a railing to get
out before Frank sealed the place.
Frank didn’t care. He knew Darlene didn’t have a tab.
Darlene waited under a streetlamp making sure she stayed in the circle of light
because that was safest. The heat felt refreshing after the smoke and rum sweat
inside. She stepped into the shadow to drag a tissue across her underarms, then
under her shirt to swipe at the crevices beneath her breasts.
Timing is everything. At that moment, Jackelope Junction’s finest showed up to
investigate the incident. They weren't certain what the incident was since Chuck didn’t
get to finish his phone call before the drunk businessman came around and grabbed
the cord to pull himself up, yanking the connection.
The cops thought Darlene might be the incident — her, a stranger, standing all
by herself just outside the ring of light from a solitary streetlamp feeling up her
breasts. They stopped.
“Can we help you with something, miss?” they asked, remembering the first
rule of policing, which is to be polite until they arrested the perp.
“No officer. I’m fine. Waiting for my girlfriend.”
The officers looked at each other. Girlfriend was a new one.
“Must be a yoothfeminism for john,” Ned mumbled to Ted.
Since that qualified close enough to a confession for Jackelope Junction, both
sprang out of the cop car, drew their weapons and trained them on the confused
Darlene. It took her a while to explain that the incident was happening INSIDE the pool
hall and not OUTSIDE. By the time she did, the cowboys had admitted to Chuck that
they’d lost their beer money to Slim, a poolshark from Schenectady. Slim was in town
visiting his cousin Ethel, the postmistress, she being the only one in the family with
steady employment.
The cops crashed through the front door. They knocked Frank, the bouncer,
into the mechanical bull, breaking his arm.
That quieted things down some. The drunk businessman who felt up Mrs. Dcup complained of chest pain. Chuck shouted at a dispatcher no longer on the end of
a dead line that they needed an ambulance, dammit.
Ned and Ted both knew CPR. They started doing it on the drunk businessman.
The drunk businessman's chest hurt because he'd cracked three ribs when he
landed on Chuck the bartender, not because he was having a heart attack. Too drunk
to notice the blue uniform, the silver badge, the walkie-talkie or the gun, the
businessman popped Officer Ned.
Darlene wondered why she hadn't walked down the street to the all-night
convenience store and had Cheryl meet her there.
“I’m stupid, okay?” she told Officer Ned later. “But I’m honest stupid, not
dishonest stupid.” Then she said the words that changed her life forever. “Now Tony,
he’s dishonest stupid.”
“Tony?” Officer Ned asked. He held an ice pack to his cheek and typed onehanded.
“My ex. He was my current until a few hours ago. Picked me up for dinner,
screwed me in the backseat of his used Mercedes 520SEL, then screwed me for real
when we got our clothes rearranged. Told me he was dumping me for the new
checker at the Stop-n-Save in the center of town. The creep didn’t even buy me
dinner.”
“Stupid’s a good word.”
Officer Ned looked Darlene up and down. He
wondered what that checker at the Stop-n-Save looked like. “But that don’t make him
dishonest.”
“The cocaine in his trunk does. Twenty-five kilos. Part of a stash that came over
the border this morning. I saw it when I threw my suitcase in.”
The cocaine in the back of Tony’s trunk was a lie. Darlene added the bit about
the checker at the Stop-n-Save because by then she'd had a chance to talk to Maribel,
the waitress whose husband had deserted her. Darlene noticed Officer Ted’s last
name while Officer Ned took her statement. She figured it couldn’t be coincidence in
a town this small.
Any cop worth his salt knew a drug dealer who could wander around with that
kind of stash wouldn’t be driving a used anything. The cops ignored that because the
new checker at the Stop-n-Save was Officer Ted’s only daughter. They arrested Tony,
impounded his car, then got Judge Wallace out of bed to arraign him.
That didn’t put Judge Wallace in a good mood. He set Tony’s bond so high that
Tony was impounded, just like his car, for a couple of days before a member of his
family found the town and bailed him out.
Tony missed his meeting with Mr. D-cup, who didn’t know anything about
Tony’s arrest, all that happening hours after the cops took everybody’s names and
statements and released them. So Tony didn’t pass on the contact information.
The fishy paperwork came to the attention of the Interstate Commerce
Commission who got nosy and found way more fissionable material than a tool and
die guy from Bowling Green had business possessing in a warehouse in
Hackensack. Mr. D-cup jointly owned that warehouse with the drunk businessman, a
revelation which explained why Mr. D-cup didn’t do anything about the nipple-poking.
Mrs. D-cup turned state’s evidence. She got a reward for doing so. She also
got a divorce, sole custody of the kids and cleaning lady as well as a very nice
settlement. She used the settlement to pay for design school tuition and later made a
living sewing custom clothing while offering a sympathetic ear for other well-heeled
zaftig matrons in similar circumstances.
Because of his association with Officer’s Ted’s daughter, Maribel’s husband
likewise received special attention. Turned out he had a number of bank accounts
spread across the state and it didn’t take much more than a little persuasion and a
broken knuckle or two to convince him to sign them over to Maribel.
Cheryl told Darlene all about it much later, she having gotten the information
from the pug-faced man with the missing pinky. He turned out to be an injured and
decorated war veteran name Ray, in need of a wife, and best friend to Jeb, the man
whose Mama taught him to be nice to women.
Jeb turned out to be an ex-FBI agent who’d worked with the witness protection
program. A fortuitous situation for it happened that Tony’s family had mob connections
and were looking for Darlene.
Just as well. Darlene had always wondered what it would be like to be Jewish
and live in Florida.
About the Author:
Raised in an Italian family on the mean streets of suburban Philadelphia, M.G.
TARQUINI writes to escape a past peppered with normality. She lives in the desert, is
married with children, and once possessed a pet scorpion inappropriately named
'Cuddles'.
M.G. Tarquini has also joined the Spinetingler editorial staff and will be serving as
revisions editor.
Author Profile:
MURPHY’S LAWS FOR SUCCESSFUL WRITING
By Chris High
Wirral based Crime author, Margaret Murphy, has recently launched her new novel,
Now You See Me, and is excited at the prospect of developing her character DCI Jeff
Rickman still further in this his second outing. ‘This sequel to The Dispossessed finds
Rickman dealing with a great personal trauma and the reintroduction into his life of his
brother, who has lost all memory of his life, past and present,’ Margaret explained. ‘Now
You See Me is also set in Liverpool, and concerns cyber-crime in which a computer
hacker unearths a horrific secret. The themes of identity and loss are explored through
Rickman’s brother, whose life is devastated by his rootlessness, and the hacker, who
uses the anonymity of the Internet to manipulate their identity, and others’ perception of
them.’
Murphy is the author of nine crime novels, including the highly acclaimed Darkness
Falls and Weaving Shadows featuring the beleaguered lawyer, Clara Pascal. She hasn’t
discounted returning to Clara at some point in the future.
‘All my novels had been stand-alones before I wrote Weaving Shadows as the
sequel to Darkness Falls,’ she says. ‘For me, crime is about consequences – for the
victim, the perpetrator, and those touched by it. Crime shatters lives and shakes the
trust of whole communities. Writing a series has allowed me to follow characters in the
aftermath of terrible events as they try to make sense of the violence that has torn their
lives apart, even as they struggle to go on with the business of living. It’s a terrific
opportunity, and I’ve had lots of positive feedback from readers, who enjoy the
continuity, and develop an affection for the principal characters.’
Margaret believes that one of the biggest problems facing authors today is
promotion and it was with this in mind that she formed Murder Squad, a collective of
seven authors who regularly tour the country. ‘Murder Squad is the first collective of
crime fiction authors. It was an idea born from frustration – an editor told me that though
I had received excellent reviews, it didn’t translate into sales figures. Marketing budgets
are very tight, so forming a consortium seemed a sensible way forward. I approached
John Baker, Martin Edwards, Ann Cleeves, Cath Staincliffe and Chaz Brenchley, whom
I already knew through the Crime Writers Association, and they warmed to the idea
immediately. The Squad has gone from strength to strength since its inception in 2000,
with libraries and festivals across the country eager to invite members for workshops
and talks. Several Murder Squad members have signed European and American
contracts and Cath Staincliffe followed up a contact set up by one of her colleagues on
the Squad which resulted in the creation of the highly successful ITV series Blue
Murder, starring Caroline Quentin.’
Margaret juggles a very busy writing life with many other commitments. ‘I’m a tutor
for the John Moores University MA in Writing and a volunteer worker for Refugee Action
in Liverpool, which came as a direct result of my research into The Dispossessed. I’m
also in discussion with BBC Radio Merseyside about a regular writing feature.’
So what does a typical workday consist of? ‘There’s no such thing a “typical”
workday, but in the mornings I check my email – almost obsessively at times. Murder
Squad gets most of its bookings via our website, so I can convince myself this is an
important managerial task, and not displacement activity! Most editorial work is done by
email, so I might be in communication with my agent, editor and possibly a small press
editor about anything from a new novel to a short story submission.
Redrafting is a morning task; I’ll read over and correct the previous day’s work,
correcting and tweaking, before continuing with a new section. I write longhand, chapter
by chapter, then type up my notes every few days, editing as I go.
‘After that, I’ll write, take phone calls, follow up on publicity ideas, design flyers for
events – oh, and do the dreaded housework. If I have an event in the following week or
so, I’ll prepare that in the afternoon. I usually break at about 5 p.m. and return to work
after dinner. My best creative time is the evening, when I know the phone won’t ring,
and I can create a warm, quiet environment in which to work. I’ll often continue past
midnight – with short breaks to stretch and give my poor brain a rest. Channel-surfing is
great for this because there’s so much mindless programming on digital TV. The main
thing for any writer though is to be determined, dedicated, and persistent. Being
rejected by one publisher doesn’t mean that every one will send your manuscript back,’
says Murphy. ‘Listen very carefully to any editorial suggestions, even if they come with a
rejection slip. Editors know their markets and they can usually sum up what’s wrong
with a book after reading just a few pages!’
Margaret first went to university against her parent’s wishes. ‘In my second year,
Dad refused to sign the grant forms so I earned a living first by charring and later by
working as a park ranger on the Wirral, taking guided walks.’.
Her first career was in teaching. After gaining a degree in Environmental Biology,
she taught science and biology in St Helens, Liverpool and the Wirral, first as a biology
teacher, and then later as head of the dyslexia unit in an independent school. She
started writing in earnest in 1990 after a serious illness, penning three novels before
having her work accepted. Margaret’s debut, Goodnight My Angel, was published in
1996; among the first to explore the cyber-stalking, it was short-listed for the First Blood
Award.
Her novels are now published in the USA, and in translation in half-a-dozen European
countries. ‘Since giving up school teaching in 1998, I’ve gained an MA in Writing,
worked freelance for the Open College of the Arts, completed the first year of a degree
course in psychology and now tutor MA students at Liverpool John Moores University.’
All of which proves that dedication and determination bring their own rewards.
Top tips
1. Read – different styles, different genres. You can’t hope to develop your own
style unless you read good writing.
2. Write every day – no excuses! Even a hundred words are better than none.
3. Analyse your favourite writer – how does s/he achieve what you are striving for in
your writing?
4. Learn - whether a grammatical nicety or a psychological insight, you should be
learning all the time.
5. Enjoy the editorial process – that’s when the real craft of writing kicks in!
Margaret Murphy’s new novel, Now You See Me, is available from all good
bookshops from November 7th and from www.amazon.co.uk For more
information about Margaret Murphy visit www.margaretmurphy.co.uk and for
more on Murder Squad visit www.murdersquad.com
Author Interview:
COLIN CAMPBELL: HIS WORK, LOVE OF FILMS
& TENNIS, AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
By Chris High
Chris
You have written horror, children’s novels and now Crime. Which genre do you prefer to
work in?
Colin
Ideas sort of come at me from all over. What genre they end up in depends on the
idea. I love words. The rhythm of a good sentence or line of dialogue. And characters.
Once I've got a good cast and a story line I don't really change my style for the genre.
Maybe take out the swearing for a kids' book. For now, I'm really enjoying the crime
side of things. I will probably stick with that for the time being, although there are at least
two more children’s books bubbling up.
Chris
Through The Ruins Of Midnight has been optioned for television.
How are things
progressing on the adaptation front? Do you have a date for transmission yet? Who will
be playing Mick?
Colin
The option for "Midnight" was sold to an independent producer in London a year ago.
From New York. She has been working on the script with my help; mainly keeping it
straight with the dialogue and procedures. It was originally going to be a six-part drama
but that's been tightened to two. Much sharper for that. The script is done now. Going
to actors and TV companies soon. Ray Winston and Shane Ritchie are possibilities for
Mick Habergham. No date for filming yet.
Chris
Of what does a normal writing day consist?
Colin
For the last 30 years I've been a front line copper; fifteen in scenes of crime. I have just
retired this February but, until then, writing had to fit around my shifts. Now, I can do it
whenever. I prefer to write in the mornings. All morning. After breakfast I lock myself in
the study and type away. I hate interruptions. Remember Jack Nicholson in The
Shining? Don't let me near an axe if someone disturbs me.
Chris
Do you read in the genre you are writing in? What are you currently reading?
Colin
I read a broad section of fiction. Mostly American crime fiction because, having been a
policeman, I can't get into English procedurals because I see the cracks. Stephen
King’s my horror guru. I like Larry McMurtry and Chris Offutt who write very good
character stuff. I am a late comer to Michael Connelly since someone compared my
book to Harry Bosch and Wambaugh’s The Choirboys. And Lee Child since I met him
and he promised to read "Midnight." Currently I’m reading Lee's, Killing Floor, and the
King's, Cell.
Chris
What got you writing in the first place and what gives you more pleasure, finishing the
book OR seeing it on the shelf for the first time?
Colin
I have loved writing since being at school. My English teacher used to encourage
my fiction. He was also my Religious teacher so, realising I wasn't going to be too
Godly, let me write in that lesson too. I left school and had to work for a living, being
a working class Yorkshireman and all that. Got back into writing in a James Bond short
story competition. Slaved over that before the magazine had to shelve it for copyright
reasons, but I was hooked. I wrote a few short stories for practice and then a novel,
convinced I'd be a millionaire this time next year. I’m still not. Reality bites. Ten novels
later, though, I am finally making headway; four published. I get a real buzz when
picking them up after a while and realise I wrote something pretty good. The
bookshelf? That's good too because it means people have a chance to enjoy what I’ve
written … I hope.
Chris
How much of Mick is there in Colin Campbell and vice versa?
Colin
Probably quite a bit of me in Mick. But Mick is a real person. I “stole” his name when I
was working with him. A complete gentleman who never falls out with anyone. So
there's a lot of him in there too. The police elements are all based on real jobs I dealt
with or knew about. Happy or sad it's all there. The gallows humour just helps you
through the shift. And the cameraderie. There doesn't seem to be anyone writing about
the front line copper in uniform. Not detective superintendants chasing serial killers but
the real nitty-gritty, in the trenches stuff. Not since Joseph Wambaugh's The Choirboys
in America. I like to think my crime books, so far, are a tribute to the boys in blue.
Chris
What do you do to relax?
Colin
I love films and have a home cinema in the attic; curtains, the lot. And I play
tennis. Yorkshire league. Local tournaments.
I play for West Yorkshire Police
nationally, and in the World/Police Fire Games around the world, in my age group.
Chris
How do you feel about HMV (Waterstones) being given permission to bid for Ottakars
with regards to new authors wishing to break into the market?
Colin
Ottakars are great for helping writers with events. Waterstones used to be the same,
with local managers allowed to organise events. Now you have to go through head
office. which makes it more difficult. Borders are very good too. But if Waterstones
take over Ottakars there will be less opportunity to cover the field except with
independent booksellers. Mid list authors like myself will find it hard to get books
stocked nationally without a big publisher.
Chris
What’s next for Colin Campbell? Are you due to appear at any Festivals this year?
Colin
I’ve just finished the first draft of another crime book, Blue Knight, White Cross, and
I’m halfway through another children's book and touching base with the TV script once
that progresses to actors. I will be visiting The Harrogate Crime Festival, but not on a
panel. I've been overloaded with events recently – Bristol LCC, Dublin CWA, and
London Diamond Dagger lunch, so I need to concentrate on writing now. But I may do
LCC Seattle next Feb, and Bouchercon, Alaska, in 2007.
Colin’s next book, The Ballad Of The One Legged Man, is published by Pen Press in
July, 2006. For more information, go to: www.campbellfiction.com. Read Chris’s review
of Through The Ruins of Midnight on page 95
THROUGH THE RUINS OF MIDNIGHT
BY COLIN CAMPBELL
Review by Chris High
Through The Ruins Of Midnight may very well have created a new sub-genre –
True-Fiction Crime – as it relates individual tales that bypasses serial killers, bank heists
and kidnappings, but crimes those that nonetheless devastate peoples lives on a daily
basis; the domestics, the suicide attempts and the tragedy of loss. Colin Campbell’s
second novel – but debut in the world of crime – is like a breath of fresh air. Having
been a serving police officer, the author draws characters and situations so well it
makes The Bill look even more pedestrian than it actually is.
Mick Habergham – Ham for short, because his colleagues think his surname
sounds like “Hamburger” – likes working the nightshift. The world is generally asleep
and police work is easier, especially on Sundays. Well, on any other Sunday than this
one, apparently. As he contemplates the future of his marriage and of his impending
retirement, Mick also confronts so many dilemmas on this patrol it is possible to believe
that the night will never end.
The pace is relentless and the scenarios are so credible it is almost possible to see
the events take place. Ham is such a likeable character that a reader might actually
enjoy being pulled up by him so that they could pass the time of day. That Campbell has
drawn from experience is obvious, but he has done so with such clarity and precision it
never enters the realms of being a lecture on morality.
This is an excellent book that both informs and entertains, but never preaches and
should be read by anybody with an interest in the pressures faced by the modern day
copper.
GONE
BY LISA GARDNER
Review by Chris High
When someone you love vanishes without a trace, how far would you go to get
them back? For ex-FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, it's the beginning of his worst nightmare:
a car abandoned on a desolate stretch of Oregon highway, engine running, purse on
the driver's seat and his estranged wife, Rainie Conner, gone, leaving no clue to her
fate. Did one of the ghosts from her troubled past finally catch up with Rainie? Or could
her disappearance be the result of one of the cases they'd been working - a particularly
vicious double homicide? Or is there a possible connection with the abuse of a deeply
disturbed child Rainie took too close to heart? Together with his daughter, FBI agent
Kimberly, Pierce is battling the local authorities, racing against time and frantically
searching for answers to all the questions he's been afraid to ask.
This ninth novel from Lisa Gardner is, quite simply, a barnstormer.
The powerful prose strike home from every angle to leave the reader breathless
and dying to know what comes next to make the unrelenting tension palpable, whereas
the characters are so intensely and credibly drawn it puts those who have started right
in alongside them from the off.
The troubled pasts of all those concerned mixes with their turbulent present to
concoct a heady mixture that is – to say the least – addictive and defies anybody to put
the novel down before completing it to make Gone, without doubt, a “Must Read” crime
novel of the year.
THE LINCOLN LAWYER
BY MICHAEL CONNELLY
Review by Chris High
A chance meeting at a baseball game and a need to fulfill a desire to write a legal
thriller prompted Michael Connelly to write The Lincoln Lawyer and to produce one of
his finest pieces of work to date.
They're called Lincoln Lawyers: the bottom of the legal food chain, the criminal
defence attorneys who operate out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car, taking whatever
cases the system throws in their path. Mickey Haller has been in the business a long
time, and he knows just how to work it. When a Beverly Hills rich boy is arrested for
brutally beating a woman, Haller has his first high-paying client in years. The evidence
mounts on the defence's side, and Haller might even be in the rare position of defending
a client who is actually innocent. But when his case starts to fall apart and neither the
suspect nor the victim are quite who they seem, Haller quickly discovers that when you
swim with the sharks, it's easy to wind up as prey.
Everything about this novel works. The dialogue whips the story onwards in a
whirl of anticipation. The characters are real; slimy, loveable, dangerous and naive in
equal measure according to their roles to be closely acquainted to anybody, while the
settings are so vividly drawn that to anybody unfamiliar with Los Angeles, the court
buildings, roads and bars in which The Lincoln Lawyer is set leap from the page to
leave the reader with an astonishing and bewildering sense of deja vu.
Where Grisham plods Connelly fairly sprints, aided no doubt by his time served
as a legal reporter for the LA Times and by the doubtless countless hours spent in
courtrooms, researching for this book alone
That Harry Bosch is an exquisite creation of Crime fiction is unquestionable. Look
at the awards the cop has won for the author. That Mickey Haller – who need not
contend with the day-to-day drudgery of police work and all that it entails to meet his
ends – is a masterpiece of lightening-quick fiction is undeniable.
A novel to be read in a flurry of anticipation, The Lincoln Lawyer is surely only a
first outing for the unconventional lawyer who works from the back of his car and a
freeway-fast return of Michael Connelly: The Legal Thriller Writer should be demanded
from on high, as loudly as humanly possible.
Chris
High’s
interview
with
Michael
Connelly
can
be
read
at:
http://www.twbooks.co.uk/crimescene/MichaelConnellyTheLincolnLawyerInterview.htm
www.michaelconnelly.com
www.orionbooks.co.uk
About the Reviewer:
Formerly a Chef, publican, shop manager, supermarket shelf-filler, library employee and
deliverer of lambs, Chris High now dedicates most of his time to writing and journalism.
He has successfully collaborated with singer Chris de Burgh on a collection of song
based short stories available from his Website, www.chrishigh.com, and is currently in
the process of completing his first Crime novel. Chris lives on Merseyside, England, with
his cat Tigger and his dog, Duke.
RHAPSODY IN BLOOD
BY JOHN MORGAN WILSON
Review by Sandra Ruttan
Rhapsody in Blood, by Edgar Award-winning and Lambda Award-winning
author John Morgan Wilson, begins with protagonist Benjamin Justice being persuaded
to spend a few restful days in a remote town with his friend, Alexandra Templeton.
Alexandra is working on an article related to a movie being shot in the town, and
Benjamin has just finished his autobiography, so it isn’t hard to convince him he could
use some time off to relax.
The film connects to a mystery stemming back 50 years that involves the
unsolved murder of famous actress Rebecca Fox, followed 25 years later by the suicide
of Fox’s daughter in the same room where her mother died in the Haunted Springs
Hotel. Alex’s interest from the beginning is in the lynching of a black man accused of
the original murder. Recent DNA tests had cast doubt on the assertion that this man,
Ed Jones, was guilty of the crime because it wasn’t his semen found on the victim’s
underwear.
It isn’t long before Ben and Alex realize that the movie is off schedule, under
budget constraints and the tension escalates when a known gossip reporter arrives.
Rumours that she is there to expose someone in a scandalous article begin to swirl.
When she’s murdered – in the same room where the other murder and suicide occurred
- practically everyone in the cast has a viable motive. In Hollywood circles, where
perception is everything and image is paramount to success, there aren’t many without
a secret they might kill to hide.
This is a story that moves at a brisk pace. There are layers to the mysterious
intrigue, and they are intertwined effectively to keep the reader guessing, but never
quite getting all of the answers. Even my strongest suspicions were half wrong.
And the cast of characters was colourful and entertaining. From the jokester
midget to the troubled young girl spying on everyone, each person relevant to the story
was intriguing and realistic. With deft strokes, Wilson gives all his secondary characters
a life and energy of their own, with dialogue at times that made me laugh for its
believability.
There are strong social issues underlying the story of Rhapsody in Blood and
they add to the present drama. When questions of sexual orientation or background
can jeopardize the image one has built a career off of, it raises hard questions about the
taboos that still linger in our society. As Alex says in the epilogue, “Slavery, lunching,
intolerance, ignorance, hatred, retribution, murder. They’re all part of a chain that’s still
unbroken, that maintains its own violent momentum.”
It was easy for me to see why John Morgan Wilson has been honoured with so
many awards in his career.
Rhapsody in Blood flowed naturally, believably, and
although social issues were important to the story, I did not have the feeling that the
author was merely using the book as a soap box to air his personal views. Instead, I
believed I was seeing honest reflections from one of the most believable characters out
there and that this was Benjamin Justice’s world.
And that’s a world I’d like to spend more time in.
THE FOREST OF SOULS
BY CARLA BANKS
Review by Sandra Ruttan
Sometimes, a person thinks their greatest fears are locked in the secrets of the
past, until someone finds a key and they realize their greatest fear isn’t what happened
years ago, but what might happen if someone learns the truth now.
The Forest of Souls begins with the murder of Helen Kovacs, a woman
snooping through documents in a private library, documents connected to WWII.
Helen’s best friend, Faith Lange, whose grandfather survived the war and came to
Britain afterwards, was also Helen’s supervisor. When she realizes some of Helen’s
work research is missing, she suspects there’s more to Helen’s murder than the police
suspect.
At the same time, Faith is concerned about her grandfather. Journalist Jake
Denbigh has been visiting Marek Lange, asking questions, and her grandfather’s
behaviour has become erratic. Is he concealing some secret from his past that he
doesn’t want his granddaughter to discover?
A secret he might even kill to protect? Or does someone else, like Helen’s
estranged husband, have a more personal motive for murder?
The Forest of Souls is a complex book. It has the cornerstones of crime fiction
– a murder, people invested in finding the truth, multiple suspects with valid motives –
but finding the killer really is a subplot. This book is more about the atrocities of the
past than it is about the crimes of the present.
This book is also about relationships. Without giving spoilers, I will say that it
made me think a lot about how our own experiences can become excuses for our
shortcomings – as parents, spouses, friends. I don’t think it’s reaching to say that this
book shows how deep loyalty, misplaced, can have devastating consequences.
Although The Forest of Souls is rooted in a current setting, even much of what
is happening to the central characters is relayed in terms of the past. Conversations
and information are often recalled in memory, rather than conveyed in the context of a
present conversation.
Because the story included point-of-view perspectives from
people living during the war as well, there was definitely a sense of moving back and
forward through time.
Reading The Forest of Souls, it’s clear that the author (Carla Banks is a
pseudonym for Danuta Reah) has vividly imaged each scene. The amount of detail in
the description is incredible, and she can truly write to the senses. It wasn’t hard for
parts of the book to conjure vivid images in my mind because the setting was so clearly
established. I was also particularly drawn to the character of Jake Denbigh.
This story is more about uncovering the truth about what people did during the
war, and how revealing those facts might affect those they love today. No matter how
vivid your imagination and what you suspect may be the secrets these war survivors are
trying to hide, the author deftly weaves in twists that will surprise you.
I have to say that everything I feel works for this book could work against it for
some reasons. This is not a light read. You will not fly through it in a few hours, even if
you – like me – find it hard to put down. The amount of description is incredible, but
some readers might find it overwhelming. Moving back and forth through time allows
you to see all the aspects of the story and get a greater sense of resolution about what
happened in the war, though I’m aware some readers might find that distracting. While
the real mysteries are in secrets from the past, this isn’t really a whodunit.
But this is an incredible story of things that happened in WWII, and it takes us
further east than many wartime accounts go. The terrain was new and fresh for me,
and as someone with a love of history and a lot of interest in WWII, I found it
fascinating.
And in this era of trials for more recent war crimes, when atrocities still happen
and people are slaughtered for nothing more than their ethnicity, one can’t help but read
this book and wonder when we’ll begin to learn from the past instead of covering it up
and letting it repeat itself again.
A FIELD OF DARKNESS
BY CORNELIA READ
Review by Sandra Ruttan
A Field of Darkness has many aspects that make it a compelling read. The use
of language is refreshing. The mystery is an intriguing one, worthy of investigation, and
the process of discovery is impeded by obstacles, ensuring the answers do not come
easily to an inexperienced journalist.
Author Cornelia Read has a way of wording things that is sharp and distinctive.
With a few deft phrases she can paint a clear picture of the scene, the person, the
politics at play. Beyond the cold case that protagonist Madeline Dare has been drawn
into – a case that’s solution may lead back to her family – there is the journey Madeline
is on, to reconcile her present circumstances with her disjointed past. She is so aptly
introduced in the first lines of chapter 1.
“There are people who can be happy
anywhere. I am not one of them.” Madeline Dare is a complex character that doesn’t
have the usual crime protagonist’s foibles, but her struggles resonate with authenticity
and it is easy to relate to this well-bred young woman finding herself on the edge of
nowhere, struggling to keep the wanderlust spirit at bay as she wrestles with her
discontentment during her husband’s long absences.
I was on the third page of A Field of Darkness when I had a writer-moment.
After grabbing a pen and a notebook to jot down all the verbs and phrases that are
unique to Cornelia’s style, I resumed reading. It’s a writer-thing that, no matter whose
book I’m reading, I always think about doing. Sometimes, I actually manage to take
notes but if the book is incredible, I have to read it again – I just can’t put it down even
for a second.
By page four the pen and paper were forgotten as I was swept into Madeline
Dare’s journey and I’m not complaining.
I didn’t need an excuse to re-read this
exceptional debut.
Sandra Ruttan’s interviews with Cornelia Read can be found in our Spring 2006
Issue and part two is on page 104 of this issue.
About the Reviewer:
Sandra Ruttan has just signed a deal for the release of her first novel, Suspicious
Circumstances, in November 2006. A regular contributor to Spinetingler Magazine, her
work can also be found in the May/June and July/August issues of Crimespree
Magazine www.crimespreemag.com. For more information about Sandra visit her
website at www.sandraruttan.com or her blog, http://sandrablabber.blogspot.com/
Author Interview:
IN CONVERSATION WITH CORNELIA READ:
Blubber, Barf Buckets, Breast Size and… The National Film Board of
Canada?
By Sandra Ruttan
I got pulled over by a cop for taking a left turn at a light where you're not supposed to,
between 4 and 6 p.m. (I'd jogged a block out of my usual route to mail some stuff, and
didn't see the sign).
I of course had left my license in my top bureau drawer, BUT had a copy of the book on
the passenger seat, so he believed it was me once I showed him my name on the front
and my picture on the back, and agreed to radio in to have them look up my license
number. Still gave me the damn ticket, but I told him it had been such a good day that I
didn't mind so much. Total lie, but what the hell.
Maybe he'll buy a copy. Least he could do, considering…
When Cornelia told this story recently on her blog, I knew chatting with her about the
ups and downs of getting to this point in her career was going to be a lot of fun.
And I couldn’t help teasing her about it, just a little.
Sandra
A FIELD OF DARKNESS is out now, you’re touring… How does it feel?
Cornelia
None of it feels quite real to me.
Sandra
You have your book out, and it doesn’t feel real?
Cornelia
No. Not at all. Only the harsh stuff. That’s real. The good stuff is obviously totally
pretend.
Sandra
Harsh stuff, like getting pulled over by a cop?
Cornelia
He was really nice at the end, but he was so cop-like. So officious.
Sandra
And the book signings?
Cornelia
I got to go to Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego on Saturday and do a signing and it was
the bookstore’s 13th anniversary party. I walked in and said I was so proud I’d done
three signings so far “and I haven’t thrown up once.” Elizabeth Baldwin, the lady who
was my keeper for the day, she told me it was no problem, they were going to be
recording me, and that if I puked they could edit that out.
And then she said that if I need it, they have their special author’s buckets, and at the
end they’d ask me to sign it and then they’d hang it up on the wall with the other
buckets.
Sandra
It must be pretty nerve-wracking to go out and do these signings.
Cornelia
The recording part freaked me out a little because they were saying it might be included
in some radio show, so I was thinking I’d better not swear or make too many stoner
jokes.
Sandra
Have you been to Bouchercon before?
Cornelia
I went to Chicago and Toronto and they were both great.
It’s very cool. People are so nice. In Chicago I had a couple people come up to me and
say they’d heard nice things about me and I was thinking, “You have?”
It still feels like the first day of high school. You walk in and there’s the wall of people.
Toronto was my first one, and the tremendously gracious Elaine Flinn took me under
her wing. First thing when I came in, Elaine was holding my hand and I was thinking I
wouldn’t know anybody and there were so many people.
I saw Lee (Child) across the crowd and he had all these people around him--he’s so tall
you can see him. I thought he wouldn’t remember who I was and he looked busy, so I
thought I’d wait until he had a free moment to thank him for offering to blurb A FIELD
OF DARKNESS, and he saw me and called me over and introduced me to everybody.
He was so kind.
Sandra
In this particular genre, it seems people are really supportive.
Cornelia
Absolutely. It’s astonishing. It’s the coolest thing. I feel really lucky. I didn’t go into
this genre because of that, I went into it because I love the books, but to have it turn out
to be filled with cool people who are so gracious. On top of the splendor of reading the
stuff, the people are so great.
Sandra
How have the interviews been?
Cornelia
I’m so lucky that I did the first one with you. It was fun and it was relaxed. Ones I’ve
done since, I went into it feeling like, “This will be all right,” since I had yours under my
belt. That was just fantastic good luck.
Sandra
It’s probably because I’m so unprofessional.
Cornelia
Well so am I! I don’t think you’re unprofessional at all, but I have no idea what I’m
doing.
Sandra
When you’re trained in journalism, you’re trained to go for the scoop. To ask the tough
question, to get that raw reaction. I like doing this because I’m profiling somebody.
This is not “make them look stupid hour” or me trying to expose their sins. God, I’m
probably more nervous than the authors are half the time!
Cornelia
That gives it a really reassuring feel for people, though. You care about it, you don’t
sound nervous. Your being concerned about it shows through and I think that puts
other people at ease.
I did two interviews last week that cracked me up. Monday morning I did one with a guy
that I worked with at The Syracuse New Times, Walt Shepperd.
(http://newtimes.rway.com/2006/052406/scuffle.shtml) He’s the sweetest man, but his
first question was, “As a resident of Syracuse I have to ask you what the hell happened
to you up here? Why all this Syracuse bashing?”
I just felt terrible. I was saying, “You have to exaggerate the tension for purposes of
fiction.…” I felt guilty all day afterwards, because I didn’t want him to think that I hated
Syracuse.
The next day I did an interview with Rege Behe at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
(http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/s_454509.html, if you want to link)
and the first thing he said was, “I spent a day in Syracuse once, and you totally nailed
it.”
Sandra
It’s funny that you mention that because on page 100, you refer to dripping snot on
someone’s arm as probably some kind of Eskimo foreplay. You have a number of little
jibes at Canada throughout the book and I wonder how you think Canadians will react to
it, or if you’ve had any reaction to that.
Cornelia
I haven’t, although this thing about driving in a pack of home bound Canadians if you
want to go fast… Someone said that was dead on. Canada is so cool, who can blame
homebound Canadians for driving fast? I think it’s a great country and it was really
interesting to me to go to Toronto and see what a lively city that is.
There was a film board of Canada thing on the Inuit, the Netsilik people. It was a series
of films about making sleigh runners out of frozen tundra, and going seal hunting, and
building igloos. It was just the coolest thing. I think a lot of schools down here had it as
their sixth grade social studies curriculum, and it turned out that my husband in
Syracuse had watched the same films in sixth grade. He’s a year older than me and he
was surprised I’d seen it. He said, “My favorite line was, ‘Every woman has an ulu.’”
He ‘s the only person I’ve met who knew about the ladies chopping the blubber off and
taking a bite and then chopping the end off with the ulu and then passing it down the
line. Totally cool.
Sandra
When we flew to Tuktoyuktuk, which is right on the Arctic Ocean, we happened to be
there the day they got their first beluga catch of the season. It’s a whole different world.
You can’t be judgmental about that because this is survival for these people. We got to
watch them carve up the beluga and then smoke it to preserve it.
Cornelia
I can’t believe you watched that. That’s so cool.
Sandra
I can’t believe you watched the Film Board of Canada. A lot of Canadians don’t.
It’s interesting, because in North America, more so than some other places, we tend to
overlook our own history. It seems boring by comparison to actually going to Rome and
seeing the Coliseum. We tend to forget the history that ties into places. The shipping
industry was a huge industry. You’re probably going to say it still is, but it was different
then.
Cornelia
Not the same way. I agree, shipping was amazing, back in the day.
Upstate New York, the economy has been so hard up there since the 70s and then you
cross the border and its thriving and positive. A very interesting contrast to me.
With Syracuse and all the cities along the Erie Canal… The Erie Canal is why New York
City is a big deal. Before it was built, New York was a smaller city than Boston and
Philadelphia. It wasn’t a cultural center or an economic center. Then with the canal, the
raw natural wealth of the Midwest was tapped for the first time, other than via the
Mississippi, because the canal connected with the Hudson River, so New York became
such a huge port.
My thing of having 15 pages on the Erie Canal in the first draft… even the
architecture… was because you can feel the pride of that era. It was the time of the
Greek Revival in architecture, so almost all of the cities along the Erie Canal going eastwest have Greco-Roman names, because they thought they were going to be the new
Rome, the new Athens—Syracuse, Rome, Troy, Utica….
Buffalo was one of the first places in North American to have electric light throughout
the city… Presidents would visit there, there were operas. Then with the energy crisis
in the ‘70s, so many of the industries fled south. I get a little obsessive about it, that
history, so feel free to edit this with a big machete.
It was such a different time. Even to think of how people traveled in those days, when it
took weeks to get to Europe and it was celebrated in the design of the ships
themselves. People would savor crossing the distance. Compare that to being in an
Airbus… It’s not the same.
Sandra
Your enthusiasm for the history… You wouldn’t want to live in New York?
Cornelia
Having grown up mostly in California, my internal weather meter is set for having a little
more sun. I would get so depressed in the northeast.
Sandra
Well, how does that factor in for your protagonist? She has a lot of similarities to you.
Do things like the weather really factor in to how Madeline felt about being in Syracuse?
Cornelia
Absolutely. For me, it colored my experience there and it certainly colors my memories.
I play it up more for her, but I think partly that’s why Madeline is such a snarky bitch.
I remember talking to my mom about it once and she said for women, where they live is
a huge part of whether or not they’re happy. For men, she thought it was much more
what they’re doing for work. They’re not as invested in geography. For women, it’s the
culture of a place… if you can meet people and get a network of friends going and feel
at home and feel as though you’re doing okay as a person there.
In Syracuse, it’s a different sense of humor. Tremendously kind people. Very solid,
very trustworthy, and a lot of really bright, interesting people up there as well, but it was
just a slightly different wavelength from mine.
Sandra
And traditionally, women are nesters.
Cornelia
Absolutely.
Sandra
Yet it’s funny, because you and I have this in common, and you certainly have this in
common with Madeline Dare – we’re never happy anywhere. So how do you deal with
a character who’s probably never going to be happy?
Cornelia
I don’t know yet. My main thing is that I hope Madeline doesn’t come off as whiney.
That’s one reason I wanted to start the book off with those lines, ”There are people who
can be happy anywhere. I am not one of them.” To say that this is the truth for her, that
she’s not happy anywhere, but that she’s self-aware. And she understands that that’s
her and not the place.
I tried to show that with some characters, especially characters in Syracuse, in FIELD,
who were thoughtful, bright, funny and very warm people. Like Kenny the bartender or
Izzy Fleischman, the auctioneer. Not that it’s wonderland and everybody is great, but
that there was a great deal for her there as a character--as there was for me-- that was
a haven and tremendously nourishing. Madeline’s inability to find happiness in that
milieu is her own shortcoming.
That’s not to say she isn’t a snarky, whiny bitch much of the time, but I do know, and I
hope it was expressed with her, that she knows that’s her. And I think a lot of writers
are that way, that there’s a little feeling of “in but out”, fish out of water, that’s part of the
observer personality required.
Sandra
In order to really assess things and understand them, you step back from them. If she
had been a completely content person to be where she was, happy little homemaker,
everything was fine; she wouldn’t have been the same.
Cornelia
There’d be no book.
Sandra
And she wouldn’t have been the type of person to pursue the truth. Or she would have
gone straight to the police from the very beginning, handed it over and absolved herself
because she would have been the type of person who trusted in conventions.
Cornelia
Yeah, and also it’s the difference between saying you’re unhappy in a place and you
hate the place. Of all the places that I’ve lived, there were great things about each
location.
I think Madeline will be moving around in the series, and I’ll try to make this true for her
as well, but part of not being able to be happy is missing other places: the people, the
culture.
There are things that I still miss desperately about Honolulu and I haven’t lived there
since I was eight years old. But I loved hearing people talk the local Pidgin. And there’s
this really bizarre Chinese candy that’s all preserved dried fruit that’s flavored with
saccharine and salt and lemon juice, and there are these dried plums that look like
disgusting little bloodclots, called Li Hing Mui. You can get them in Chinatown
anywhere, but they don’t’\ taste the same as the Hawaiian brand, which is called Yick
Lung, which has got to be the most disgusting name for a candy. If anybody ever goes
to Hawaii, I ask them to buy me a big bag of Yick Lung Li Hing Mui.
And I loved going to school there. We didn’t have to wear shoes. If there was a field
trip they’d send a note home asking parents to please make sure their child wore shoes.
New York, little things that I miss… a soda called Manhattan Special. It’s really syrupy
espresso that’s carbonated. You can only get it around New York City, they don’t ship it
out. Sesame Noodles from Empire Szechwan Garden. When I spent a year in Dublin I
tried to make sesame noodles with peanut butter and spaghetti. The poor Irish people,
none of them wanted to eat it.
Sandra
That’s an interesting spin, because a lot of the series that are out there, the setting is
almost a character within the series. That’s certainly said of Ian Rankin’s Rebus series
and would be true of Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan series as well.
Cornelia
And Denise Mina. I’ve never been to Glasgow but I read FIELD OF BLOOD and felt like
I’d lived there. That’s one of those books… You said in your intro to the last interview
that you got out your book to write stuff down. I read Denise Mina and I wanted to
break out my notebook and literally copy the entire book.
Sandra
But you’re taking that and twisting the use of setting by having a character that has bits
of different places in her. Where does she really belong? She’s a person with no zip
code.
Cornelia
I think that’s true of a lot of people. We are such a mobile society. When I went to
Ireland that was the first time I’d been out of the country for any extended length of time
and there’s something about the feel of a society where people have been in the same
place for centuries. The Irish people I know in the US are the ones that left, the ones
who struck out, people who were willing to get into crappy, leaky boats and eat salt pork
for months to go strike out and find something different.
So many people have to move around for work and it makes us lonely as well. People
don’t have a base. But we find each other. You and I have talked about this a little,
how you find your tribe even online. How people are drawn together. How weird is that,
that in some senses the internet feels most like my hometown?
You find those like minds. This woman that I worked with at the boarding school that’s
the location the second book is based on, I asked her one day how we found each
other. I was so pleased that we were drawn together out of this group of people, but I
wondered how we knew that we would be the ones that would get along.
She told me a story about a university in England where all the first year students who
were going to study psychology, the first thing the faculty did was take them into this big
meeting room. They would tell them they weren’t allowed to speak, were told to take all
the time they wanted to complete this task but were told to group themselves with the
people they felt comfortable with. It would take a couple of hours but by the end of it,
when everyone felt happy with the little clump of students they were standing with, the
faculty would say, “Let’s all introduce ourselves” and all the kids of alcoholics would be
standing together. They could sense their mental tribes.
You seek people out. The internet, again, is like having a great conversation with a
stranger on an airplane. Sometimes you can open up in a way that you might not if you
were face to face at a cocktail party. It can be the foundation of tremendous intimacy in
a very cool way and I think people want that. It transcends geography and background.
I had a great conversation once with a very funny psychiatrist and I asked if when he
had clients who were writers if they tended to be depressed. He looked at me and said,
“Oh my God. My writers are all depressed. My musicians are depressed with ADD but
my painters, my painters are psychotic.”
I laughed, and he cracked up too. There’s something that touches outsiderness that
characterizes a lot of people who become writers, when they’re children, whether it’s
real or imagined, but they do take that step back as observers. And chroniclers. They’ll
look at the circumstances they find themselves in and somehow feel that it’s important
to remember it.
It’s a human impulse, not to tell stories, but to listen and share in the narrative.
When I was studying in Ireland, I spend the year studying under the faculty of religion at
Trinity College, Dublin and I remember this great guy, Professor Mays, who spoke in a
class on ancient Israel and he talked about the oral tradition feeding into the Bible.
Some places there are anachronisms in the rendition of specific events and if you’re
enough of a linguist you can see something was narrated in different eras and they
could separate out different threads and attribute them to different writers.
He said in the modern era we tend not to trust oral tradition as much as written because
we’re so dependent on written records for interpreting history and weighing documents.
Sandra
In Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death he talked about how the oral tradition
was not regarded as seriously by scholars as the written tradition because what was
uttered was not regarded with the same level of seriousness as what somebody took
the time to write because when they’d written it, they had to stand behind it with their
name. The internet has changed the way that we communicate with each other and the
way that we’re able to connect with each other. We’ve gone from oral traditions to
written traditions. Now we’re moving into these technological phases. Who knows what
the future holds in terms of how far the Internet can go and what’s next?
But in your book, you’ve chosen to go pre-Internet. What prompted that?
Cornelia
For some reason, Syracuse had a huge pull to me. The first meeting of my writing
group was in a Starbucks and I volunteered to write something for the next meeting. I
was driving home from Starbucks that night thinking, “What should I write about?” and I
thought, “Wow, Syracuse.” That’s when I was there. I moved there not long after
college. I spent about six months in Williamstown with my friend Candace and I met my
husband, Jim, at a party in New York City. That June I moved to Syracuse and was
there for three years, so my memories of it are 1986-1989.
It turned out to be a really happy accidental choice because no cell phones, no Internet.
Answering machines were new.
Sandra
There’s a lot in your book that couldn’t work the same way if there’d been Internet.
Cornelia
Exactly. When the character of Dean, Madeline’s husband, is on the railroad in Canada
she has no way to get in touch with him. There’s not even necessarily a radio in the rail
grinder that he could even get her with and they’re really out in the boonies on that
because they’re going across Canada on the railroad so there are times when they’re
75 miles from the nearest town, so she never knows when she’s going to hear from him.
That was a tremendous boon as a fictional device, for her not to be able to get in touch
with people.
If I get to continue doing the series and bring it closer to modern times, as it progresses
I’m going to have to get way trickier at plotting. It’s fascinating to me to look at mystery
writers setting thing in contemporary times and “Oh the heroine left her cell phone in the
car” or walks down into the dark basement in her high heels with a flashlight. You have
to make sure people are cut off from technology or set everything in the boonies of the
Rockies where there’s no cell phone service.
I don’t have a cell phone at the moment.
Sandra
Not to touch on anything controversial, but when I was reading through the book there’s
actually a fair bit of commentary on the Vietnam War that’s in the book. Did it concern
you at all to be discussing an unpopular war within the novel when people have varying
views on the current war?
Cornelia
We weren’t in this one when I started writing FIELD. I started it the week before 9/11.
The Vietnam War was such a seminal thing for me as a kid that it was really something
that I wanted to touch on because it still is on my mind, a lot. Politically, during that war,
it’s nothing to me like it is now.
We’ve talked a little bit about Barry Eisler’s blog. It’s so fascinating to see somebody
bringing up politics because it’s really scary to discuss politics now with people. The
divisiveness. I’m married to somebody who is a staunch Republican so sometimes I
feel that the only bipartisan dialogue in the country is happening in our kitchen. As
fraught with peril as that can be for our marital cohesiveness, I think it’s really good to
have that dialogue. It makes us really examine our own positions.
The walls are so high between the different perspectives now that there’s very little of
that happening. For me, especially, having worked as a fact checker, I want people to
verify sources and examine their beliefs. I think that doesn’t happen and people just
shut down, and the arguments are so vitriolic, so unbelievable. That’s a terrible thing,
so I commend Eisler for trying to start a political dialogue.
Sandra
The interesting thing to me is that you didn’t plan it this way but it’s almost like it was
meant to be, that by going back into recent history, the pre-internet era, also looking at
things like the Vietnam War, in some ways it’s a safe position from which you examine
general philosophies that perhaps can be applied to today. Maybe people feel more
comfortable with it.
Cornelia
I don’t know. I hope so. And this ties into my whole “at a loss for personal geographical
fit” thing. My political outlook is such a mixture, I don’t fit on either side. There are
things that I can think matter that are being said on both. I have whatever problems I
think with what the Bush camp is doing, but I think the Sierra Club is a little Maoist as
well and there’s an unwillingness to take reality into consideration on both sides. Also,
what is this thing with both sides? How can there only be two sides? In this country,
not having parliamentary government in the same way as you guys do, there are a lot of
voices that get lost. I also look at the present political situation in this country as being
an outgrowth of focus groups. Whatever gets said by the spokespeople is just because,
“we’ll pick up three points of backing if we say that we’ll adopt this plank in our platform”
and there doesn’t seem to be room anymore for an individual person to stand up and be
a leader and say, “Here’s the tough thing that we need to do” or “Here’s what we need
to stand up for.”
I still have things that I think are outgrowths of the Vietnam War that are really hard to
stomach. I talked about Iran Contra a little bit in the book, which was going on while I
was in Syracuse. My husband’s stance at the time was Ollie North had to follow orders,
but anybody going into the Marine Corps takes an oath to uphold the constitution. If you
don’t do that, if just following orders becomes an excuse, then you end up needing the
Nuremburg trials. There has to be individual conscience and individual responsibility.
Sandra
That’s one of the things that really anchors the book, for me, how much it brought back
to my mind what it was like in ’89, as opposed to what it’s like now. What people were
thinking about, what was important, what was going on right then in current world
events.
Cornelia
That’s, to me, why crime fiction is so good these days. I think people are taking on
deep, visceral issues within it, and I think that’s something that binds us as a community
of writers and readers. There’s a deep personal investment in justice and responsibility.
What is right? How do you navigate society and your own life? How can you be the
best person you can be? That’s tough to do. When you see injustice and non-ethical
behavior carried out to its furthest ramifications, you end up with violence, cruelty,
bloodshed and atrocity. That’s a really big deal to me.
I’ve heard Lee Child talk about that, when asked why he thinks his Jack Reacher series
has such a wide female audience. It seems surprising--that the series would be kind of
a Rambo thing, and would really appeal to guys--and Lee said he thinks women are
more deeply invested in justice, in fairness--we want to see justice done even if it’s
against the rules--and that Reacher fulfills that need for us.
Sandra
How else do you make sense of some of the craziness in society? Right now people
are being ostracized, alienated, the victims of race crimes just because of their last
name or the fact that they go to a mosque instead of going to a church or synagogue.
This has somehow become almost acceptable since 9/11. It’s become understandable,
in a way, but with some it’s almost expected. How do you make sense of what it’s like
for those people and what it’s like for law enforcement to deal with some of these new
issues?
Cornelia
It’s so cyclical. You see it over and over again, mostly in war time. To look back at
internment camps in this country, in World War II… here’s another Canadian tidbit … in
sixth grade we had our first big paper to write, and the whole thing was focused on
Canada. We had to pick five topics and write five pages on each topic--anything about
Canada.
I was wandering through the library in my middle school and there were these army
green boxes of pamphlets that had been published by the National Geographic in 1943
and each box was about a different country. There were about 20 of them up on this
high shelf.
One of the boxes was about Canada so I took it down, and one of these leaflets – they
were each about 30 pages long on really bad paper. I guess it was when paper was
being rationed-- One of the pamphlets was war time in Canada. Being in California I’d
certainly heard about internment of Japanese people and in this Canadian thing was an
internment camp for Germans. It was probably prisoners of war. There was a
photograph of people in a cabbage field and it said, “Germans forced to pick their own
kraut.”
Just to think about what fear can make us do. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” story –
the whole idea that you can find something to vilify, as a scapegoat, to expiate your own
terror…
We all like to believe that we are better people than that, and we would be immune to it.
We’re not. Any of us.
A quote that I’ve talked about a lot in interviews is something that I read years ago from
Alexander Solhenitzyn’s THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO:
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously
committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us
and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every
human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
One of my daughter Lila’s teachers is a Turkish-American woman who is a devout
Muslim. She has a beautiful tattoo of the crescent and star on the back of her hand.
The week after 9/11, I said, “What is it like for you to be a Muslim, right now?”
She said for her to see “on the news at night that old women are being forced to stand
against the wall in American airports so they can be searched is just so sad for me, but
what you have to understand is that somebody like Bin Laden hates me more than he
hates you. That man cannot stand the idea that there are liberal Muslims in the world
who want to coexist, and who have appreciation for other cultures as much as their
own.”
Have you ever read HELTER SKELTER? It’s about the Manson family. Charles
Manson’s was trying to instigate race war, because he thought that the only way the
world could be saved was basically if all the black people were killed. According to the
author of that book, Vincent Bugliosi, Manson was hoping that these murders would be
blamed on black people so that it would precipitate race war.
To me, the heart of the purest form of evil is about division. About not being able to see
community.
Sandra
The whole idea of isolating people gives a false sense of security.
Cornelia
Absolutely.
Sandra
You’ve been shattering all the old jokes that Americans know nothing about Canada.
Cornelia
I don’t know as much as I should.
Sandra
Do I know as much about American history as I should? You know an awful lot, but I
think you’ll find this interesting. I grew up in Gravenhurst, Ontario, and I lived in the
same house for twenty years, other than when I was overseas. Something I never
knew until I went to college was that one of the Japanese internment camps was in
Gravenhurst.
When I was told about this, I knew exactly where it was, but do you think the local
people talk about that, remember that? This is why these things happen again and
again and history repeats itself. We let ourselves forget about our sins in the past, we
bury that and hide it away and we’ll turn around and do the exact same thing next time.
Cornelia
That’s the lesson of the Holocaust. Sophistication and mechanization and thinking of
ourselves as modern is no protection against giving in to our most base and horrifying
instincts. What we can allow to happen out of fear is just really scary to me.
Again, I think that feeling of being that I was “other” as a child made me very sensitive to
that, and worried about it, I always was super-quick to be leery of group-think, which is
something I get into in the second book a lot. Teaching at a school that was sort of a
cult, where people wanted to say, “If I tell you it’s black, even if you see it as white, you
have to go along with it.” To see people go along with things like that for comfort is
appalling.
My husband Jim often talks about one of The Night of the Living Dead movies. The
zombies all go to a mall and somebody says, “Why are they all coming to the mall?” and
the other person says, “They come to belong.” There’s an awful lot of coming to bad
things to belong, whether it’s politics or religion or the Klan… anything that’s built on
exclusion is terrifying.
Sandra
This goes throughout the first book. When I think about Madeline and how she deals
with her family. There’s that sense of her being part of this extended family, she has
certain family obligations, she knows these people and yet she’s not one of them. And
without giving anything away, for her, she was making choices all the way through and
the choices were between the truth and loyalty.
Cornelia
That was sort of the heart of the story to me because it’s so much a part of my life. I’ve
had access to tremendous privilege if not actually any money as a result of that
background. I got a scholarship to go to boarding school and I was the only nonminority kid in the whole school who had a full scholarship. It was because I was an
alumnae daughter, and we didn’t have enough money for me to go. They invented an
alumnae daughter scholarship that year for me. Without having that personal
connection, would that have happened? No way.
And that place saved my life. It was such a haven. If I hadn’t gotten out of Carmel, I
don’t know what would have happened to me. As beautiful and luxurious as it can be in
many ways, it was a tough place to be, wearing Goodwill clothes to school. We were so
broke when I was a kid that we had to bring home our aluminum foil in our lunchboxes
so Mom could use it again, and meanwhile my dad was living in his car. Not exactly the
king of child support payments, that guy.
Then I would go back east to Buffalo, where my cousins had their own polo field.
The scene that happens between Madeline and Kenny in the book, when Kenny says to
her she just wants to get her cousin off because he’s “her people” and “you don’t care
about anybody else” and she says that’s not home, that’s not my people, “I was hoping
my people was you, Kenny.”
Sandra
You’ve had huge transitions in the past few years, but particularly this past month
you’ve had a lot going on. How are you coping?
Cornelia
It’s scary. It’s so wonderful and yet there’s an undercurrent of fear about it, for me. I
was talking to a great friend from college and I said, “What is wrong with me? I should
just be so happy, there’s nothing bad right now that’s happening to me. It’s my wildest
dreams coming true. And I’m freaking out, I occasionally wake up in the middle of the
night, worrying about it.”
She told me I had to realize I was “expanding my capacity for joy,” and that that can be
a really difficult and scary thing to do. And that’s very true.
Sandra
You’ve had a lot of positive reviews, you’ve had a lot of great blurbs, great
endorsements by people who are well respected in the crime writing community. How
does that affect you in terms of pressure?
Cornelia
A lot. I’m very nervous that the second book won’t live up to the first one, and that the
first one was a fluke. It can be paralyzing. A lot of it depends on how much sleep I’ve
gotten. I feel a tremendous pressure to perform, and to be able to pay that kindness
back and forward to people.
I have been so blessed with support, --beyond my most outrageous fantasies. I want to
be worthy of that. Even going to Bouchercon in Chicago last year, to have a few people
come up to me and say, “We’ve heard of you,” and to be recognized. My God, that’s so
wonderful.
I don’t want to “not recognize” anybody else. It’s a terror for me to think that I would
ever make somebody feel unappreciated, who has done something kind for me.
Sandra
Well, even just the other day you said in an email to me that you were writing thank-you
cards to people, and I can’t remember the last time I even went to a wedding or gave a
baby gift and got a thank-you card. It’s such a lost art, and yet you’re taking the time to
write thank-you cards to people that are helping you with your career.
Cornelia
That matters to me. People go out of their way to be kind, and I want them to know how
much it means to me.
Sandra
I know how conscientious you are about wanting to pay it forward and be supportive of
people because you’ve given me a lot of encouragement but you’re more pressed for
time now than ever. It’s got to be hard, because you really want to do all of these things
– blurb books, write back to everybody – and yet you’re struggling with the deadline to
book #2 and you’ve got to go out and do all these signings and you’re on the phone with
Canada and you’re putting me on hold while somebody else is phoning up wanting to
interview you for a magazine. You’re in demand. How are you finding the scheduling?
Cornelia
Hard. Very hard. And I’m not getting everything done that I should get done. I’m not
getting as much writing done as I should. I have about five Q&A interviews that people
have asked me to do for different blogs that I haven’t done and I don’t want to say no. I
mean, what an honor to be asked. And from a business sense, of course I want to do
an interview. I hope that it’s helpful and it might turn somebody on to the book and be a
good career thing. If I’m lucky enough that the interest continues, I’m going to have to
learn how to say no. It’s really hard for me, but I think it’s worse to say yes and commit
yourself to something that you can’t physically do and let people down that way.
Sandra
It must be very surreal, that people care what you’re doing, what you think.
Cornelia
How is it for you? You’re getting great feedback. Does it feel surreal for you or can you
take it in?
Sandra
I always think that it must be a practical joke. It’s very weird.
Cornelia
I totally expect the same thing to happen to you. Your good feedback is going to build
and build.
Sandra
I don’t know about that. You and I have had different journeys getting to where we are
and we’re not even in the same place and I think for me now that it’s almost too soon.
I’m afraid of letting people down.
It’s funny because the last time we talked, I remember you saying to me, “Wow, the
ezine and the short stories. You’re doing all this other stuff.” The problem for me is that
I’m hiding behind all of that because it keeps me from stopping long enough to think. If I
ever stop running for too long right now, I’ll scare myself senseless. I won’t know how
to cope with it.
Cornelia
Exactly.
Sandra
The people I’ve been able to connect with online have been saving me from myself or
my ignorance. To be able to get advice is incredible. And one of the things that I
appreciate is that people are willing to share from their experience in the hopes that it
will benefit somebody else.
That’s one of the great things about being able to do these interviews, because I always
get to ask what authors recommend to people who are starting out in the business. So
Cornelia, what suggestions do you have right now for people that are trying to get a
book deal?
Cornelia
Stick with it. Keep writing, keep polishing. Don’t be discouraged. There’s not a secret
handshake. It really is about the work. It’s not about who you know. If you can invest
yourself in the writing and do the very best job that you can, the support will be there. I
get discouraged when I see people giving up and deciding publishing wants to keep out
outsiders. I don’t think that that’s the case. There’s always going to be a hand into the
lifeboat if you try as hard as you can to do your best work and to be kind. That’s how
it’s happened for me.
And to have the courage to take the risk to do the queries. They can’t eat you. If
somebody says no, it’s not the end of the world.
I read an interesting piece of advice on an agent’s website. They said if anybody can
talk you out of writing, let them. You have to want it so badly that the writing itself has to
be what matters. That has to be the drive. We all have our moments when we think
“Wouldn’t it be great if I got on Oprah” but the actual rewards are finishing a good page.
That’s what’s real. Being open to critique. Sharing your work. Putting it out there and
having the courage to try and to know it’s okay to fall on your ass.
I struggle with that every day, the fear. What if the next book isn’t as good or if I say
something wrong in a comment on this blog or what if I sound pompous in an interview
or what if I make a fool of myself. You can’t let that fear stop you. You will make a fool
of yourself at some point but it’s okay.
Sandra
Well, you and I have also talked about this as well, being very open with our pasts. It’s
like you’ve diffused a weapon. Nobody can hold it against you. It is the same thing,
when you put yourself out there publicly, you have to be real. Sooner or later people
are going to find out who you really are. Why not make it sooner? If somebody is going
to judge me because I’m a hot-headed Canadian, they may as well just get over it now.
You’re not going to please everybody all the time, but it’s hard because I believe it’s
within your personality, you really want everybody to like what you’re doing and if you
think that people aren’t satisfied with what you’ve done, you’ve let them down.
Cornelia
Yes. That’s my first response. Not, “this book wasn’t their cup of tea” but “I’m an
asshole who disappointed them.”
I’m getting my first Amazon reviews coming in. One woman said for the first 50 pages,
Madeline was so whiny and there was no story and “it was just her opinions on
everything and I couldn’t stand it and I almost dropped the book.” She said the second
half made up for it, though, and she was glad she stuck with it.
But for me, because there’s a lot of autobiographical stuff, Madeline is very similar to
me and a lot of the smaller details of things she experiences are culled from my own, so
if somebody hates it or thinks Madeline’s an idiot, that’s a lot of me they’re hating. I
read my sister the review from Library Journal and she said, “Isn’t this weird? Because
it’s kind of like they’re critiquing our life.”
Sandra
I think you have a problem right from the outset of identifying too closely with your
protagonist.
Cornelia
Oh, probably.
Sandra
Whereas other people over time have eventually grown into being like their protagonist.
Perhaps you’re going to have that gulf widen over time.
Cornelia
For it to work as a book, I had to make Madeline less like me, which was a really
interesting process, too, because when, you know, you were talking earlier about doing
interviews as a journalist and asking the tough questions,? I could never do that, which
is why I was writing about bath soap and chicken wings.
I don’t have a confrontation gene at all. There were points in the book where Madeline
really had to rattle people to get information and not just have it fall into her lap. Even
fictionally, because in the early draft she was so much more like me, I was writing
myself and how I’d react in that situation, and I literally didn’t know how to do it. I
couldn’t even write her questioning somebody….
In the scene where she’s talking to the silhouette artist at the fair, and she’s got to push
him, I didn’t know how to do that. Both my agent and editor were saying, “Look, you
know, she’s investigating. She’s got to go for the jugular. She’s got to make this man
talk to her and she can’t pussy-foot around and just have the mystery solve itself. She’s
too passive.”
That is the main difference between Madeline Dare and me. She’s tougher, she’s a
better shot, and she’s less messy. We still have the same tattoos, though.
David Corbett gave me a hard time about that. He said I couldn’t say it was all me,
because people want to think it’s your imagination.
It’s still my imagination, but for me, often the creativity lies in what to leave out, and not
to get carried off into digression about salad forks or whatever.
Sandra
All of our characters have something about ourselves in them, even if it’s all the things
we reject.
Cornelia
Absolutely.
Sandra
Doesn’t it start with thinking, as a kid, if only you’d had the guts to say that in that
situation or to do this, but you couldn’t? And then you take those ideas and you give
them to somebody else.
Cornelia
Definitely. The fiction I wrote as a kid was pure wish fulfillment. It’s excruciating to
revisit--I made all these people who hated me in fourth grade be my best friends, and I
always got a pony at the end.
I have this little child-spy story that I wrote in sixth grade --the title is Call Me Stringbean
because the character is skinny and her mother thinks she should be a child model and
she gets to have this wonderful adventure with her dad, who’s a spy. Everybody’s
happy and she saves the day in the end.
I wanted to be skinny and hang out with my dad. It’s kind of sad. But I guess it was my
first stand-alone thriller.
Sandra
I have to ask you about one thing in the book. Do women’s breasts on the racquet side
really get bigger?
Cornelia
I have no idea but that was a real guy who sent me packets of coupons. An article I
wrote for the Syracuse newspaper was about people who’d met through the personal
ads in the paper and it was their Valentine’s Day issue. For the next year I would get
these manila envelopes filled with toilet paper coupons and clippings from the National
Enquirer and he would jot notes on them. It was a recipe and he wrote on the bottom,
“Have you ever noticed that when you play tennis with a woman that at then end of
about an hour her breast on the racquet side will be larger?”
I have to say that the few times I’ve played tennis since; I’ve made a point of NOT
checking…
For more information about Cornelia Read and her debut novel, A FIELD OF
DARKNESS, visit her website at www.corneliaread.com or check out her blog
posts, Wednesdays, at www.nakedauthors.com
About the Reviewer:
Sandra Ruttan has just signed a deal for the release of her first novel, Suspicious
Circumstances, in November 2006. A regular contributor to Spinetingler Magazine, her
work can also be found in the May/June and July/August issues of Crimespree
Magazine www.crimespreemag.com. For more information about Sandra visit her
website at www.sandraruttan.com or her blog, http://sandrablabber.blogspot.com/
Murder @ Work
BY YVONNE EVE WALUS
Review by Andrea Maloney
Christine Chamberlain likes her job but hates her boss. All she ever wanted was
a steady job she enjoys, a baby and a Field's Medal in mathematics, her passion. On a
particularly bad day she complains to her coworkers and they joke about killing the boss
to solve all their problems. The next day her boss is found dead…poisoned by fennel oil
and Christine finds herself at the top of the suspect list since the fennel oil came from
her desk. In a race against time, she refuses to miss her anticipated vacation to Greece
with her beloved husband, she sets about to clear herself and find the true murderer.
Set in Pretoria, South Africa, Murder @ Work is a tightly plotted mystery with a
terrific cast of characters and a unique setting. An interesting element in the telling of
the story is that it is told thru the viewpoint of Christine plus the viewpoints of some of
the other characters. Switching back and forth with the main arc of the story being told
by Christine herself. This gives insight into the other character's lives that we might not
have otherwise known. Crisp dialogue and an interesting look into life in South Africa
add an additional layer of interest to this intriguing mystery.
About the Reviewer:
Andrea Maloney is a stay at home mom and jewelry designer who loves to read. Her
favorite books are mysteries, suspense and thrillers. She lives in Massachusetts with
my husband, two daughters and one large cat.
RAVEN BLACK
BY ANN CLEEVES
Review by Martin Edwards
Ann Cleeves has been publishing excellent crime novels, mainly set in rural
Britain, since the late 1980s, but it is only in recent years that she has begun to receive
the acclaim that the quality of her work has long merited. She has been nominated for a
couple of CWA Daggers in the past and now this, her latest novel, has been short-listed
for the CWA’s recently re-branded Duncan Lawrie Dagger – formerly the CWA Gold
Dagger and said to be the most lucrative prize in the history of international crime
fiction.
At the time of writing this review, the winner of the Dagger was not known, but it
may safely be said that this book well deserved its nomination. The setting is Shetland
in winter-time and two teenage girls are amusing themselves at the expense of Magnus
Tait, a strange old fellow who keeps a raven for company. Soon the body of one of the
girls, Catherine Ross, is found in the snow by Fran Hunter, who has returned to the
island with her daughter Cassie. The investigation into Catherine’s murder is conducted
by local detective, Jimmy Perez, and his restless colleague Roy Taylor – two excellent
characters - but many of the events in the story are seen from the points of view of Fran
and of Catherine’s friend, Sally Henry.
Years earlier, another young girl, Catriona Bruce, went missing and when her
corpse is finally discovered – again by Fran – the pace of the narrative accelerates to a
stunning conclusion. The unusual Shetland setting is vividly conveyed, with a terrific setpiece scene involving the fire festival Up Helly Aa. The plot is conceived with Ann
Cleeves’ customary teasing skill and once the truth is revealed it becomes clear how
much vital information – and insight into character - was conveyed in the leisurely but
subtle early chapters. It is good to know that her publishers have commissioned three
more books in the same series. The Shetland Quartet promises, on this evidence, to be
a terrific addition to contemporary crime writing.
About the Reviewer:
Martin Edwards’ acclaimed Lake District Mysteries are The Coffin Trail (nominated for
the Theakston’s prize for best crime novel of 2006) and The Cipher Garden. Both are
published in the US by Poisoned Pen Press. His seven novels about Harry Devlin
include All the Lonely People, short-listed for the CWA John Creasey Memorial Dagger,
and Suspicious Minds, both published by Five Star in the US. The author of a standalone psychological thriller, Take My Breath Away, he also completed the late Bill
Knox’s last book, The Lazarus Widow. In 2002 he published a book about homicide
investigation, Urge to Kill.
He has edited 14 crime anthologies, such as the CWA’s Golden Jubilee collection,
Mysterious Pleasures, and contributed to many others, as well as publishing Where Do
You Find Your Ideas? and other stories. His story ‘Test Drive’ was short-listed for the
CWA Short Story Dagger in 2005. A well-known critic and commentator on crime fiction,
he has contributed essays to various reference books, including The Oxford Companion
to Crime and Mystery Writing, as well as to a wide range of magazines.
To find out more about Martin Edwards and his work, visit
www.MartinEdwardsBooks.com. Martin also writes for Mystery Scene and Deadly
Pleasures.
ON THE ROAD: LEE CHILD & CORNELIA
READ @ POISONED PEN IN SCOTTSDALE
By Angela Lynn
Thirty minutes into the two-hour drive to The Poisoned Pen bookstore in
Scottsdale, AZ, enormous black smoke plumes filled the sky over the highway. As I
rounded the bend on Highway 69, the source of my potential headache, an 18-wheeler
truck in flames, came into view. Not to mention the dozen or so highway patrol,
sheriff’s, and fire department vehicles that had traffic snarled for two miles. Unfazed, I
pulled a U-turn and backtracked to an alternate, albeit forty minute longer, route to the
metro-Phoenix area. Nothing as mundane as a truck fire could stop this woman from
getting autographed copies of The Hard Way, by veteran writer Lee Child, and Cornelia
Read’s debut, A Field of Darkness.
I had been following the release of the two novels on various websites and blogs
since early May. One topic that seemed to pop up frequently was Read’s fear of
vomiting on either Lee Child or an audience member during the book signing event. I
hadn’t worn my raincoat, so I hoped her stomach would maintain integrity.
Half an hour past the two p.m. start time, I arrived at The Poisoned Pen. A rapt,
standing-room-only crowd of one hundred plus packed the small bookstore. Child and
Read’s Q and A session with was already in progress. As the air conditioner tried vainly
to pump enough cool air into the overheated room, I parked myself next to a stack of
books and listened in.
Lee Child fielded several questions about the future of his popular protagonist,
Jack Reacher. Members of the audience offered ideas for the remaining books in the
Reacher series, one of the best being Cornelia Read’s tongue-in-cheek suggestion for a
plot centering on knitting.
The discussion then veered onto the topic of a possible film version of a Reacher
novel. Child indicated that he has optioned the movie rights to one of the novels to
Cruise/Wagner, Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise’s production company. The news that
Cruise has expressed interest in playing the role of Jack Reacher on the big screen was
met with gasps and groans of dismay. Child responded he told Tom Cruise that for
enough money he’d be willing to let Katie Holmes play Jack Reacher. Later in the
discussion, Child’s cell phone rang. He ignored the call, but quipped that he always
leaves his phone on in case it’s Hollywood calling.
Several audience members wanted to know what public figure most resembles
Jack Reacher. Child’s answer was rugby player Lawrence Dallaglio. Recognizing that
his American fans would likely be unfamiliar with Dallaglio, Child offered retired NFL
Hall of Fame star Howie Long as an alternate look-alike. When asked if he knows a
Jack Reacher, Child grinned and said, “every time I look in the mirror.” The remark was
met with delighted laughter.
Debut author Cornelia Read responded to some questions about what it’s like to
be a newly published writer. “I feel like someone put acid in my coffee…luckily it’s really
good acid.” When asked how she got started as a writer, Read stated that she had
been laid off from her dot com job about four and a half years ago. She decided to write
a book in the mystery genre because, “those were the books I loved to read.” She also
credited her involvement in a writer’s group in the Berkley area as a key element for the
completion of her novel.
Asked if she has another novel in the works, Read pulled a face, and said that
her next novel is due June 1, 2006. She is working furiously to finish the final draft in
the midst of the current book tour. Read gave a few hints about her next book. She
stated that her protagonist, Madeline Dare, does manage to “escape” from Syracuse,
and that she stays married to husband Dean. Read also indicated that Madeline gets a
job at a school for behaviorally disturbed girls, and that this figures prominently in the
storyline.
The two authors fielded several craft-related questions. When asked about plot
outlines, both Child and Read said that they do not use outlines. Child said that he
generally knows what “the thing,” or the “McGuffin” of his story is. However, Child said,
“I don’t like plans…if I don’t know what’s going to happen, there’s no way you (the
reader) can.” Read referred to herself as a “seat-of-the-pants” writer, noting that writers
who use outlines always accuse “seat-of-the-pants” writers of secretly outlining. On the
issue of how many drafts are written before the novel is completed, Read stated she
had written four. Child said that he only writes one draft, but pointed out that he tends
to go over the previous day’s work before moving on to the current day’s writing.
One audience member wanted to know what kind of computers the writers used.
Both Child and Read are Mac users. Child will be buying a new computer soon. He
had evidently just completed the latest Reacher novel at his house in France when a
horrendous thunderstorm struck. According to Child, “everything with a control panel
blew up,” including his iBook laptop computer. Fortunately for his readers, Child had emailed his manuscript just five minutes prior to the lightning strike.
Another craft-related question was posed about research. Read joked that she
had cut large chunks of her novel out that dealt with the architectural history of the
canals in Syracuse. Child responded by saying “we’ve all read authors who’re like, ‘I
did all this research and damn it, you’re going to read it.” The audience laughed in
recognition, and Child went on to suggest that research should be like an iceberg,
where only a small part shows in the novel.
The question and answer session wrapped up. Several people immediately
queued up to get their books signed, while others made a break for the table loaded
with novels by the two authors. Late to the party, and faced with a long wait in a small,
packed store, I raced around the corner for a coffee. By the time I returned, the store
had nearly emptied, and so had the table of books. Horrified, I went to the front counter
where I was reassured that they would bring up some more books from the stockroom.
While waiting for the books, I talked briefly with Rick Garza, the events
coordinator for The Poisoned Pen. When I told him how much I had enjoyed the presigning discussion, he said, “ Some writers, you have to keep lobbing them questions.
Lee (Child) is a show. You just set it up and he takes it from there.” He was absolutely
right, but it was the combination of Child and Read together that made this event so
interesting. It was a unique opportunity to hear from an established author and to get
an emerging writer’s perspective on her process to date. In addition, Read has a sly
sense of humor that played well off of Child’s dry wit.
Finally the books arrived and I made my way to the author’s table. After a flurry
of confusion caused by giving a copy of Child’s The Hard Way to Cornelia Read to sign
and asking Lee Child to sign multiple books for different people, I finally had the chance
to speak with Cornelia Read. We compared tattoos briefly and discussed how the book
tour was going. She was tired and excited, but had done a great job. Just before she
was whisked into the back room of The Poisoned Pen to finish up her business, she
said with obvious pride, “and I haven’t thrown up on anybody yet!”
Lee Child and Cornelia Read are scheduled for two more joint book signings in June,
2006.
Friday, June2, 2006
12:00 Noon
Seattle Mystery Bookshop
117 Cherry Street
Pioneer Square
Seattle, WA 98104
206-587-5737
www.seattlemystery.com
Monday, June 5, 2006
1:00 PM
Mysteries to Die For
2940 Thousand Oaks Boulevard
Thousand Oaks, CA 91362
805-374-0084
www.mysteriestodiefor.com
About the Reporter:
Angela Lynn lives in Prescott, AZ with her husband and two dogs. She worked in the
behavioral health field, primarily with children and adolescents for the past ten years. In
December of 2005, she completely lost her mind and quit her day job to write full time.
She is a voice actress for Coyote Radio Theater and is studying to become a sound
engineer.
IN MODERATION: FOSTERING ONLINE
COMMUNITIES ON AUTHOR FORUMS
By Sandra Ruttan
Jayne Massey is the forum moderator for John Connolly, author
of Every Dead Thing and The Black Angel, and Mark Billingham,
author of Sleepyhead and The Burning Girl. She has recently
taken on the responsibility of moderating Book Talk Forums.
Jayne is a published writer, reviewer and panel judge for UK
writing organizations. A pioneer in the field of forum moderating, I
recently had a chance to ask Jayne how she found herself on this
new career path, and to ask John and Mark about the value of
having a hands-on moderator as part of their web team.
How did you start moderating?
Well, it happened by accident really. I was posting regularly on Irish author John
Connolly's forum and last summer John was away promoting his latest novel, and the
forum was very busy. The webmaven of John's site was going on holiday for a week
and she contacted me and asked me if I'd keep an eye on the forum for her.
When she returned, she said that she had a lot of work to catch up on and she asked if
I'd continue monitoring the board for her for a while longer. Then, a few weeks later,
she offered me the job permanently, as she was extremely busy and no longer had the
time to spend on it. I was surprised, yet absolutely delighted! I love the job and I can't
imagine doing anything else. I feel as if it was meant to be.
Why did you decide to have a moderator for your site?
“It just became clear over the last year or two that the traffic to the site had
increased enormously, and it was just too much for me to handle by
myself. I was letting things slide, or forgetting to answer people's
questions. It wasn't intentional. I would mark them and mean to get back
to them later, but then another bunch would arrive and I'd try to deal with
them at the expense of the earlier ones.
“Also, it seemed like there was a lot of interaction between the people who
visited the site, and that it had become a general discussion forum for all
kinds of things: not just my books but books in general, music, writing,
even problems that people were having in their day-to-day lives. At that
point, I thought it might be a good idea to foster that sense of community,
but it needed someone with a particular personality to do it. Jayne had
been contributing to the forum as a visitor and Heidi Mack, who looks after
the technical aspects of the site and was acting as part-time moderator on
top of all that, suggested that Jayne might be the ideal person. And she
was.”
- John Connolly
Describe the responsibilities of your job for us. What does a forum
moderator do?
I'm very much a hands-on moderator, in that I read every posted message and often
contribute to, or even start, discussions. I feel that forum members welcome this; I
receive many emails from people who comment on the sense of community that is
present on the forums. With Mark's forum, I was there from day one and it's amazing
how quickly it took off. People seemed to bond with each other in no time, it's lovely to
see.
With John's forum, I was posting messages for eighteen months before I was offered
the job. John's webmaster did a wonderful job in monitoring the discussion board, but
she became extremely busy and no longer had the time to devote to it. I'd like to think
that I've continued to help bring members together and that the sense of community has
become even stronger. Certainly, the threads have become more personal in recent
months and to me that's a sign of unity and trust.
What do you feel people most often overlook when establishing a forum?
I think some people overlook the need for a good moderator; I'm surprised how many
forums don't have moderators at all. Problems will occur and you really need someone
there who can take control and deal with tricky situations. If not, then I can't really see a
forum surviving for very long.
When you started your forum, what concerns did you have that
prompted you to consider having a moderator?
“I was aware that there had been a certain amount of trouble on one or
two other forums; that things had got too heated or that troublemakers had
hijacked proceedings. While I was keen that my forum would be a lively
place, that people were free to express themselves - and yes, that
includes swearing when it's called for - I didn't want things getting out of
hand. I didn't want friendly friction to turn into anything nastier. I was also
certain that I couldn't do any of this myself, that I needed someone with
experience. I'd spoken to John (Connolly) about how his forum had been
running and he was full of praise for his moderator Jayne. I approached
her to see if she'd be interested in taking on my forum as well...a very
smart move on my part.”
- Mark Billingham
What advice do you have for anyone who wants to start a successful,
thriving message board?
Hire me!
What value do you feel you bring to a forum?
I think I bring peace of mind to the client and to the forum members and also a sense of
security. I'm there to answer people's problems (and) queries and I'd like to think that
forum members see me as a friendly face. I'm not an absent moderator. I'm very much
around, often joining in the conversations and enjoying a laugh with fellow posters. I
receive emails from forum members saying that there is a real sense of community on
the boards that I run, and it's wonderful that they have a safe, clean environment where
they can discuss mutual interests.
How has Jayne contributed to the success of your forum?
“I think it helps to think of it as a group of strangers with common interests
getting together for a meeting in a virtual church hall. Someone needs to
break the ice, to make them feel welcome, to open up the discussion and
keep it going until people feel relaxed enough to continue it for themselves
and, occasionally, to rein it in if it's becoming too heated. Jayne does all
of that, and more. In a sense, she's the public face of the site. She
makes me look good!”
- John Connolly
“I think she's pretty much been solely responsible for it. As far as the
organization goes, she's frighteningly efficient. She spots instantly if
something needs moving around, if a question has already been dealt
with, if topics need merging or whatever. More importantly though, she is a
welcoming voice, and a friendly face, that set the tone early on. It's been
astonishing watching relationships develop between members so quickly.
I'm confidently predicting the first Billingham Talk Zone wedding within the
year and that atmosphere is down to Jayne. Even when there's conflict –
and I'm certainly all for a bit of that now and again - it never threatens to
turn into anything unpleasant. I think people like to drop by, and that's
because Jayne has made it a nice place to be. Not sure about the carpets
and curtains though...”
- Mark Billingham
What are some of the risks of unmoderated forums?
I don't see a long-term future for unmoderated forums. I think harmless disagreements
could quickly turn into full-scale arguments, resulting in members leaving because they
feel uncomfortable. An unpleasant atmosphere on a discussion board is never nice
and, in my view, should be avoided.
Have you had any bad experiences where you've had to ask someone to
leave a forum? Or had to take extreme action to resolve a problem?
I've never had to ask anyone to leave a forum and I've never needed to take extreme
action to resolve a problem, thankfully. That's down to the fantastic people who visit the
boards that I run - they don't always agree about things, but they do respect each
other's opinions.
How do you establish what is and is not acceptable on the different forums
you moderate?
It's down to common sense really, but I would always speak to the client if I was unsure
about anything. It depends what the client is comfortable with. My job is to keep him/her
happy. On one of the forums that I run, you will find swearing here and there and the
client is okay about that, but on another forum there is very little swearing. It's fine for
people to disagree on forums, I think that's what makes them so interesting, but if a fullscale argument develops then I will step in. I wouldn't tolerate bullying or racist
comments of any sort.
How important is a close working relationship with the author/host of the
forum?
I think it's very important to have a close working relationship with the author/client; if
there's no communication between the two, then it's difficult to know how to handle
certain situations. What works for one author may not work for another, so
communication is very important. Each author is individual and I want to ensure he/she
is comfortable with the job I do.
Do you think it’s important for authors to have forums?
I think a forum is very beneficial to the author, especially if said author comes on board
and contributes to the discussions. Both Mark and John are actively involved in their
forums and the readers appreciate this. It's great that they can put questions to the
author and receive a reply. I would imagine any writer finds it hugely flattering to have a
bunch of people making positive comments about their work. And it's good for new fans
to be able to come on to the forum and read these comments. A discussion forum can
encourage a loyal fan base and that can only benefit the author. Also, it's an opportunity
for the author to throw ideas around and to receive feedback from the readers.
Why did you decide to start a forum? What do you feel are the
benefits of a good forum for authors?
“Yaron, the guy who designs and maintains my website, had been on at
me about a discussion forum for ages, but I'd been reluctant. It seemed a
very complicated business and I was worried that it would take up too
much of my time. It was simple techno-fear, and I couldn't have been more
wrong. I think that a good forum has an atmosphere that encourages
people to drop by and have a natter.
“As far as the benefits go, visitors and members can talk about anything
and everything of course, but there is obviously an emphasis on talking
about one's own books and I don't see how that can ever be bad for an
author. Readers appreciate the chance to have a dialogue with a writer; to
have their questions answered and to maybe learn a little more about the
writer than can be found on the back cover of a book. On a very basic
level, it breaks down barriers and lets readers see that authors - most of
them anyway - are not too far up their own arses about themselves, or
their work.”
- Mark Billingham
Do you think there will be more forums in the future?
Sure. I've visited quite a lot of author websites over the last couple of weeks and I'm
very surprised how many of them don't yet have forums. I feel certain that will change.
Do you know of anyone else working as a forum moderator? This seems to
be a new service - how have you developed your business? Has it been
hard to find guidance for setting the perimeters in your job?
No, I've never come across anyone else working as a moderator and it's surprising how
many other people have said the same thing. I think that I may have found a gap in the
market. My business is still in the very early stages and so far I only have a couple of
clients, but other authors have expressed interest in my work, so hopefully things will
grow and more work will come my way. I've contacted potential clients and I've set up a
website to help develop my business, but the best thing for me has been word of mouth.
I owe such a lot to so many people who have spread, and continue to spread, the word
about my work.
Almost anyone that has spent time on forums has experienced spammers
or trolls or dominating personalities that try to control the board. Why do
you think that is? What do you see as the potential dangers of letting
problem posters go unchallenged?
I've had experience with spam, it was on a discussion board where members were not
required to register and sign in, and so it was an easy target. Messages were being
deleted on a daily basis. The problem has now been resolved, though, and we've just
launched a brand new forum where people have to type in a username and password if
they want to post a message. I've never come across dominating personalities who try
to control the board, but maybe that's because there's a moderator around. I can
imagine certain individuals would try to dominate forums where there is no moderator in
charge, but it's not something I've had personal experience with. I think there has to be
rules on every forum and if someone is taking advantage and becoming a problem
poster, then he or she has to be dealt with before things get out of hand. The last thing I
want is for regular users to stop visiting because they no longer feel comfortable. I
would hope that any forum member will come to me if they have a problem and I would
certainly do my very best to sort things out.
You were a participant on John Connolly’s forum before becoming the
moderator, and you’ve been Mark Billingham’s moderator since he
launched his forum. How will you handle the challenge of becoming a
moderator on an existing forum you haven’t been a participant on
previously?
That's about to happen in the next couple of days. I'm going to be running Book Talk
Forums. The guy who set it up and has been monitoring it has found himself very busy
of late and he thought I'd be the ideal person for the job. I've literally just registered for
the forum and I want to spend the next few days going through all the messages that
are already on there and familiarizing myself with it. (The) webmaster is going to send
an email out to members, letting them know that I will be taking over, and then I'll
introduce myself to everyone and we'll take it from there. It is a bit daunting, I must
admit, but I'm looking forward to it - it'll be a challenge and I'll give it my best shot.
Hopefully, the forum members will accept me.
For more information about Jayne Massey and her moderating services, visit her
website at www.inmoderation.co.uk or check out her work for at
http://www.markbillingham.com/talk/index.php or
http://www.johnconnollybooks.com/forum/
About the Interviewer:
Sandra Ruttan has just signed a deal for the release of her first novel, Suspicious
Circumstances, in November 2006. A regular contributor to Spinetingler Magazine, her
work can also be found in the May/June and July/August issues of Crimespree
Magazine www.crimespreemag.com. For more information about Sandra visit her
website at www.sandraruttan.com
STAFF PROFILE:
M.G. Tarquini
M.G. Tarquini is a native of Philadelphia who has at various times in her life been a
waitress, a data entry operator, an accountant, an ultrasound technologist, and a
consultant. She currently lives and writes in Phoenix, Arizona.
A real fan of the multicultural milieux afforded by both cities, M.G. enjoys travel,
wine, literature, and a good laugh. Her writing observes the world on a slant. It has
appeared in Spinetingler Magazine, and Flashing In The Gutters.
She won an
honorable mention for a work of fiction at the Oklahoma Writers' Federation 2005
Conference, for a work of fiction. Currently querying a work of humor, she is also at
work on several other novels.
She can be found at her Blog “Genre Neutral at http://mgtarquini.blogspot.com/
and her website at http://www.mgtarquini.com/.
OH MY, IT’S THE COZY NOIR CONTEST
BECAUSE WE DON’T HAVE ENOUGH SUBGENRES ALREADY…
A cozy, by definition is a story that’s light, fun, an easy read usually involving
cats, knitting, tea and not much blood or gore.
With no explicit sex, swearing or
violence, according to Mystery Guide.com http://www.mysteryguide.com/cozy.html
Conversely, noir is dark, gloomy, gritty. Violence, sex, swearing – all part of the
package.
So what do we mean by cozy noir? We ran a pre-contest contest to come up
with a tag line or definition. The winner?
Cozy Noir is like a Glock in bunny slippers.
And here was the close second:
Cozy Noir: brooding, blanket-knitting Grandmas with .45s and a hankering to
solve a crime. "Pass me the orange pekoe and the hollow-points, honey."
Coming to a theatre near you. Rated R for dark themes, heady violence, and
resplendent knitting.
Here’s another way to put it. Noir stories with an unlikely protagonist. Grandma
taking down the bad guys with a tazer, for example.
Theoretically, it could also mean a cozy story with an unlikely protagonist, too. A
gang member deduces who stole the cookies while knitting and talking to Fluffy the cat.
Of course, Fluffy assists in the investigation and in the end, all is forgiven and the
cookies are shared over a nice cup of tea.
The main idea is to have some fun with this. Break out of the subgenre mold,
surprise us, and write a great story.
In order to kick off the contest, we’ve included a few stories in this issue that we
hope will inspire you: A Fistful of Cozy by JA Konrath, Favourite Things by K.
Robert Einarson, Unstuffed by Bill Blume and Childhood Dreams by Sandra
Ruttan. We selected these stories so that we could cover a wide range of what we felt
qualified as cozy noir, from the humourous to the disturbing.
Our usual length
guidelines do not apply to these sample stories because they have been offered for the
purpose of launching the contest. Length requirements do apply to contest entries.
PRIZES
•
First prize:
Publication in our Winter Issue, publication in our next
anthology, a signed copy of Duane Swierczynski’s book, The Wheelman
and a signed ARC of Duane’s new book (due out in November), titled The
Blonde.
•
Other selected entries will be published in our Winter Issue. The authors will
receive payment for their story publication and an autographed copy of a book by
one of the following:
Mark Billingham, Anne Frasier, Simon Kernick, JA
Konrath, Stuart MacBride, Ian Rankin, Cornelia Read, JD Rhoades and
David Skibbons.* Sorry, winners do not receive a copy of a book by each
author, just one.)
•
Entries selected for publication in our Winter Issue will receive the standard
payment for publication of their story.
•
Contest entries should be sent to:submissions@spinetinglermag.com
•
Please read our submission guidelines, which are posted on our website, and
follow them.
•
There is no entry fee for this contest. Each person may submit no more than
three entries.
•
Regular Spinetingler editors are not eligible to enter.
Submission dates
•
Entries may be submitted between June 21, 2006 and September 5,
2006.
•
Entries submitted before June 21 or after September 5 will not be
considered.
•
We are restricting this contest to the first 100 entries only, in order to
preserve what little is left of the sanity of our editorial staff.
•
Please bear in mind that contest entries will not be edited. This is
why entries will not be accepted until June 21.
Take your time.
Polish your work. Make sure it’s ready when you send it.
•
Entries that do not follow the submission guidelines may be disqualified
without notification. Entries that are not sent to the correct email address
may be disqualified without notification.
•
Winners will be notified in October and receive their prizes then. Their
stories will be published in the winter issue.
•
All entries should include a thirty-word author bio and the following
release, with the correct information inserted. Entries that do not contain a
release may be disqualified without notification.
I, INSERT AUTHOR NAME, certify that I am the writer/artist of the work being submitted to
Spinetingler Magazine. This story, INSERT STORY NAME, has not been published previously
online or in print and has never been printed in whole or in part on a blog, website or forum or
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publication. I further agree that Spinetingler may consider my work for print/electronic
publication in a best of" anthology at some point. I retain copyright and all rights to my work
except First WORLDWIDE Rights. My work may not appear in another publication for 15
months following its release in Spinetingler Magazine without written consent from the editor in
order for it to be considered for the anthology. If my work should appear in another publication
after that time has elapsed, it will be noted that it first appeared in Spinetingler Magazine, at
www.spinetinglermag.com
Spinetingler would like to thank:
• Mark Billingham
• Anne Frasier
• Simon Kernick,
• JA Konrath
• Stuart MacBride
• Ian Rankin
• Cornelia Read
• JD Rhoades
• David Skibbons
• Duane Swierczynski
Introducing Cozy Noir:
Cozy Noir is hard-boiled with a sense of humour – Sandra Seamans
A FISTFUL OF COZY
By J.A. Konrath
“This is simply dreadful!”
Mrs. Agnes Victoria Mugilicuddy blanched under a thick layer of rouge. Her oversized
beach hat, adorned with plastic grapes and lemons, perched askew atop her pink-hued quaff.
Barlow, her graying manservant, placed a hand on her pointy elbow to steady her.
“Indeed, Madam. I’ll call the police.”
“The police? Why, Barlow, think of the scandal! Imagine what Imogene Rumbottom, that
busy-body who writes the Society Column, will say in her muck-raking rag when she discovers
the Viscount de Pouissant dead on my foyer floor.”
“I understand, Madam. Will you be solving this murder yourself, then?”
“I have no other choice, Barlow! Though I’m a simple dowager of advancing years and
high social standing, my feisty determination and keen eye for detail will no doubt flush out this
dastardly murderer. Where is Miss Foo-Foo, the Mystery Cat?”
“She’s in her litter box, burying some evidence.”
“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes’s voice had the pitch and timbre of an opera soprano. “Come
immediately and help Mumsy solve this heinous crime!”
Miss Foo-Foo trotted into the foyer, her pendulous belly dragging along the oriental rug.
Bits of smoked salmon clung to her whiskers.
“Barlow!” Agnes commanded, clapping her liver-spotted hands together.
Barlow bent down and picked up the cat. He was five years Mrs. Agnes’s senior, and
his back cracked liked kindling with the weight of Miss Foo-Foo.
Agnes patted the cat on the head as Barlow held it. Miss Foo-Foo purred, a sound not
unlike a belch.
“We have a mystery to solve, my dearest puss-puss. If we’re to catch the scoudrel, we
must be quick of mind and fleet of foot. Barlow!”
“Yes, Madam?”
“Fetch the Mystery Kit!”
“Right away, Madam.”
Barlow turned on his heels.
“Barlow!”
Barlow turned back.
“Yes, Madam?”
“First release Miss Foo-Foo.”
“Of course, Madam.”
Barlow bent at the waist, his spine making Rice Krispie sounds. Miss Foo-Foo padded
over to Agnes and allowed herself to be patted on the head.
Straightening up was a painful affair, but Barlow managed without a grunt. He nodded
at Mrs. Agnes and left the room.
“To think,” Agnes mused, “only ten minutes ago the Viscount was sipping tawny port
and regaling us with ribald tales of the gooseberry industry. Just a waste, Miss Foo-Foo.”
Agnes’s eyes remained dry, but she removed a handkerchief from the side pocket on
her jacket and dabbed at them nonetheless.
Barlow returned lugging a satchel, its black leather cracked with age. He undid the
tarnished clasps and held it open for Mrs. Agnes. She removed a large, Sherlock Holmes-style
magnifying glass.
“The first order of business is to establish the cause of death.” Mrs. Agnes spoke to the
cat, not to Barlow. “It’s merely a hunch, but I’m compelled to suggest that perhaps the lovely
port the Viscount had been sipping may have been tampered with.”
“An interesting hypothesis, Madam, but perhaps instead it has something to do with that
letter opener?”
“The letter opener, Barlow?”
“The one sticking in the Viscount’s chest, Madam.”
Agnes squinted one heavily mascaraed eye and peered through the glass with the
other.
“Miss Foo-Foo, your hunch proved incorrect. The poor, dear Viscount appears to be
impaled through the heart with some kind of silver object. But what can it be, puss-puss?”
“A letter opener, Madam?”
“Could it be a knife, Miss Foo-Foo? Perchance some rapscallion gained entry to the den
though the window, intent on robbing the rich Viscount? Perhaps a fight ensued, resulting in
the bloodthirsty criminal tragically ending the Viscount’s life with this vaguely Freudian symbol
of male power?”
Barlow peered at the body.
“It appears to be the letter opener you bought me for my anniversary, Madam. The gift
you presented to me for fifty years of loyal service.”
“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes bent over the fallen Viscount and lightly touched the handle of
the protruding object. “Why, this is no knife! It’s Barlow’s letter opener! I can see the
engraving.”
“‘How lucky you must feel to have served me for so many years.’” Barlow intoned.
“This changes everything!” Mrs. Agnes placed the magnifying glass back into the
satchel, her gnarled fingers latching onto a tin of fingerprint powder. “Some heathen must have
stolen Barlow’s lovely gift–”
“Sterling silver plated,” Barlow said.
“–with the intent to frame our loyal manservant! Barlow!”
“Yes, Madam?”
“Open this tin so I must dust the offending weapon!”
“Yes, Madam.”
Mrs. Agnes used the tiny brush to liberally apply a basecoat of powder to the letter
opener’s handle.
“Why, look, puss-puss! There’s nary a print to be found! The handle has been wiped
clean!”
“Perhaps the murderer wore gloves, Madam?” Barlow reached for the powder tin with a
gloved-hand.
“Or perhaps, Miss Foo-Foo, the killer wore gloves! This fiend is no mere street
malcontent. This seems premeditated, the result of a careful and calculating plot. But why the
Viscount?”
“Perhaps he was a witness, Madam? To another murder?”
Mrs. Agnes squinted at her manservant.
“That’s daft, Barlow. Even for a lowly servant such as yourself. Do you see another
victim in this room?”
“Indeed I do, Madam.”
Barlow removed the cheese grater from his vest pocket, a gift from Mrs. Agnes for his
forty year anniversary, and spent forty minutes grating off the old dowager’s face.
The old bat still had some life left in her after that, so he worked on her a bit with his
thirtieth-year-anniversary nutcracker, his twentieth-year-anniversary potato peeler, and finally
the fireplace poker, which wasn’t a gift, but was handy.
When she finally expired, he flipped the gory side face-down and spent a leisurely hour
violating her corpse–something he couldn’t have managed if she were alive and yapping.
Sated, Barlow stood on creaky knees and picked up the bored Miss Foo-Foo.
“You have a date with the microwave, puss-puss. And then I’m the sole heir to Madam’s
fortune.”
Miss Foo-Foo purred, making a sound like a belch.
Three minutes and thirteen seconds later, she made a different kind of sound. More like
a pop.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When he is not busy promoting and touring, J.A. KONRATH imparts his wisdom and
sense of humor to his legions of fans and new writers on his Blog
(jakonrath.blogspot.com) and website at www.jakonrath.com. His latest book RUSTY
NAIL, the third book in the Jack Daniels series, will be available for purchase on July 6,
2006 and can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com.
"A Fistful of Cozy" was previously published in the Autumn 2004 issue of SHOTS
Magazine (www.shotsmag.co.uk).
Introducing Cozy Noir:
Cozy Noir are stories that on the surface seem benign, but underneath reveal a sinister
and rotting world. Like Blue Velvet if it starred Ms. Marple. - Steve Allan
FAVOURITE THINGS
By K. Robert Einarson
“It is a shame, a terrible shame about poor Edith”
“Oh my, yes Agnes, most definitely terrible”
Gertrude set her Royal Albert China teacup down. Normally the fine china would
never come out for the weekly bridge game, but the gruesome death of her bridge
partner required something more than the regular set she used.
She admired the cup, a wedding present she’d received fifty-six years ago.
During all of those years, only one cup had ever been broken.
“Gertie, may I have another cup of tea?” Myrtle’s hands trembled as she set the
cup down. “Seems my arthritis is acting up again”
“Of course Myrtle, I will be right back”
Gertrude gently picked up the cup and carried it into the kitchen. As she poured
the tea, she looked at her perfectly maintained yard. Since her husband died ten years
back, she made certain that everything was nice and tidy.
Frank had been a good husband, but he did not share her desire to keep up
appearances. Fortunately he was content to spend his retirement in his den, watching
TV or sleeping in that tattered lazy-boy chair. It was the first thing she got rid off when
he passed.
Now it was her house, filled with her favourite things.
As she returned to the dinning room, she heard Agnes set the cup down on its
saucer with a loud clink. She quickened her pace.
“I tell you Myrtle, things are not way they were. Poor Edith. Beaten to death with
one of her own golf clubs. Only a monster could do something like that”
“I heard the man the police caught was from New York City.” Gertrude sat down.
She took a quick look at Agnes’ cup. It appeared to be undamaged.
“Well that doesn’t surprise me,” Agnes replied as she picked up her cup.
“Nothing but wickedness up there.”
Gertrude noticed Myrtle was staring at her cup, not saying a word. Edith had
been friends with Myrtle for at least twenty years and since Edith’s death, she was not
interested in doing anything especially playing Bridge.
‘Not that you can play Bridge with only three people,’ Gertrude thought,
disgusted. It was Thursday afternoon and for six years they had always played Bridge
from 1:30 to 4:00. Then she watched her shows.
But for the second Thursday in a row, they just sat here and talked about that old
busybody. People die everyday. Doesn’t mean life should just stop for everyone else.
Myrtle sighed loudly and retrieved her knitting from her purse. Myrtle always knit
when she was sad. When her husband John had passed, she made a ten-foot square
afghan for each member of the Bridge club. Gertrude kept hers in the closet, certain
one day it would find a use.
Agnes stood up. “Well, the big bake sale is tomorrow and I need to finish baking
my famous peach pies. I will drop by after the sale with any left over pies, though they
are so popular I doubt there will be any left!”
As Agnes walked out of the dining room toward the front door, Gertrude scowled.
Those awful pies. If Agnes wasn’t gossiping or getting into someone’s business, she
was making those dreadful pies. Thank goodness the tourists didn’t know better, or
Agnes would force them to endure a week of pie. In fact, there was a rumor her
husband didn’t fight the cancer just to avoid another pie…
Gertrude was shaken from her thoughts by the sound of a teacup smashing on
the floor.
She jumped up from her chair and saw the remnants of her prized possession
spread across the floor.
Myrtle just sat there, staring. “I am so sorry Gertie, I know how important these
cups are to you.” She set her knitting down and kneeled on the floor, slowly picking up
each of the pieces.
“For fifty-six years I cared for this perfect tea set and within three weeks, two
cups get broken.” Gertrude was very calm as she spoke. She picked up the knitting
needles off the table and carefully examined them. They were steel with dull finish, but
looked quite strong. She lifted them above her head and with a single motion stabbed
them into the base of Myrtle’s skull. Myrtle instantly fell flat on the floor, her limbs flailed
almost involuntarily as she screamed. Gertrude watched as Myrtle’s movements
lessened and then finally stopped. A pool of blood was slowly growing around Myrtle
and the half-inch of scarf that she had been working on was soaked red with her blood.
Gertrude sat back down in her chair and looked at her two treasured cups still on
the table. Everyone knew they were irreplaceable, especially her bridge club.
At least Myrtle had apologized. Edith had just told her that accidents happened.
That was why it had to be different with Edith. She had spent two days waiting for
the right moment, the right punishment. So when Edith told them she was bringing her
precious golf clubs out for the summer, Gertrude knew it was time.
Three hours she waited that Sunday morning for the old bitty to come back from
church. Waiting gave her the chance to select the correct club. She decided to go with
the brand new three iron Edith had just bought. She had boasted about how good it
was, how the weight was just right. Gertrude had to admit it was a good club. Edith’s
punishment took a while and Gertrude was not really tired when it was over.
But this Myrtle situation needed her attention now. Gertrude fetched the massive
afghan from the closet, wrapped Myrtle up in it and mopped up the blood. There are
many ways to get rid of a body, so that part would not be a problem; she just had to wait
until nightfall. Since Myrtle loved to gamble and liked to go to Vegas when she was
depressed, her disappearance would not be questioned for weeks.
The only problem was the floor. She opened the phone book and called a local
renovation company.
“Hello, my name is Gertrude Sampson. I am planning to sell my house and I
would like my hardwood floor refinished. My husband coated it with so many layers of
varnish that I can’t even see the wood anymore. Besides no one wants to buy a house
with scratched and stained floor…Yes Friday afternoon is good. I will drop off the keys
just before I leave. Just tell your people to be very careful. I get very upset if any of my
favourite things get broken.”
Introducing Cozy Noir:
When that sinking pit of dread and despair is home sweet home. - Mary Root
CHILDHOOD DREAMS
By Sandra Ruttan
Pausing by the cross at the back of the sanctuary, her gaze
flitted from left to right until she was certain nobody was watching. Polly bowed her
head and closed her eyes, shifting her doll under her arm as she folded her hands, her
lips forming the words silently, the same words she’d prayed every day for three
months.
“Please God. It's almost Christmas. I want my parents to be together.”
A lone tear trickled down her cheek, making a ragged along the dirt-stained skin.
*****
Polly’s shoulders drooped as she sank down on the cold concrete. Her left arm
trailed along the lowest railing, her cheek pressed against her wrist as she sat, legs
dangling over the side of the steps, her other hand clutching the tattered doll she’d
gotten for her birthday not four months before. Already the toy’s face was faded, the
beige-pink fabric streaked with water stains and grime.
Her dark black eyes stared vacuously, past the church parking lot where the
women still lingered, nattering away, while husbands revved engines and glanced at
their watches between glares at their wives.
Polly’s grip on the doll loosened, until it dropped onto the top step beside her.
The little girl stared off, past the usual Sunday morning church parking lot
hubbub, past the straggly black limbs clawing the sky, towards the cemetery where row
upon row of stone marked those who had “been called home”. Some were the old
stones, the etched markings of letters and dates blurring into the crumbling façade.
There were some new headstones as well, for those that still opted for sanctified
ground.
Ones that were mourned in their passing.
*****
“Poor thing,” Ethel Beasley murmured with a cluck-cluck sound as she shook her
head soberly, her eyes widening as she leaned in close to Marlene Ford’s ear. “It must
be so hard on the little dear. She must miss her mother terribly.”
“Every child wants to have both parents at home.” Marlene sighed. “Too young
to understand.”
Ethel frowned. “What’s to understand? Her hair, all straggly like that, unkempt .
I’m surprised the courts would leave her with her father, after all that’s been said.”
“She’s hardly more than skin and bones now.”
“Not that she was ever a particularly happy child. There’s always been
something about the look in her eye.”
“Now that you mention it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that girl smile.” Marlene’s
eyes gleamed. “You know in Sunday school, they had the children write down what
they wanted for Christmas. She said she wanted her parents to be together.”
“Now that would take a Christmas miracle. You know, her mother always was a
wild one. I’m sure I told you about the time she ran off…” Ethel stopped suddenly and
sucked air between her front teeth, turned on her heel and trotted off toward her car.
Marlene turned to see Polly’s hollow dark eyes fixed on her with such force, she
felt as if the child could see right through her.
*****
“Polly. Let’s go.”
Her father’s voice was low but there was still an edge to the words, a nononsense tone that told her he would not be kept waiting. Still, she looked up at him for
a moment, clutching the railing with her hand as her chin quivered.
“Now, Polly. And pick that doll up off the step. You know what will make
someone trip and fall and break their neck?”
She did, but she didn’t dare say.
“Is that thing ripped already? Dammit.” He scowled as she pulled her feet up
and positioned them on the pavement, about to stand as he reached down and grabbed
her wrist, yanking her up as she reached out to grab the doll with her other hand. Polly
yelped, a brief almost noiseless yelp, inaudible to anyone more than a few yards away.
But not so quiet that her father didn’t hear. His eyes narrowed as he tugged on
her arm, her short legs racing to keep up with his long strides so that he wouldn’t drag
her across the pavement.
“You know what can happen when you leave things lying on the stairs, Polly.”
As soon as she was in the back seat of the car he slammed the door, not waiting
to check that she was buckled in. Polly reached up over her shoulder and tugged on
the seatbelt. It slipped from her trembling fingers at first, but she finally managed to
drag it down, fumbling with the clasp while her father walked around to the driver’s door
and got into the car.
Her shoulders shook violently as her mouth opened, imitating the form of sobs,
tears streaming down her sunken cheeks, but no sound escaped her mouth. She
shuddered, her body convulsing with the soundless sobs as the engine sputtered. Her
father cursed, the ignition caught, and he backed the car out of the parking lot.
*****
She walked as softly as she could, careful to place each foot in front of the other
soundlessly on the floor. Her father was still in the living room, where he’d been since
they got home from church. The first thing he’d done was pull off his tie, undo a few
buttons on his shirt and push the sleeves up. Then he sat down on his chair and told
Polly to get him one his drinks.
Polly knew only three things about his drinks, but they were three of the most
important things she knew. The first thing was that she was never, ever, ever to take a
sip of his drinks. The second thing she knew was that his drinks were almost magical,
but not a good kind of magic. When he drank he changed. All of the mean points got
meaner and the nice things about her father disappeared.
And the last thing she knew was that when her father had a lot of drinks, it would
be a very long night.
There had been a lot of long nights since her mother had gone. Because her
mother had gone. Because he was protecting her, he said. From what she did to her
mom. So that nobody would know and blame her.
Polly had just finished in the bathroom when she started walking towards the
kitchen, careful to prop her doll up under her arm so that the rip was upwards, so that
none of the insides would spill out.
“Hey!”
She froze mid-step, waiting for him to speak.
“Wudza git me assuther un.”
He waved the empty bottle in the air and she nodded, creeping towards the
kitchen.
When she set the doll on the counter, some of the contents spilled out. Polly
ignored that, went to the fridge and got the bottle. She’d had enough practice that it
only took a few minutes of fumbling with the opener to get the cap off.
Then she dealt with the bits from the doll that had spilled onto the counter. From
the other room she could hear his slurred words, hear him calling to her. Polly hurried
with the bottle and then stopped herself, walking slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, so that
she wouldn’t spill a drop.
She crossed the room and he grabbed the bottle from her hands and tilted it
back, taking a swig. Polly turned and went back to the kitchen to get her doll.
*****
As she started up the stairs he lifted his bottle and hand in her general direction.
“I’lls be up soon en tuckya in luvs.”
She swallowed and nodded, climbing the stairs one by one, stumbling as she
stretched her leg over the bad, broken step. He was drinking this one fast, so she knew
she didn’t have much time to get ready.
But she was prepared. Her nightie was set out so it took only a moment to slide
out of her dress and into the cotton gown. She moved quickly, quicker than usual, and
when everything was done she returned to her room and sat on the edge of the bed, her
arms wrapped tightly around her knees as she rocked back and forth, back and forth.
Listening. Waiting. Hoping it would work. Praying.
Then she heard the sound of something clunking against the floor, thick glass
rolling on the lino followed by the sound of movement. She’d been downstairs enough
times before to have a good idea of what was happening, the initial thuds followed by a
low curse and then more thuds as he staggered back up to his feet and started towards
the stairs. Each step was unpredictable, the footfalls coming at irregular intervals, but
coming closer, the sound increasing slightly in volume as he made his way up to the top
of the landing.
She heard the uttered, “whah” from almost right outside her room, followed by
tremble of her bedroom wall as his fist struck it, then the clunk clunk tu-du-du-du-du.
There was a loud crash, the sound of glass shattering, and then silence.
*****
Tick tick tick tick tick…
Polly watched the clock for twenty minutes and then let go of her knees, her legs
sliding down the side of the bed, her bare feet softly landing on the floor. She held her
breath as she crept to the door, turning the knob a millimeter at a time until the latch
clicked and she could tug it open slowly.
Pressing her face up against the tiny crack, she looked into the darkness of the
landing, seeing nothing but the usual shadows from the partially closed doors to her
parent’s room and the bathroom. When there was still no sound, she took a gulp of air
and opened her door enough to poke her head out into the hallway.
There was no movement, no sound. She risked a step out and looked down the
stairs.
Enough moonlight shone in through the windows for her to see his face was
grey, as still as the stones in the churchyard. He lay on his back, arms sticking out from
his sides, one leg pushed back underneath his body, the other lingering on the stairs,
his mouth open ever so slightly, a trickle of something dark forming a jagged line from
his lips.
Polly bent down, picked her doll up off the step, the one above the broken one
they had to skip, and scampered back up the stairs, slammed the bedroom door shut
and turned the lock.
She sank down to her knees beside her bed, like she had done every night of her
life, and folded her hands. Thinking back to a night not so long ago, when the scuffling
sounds had been furniture and bodies downstairs.
“You’ve had enough,” her mother had screamed. “Y’aren’t supposed to take ‘em
with the booze.”
“One ain’t gonna kill me.”
“They say no alcohol.”
“Dammit wimmin you ain’t bossa me. Givez me de fuzzin’ drink. Now.”
There’d been more scuffled, then the sound of fast footsteps, running up the
stairs. Followed by something falling at the top and then a sharp cry, followed by a long
silence.
The blame. No, it wasn’t his fault for the broken stair they all stumbled on, but
hers, for the toy left lying in the way.
The games. Her way of showing daddy she was sorry. And so that nobody
would ever know it was her fault Mommy went away.
*****
Polly didn’t know how many pills it would take. She’d been stashing them in the
doll until she counted up twelve and tonight she mixed them in with his drinks. But she
wasn’t prepared to chance it. She’d left the doll on the step to make sure it happened
again. Not what everyone thought had happened, but what had really happened.
Her boney knees pressed against the cold, hard floor, Polly folded her hands and
closed her eyes.
No more, she thought. No more Daddy games.
“Thank you God. For getting my parents together again,” she said, her lips
curling up into a smile.
Introducing Cozy Noir:
Cozy noir is a story with an amateur sleuth who has no conscience and mutters curses
under his breath. His sidekick is a cat, who might actually be the killer.
- JB Thompson and JT Ellison
UNSTUFFED
By Bill Blume
Andy was looking more raggedy than usual.
His stuffing was
strewn from the toy box to the door like an isolated snowstorm. His head was deflated
and his sewn smile warped into permanent confusion. He’d seen his last playtime. My
name’s Bear… Ted E. I was on the case.
I’d gathered the usual suspects. There was Barb, standing amid the scattered
remnants of Andy’s white, fluffy insides. Her perfect smile didn’t change to a frown. It
never did. I didn’t trust her. She’d been on the prowl ever since her divorce from
Kendoll.
Then there was my friend, Winn. I had questions plenty, and all he had to say
was, “Think, think, think.” Was he capable of this? A bear of little brain, yes… but
everyone knew about his honey habit. His paws looked more sticky than usual and his
tummy oddly unrumbly. Someone had paid him off with a smackeral. I was sure of it.
I couldn’t say the same for the dog. Her whimpers from the corner of the kid’s
room wouldn’t stop. Her stomach growled even louder. She jumped up, ran to the
closed door, spun about in a tight circle, stopping to bark in vain for release. The bitch
couldn’t wait any longer and dropped her load. More bits of white fluff hit the floor.
Poor Andy.
About the author:
Bill Blume lives in Richmond, Virginia, where he works as a communications officer for Henrico
County Police. He’s currently writing two fantasy novels, including one he’s co-writing with his
wife Sheri. He’s also helping organize the 2006 James River Writers Conference. He earned a
BA in Journalism from University of South Carolina and has worked as a news producer and
bookseller.