THE SCHEME OF THINGS by Gary Clifton

TK'n'C is pleased to welcome Gary with this hardboiled piece...

THE SCHEME OF THINGS

Harry The Rat gave the job to that dick, Primo. Yeah, I was still on the payroll for the piss-peanuts The Rat paid, but an assigned hit paid big bucks - what the crap-head straight world called an incentive bonus.

The Rat kept Primo around because he was big, stupid and knew how to act like a real bodyguard - like my ass. Primo was one of those jack-offs who was mean, not tough for shit. The kind who actually enjoyed offing a mark for the sadistic high from the last seconds of terror and gore.

The deal had a helluva hitch. The Rat had a chick on the payroll, Mary, if you can swallow that alias shit. Red hair, beautiful blue eyes, with legs all the way to the floor. She was The Rat's pussy deal. She'd also done a couple of hits. Blew the suckers away like quail hunting in Nebraska . You look that good, no problem walking up on the mark.

Rufus Freeman, dude who ran a pawnshop on Troost, had been hosing Mary - at least The Rat thought so. Funny about some guys. In The Rat's mind, Freeman had to go, but good pussy is hard to find - especially the kind with legs that good. So Mary earned a pass. But Freeman was a dead man and that mope Primo got the contract.

Big problem: I'd had a little of ol' Mary - twice actually in the front seat of her 'Vette. I figured the combinations. I was in deep shit. In this damned business, a man does what he has to do. So I figured I better watch and play the whole symphony by ear.

Freeman's Pawn stayed open until 10 P.M. - damned cold and dark in January. Freeman had a habit of sending home the hired help around nine, opening a nice window of time. Primo liked to use a blade, but he was way too chickenshit to take on an old boy like Freeman with a knife.

The Rat was impatient. He'd insist Primo do the job ASAP. So I only hadda sit on Freeman's two nights before, sure as hell, I spotted Primo in his Lexus parked a block down. At just past ten, Freeman flicked out the lights, fumbled with the front door and stepped between snowplow drifts to cross Troost to his Cadillac in the bitter, north wind.

Primo, like a true dumb bastard he was, whipped the Lexus beside Freeman at mid-street and gave him four in the midsection with that .45 he loved so much. Freeman went down like a wet towel.

Then, She appeared. Even the long trench-coat couldn't hide those legs. Primo had stepped out of the Lexus to put a finale in Freeman's head. From behind a snow-heap, Mary swayed off the curb and put five in Primo with that little S&W she carried. He hit the pavement, dead as last Easter's ham.

Well, what the hell. I cranked my ride and was beside her in seconds. 

She started to run, but when she recognized my mug, she stopped and whipped up one of those million dollar, toothy smiles. "We mustn't leave loose ends, she said softly." 

She was right. Primo must have also visited the front seat of her 'Vette, I figured. Freeman probably hadn't, but I by God had. 

I capped her between those lovely eyes. Her head exploded like a bursting watermelon, the force knocking her ten feet, the S&W skidding across the deserted street. I started back to The Rat's. One more in his brain, if he had one, would take care of business.

Survival, that's all it is in the end. Mary lay sprawled on the pavement. "Sorry baby," I looked back. "But even good pussy ain't really that hard to find."

BIO:

Gary Clifton, forty years a cop, has over sixty short fiction pieces published or pending with online sites. He's been shot at, shot, stabbed, sued and is currently retired. Clifton has an M.S. from Abilene Christian University.

BULLETS FOR ANGEL By Greg Mollin

Give a warm TKnC welcome to Greg with...

Bullets for Angel 

  
      I wake with a hot streak of sunlight burning a blinding line across my eyes and forehead.  I roll off the edge of the bed and land hard on ancient carpet.  I can smell the smoke from a million cigarettes and maybe someone’s dog.  I pull myself up and tug the drapes closed.  My eyes throb when I keep them open for more than a second and I have to dig deep to fight from adding puke to the already fragrant floor.  

      I squint around the room.  It takes me a moment to realize I’m in my own house.  Jerry Springer is berating some white trash on the muted television.  The coffee table is covered in empty beer cans.  It tastes like Jack Daniels shat in my mouth.  I’m fully clothed, sans boots and I can feel something cold and heavy tucked into the back of my jeans.  I reach back and a blood crusted hand comes back holding my silver nine.  I pop an empty clip.  The stench of cordite stings my nose.  

      There’s a knock at the door and then a woman’s voice.  I vaguely remember calling my ex.  Not sure if we had another fight but something feels resolved as I open the door.  She’s standing there, arms crossed in that angry/tired/fed up way.  She looks beautiful. 

      “Tom, what the hell is going on?  You can’t keep calling me whenever you get drunk and expect me to come running,” she says, walking in without closing the door.  The sunlight exposes the mess of the house and flashes on the gun I tossed on the bed.  She goes to sit down and then sees it.  “Holy shit, Tom, is that a gun?”

      “Think I might have killed someone last night, Angel.  This gun’s been fired and this ain’t my blood.”  I tug at the sleeve of my shirt and spread the fingers of my hand.  “You happen to see my car out there?” 

      “It’s out back by the garage.  I wasn’t even sure you were here ‘till I walked around the house and saw it back there.  What the fuck were you doing behind the wheel last night?” 

      That makes me laugh.  Here I am, sitting in the dark with a gun, covered in someone else’s blood and she’s concerned about drunk driving.
  
      “You never did know which battles to choose, baby.  You got a smoke?” 

      She reaches into her purse and roots around for a second before tossing me the pack where I’m sitting back on the bed.  She still carries that big old brown leather bag.  Thing that size would be better suited hugging the fender of a Harley than over the shoulder of a little blonde. 

      I dig into my pocket and bring out a Zippo.  I run my thumb over the small letters engraved on it.  Braille on a little silver tombstone.  The hollow metallic click rings in the silence between us as I light up.   I blow my smoke up at the ceiling and tuck the thing back in my pocket.  

      “You want a beer? I ask.  I walk into the kitchen and grab a cold can from the refrigerator.  The sound of the door shutting drowns out whatever reply she gives me.   A picture of us at our favorite taco stand in Cabo is stuck to the door with a Donald Duck magnet.  She looks happy.  I look edgy and drunk.  Dangerous. 

      “Hair of the dog,” I say, cracking the beer and swallowing half of it.  It makes my eyes water.  I set the can on the table next to the bed and sit back down.  My head feels a mile wide.  The Zippo feels hot against my leg.  I take a drag from the smoke.  The gun is next to me on the bed.  I try to think of it as the guilty party.
  
      Angel isn’t talking, just watching me.  Her eyes go to the blood on my shirt and back to the gun.  She grabs the pack off the table and lights up before putting them back in her purse and setting it down next to the recliner by the door. 

      “So, do you have any idea what happened last night?” she says.  She’s pacing now, back and forth in front of the bed.  A scuffle breaks out on TV.  “I should have left as soon as I saw that gun, Tommy.  Just being around one of those things violates my parole.  I can’t be going back to jail over some crazy shit you did.  Besides,” she says, taking a deep drag from the cigarette.  “If J.B. finds out I came over here, he’s liable to start beating on me again.”  She points to a greenish blotch under her eye, partially concealed beneath the thin film of makeup.  “This shiner is just from burning his toast last weekend.”  She blows out her smoke and drops the butt into an empty on the table.  It sizzles in the moisture. 

      A day ago, that bruise would have pushed me straight into a rage.  I want to reach out and touch her skin.  She looks at me nervously.  She’s trying to read me and I just smile.  Looking at her like this, it’s difficult to remember how tough she really is.  Angel, my Angel.  My hard little girl.  She doesn't return the smile.  She walks to the bathroom and closes the door.  I can hear the water running. 

      There’s something stiff in the fabric on the front of my shirt.  I pick at it and deep red dust comes away on my fingertips.  I unbutton the shirt and toss it onto the growing pile between my bed and the wall.  I really need to clean this place.  I should probably wash my hands at some point. 
    
      She returns from the bathroom and folds her arms.  There’s more makeup covering that bruise.  She’s pulled her hair back into a thick ponytail.  

      “Well, Tom,” she says, “if you’re just gonna sit there and stare at me with that dumb grin on your face and not tell me what happened, I’m out of here.  I need to stop by the market before Jerry gets home.”  She picks up her purse and pretends to look for something. 

      “Can I get one more of those smokes, baby?” I say.  I want to hold her and tell her everything.  I want to make her believe it will all be okay.  I stand up and reach out for her.  She hands me the cigarettes and pushes her palm out flat to make me stop.  

      “Take the rest, and Tom, please don’t call me anymore.  I’m trying to clean up my life.  Next time you get the itch to confess about something, go talk to a priest.  I can’t deal with this shit anymore.”   She turns and opens the door.  For a moment, she’s framed in light, like a real angel.  To me, she is.  

      “Goodbye Angel, my Angel,” I hear myself say as she shuts the door and I’m alone again in the darkness.  I wrestle the last scent of her from the dank air before going to the bathroom to shower. 

      After the shower I pull on a t-shirt and jeans and head out to the back porch.  The hot water has sharpened me up and the pounding in my eyes is almost gone.  The afternoon sun warms my skin.  I want to soak it in and push out the constant coldness I feel.   I can hear the kids next door laughing as they chase each other around the back yard.  My memories of childhood don’t tend to involve laughter.  I’ve always felt chased. 

      I pull the Zippo from my pocket and light one of the cigarettes Angel left me.  I close the lighter with a flick of my wrist and look at the initials “JB” etched into the chrome surface.  The lighter winks at me in the reflected sunlight as if to show consent to the secret we share. 

      I load a clip with bullets and take the gun with me out to the Charger.  I think of all the time that Angel and I have spent in this car together; road trips and drive-in movies, kissing in the moonlight on the crest of Signal Hill.  At least I still have the car. 

      I turn the key and listen to the muted growl of the idling engine.  The clock on the CD player says one-thirty.  The interior is getting hot and very soon there’ll be a smell coming from the trunk that won’t be easy to cover.  I figure it’ll take me about three hours to get through the border into Mexico.  With luck I’ll be in Cabo in twenty four.  Maybe I’ll hit that taco stand.  


Bio:
Greg Mollin is a fiction writer living in Orange County, California. He has been involved in everything from hardcore punk music to graphic design, and even a stint as writer/performer on a popular cable television sketch comedy show. His short story, The Monster on Myers Avenue, appeared in Dark Moon Digest#3. Burial Day Books featured his story, Where the Fault Lies, which was also included in their Gothic Blue Book: Haunted Edition collection.  

Greg's website is here.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS by John L. Thompson

John débuts in fine style with the hardboiled... 

     Día de los Muertos

“It’s a cake job Mitch.”  Jack leans back in his porch chair sipping on a tumbler of Jack Daniels while puffing on a cigarette.  The smoke blows from thick lips as he speaks reminding me of a car with a bad cylinder.
    

“Sitting in the back of a moving box truck with a suitcase loaded with hard currency just doesn’t sound too appealing.  I’m supposed to sit there with no firearm?  What‘s my function in all of this Jack?”

“You sit in the back and play ‘guard the money‘.  It’s as easy as it gets and yes, the bad guys will be searching you so no gun, not even a back up pistol.”

“Who’s the back up and where’s the drop off point?”

“Dillon’s got a team assembled and will be situated around the drop area just on this side of the border near the Ysleta point of entry, but we’ll be taking the back roads in.  When the doors open you hand over the suitcase over to one of Alfred Gomez’s men and from there we spring the trap. It’s as simple as it gets.”

“And you’re driving?”

“Of course. I‘ve got a few years more with the DEA than you so that gives me seniority and I‘m pulling it here.”

“Who else is in on this?”

“Johnson is leading this operation to bag Gomez. It’s a big deal and it’s all hush hush from the top on down. Only those in the know need to know so don’t go blabbing it to anyone. The entire DEA people are sitting on pins and needles on this one. We been wanting to bag that bastard for years now.”

“Gomez huh?”  I’ve been with the DEA for ten years now, still stuck at the bottom of the totem pole.  Nailing Alfred Gomez, one of Mexico’s most notorious cartel leaders, would sure as hell move me up the ladder of power and out of the Southwest.  It might even land me a soft desk job somewhere in Virginia telling war stories around the water cooler.  I go ahead and give in.  I don‘t need Jack getting all the glory.  I slam back my own glass of Jack Daniels feeling the amber fluid settling in my gut as a warm glow.  “I’m in.”

A few hours into dusk, Jack swings by the pick up point where I’m waiting.  I hop in the back and the door slams down and I’m bouncing around the darkness of the box truck, hoping to God that all the other agents are in place.  I swear Jack is trying to make it as uncomfortable a ride as possible.  The cool metal brief case is my only companion and I take a chance at looking inside.  Within are bundled twenties and fifties and I thumb through and count the bundles.  A cool quarter mill?  Wonder how many strings had to be pulled to gather this much dough?  I feel the truck making a few turns down sections of wash board roads before slowing to a stop.  I pocket a few fifties toward my child support bill which I‘m late on.  Nothing new to me and the loss can be attributed to accounting error.  I’ve got more than three times the amount of the briefcase stashed away for my own retirement.  Slapping the briefcase shut, I’m waiting for the door to roll open.  I’m sweating my ass off waiting for the next moment and prepare to hand over the brief case before flashing my DEA badge.
    

I got the briefcase and the door rolls opens and quickly realize something’s wrong.  I thought all of this would be happening out in the middle of nowhere, but instead I’m seeing the familiar green glow of the city lights of Juarez and a lot of busted up adobe buildings.  This is not on the American side of the border.  To make matters worse, a Mexican is standing there with a battered Winchester ’97 pump pointed up at me and adrenaline blasts through my body, just as he pulls the trigger.  I doubled over from the hit to the gut.  Rough hands grab hold and throw me to the hard dusty ground.

I’m gasping, trying to suck in life giving air and checking myself over, expecting to find blood running out of me before I realize I’d been shot with a bean bag round.  Several other Mexicans dog pile me, quickly binding up my hands and feet with ropes.  Jack is standing there chomping on a stick of gum with a wide smile.     

“What the hells going on Jack? Some kinda sick joke?” 

Jack smiles.  “You sold out Mitch. Don’t try to lie to me. I got knowledge of every dirty shit thing you been doing. You’ve been working both sides of the fence taking payoffs from the local cartels. Remember that incident a few years back in El Paso?  The incident where you gave heads up to the local gang and our buddies Chico and Roberts got killed doing that bust?”

I’m staggering. The worlds a twisted blur and I retch my guts out. Set up, and no one knows we’re here except for Jack. Or is this a set up to force me into confessing?  For years now I had collected money, made deals, traded information to the cartels allowing some big shipments across the borders for pay.  Were there agents waiting nearby, recording the exchange of conversation?

“Its nothing personal I assure you. It took me time to put this thing together. A few contacts and chats with the local cartels, a little internal networking. The laws in the US are just loaded with loopholes so I couldn’t chance turning you in. I made a promise to Chico‘s wife I‘d personally get the guys responsible. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was you.”  

“I have money. I can pay you big.”  I rasp, my throat’s dry like it’s been swabbed with cotton.

Jack kneels down.  “This is the difference between you and me. I’m the good guy and you’re the bad guy. The bad guy is supposed to get his in the end, and this, my friend, is the end.”  He stands up and starts to leave, but then turns back to me. 

“Oh…one last thing…”

“Fuck you, Jack.”

“Not in a million years, Mitch. That money in the suitcase…”  He wipes his nose with thick fingers.  “I also found your stash of bank accounts. You sure made a shit-load of money, my friend. I took the liberty of taking it and split some of that with the widows, you know for their kid’s college funds when they get old enough. The rest I gave to your new friends here. It’s hush money kinda thing. Thanks for helping out, and I‘ll let you guys get acquainted.”  He turns and strides away, like Humphrey Bogart all slick and smooth.  

Of course, I knew what he was talking about.  The El Paso gig just went sideways and a couple of DEA agents were killed.  I made a ton of money off of the bad deal and just so happens the Latino gang that murdered Chico and Roberts, also worked for Alfred Gomez’s Cartel group.  I don‘t want to die and beg the Mexicans standing around me to speak with Alfred Gomez. 

“He has no wish to speak with you. He only says you are bad for his business.”  A couple of Mexicans take hold of my feet then drag me off into a near by warehouse filled with blinding lights and stacks of bundled marijuana slated for shipping into the US.   In the far corner is a large vat that’s been painted several shades of opaque pink and thick pipes are plumbed in and out of it.

The bigger Mexican kneels down, flashes a gold-toothed smile.  “Senor, I have nothing against you, but your amigo was very clear in what he wanted.”

“I have money.”  I’m sure Jack could not have gotten to all the money.  “Right here in my pocket, I got some.”  I’m nodding my head towards my trouser pocket.   

He eyes me with suspicion, leans over and digs his fingers around in my pocket.  He holds up the few fifties.  “You are joking, yes?”  The others laugh at the small joke.

“No, I got more in an account but it’s in El Paso.”

He eyes the money.  “You have none. Your friend said this. This is good for a funeral amigo. I will bury you in a prominent plot reserved for the town’s politicians and cartels. Let me see…”  He furrows his eyebrows in thought.  “…a name… Zapata… Jose Zapata, for your gravestone. We will celebrate you on Día de los Muertos.”

I spit a chunk of phlegm at him.  “Fuck you!”  I scream repeatedly, while the other two Mexicans hook my feet up to an overhead hoist and slowly I’m raised up.  I’m thinking their going to beat on me like a Piñata, but it’s the large vat I’m swinging over.  It’s filled with a liquid that emits a wave of caustic stench that‘s familiar.

Acid.  

They lower me in head first and I’m screaming out every obscenity known to man, until the fluid begins to burn.  I’m thrashing about trying to get away from the new agony that’s tearing at my skin.  I’m screaming bubbles and muffled curses into an angry hissing void of hot pins stabbing and tearing at every nerve in my head, and the skin blisters.  All I can do is watch the acid turn red and melting flesh floating away to the murky bottom before I’m blinded.  I’m lifted out of the stew pot, left hanging to wither in agony for a few moments before being dipped in again. I realize that the dying is going to take a while.

 

BIO: John Thompson currently lives in New Mexico.  He works the ungodly grind by day and becomes a chain smoking writer at night.  He has stories and poetry published or forthcoming in such publications as Yellow Mama, Adobe Walls Poetry Anthologies, RuneWrights Best Served Cold: An Eye for an Eye Vol 1, Science Fiction Trails, Static Movement Press Anthologies Undead Space and Noir to name a few.

EMPTY DINERS AND PASSING TRUCKS by Richard Godwin

The inimitable Richard makes a welcome return with... 

EMPTY DINERS AND PASSING TRUCKS

Beyond the stained window the highway looked deserted. Patty felt she was in the wrong   town with no visa. The diner was empty apart from the guy in the corner. He’d been eyeing her all night.

‘I don’t suppose you have a light?’ he said, walking over.

‘Sure’, Patty said, flicking her Zippo, hiding the stain, snuffing it out. ‘Spare a cigarette?’

‘Oh yeah.’

The waitress bristled past, all swish of starched uniform and the click of over chewed gum. She looked at them out of the corner of her eye, a slight curl of her lip.

Patty stepped outside into the mix of ice cold and diesel fumes.  After the initial silence, they started the smokers’ chat. Weather, journeys, directions, bitching about this and that, and then he said it. Just like that. No interlude, no build up. As if he was ordering a pizza.  ‘Last night I killed a man.’

He took a deep drag and blew it skywards then turned and looking her right in the eyes, said, ‘A guy got smart. He was nobody, really. I shot him. Twice.’

‘That right?’

Silence. And just two burning cigarette ends in the cold and the smog.  A truck whizzed by.

‘Why you telling me this?’ she said.

‘Cause there’s one thing I always feel like doing after I kill someone.’

‘No shit?’

‘You look good to me.’

‘I ain’t gonna sleep with you.’

‘I ain’t asking you to sleep with me, honey. How old are you anyway?’

‘Twenty-six.’

‘That right? There’s a bad dude out there, in case you ain’t heard, he’s been chopping women up. Much badder’n old Jim. I don’t kill ladies, just fuck them.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘Heard one woman got her throat opened up real bad. Out here, alone, just her thumb in the air and only her poontang to pay. They call him the maniac trucker, although I hear this guy drives a pick up.’

‘Thank you for the smoke,’ she said, walking back in.

Inside, the waitress stared at her from behind the counter, hands on her hips. Then she went out back. Patty felt weak and as she tried to remember the last time she’d eaten, Jim walked in, laughing, almost dancing across the diner to where she sat.

‘Come on, darling, we can do it in the john,’ he said.

The smell of pizza drifted across the air.

‘How much you got?’

‘I knew you were a pick up. I reckon you’re worth a hundred.’

‘Hundred and fifty.’

‘Done.’

He peeled a stack of tens out of his wallet and laid them in her palm.

‘I’ll see you in the john,’ she said. 

After a few minutes Jim made his way there.

She was standing at the back, past the urinals, outside the only clean cubicle.

Jim walked in and put a broom handle against the door.

‘Well, hallelujah baby.’

‘Come on,’ she said, walking into the cubicle, pulling down her jeans.

‘You’re as sweet as cherry pie, ain’t you?’

She thought she heard someone trying the door as he entered her. She looked over Jim’s shoulder at a fly crawling across the graffiti. She felt the cold wall against her buttocks as he stopped.

He winked and ran his finger across her cheek. ‘Told you I ain’t the maniac trucker.’ Then he looked down at her right forearm and shook his head. There was a jagged scar running through the tattooed word “Mom”. 

After he left, she heard a pick up drive off as she checked herself in the mirror. She was thinking about food when the door swung open and the waitress walked in.

‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘I saw him leave. I’m calling the po-lice.’

‘Why the fuck you such a bitch?’

‘You just made a big mistake, you ho.’

‘You don’t get to call me no hooker, you’re just a fucking waitress.’

She was trying to leave when Patty grabbed her hair. She spun round and struck Patty hard across the face.

‘I wish that killer would pick you’, the waitress said.

Patty smiled. ‘Oh yeah?’

She had one fist clenched in the waitress’s uniform as she pulled her switchblade from her pocket and opened up her throat. The blade was still moving in the air as the waitress spurted blood on the wall, staggering round with her eyes popping. And Patty watched her fall, one hand on the floor, reaching for something she never found.

She stepped over the body and out of the diner and hailed a passing truck.

Jim went back the next day and heard the waitress had been killed by the maniac trucker.

Every time he took a piss there, he thought of the hot little tattooed thing he’d screwed, as the steam rose from the urinal like a mist.

Bio:

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novels Mr. Glamour and Apostle Rising and is a widely published crime and horror writer.

Mr. Glamour is his second novel and was published in paperback in April 2012. It is available online at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Glamour-Richard-Godwin/dp/0956711332 and at all good retailers. Mr.Glamour is Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. The novel is about a glamorous world obsessed with designer labels with a predator in its midst and has received great reviews.  Pulp Metal Fiction recently published Piquant, Tales Of The Mustard Man, his culinary genius. His  Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are interviews he has conducted with writers and can be found at his blog . You can also find a full list of his works on his website.

BOTTLED IN CHICAGO by DB Cox

DB Cox returns to TKnC with this atmospheric tale of driftin'...

BOTTLED IN CHICAGO
--- For Rod Serling and Charles Beaumont

Robert Bro Brown stands in front of the Club Indigo, “windy-city” cold blowing into his bloodshot eyes. How long since he’s closed his eyes - months, maybe even years. He looks up and down the boulevard - not a car in sight. Quiet, except for the sound of a dog howling in the distance.

Mournful wailing. The baying of a hound tracking a scent.

A shiver tracks his spine. Bro reaches inside his overcoat pocket, pulls out a bottle, and downs the dregs. He wipes his lips with his sleeve and drops the empty into the gutter. The bottle does not break. It spins around on its side a couple of times and comes to a stop - bottleneck pointing in his direction. Mephisto Gin - Bottled in Chicago. Bro picks up his guitar and turns toward the club entrance.

*****

At a little past 9:30 P.M., Bro, carrying his ancient guitar case, walks through the front door of Club Indigo. The bald bouncer glances up from his chair and waves him through.

Robert Brown is dragging around a lot of history. He was once a sideman with the great Howlin’ Wolf, and in the 1950s, he recorded two solo albums, “A Minor Blues” and “Whiskey Talking.” Both of these albums were once considered to be blues classics. Now, mostly forgotten, he works as a bar musician playing a style of blues shaped by the great Mississippi Delta players like Charley Patton - one man with an acoustic guitar - nowhere to hide.

Bro walks slowly down the entranceway that leads into the club. He eyes the assorted old photos of renowned blues performers that line the wall to his right - familiar faces from a better time and a better place. On the opposite wall, Club Indigo jackets, t-shirts, and caps, in various colors, hang like masterpieces in a museum.

Inside, the bar is a fusion of neon beer signs, tinted lights, and cigarette smoke. The booths are like something from the 1950s.

As Bro makes his way through a group of people chatting in front of the bar, Shaky Jake, one of the club managers, is on stage with a microphone giving his usual pre-show pitch:

“Ladies and gentleman, I want to remind you to tip your waitresses and bartenders, who are working real hard for you. And don’t forget to pick up a blues souvenir! We have T-shirts, baseball caps, and jackets. We also have CDs by famous Chicago blues artists. In the meantime, sit tight, because the great bluesman, Robert Brown, will be out shortly!”

Bro walks past the stage and into the dressing room - a cheap panel and plaster hangout for the band during breaks. Almost every inch of wall-space is covered with graffiti left by the hundreds of unknown bar musicians that have passed through over the years. On the wall, somebody has scrawled:

“We’re still getting the blues and Clapton’s still getting the money.”

John Keyes, the club owner, is sitting at a small table in the middle of the room. He has an empty whiskey glass in his hand.

“Nice to see you, Mr. Brown,” says Keyes.

He gets up, walks over to where Bro is leaning on his guitar case, and says,

“Robert, you and I have to talk.”

“What about?” asks Bro.

“Business,” says Keyes, “We can’t afford to go on any longer, the way we’re going now. Times are bad. The crowd is down. The club has got to make a change.”

“And I’m the change,” says Bro.

“Listen Robert, you’re a great, old blues musician, but there’s no audience for traditional, black, blues guys. Hell, I couldn’t even sell Robert Johnson these days. The young audience wants to hear electric guitar slingers, like Stevie Ray. You know what I mean.”

Bro stares directly into John Keyes’ eyes and smiles. For a few seconds, everything in the room moves away. A white light breaks like a wave over Bro’s brain, and stops just behind his eyes - a blurred message. And then, just as quickly, it's gone.

“Yeah, John. I know what you mean.”

Bro props his guitar in the corner and walks out - headed for the bar.

*****

Bro tries to recall the bartender’s name, then gives up and calls out:

“Barkeep, what about another double?”

“Hey man, aren’t you Robert Brown, the blues musician?” someone says behind him.

Bro turns on his stool and looks into the face of a young black man. He has on a White Sox baseball cap twisted to one side. He’s certain that he’s never seen this man before.

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“I’m Stick James,” the man says, as if the name might mean something, “You might have heard of me. I’m a RAP artist for Scratch Records.”

“Well Mr. James, there’s a goddamn artist on every street corner in every city, and I’ve never heard of you. So, how is it that you know me?”

“Oh, I recognize the face from your album cover. You’re a little gray around the edges, but I’d know you anywhere - your face is burned into my brain.”

“Bullshit, says Bro, “I didn’t make but two records, and you don’t look like you’re old enough to have owned either one.”

“I didn’t, but my father did. He had ’em both - loved ‘em madly. And when he took to the highway, those old records were all he left behind.”

Bro turns, stares into the bar-length mirror, and says nothing.

“You know, Mr. Brown, my mother played those two albums until the grooves were smooth as a baby’s butt - the perfect background music for an alcoholic junky to wallow in.”

When he gets no reply from Bro, he continues his rant.

“Yeah, ain’t nothing sets the proper mood like some good ol’ chicken-shack, chicken-shit, juke-joint slave music. Man, all that hard living you sing about, I’m surprised to see you’re still around.”

Bro feels something inside coming unraveled, and this time the message is plain.

“Kid, if I were you, I wouldn’t push it any further,” says Bro.

But Stick James, RAP artist, can’t stop talking.

“Fact is, I’ve never known who to hate more, my would-be father, or you and your blues crap. If my mother’s habit hadn’t finally killed her, she’d probably still be drinking, shootin’ up, and playing those sorry-ass records of yours.”

Bro moves inside himself - beyond the possibility of reason. He slides his right hand down to his boot, pulls up the leg of his pants, and finds the handle of a survival knife. He spins on the barstool and jams the blade all the way in and back out of Stick James’ chest.

The wounded man opens his mouth as if to scream, but instead begins to howl - lupine eyes burning yellow in the dark.

Bro drops the bloody knife on the barroom floor. Oblivious of the woeful sound, he closes his eyes and considers the meaning of eternity - ceaseless existence without a break. The jukebox in the corner plays:

“I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the day keeps on remindin’ me
There’s a hellhound on my trail…”

*****

Robert Bro Brown stands in front of the Club Indigo, “windy-city” cold blowing into his bloodshot eyes. How long since he’s closed his eyes - months, maybe even years. He looks up and down the boulevard - not a car in sight. Quiet, except for the sound of a dog howling in the distance.

Mournful wailing. The baying of a hound tracking a scent.

A shiver tracks his spine. Bro reaches inside his overcoat pocket, pulls out a bottle, and downs the dregs. He wipes his lips with his sleeve and drops the empty into the gutter. The bottle does not break. It spins around on its side a couple of times and comes to a stop - bottleneck pointing in his direction. Mephisto Gin - Bottled in Chicago. Bro picks up his guitar and turns toward the club entrance…..

________________________________

BIO: DB Cox is a blues musician/writer from South Carolina. His poems and short stories have been published extensively in the small press, in the US, and abroad. 

He has published five books of poetry: “Passing For Blue,” “Lowdown,” “Ordinary Sorrows,” “Nightwatch,” and “Empty Frames.” Rank Stranger Press recently published his new collection of short stories, called “Unaccustomed Mercy.” 

He has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize.

DEAD MAN'S SWITCH by Liam Sweeny

TKnC welcomes New Yorker, Liam with this hardboiled offering... 


Dead Man’s Switch



Darius grew up on the wrong side of the tracks his father rode tirelessly as a train conductor. Long hours; he'd come home soot-coated and sweaty, those few times he could be home. He had forearms as big as the thighs of a lesser man, six-foot-four, with dark eyes framed with darker, bushy brows. Darius rarely saw him, but his father was a good man; worked so hard to get food on the table, get his mom the microwave ovens and him the latest toys - saved enough to put him through college, state college anyway. One day, when he was seven, Darius asked his dad about the trains.


"Papa, what if you get thrown off the train?" he asked, "Does it keep goin'?"


His father laughed. "Boy, that thing's got a dead man's switch."


"There's a dead man on the train?" Darius's eyes opened wide.


"No, no... it's called a 'dead man's switch'. It's in case..." He paused, "in case I get thrown off the train, or I hit my head."


"Oh." Darius said, scratching his head, "but why do they call it a 'dead man's switch'?"


"That's just what they call it." His father said. He put his arm around Darius. Their house overlooked the train-yard. 
"Those trains can be so heavy, and go so fast that if ya' can’t stop 'em, they can hurt a whole lot of folk." His father punched straight into the air. "So they have a switch, the dead man's switch that shuts them down if we can’t do what we're supposed to do."


"But you won't fail, will ya', papa?"


"No siree’…" He said. "Not on my watch."


*** 


Years later, Darius got a phone call in his dorm at SUNY Oneonta, drunk as dirt, stoned to shit. State Police. His mother and father were gunned down in that same house across from the train-yard. They caught the guy pawning his mother's gold bracelets, an anniversary gift he himself bought her with his work-study money. He had to have his room-mate drive him home to identify the bracelets. They never let him see them; it was best that he not, they said. The funeral consisted of two closed caskets.

Friends and family surrounded him during the funeral, but he was numb. He was surprised how many people came to the funeral. He expected family and a few of his friends, but the priest had a packed house as he walked the mourners through the valley of the shadow of death. It was the guys from the railroads that came, by the droves. Such a tight bunch, each having a story about how his dad saved their skin when this piece shit the bed or that train pulled into the rail-yard at the wrong time, how his granite grip pulled many a hapless soul from being crushed between a hundred tons of coal on each end. But it was the other stuff; the times that he was there for his guys during the trying times, times like that funeral. And they were all there for Darius, offering him so many phone numbers and twenties, fifties and hundreds “just to help get him by.” It was moving, and touching but Darius couldn’t feel touch, or be moved by anything through the image of mom’s anniversary bracelets.

Every primal, inconceivable nightmarish creature his mind could ever conceive held him captive once the blind shock wore off. He didn’t measure out his life with coffee-spoons like Prufrock, but with emaciated bottles of rotgut. Then came the trial of the man who murdered his parents.

He went to court every day of the trial sober, watched the testimony, the experts, claiming insanity, and Darius just wanted to give the court a real example of insanity, psychotic rage aimed at the defendant. The defendant had a name; he refused to recognize it. The man's first name was murder. His middle name was convict and his last name was lifer.

Until a technicality excluded enough evidence to hang the jury and a mistrial renamed him 'out on bail.'

Darius saw the man again... through the scope of a high-powered rifle. He had enough money from his inheritance to rent an office space in the building opposite the courthouse for one month, with enough left over to buy the rifle and join a gun club where an old hick taught him how to shoot a quarter at two-hundred and fifty yards.

He opened the window, backing up enough to keep the barrel inside, sighted in to dead center of the chest of the murderer, waiting patiently. The dirtbag stopped to light up a cigarette before going in to start another mistrial. Darius remembered his father punching straight into the air, could hear him say the words.. "...if ya can’t stop 'em, they can hurt a whole lot of folk..." The justice system got thrown off the train, hit its head, failed to do what it was supposed to do.

Darius looped his finger into the trigger guard, felt the cold steel of the hair-pin. He took a breath, let it out and pulled the dead man's switch.



Bio: Liam Sweeny was born and raised in upstate New York. His writing career began as a result of working in Louisiana with Hurricane Katrina evacuees in 2006. His crime and noir fiction has appeared in various sites, such as Flash Fiction Offensive, Pulp Metal Magazine, Powder Burn Flash, A Twist of Noir, Shotgun Honey and others. He has published three novels and an anthology of flash fiction. In his free time, he is heavily involved in disaster relief.


http://www.liamsweeny.com

HEAD SHOT by Cindy Rosmus

TKnC is pleased to welcome Yellow Mama Editor, Cindy with something a little bit different...

HEAD SHOT

Donna Santullo, her name was.

          Julie’s best client. And she was Donna’s favorite “beautician” at Clippers. She’d requested Julie for the final styling. Before the Great Dirt Nap.

          “No,” Julie told the mortician. “I can’t do it.”

          “Mami . . .” Gil was a sweaty mess. “You got to. Or they’ll know.”

          That it was him who he killed her.

          Right outside her house, with her key in the door. After she’d won two grand in St. Jude’s 50/50, he’d plugged her in the head. He needed crack bad, and she wouldn’t give up her purse.

          That red spangly one under Julie’s bed.  With the gun in it. He should’ve chucked both in the bay, but was too scared.

          “Bastard,” she’d called him, once. The first time he’d marked up her face with that cheap ring.  “Fucking evil coward.” Always preying on the weak.

           How could you? she almost screamed. But had to keep quiet. Coward or not, she was terrified of him.

           Inside the red purse, Donna’s perfume had spilled. Tabu, maybe. After two showers, Gil still stunk from it. To Julie, anyway.

          “Call him back,” he said, meaning the mortician. “Please,Mamita. Say you changed your mind.” When he touched her arm, she cringed. Before this, she’d lived for his touch. In spite of that ring.

         “How could you?” she whispered.

         “She made me do it!” he said. “She wouldn’t give me her purse.”

          Sure. It was all her fault. A seventy-year-old in a spangled pantsuit. For not letting a crackhead grab her winnings.

          What would Julie have done?  To save her own life?

          Donna had been down-to-earth. A great tipper, and good friend. Always there to dry Julie’s tears, and to Donna, she cried plenty.

         “Dump that asshole!” Antoinette, the owner told Julie, when she came in bruised, or broke. The other hairdressers smirked.

         "She will,” Donna said, “when she’s ready.” She squeezed Julie’s hand.  “When she runs out of love.”

         Donna knew all about love. She was married to a great guy, an ex-cop who’d quit drinking for her. He’d changed, for her! Who could blame him? She’d had a warm smile, and blue eyes that actually sparkled.

         Picturing those eyes and smile sewn shut was too much for Julie. “I . . . just . . . can’t!” she’d said, and hung up on the mortician.

         “Baby . . .” Gil’s grip was tighter. “Call him back.”

          But she wouldn’t.

          She took the beating, instead.

*     *     *

         Marisa, the “new kid,” was supposed to go in Julie’s place.

         But . . . “‘No!’” Antoinette quoted Marisa, over the phone. “‘Please, not me! I can’t touch anything dead!’”

         Julie said nothing.

        “Can’t even stuff a turkey,” Antoinette added. “So how can she ‘do the dead’? Jeez.”

        Cringing, Julie knew what was coming. Gil’s smile said he did, too.

        “I can’t leave the shop,” Antoinette said. “And first viewing’s at two. So you’ve got to do it, Jules. I mean, like now.”

        Against Julie’s bruised cheek, her cell was sweaty.

        “You’z two were real close. She even asked for you, way back. Said, ‘Antoinette, if anything happens to me—I mean bad—and I die, I don’t want nobody doin’ my hair but Julie.’”

        From under the bed, Julie could smell that purse. Tabu, and gunpowder.

       “Makeup’s already on, so just the hair needs doing,” Antoinette said. “I figured you’d want to do it. Unless . . .”

       Was she on to Gil? Or was Julie just being paranoid?

       “Something . . .” She heard Antoinette smile. “Or someone—won’t let you.”

       Did she know?

       “I’ll hurry,” Julie told her.

*     *     *

        Lots of times she’d “done the dead.” Till now, it was no big deal.

        Sure, their faces were cold, and hard, but Julie got fifty bucks for a fast set and styling. And not even the whole head, as only the front and sides were seen.

            While Julie worked, she talked to them. Especially if she knew them in life.

            “It’s okay, Annie,” she’d told her downstairs neighbor. “You won’t hear screaming and fighting no more.” Gil had called Annie “that nosy old bat.”

            But with Donna, it would be different.

            “She’s in there,” the mortician told Julie, meaning the viewing room. It was too late to do it downstairs.

            As she edged inside, her guts felt like hot soup. Gil, she thought.

            In the distance, Donna lay in a fancy casket. The room felt ice-cold, though the heat was on. Zillions of flowers, there were, like at a queen’s wake. The stench was overpowering—lilies, chrysanthemums, and thatundersmell . . . That no-matter-how-pretty-they-did-you-up-you-were-still-deadsmell.

            It’s a job, Julie told herself.  She was your friend. She wants you here.

It wasn’t Julie’s fault. She didn’t kill her. Had no clue that Gil would, though she knew he’d get his crack money from somebody.

Up close, Donna looked like an angel, with straight, graying hair. Next week she would have come in for a coloring.

            “Donna,” Julie whispered, “I’m sor—”

            “Thank you,” the guy said, and she screamed.

            She hadn’t seen him, standing amongst the flowers. “I’m sorry,” he said. He looked like she’d taken an axe to his heart. “I’m Vince. Donna’s husband.”

            Julie tried to calm down.  He looked like an older, neater version ofColumbo, that TV detective. Ex-cop, she remembered. And her guard was back up.

            “Thanks for coming,” he said. “She always liked how you did her hair.”

            Julie couldn’t meet his eyes. She thought of how Donna’s were sewn shut. “S’ the least I can do,” she murmured.

            “You made her look younger. Not like an old bat.”

            “She wasn’t an old bat!” Julie smiled over at the casket. “She was due for a color. Sorry I can’t do it.”

            “‘S’not my job, man.’” Vince sounded so much like Gil, she looked at him.

            “She told me all about you,” he said then.

            Julie self-consciously touched her cheek, looked away again.

           “You wanna sit down?” she said. “Till I’m done?”

*     *     *

            While she worked, she felt his eyes on her back. Like she would trip up, if he stared hard enough. Maybe poke out Donna’s eye, from nervousness.

            She couldn’t tell where the bullet had struck Donna.  Or if it was still inside the head. Guns were Gil’s thing, not Julie’s.

            But when a chunk of hair came out, Julie gasped.

            “What’s wrong?” Vince asked, from the first row.

            “Nothing,” she said, but something was. More and more hair was coming out of Donna’s head. This had never happened, with any corpse.

            She slipped the hair into her shirt pocket. As more hair came out, she added it to the rest. So much was coming out, she suddenly stopped working.

            “It’s okay,” Vince said, from right behind her. She jumped. “Gimme.” He reached into her pocket and pulled out Donna’s hair. As he slipped it, tenderly, into his own pocket, Julie began to cry.

            “C’mon outside.” He took her arm. “I need a smoke. You?”

            “I don’t . . . smoke!” Julie sobbed.

            “I’ll teach you.”

            She nodded. Somehow, that made sense. More than anything else in her life, right now. And the smell of this place was making her sick.

            Outside, the morticians eyed them, curiously. The first viewing wasn’t far off. They tossed their own cigarettes on the ground and went back inside.

            “It’s trauma,” Vince said, lighting up.

            “What?” Julie recalled how smug Gil had looked when she’d left.

            “‘Head’ trauma. That’s why her hair’s falling out.” He handed her the smokes, but she waved them away. “Bullet moved around, never came out. Shook things up. Like scrambling an egg.”

            She felt like puking. This was his wife, that he loved, he was talking about.

            If it were Gil, how would she feel?

            Maybe . . . glad?

            “A .22 LR. With a suppressor. That’s what he used.”

     In her mind, Gil was sprawled on the sidewalk, his curly hair sticky with blood. “Who?” she said, nervously.

            “The killer.”

            She pictured Gil in that casket inside, eyes sewn shut. No more evil glare.

            “Followed her home from St. Jude’s,” Vince said. “They had a bazaar going on.”

            “I know,” Julie said.

            And that foul mouth. . . . Gil had the prettiest lips, but it ended there. 

            No more “Gimme money, you fucking bitch!”

            “She won a bundle.” Vince tossed his cigarette away.

           Julie nodded.  Gil’s hands, entwined with black rosaries, were folded on his chest.

           Helpless. Unable to beat her again. With that ring.

           It would be so easy.

          She smiled. “Two thousand,” she said, “one hundred and two dollars.”

          Vince fingered his wife’s hairs in his pocket. Like they were ashes, he flicked them into the air.

          The wind brought them back.

BIO:

Cindy is a Jersey girl who works in New York City & who talks like Anybody’s from West Side Story. She works out 5-6 days a week, so needs no excuse to drink or do whatever the hell she wants. She loves peanut butter, blood-rare meat, Jack Daniels, and Starbucks coffee (though not usually in the same meal). She’s been published in the usual places, such as Hardboiled, A Twist of Noir, Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter,Mysterical-E, Media Virus, and The New Flesh. She is the editor of the ezine, Yellow Mama. And she’s still a Gemini and a Christian.