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.

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.

MOTHER'S LOVE by Chad Rohrbacher

It's great to have Chad back with this top notch, hard-boiled tale...


Mother’s Love


Mom always said I would amount to something. 


I amounted to exactly 6 ft,168 pounds and 3 ounces not including clothes. When Willie cut off my digitus mínimus mánus, or commonly referred to as pinky finger, I might have amounted to less, but indiscernibly so. A person really never considers the beauty of a pinky until he no longer possesses it.


Willie was my wife’s brother who earned his nickname, Slacker, by selling dope and living off the girls he fucked. He fucked a lot of girls and lived pretty well. He amounted to about 6’4, 248 pounds of unadulterated muscle. 


Willie was not a nice guy. Cheryl, my wife, said so herself. She said it was the “juice”, but I thought there was more to it. His shocking blue eyes were a little closer together than the average person making him somehow predatory. He could enter a house and you’d never know. Scared us a few times like that. We’d be eating our mashed potatoes or whatever and he’d be standing in the doorway just staring at us like he was an entomologist watching the eating habits of some damn beetles. When we’d notice him and jump, he’d laugh and give Cheryl a hug, his huge paws draped over her shoulders.


Mom, Cheryl’s mom, was the only real mom I ever had. When I was 17, my father killed my mother then put a bullet under his chin with the family’s .38. I found the mess. It was awful. While one detective said she thought it was homicide, all the others assumed murder suicide. Case closed. I asked them why and they said, “shit happens, kid”. After that I was in counselling for about a year; that is, until the counsellor unexpectedly ran off with some newspaper editor from Reidsville. 


I started dating Cheryl in high school and her mom took pity on me and saved me from the foster care system. I was able to finish high school, and Cheryl and I were married right after. I took three years of pre-med at the local state college. Cheryl waited tables at Crawford’s Racks and Ribs where the girls wore pasties while serving cheap beer and bar b-queue to fat townies. I didn’t like her working there, but the money was putting me through school so I couldn’t bitch too much.


Mom said I’d be a doctor from the day I met her. Mom believed in me. She said a psychic in Harrison Village told her in no uncertain terms that her daughter would marry someone special. One of the only reasons mom said yes to the marriage was because I agreed I was going to be that man in the prophecy. If I lived through this, I’d have to find that psychic and give her a piece of my mind. 


I’ll admit it, when Willie took my thumb with his gardening snips, I almost passed out. I know he tried to get between the metacarpus and the palm, and I appreciated that, but it was just too hard to get in there with the thick blades. He put his massive frame down on the handles, his forearm muscles straining, and the snap of bone made my stomach lurch. It was the sound of it more than anything. 


I was probably down about, what, 10 grams. If not, blood loss would definitely put me there. What a mess.
A couple of hours before I found myself tied up in mom’s basement, a guy up at Crawford’s told Cheryl he’d seen me with some “hot little thing wearing a state T-shirt and painted on jeans”. Willie had me downstairs within about 30 minutes. 


“I’m telling you, Willie, I mean, shit, look at me, I didn’t have any hot little thing. Ever.”


Willie was pulling a piece of my flesh that got caught in the snips when he suddenly stopped what he was working on and cocked his head like a dog hearing a door knob rattle. “Ever?” he asked.


“Your sister, I mean, that, that goes without saying. She’s always been really hot.”


Willie was wearing a black mesh wife beater that showed off his sculpted frame, dark jeans, and Wolverine work boots, which made no sense since he didn’t work. Through the mesh I could see his freshly shaven pectorals and wondered just what kind of man actually did that. 


“Come on, man, I didn’t do anything with some other woman. I wouldn’t. Let’s go find the bastard that said this and get it straightened out.”


Willie wasn’t in the mood to talk, that was clear. He bent down and reached under a worn workbench that hadn’t been used since their father died 4 years ago. 


Willie slid a 40-pound bag of fertilizer to the front of the bench and opened it up. A stench like an overflowing factory farm filled the room. Willie reached both hands as if he was a chef, and then he seemed to clasp something inside and hauled it out. He wiped specks of fertilizer off the top of the package, and then set a kilo of coke on the workbench. Turning on the radio, Hank Williams Jr.’s “Family Tradition” emanated from the miniature speakers. 


Willie fished a pocketknife from his pocket then carefully cut a hole in the wrapping. Quickly he produced a gold plated metal straw from his other pocket, dipped it in the powder, and inhaled deeply. There was a half cough, a sniff, and an exuberant “yes”. I could see his neck vein pulsing as he leaned his head back letting whatever was still in his nose drain down the back off his throat.


“Willie, buddy,” I begged, “even if I did cheat, which I didn’t, why all this? It’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”


Willie opened a rusted toolbox from on top of the bench, grabbed something, and turned toward me.
“You took her years, her money, and more important my sister’s trust. Fuck, Oliver, you took my mama’s trust. How do you imagine the scales of justice would weigh that? A finger? A thumb? Maybe a hand?”


A human hand weighs about 300 grams, give or take. Trust is hard to measure. I knew for a long time scales of justice were not always balanced. That’s when I noticed he had a hatchet in his grip. It was something you would use for kindling or cutting small branches. It was something that could easily go through a man’s wrist. It was something I really didn’t want to see.


“You’re crazy,” I groaned trying to wiggle out of my bindings. Willie strode toward me, a gleam in his eye. A gleam I have recognized in my own at times. I was terrified.  He raised his hand above his head, striking a pose that reminded me of the Indians in the old westerns right before they killed the poor settlers.


“Sit still,” he said, “you don’t want me to miss and take half of your forearm.”


At that moment we heard a women’s commanding voice declare that Willie should drop his weapon. When I opened my eyes, Willie had already turned and was rushing toward the stairs.


Two loud pops didn’t stop him as he lurched forward. A third seemed to stun him and his body jerked back like he was zipped with a jolt of electricity. A fourth caused the hatchet to fall to the floor with a thud and a gasp of air leave his lips. He dropped to his knees, and then sprawled forward onto his face.


In front of him at the bottom of the steps was a beautiful woman, all 5’8 and 120 pounds of her. Her chest was heaving, and sweat dappled her forehead. She took her State T-shirt sleeve and wiped her face. Her hands were shaking.


“I’ve never been so glad to see you, Detective.” Hicks has been on me for years. She doesn’t leave me alone with her theories and bullshit. Even caught up with me earlier today on campus. Completely ruined my morning bagel.


“Looks like I owe you an apology.”


Detective Hicks kicked the hatchet away, and then checked Willie for a pulse. She holstered her weapon. She fumbled with my bindings for a while before getting me free. She smelled like Lilacs. Probably a Lilac scented deodorant; it worked great. 


“I’ve been telling you,” I grimaced holding my bloody hand, “I had nothing to do with my parents’ deaths or the counsellor’s disappearance.”


“I said I was sorry.”


“You said you owed me an apology.”


“We knew he was dealing,” she said looking at Willie’s body on the floor, his blood pooling on the concrete. 


“We just could never get anything on him; but this, we never guessed this.”


“Clearly,” I said looking for my digits hoping that a doctor would be able to sew them back on. “There’s coke over there.” I jutted my chin toward the workbench. My hand was throbbing.


“Why you, Oliver? Why’d he come after you?”


“Could I get an ambulance? Christ?”


Hicks called in for a bus while I tried not to pass out. 


“My guess Hicks, I’m just throwing out ideas here, he was an overprotective big brother. He never liked me, I mean, I practically invaded his house when I was 17, and married his sister, all while his mom went on me about being a doctor in the family. But you know the thing that really set him off?”


I heard sirens in the distance that was good because my adrenaline was dropping and the pain was hitting.
“Someone told him I met this ‘hot thing’ today.”


Her face blanched. “I, I was…”


“I know, trying to get under my skin. See if I would lose my cool, even though I didn’t have anything to lose my cool over. Ah, fuck you very much Detective.”


She looked at Willie’s body, then at my bloody hand.


“I guess I deserve that. For what it’s worth I am truly sorry.”


I nodded. 


For some reason, I really felt bad for Hicks. She looked so vulnerable, so innocent. Strangely it was the first time I ever hoped she’d find the counsellor, all 5’11, 176 pounds of her out in the woods just beyond Harrison Village.    




Bio:
Chad Rohrbacher has had stories published at Powder Burn Flash, The Flash Fiction Offensive, and Pulp Engine. He blogs here: http://rohrbacher.com/

GUM SHOE by Neil Ballard

Neil debuts with a unique take on the PI story...


Gum Shoe



Some rancid-dicked pissant spat his neon green gum on the ground and now it’s stuck on the sole of my left Italian boot. I didn’t see him, I just noticed it when I got home five minutes ago.
 It makes sense because this old guy was checking out my boots on the bus, like he was concentrating real hard. I just figured I hadn’t polished them thoroughly enough or something, or that he was maybe a queer. I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Probably he was just wondering who would chew neon gum.


I’m wondering too.


I go out in my Clarks because they’re comfortable and classy and nobody ever takes much notice of them. They’re quiet. I go to my neighborhood convenience deli and ask the chick to give me all their gum. She takes one of every kind out of the packets and puts them in a little pile on the counter, because she knows me. She winks at me.


I take all the pieces without a word and go home, chewing all the way. As soon as each piece is chewed I put it neatly in the wrapper and fold it over once. The gum sticks to the paper but I can open up the papers easily to compare the colors. I wish I had thought to bring little baggies or saran wrap or something but I don’t cook and I don’t deal so I don’t have any of that kitchen shit in my house.


By the time I finish and have all the wads lined up on the table with a lamp on them, the gum on my boot has hardened and snaps off when I try to lift it with a screwdriver. I don’t want to remove it, I just want to see the color clearly. Most of it is encrusted with rocks and splinters and a small piece of orange rind.


It’s not orange season. Not even close. Must be some genetically fucked-with orange from Texas that someone ate on the street and dropped the peel. Spit your gum. Drop your peel. Toss your beer can. Piss on my lawn. All the goddamn same, right?


My comparison doesn’t take long. The gum on my boot is quite clearly Stridents. “Kinky Kiwi.” the other green ones- or the ones that ended up green after chewing- are much duller, much more faded, like you’d expect. All that food coloring has to go somewhere. I look at my tongue in the mirror and laugh.


I open my laptop and look up “Kinky Kiwi” and get sidetracked by a New Zealand porno, but it doesn’t take long to climax into silk briefs, and I’m back looking up gum with hardly any time wasted. Stridents, I find out, is like the Kools of gum.


So I get my shoulder-holstered .38, cover with a linen jacket, and head outside. Night’s coming on. I look at my watch and luck has it that a bus is coming along, the 18 circulator that’ll bring me to the right part of town.


The driver is Stinky Pete. I sit all the way in the back and we holler at each other. He tells me piss, fart and shit jokes and I tell him he’s the demented product of lax family boundaries.


There’s an officious commuter looking at me like she’s gonna tell on me to the transit authorities once the bus gets to the station so I open up my jacket like it’s too hot, and she sees the real heat. The rest of the ride she looks straight ahead out the window and I periodically grab on my nuts at her or make the universal sign for eating at the Y with my fingers and mouth. Doesn’t faze her. Good for her!


I get off the bus without saying goodbye to Stinky Pete because he really is an offensive person. On the corner there’s a group of them playing with a rubber ball, they’re throwing down small change and huddling and looking out. I lean in an alley and watch for one of them to go to the corner store, grab a Black & Mild. Doesn’t take long.


I go around the long way once I see what the store of choice is. Way I figure it, these guys hang around all day, they hang around the transit mall. Perp discarded the gum there. The blog reviews for “Kinky Kiwi” were mostly negative, which means it’s an acquired taste if it’s still on the market. Nothing could make it easier for me.


All I have to do is show the clerk I mean business and he squeals. I mean really lays it on me. He’s giving names, addresses, who lifted that brand new digital scale from Fro’Jean’s place. I tell him to relax, I go grab him a cup of his denatured coffee, and I set it on the counter. He smiles and relaxes.


So I jerk my hand up and fling that scalding shit in his face.


I tell him if he gives me any more information than I specifically and particularly ask for, I will waste him. I ask him does he know me? Does he know who I am and does he know the company I keep? He says yes. I say good.


I ask him about “Kinky Kiwi.” He gives me a name and an address. A shitty apartment, a shitty building, and a shitty girl’s name, Rochelle. I leave him with all of his faculties and most of his nose, lucky raghead. Or Korean or whatever.


Five minutes, one fire escape and two B&E’s later (I got the wrong place first time, nobody was home) and I’ve got a bead on Rochelle. She’s bopping along to headphones, hair in braids. She’s got the empty pack of gum on her nightstand, just put the last piece of it in her mouth.


Didn’t expect her to be so young.


Didn’t count on her old man being there either. Come at me from behind with the fire extinguisher, doesn’t have the balls to give me anything more than a glancing blow. Rochelle still doesn’t notice.


‘Kid’s sure got some loud music,’ I say, while he gives me the usual get-out-of-my-house. I drown out him, the music and anything else with one shot at the base of the girl’s skull.


After that, it’s real easy to get it to look like he just flew off the handle. Left him sliding down the wall giving that untraceable .38 some good head. The handy-dandy fire escape makes it easy on me too.


Now, I’m going home to Google the best way to get hardened gum off. Stinky Pete’s shift is over. The driver up front is white and bald. Hands me my transfer, he doesn’t say a word.


Finally, someone who knows how to behave.
 
 
BIO:
Neil Ballard, a young crime writer living in Northern California, has a smattering of publications not worthy of mention, for the roiling and nebulous internet gestalt has moved on. He hopes for a more profound success with a novel that he wrote in 2009 and is currently editing. It is about a witch.

THIRTY MILES NORTH OF CHEYENNE by Court Merrigan

Court debuts... with true grit...


Thirty Miles North of Cheyenne




The coachman slumped in the upper bucket seat with his rifle across his lap, two holes in his chest. The horses neighed and stamped in the traces. The blackbeard leaned against the doorjamb of the stagecoach and deliberately reinserted two shells.


“Hope the rest of you plan on being better behaved,” he said. “Now get on out.”


The gang, five sweat-and horse-reeking bearded men, lined the passengers up beside the stagecoach: the guard blubbering in a foreign accent no one could understand; the Omaha cotton merchant in fancy tailored clothes, bowler hat dusty at his feet; the cotton merchant’s wife; the cotton merchant’s twin daughters, sixteen years old; the cotton merchant’s son, twelve. The gang kept their pistols and rifles leveled steady on the passengers.


The blackbeard spit out his rolly, smoked to the nub. The mulatto from Missouri relieved the cotton merchant of his ivory-handled pistol.


“We been out in the hills a long time,” said the blackbeard to the cotton merchant. “So we’re going to take your girls here down to the creek. And the boy, too, come to think of it.”


The drifter from Arizona wiped his nose and sniggered.


“Now you, mister,” said the blackbeard, “You can be peaceable about it, and you all walk out of here. Even if some of you will walk a little cockeyed.” The rest of the gang sniggered. “Or you can get heroic and get shot. Up to you. Either way we take your girls, and your boy, down to the creek.”


The cotton merchant’s wife in her tailored Omaha petticoats clothes moaned, and the children, clothed likewise and not understanding, cried into her skirts. The cotton merchant put arms round them all. The ruffles in his cuffs flapped in the dusty breeze.


“For the love of God, please … ” cotton merchant said.


“Shit,” said the new kid. He stepped forward, put a cold muzzle against the man’s ear, and fired.


The cotton merchant’s son tried to make a run for it. The drifter from Arizona got him in the gut with a boot tip and the boy, who’d got as far west as he was going to, went down retching.


“I don’t see why we got to haul them all the way down to the creek,” said the mulatto from Missouri.


The blackbeard inserted a new rolly in his mouth. A sudden gust put out the match he struck against his holster. “Guess I don’t see why neither,” he said, pulling out another.


The gang started in. Amidst the screaming and ripping and cussing the guard started to back away.


“For chrissakes,” said the mulatto from Missouri, tearing the bodice from one of the shrieking squirming twins, her cherry nipples taut in the midday sun. He shot the guard through the jaw.


The Apache thrust the cotton merchant’s scalp in his belt and leapt to the guard. The guard was on his belly crawling over dirt and bits of bone. Using the guard’s eye sockets for a hold, the Indian took the scalp.


Thrusting down his pants over the pistol-whipped naked wife, the new kid said, “You sure are a savage, chief.”


The Apache whooped.


“Christ Almighty,” said the blackbeard, taking a slug from the flask he found in the coachman’s pockets as he rummaged for the strongbox key, “Gag them up, will you. I can’t stand that screaming.”


BIO:
Court's work is forthcoming in PANK and Shotgun Honey and has appeared in Night Train, Midwestern Gothic, Kyoto Review, Blackbird, Evergreen Review, Numero Cinq, Identity Theory, Pulp Metal, M-Brane Science Fiction, and others. You can find links at http://courtmerrigan.wordpress.com/short-stories/. After a decade of the nomadic life in East Asia I'm at home in Wyoming, having an American adventure with my wife and two kids.

THE ROUNDABOUT WAY by Kieran Shea

The Roundabout Way


The Hub was a strictly a breakfast joint plugged into a seven unit strip mall, backing up to a slag-savaged creek just east of Dundalk, Maryland. Gary Nelson, twenty-seven, was a Hub regular. Stoop-shouldered at the counter, Gary pulled into the shabby pot-holed parking lot every morning to grab a bite to eat and a moment’s peace before his day labored out in a bitter blur.

“Mornin’…”

Gary glanced up from the Baltimore Sun sports page spread in front of him. On the yellow cushioned stool immediately to his right an older bearded, black man sat down. He wore a khaki colored bucket hat with a Orioles baseball logo on it and had at least seventy pounds on Gary. Thick green flannel shirt reeking of cherry-scented tobacco. Gary licked a forefinger and turned a page. Ravens digest gave way to storage advertisements and then the death notices.

“Gary Nelson, right?”

Gary looked up again from his newspaper and turned.

“Do I know you?”

The bucket hat man clasped his hands on the counter in front of him and tick-tocked his head in a slow and deliberate fashion.

“Me? Nah. Not really. But I kind of know y’all.”

“That so?”

“Yep. In a roundabout way.”

Gary went back to his paper and turned another page, “That a fact.”

“Yep.”

The bucket hat man looked out the breakfast shop’s streaked and grimed windows and caught his own eyes in the reflection. The December sunrise hadn’t cleared the horizon yet and the windows were still dark. The big man considered his reflection for a moment and then turned back to Gary and said, “Oh yeah, we have what polite folk call a mutual acquaintance.”

Gary started to take a sip of his mug of cooling coffee but stopped himself. He tried to place the black man’s face through a jumble of memories but found that couldn’t. An icy feeling of mistrust coiled low in Gary’s stomach, but he decided to go for humor instead.

“Someone who thinks good of me I hope.”

“Not really,” the man said somberly. The waitress arrived to take his order and he brightened. “Hey, honey. How y’all doin’? Good, that’s good. Let me see. Can I get me one of them strawberry frosted donuts and a coffee milked? That’ll be fine. I’ll eat the donut here but have to be on the road so make that cup of coffee to go, okay? ” The man turned back to address Gary, “Now then, where was I? Oh yeah, our mutual acquaintance. A while back. A young boy, three or so years younger than y’all, went by the name of Price?”

Gary stiffened, “Hey—what is this?”

“Just two men talkin’.”

“You got the wrong guy, man. You’ve mistaken me for somebody else.”

“See lying to me like that, that’s just plain rude.”

Gary hands trembled a little as he nervously started to fold his newspaper. The waitress returned with the man’s strawberry frost donut on a small plate and a lidded coffee. She slid a ticket face down on the counter as the man removed the cup’s lid and commenced sugaring his coffee from a dispenser in front of them.

“Let me lay it out for you, a’right? Eight years back. You and your boys met up with my nephew Timbo Price. Y’all were settin’ ‘bout to buy some weed from Timbo, but instead of playin’ it cool y’all up and decided to shake down my little nephew and beat his ass. A skinny sixteen year-old kid like Timbo? Shit, takin’ him off looked easy ‘cause y’all thought y’all badass an’ shit bein’ high school footballers. But Timbo? Even with his ass all beat, broken ribs, my boy braves up. Gets his arm caught in your car door and gets dragged, like, a hundred and fifty-seven feet. Oh yeah. Now you remember….”

“Look—”

“I’m not finished. My sister’s kid and he ends up intensive care, side hamburgered to the bone and the mess makes the papers. You boys got nailed on assault, robbery, theft, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment, conspiracy, possession, disorderly conduct, mayhem—"

“Look, man. I don’t know you.”

“No, but sure gonna.”

“I have no beef with you.”

“Wrong there. Y’all got a truck load.”

“I’m an electrician now.”

“Yeah, been following that van for a couple of days now. Good money in that, bein' an electrician?”

“Hey, listen. I did my time, man. I’m sorry for what happened to your nephew, but I did my time.”

“Paid your debt and all that?”

“Yeah.”

“Diet-state time, lightweight shit. Heard y’all practically gave it up first day you were so scared. Some image that. But Timbo? See, y’all jamming him up like that, that was the beginning of the end for him. Yeah, sure, he was dealing, but who don’t? Once he got out of the hospital he took a light pop in county but afterward? Guess what my boy go and do? Up and joined the fuckin’ Army.”

“What?”

“I said he joined the Army. Floored me that. My nephew, little Timbo, fighting for the man. Done did him three tours over in that nasty business and what do y’know? Comes back here to Maryland, takes a good look around at this hard life and thinks, hey, a bullet tastes better. I hold you responsible for that.”

Gary struggled to his feet. He felt light headed and felt the world start to wash out beneath his feet. “I don’t have to listen to this,” he stammered grabbing his paper. “I got to get to work.”

“Go on then. Get to work. Free country….”

“God damn right it is.”

The man ate half of his donut and chewed thoughtfully. He pointed a lazy finger out the window after he set the half eaten donut down on his plate. “Might want to check the parking lot first.”

Gary swiveled his head and looked out the glass. The morning sun had finally crested the ragged highway tree line and the parking lot was visible now in a milky cold light. Across the parking lot a group of men huddled in a tinted, rimmed-out black Escalade backed into a slot. A steaming intestine of exhaust leaked from the vehicle’s rear.

“See? You weren’t expecting that were you? Thinking me and mine some kind of fools.”

Gary looked back at the man.

“Run along now, big boy. Those boys are waiting. Me, I’m gonna finish my breakfast here first.”

BIO:
Kieran Shea blogs at BLACK IRISH BLARNEY.

TORALOO by Sean Patrick Reardon

Toraloo


"KG is a fucking force," I tell Layne, who's more interested in his iPhone than watching Kevin Garnett slam home an alley oop pass from Shaq.

"Best move they ever made getting KG,” he says, fingers still moving around on the touch screen.

The Celtics are crushing the Kings by twenty-six with six to go. The spread is more than covered. Layne’s up a grand and happy about it.

We’re down from Jay, Vermont hanging out in our room at the Crown Plaza in Nashua, New Hampshire. Layne’s waiting for a Facebook status update from Shannon that will let us know if our game is on for tonight.

At ten-thirty it comes and Layne comments on her status to acknowledge receipt.

“It never ceases to amaze me how stupid some people are,” Layne says, walking toward the bathroom. “What the fuck was he thinking? This Little Chucky dude sounds like a real fucking pissah.”

“If his picture is any indication, yeah, I’d have to agree. Stupid and ugly is a tough cross to carry through life. The odds were stacked against him from day one.”

Layne laughs. “Fucker does look like that psycho doll though, deserves the nickname.”

“Don’t even know the dude and I’m feeling bad for him. Not our problem though, we’re just a solution. He dug his own grave man, had choices. Just didn’t make the right ones.”

Little Chucky Arla is the guy we’re here to see. He fucked up by selling a pound of indoor to some college kid who was dealing out of his dorm at Saint Anselms. Schoolboy got busted, gave up Little Chucky, who then rolled on someone who works for the people that contracted us. Word is the weed’s tied to eighty pounds that was stolen from an evidence shed in Londonderry during the policeman’s ball right before Christmas.

He’s been cooperating and carrying on like it’s business as usual, not knowing a connection on the force put out the good word that Chucky has been telling tales out of school.

Just like learning your ABC’s, everyone knows the Italians don’t…fuck…around. Chucky must have been in the bathroom sneaking a cig during that class.

We get our shit together and head out, looking like a couple of clean cut guys going for a drink. We drove down this afternoon in my Durango, but get into the Toyota Tacoma that’s been left in the parking lot for us. I drive and we leave for a strip joint called the Blue Moon Lounge in Tyngsboro about twenty minutes away.

***

I pull the truck into the Blue Moon parking lot, start looking for a black Camaro. We find it in the back lot. The plate number matches and I pull in beside it. Seems Chucky is a creature of habit. Thursday’s are strip joint night.

The bartender’s been paid off and used Facebook from his handheld to let Shannon know when Chucky arrived. He also knows someone’s coming and what the code words are. If he didn’t, he’d most likely make me for an undercover and spread the word.

Layne reaches back into the extra-cab section, pulls out the briefcase, opens it and hands me a pair of gold rimmed glasses. I put them on, slide a wedding band on my finger and I’m just another married jerk-off going to a titty bar. Ten years we’ve been doing this and never had to use our guns. A gun does the job, but it’s so damn impersonal. For me, it’s more like a prop.

He takes a Walther with a suppressor on it out the briefcase case, closes the cover. “Hopefully he doesn’t spend all night in there, already after eleven.”

“Let’s rock and roll. I’ll call you when he’s on the way.”

We bump fists, I get out, and Layne slides over to the driver’s seat.

***

The Blue Moon is no Gold Club, more like a honky-tonk bar with seating around a runway stage that runs down the middle of the floor. Everything about the place is cliché, although I’m impressed that Weezer is doing “Troublemaker” instead of some Motley Crue song. The red headed chick on the stage is decent looking, but wouldn’t make the JV squad of any city team.

As I walk toward the bar, I see Chucky sitting on the right side of the stage, making small talk with a bleach blonde stripper who’s waiting for her turn in the rotation. The twelve inch Plexiglass barrier around the perimeter of the stage makes it look like a mini hockey rink.

I take a seat near the end of the bar, wait to be served. The bartender notices me, takes his time coming over. He’s big and has the MMA fighter look going on with the shaved head and tribal tattoo’s running down each forearm.

“What can I get you?”

I point to the liquor bottles lining the wall behind him. ”You have any Jameson back there?”

His cocky facial expression transitions as he realizes who I am, like he was expecting Jason Statham or Paulie Walnuts, not someone who could have been his high school English teacher. He’s probably thinking he should make a career change, has what it takes, if someone looking like me can do it.

He says what I’m expecting to hear, “No Jameson, only Bushmills.”

I give him a twenty for an eight dollar bottle of Heineken, turn around and pretend to be interested in what’s going on. A couple minutes later, a brunette wearing neon pink pumps and sheer black negligee comes over for the hard sell. Her name is Destiny and I tell her I’m Rick, not Shane. I know the drill, ask if she wants a drink and pay ten dollars for a White Russian.

She’s nice enough and when I glance at Chucky, he’s draining the last of his drink and starting to stand up, getting ready to leave. He starts bullshitting with one of the girls while he grabs his North Face jacket off the seatback. I tell Destiny I need a smoke and head toward the exit, pushing the send call button on the cell in my pocket. Layne is now on standby.

Outside, standing near the entrance, I light a Newport. I don’t smoke, but it lets me hang out front without getting Chucky nervous. Two minutes later he comes out. I pretend to be on my cell, smoking, not acknowledging him as disappears around the side of the building.

One minute later, my cell vibrates. I flick the smoke into the cold February air and head for the truck. When I get there, Chucky’s in the driver’s seat of the Camaro and Layne is riding shotgun. He’s already made sure Chucky’s not wearing a wire, or they wouldn’t be in the car. Layne opens the door, still pointing the Walther at Chucky’s head. He’s got a Glock in his other hand that he’s taken from him. We knew he would most likely have a gun and true to form, he gave it up. I take the Walther from Layne as he gets out, and sit down.

Chucky starts the Camaro as Layne gets into the trunk. I tell him to follow behind when Layne pulls out.

***

“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you. They wanted me to. Shit, they wanted me to kill you. But that’s not how I roll. I’m a huge fan of the powers of persuasion. You know, talking things out, man to man, making a gentleman’s agreement. What do think?”

He nods his head, squeaks out a yes. Despite the death grip both his hands have on the wheel, I can see them trembling. More assurance is needed.

“I know you’re uptight, but you need to relax and clear out your head man. Jesus, Chucky, you already proved you’re a cowardly, rat fuck. Now is the time to start turning things around, be a big boy…and man the fuck up.”

***

It takes us twenty minutes to get to the abandoned quarry in Westford. During the ride Chucky has settled down. I still sense apprehension, but he’s calm and told me everything I need to know. We stop behind the Tacoma. Layne jumps out with a pair of bull cutters, snaps the lock securing the steel gates, pushes the right side one open, and gets back in trunk. He drives through with me following. He gets out, puts the gate back into position.

We drive a couple hundred yards down the dirt road. Layne pulls over to let us pass and Chucky stops the Camaro fifty-feet away.

I tell him to kill the headlights, shut down the engine, and put the interiors on. Layne comes over to my side, holding the briefcase. I lower the window and put a hand on Chucky’s shoulder.

“Here’s how it’s going to play out Chucky. We’re going to secure you to this seat, take the keys and leave you here. I know it’s cold and it’s going to suck being stranded, but sooner or later, someone’s going to see the car, and get you out. Hell, if you can somehow free yourself, go for it. You’ll just have to rely on your survival skills. If you ask me, it’s more of a mental thing than a physical one.”

***

Chucky shows no signs of being afraid, even though his thighs and upper body are chained to the driver’s seat. His hands are tie wrapped behind his back and duct tape covers his mouth. Compared to dying, this must seem like a minor inconvenience. He’s just waiting for us to get the fuck out of there, while every episode of Criss Angel-Mindfreak is probably running through his mind.

We’re standing outside the driver’s side of the Camaro. I bend down so my head is level with Chucky’s and look at him through the open window.

“You should be thankful Chucky. This is how a real man goes out. You’re leaving a legacy man. And not as a squealing, untrustworthy, little sack of shit either. You’re going to be a bona-fide folk hero. I’m going to make it known that when it came time to pay your dues, you took it like a man. How you told us to fuck off, spit in my face, started saying Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s.”

Just like the bartender at the Blue Moon, Chucky’s expression morph’s before our eyes as he processes what I’m saying. I watch his eyes widen, fill with water, and overflow down his cheeks. He starts hyperventilating, snorting air out of his nostrils.

Layne’s nodding, going along with it, says, “Yeah, that Little Chucky, guy had ice water in his veins right to end. Telling us he was going to come back from the dead, hunt us down, and drag us by our cocks to meet Satan himself.”

Now he’s fighting against all the restraints, almost convulsing.

“Come on Chucky,” I say. “What did we talk about on the ride? This is your time, your moment. Quit your sniveling, get it together, and look at me.”

His body goes limp and his head turns slowly toward me. He’s still in a bad emotional state, but at least he’s looking me in the eye.

“Think back to when you were a kid. Did you have a happy childhood?”

He nods a yes.

“Both parents raise you?”

Another nod.

“Think of those nights when you had a bad dream, then ran into you parent’s room and jumped in their bed. Think of how comforting it was to feel the warmth of the blankets and your mother’s body as you snuggled up next her. How safe that made you feel, like nothing in the world could ever harm you. Take yourself to that place Chucky. Visualize it, go there. You…can…do…it!”

Layne hands me a CD. I reach through the window and push it into the disk player. It loads and the first notes of Bing Crosby singing “Irish Lullaby” start to play. Layne and I watch as Chucky loses it. The sobbing and high-pitched moans are coming from the depths of his soul as snot syrup oozes from his nose.

Layne starts squirting charcoal lighter fluid all over Chucky, stopping when the bottle is empty. He steps back, starts walking toward the truck.

I pull a Mexican made ½ stick from my coat pocket, light the end of the fuse, and toss it on Chucky’s lap.


BIO:
Sean Patrick Reardon is the author of the crime thriller novel "Mindjacker". He's blogging at: http://seanpatrickreardon.blogspot.com/

NO WORRIES by Chris Rhatigan

Let's welcome Chris on his TKnC debut...


No Worries


The car rolled into the mall parking lot, headlights off. Dmitri took a long slurp of coffee and smacked his lips a few times.

The sound burrowed into Lamar’s brain, rattled around, repeated itself over and over. Lamar curled his gloved fingers into fists. The busted vents in Dmitri’s Geo spewed frozen air and dust.

“So that’s your genius plan? That’s what you couldn’t tell me before?”

“What is wrong with it?” Dmitri said. “It is, what do you call it? A smash and grab?”

Trusting Dmitri seemed like a passable idea when they were guzzling Bud Lights a couple of nights ago. Lamar needed money real bad. Asia, the stripper he was shacking up with, had expensive tastes.

Dmitri said he could get him a few thousand, easy. “You show up Wednesday morning,” Dmitri said. “Five o’clock. You will learn more then.”

Lamar figured that whatever Dmitri had up his sleeve was sketchy. But he figured it would be more along the lines of petty crime.

“Your plan is fucking stupid. That’s the problem.”

“It will work, my friend.” He took another nasty slurp of coffee. Lamar clutched his fists tighter. “I know many others who have done this but in the daytime. We do our work under the cloak of night. See? It is better that way.”

“First of all, the sun is rising. And second, I thought you’d done this before?”

“Not me exactly, but people I know. They tell me how this works.” He drummed on the steering wheel, his smile showing teeth the color of margarine. How he could be so relaxed in this situation was beyond Lamar’s understanding. “You worry too much. You trust Dmitri. Everything will be ok.”

They pulled in front of the automatic doors that led to the food court and Barrister’s Jewelry. Dmitri nearly coughed up a lung when they got outside and hocked a loogie onto the ice. Lamar wondered if Dmitri could go five seconds without making a disgusting noise. The man was like a walking wet fart.

Dmitri popped the trunk. He handed Lamar a sledgehammer. Of course, Lamar thought, he makes the big guy do the dirty work.

“That window. Next to the door. You smash that.”

The wind kicked up the powdery snow, stinging Lamar’s face and neck. He trudged over, planted himself by the window. At least the jewelry store was inside a heated building.

Lamar saw the reflection of headlights as he shattered the window.

He whirled around. A police car circling the edge of the parking lot. He dropped the sledgehammer, grabbed Dmitri’s sleeve and pulled him into the bushes. The cruiser pulled into the lot and shined a spotlight on them.

“The cops do rounds here? You didn’t check that out?”

“This is not a problem.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What could make you worried?”

Dmitri shrugged. Pulled a handgun out of an inside jacket pocket and loaded it. “You see? I handle it.”

“What is this shit? I didn’t agree to this.”

“You would rather spend twenty years in jail then?”

“It wouldn’t be that long. A couple of years for attempted burglary—tops.”

“Maybe for you. But you do not have the priors.”

“So you think you'll get less jail time by killing a cop? Are you fucking insane?”

Dmitri exhaled, aimed. Lamar couldn’t believe it—he was actually going to do it. He always knew Dmitri was full of dumb confidence. But this?

“Don’t do it, man. I’m serious.”

“Shut up. You are killing my concentration.”

Lamar didn’t have to think about it. He reached behind him and grabbed the handle of the sledgehammer, lifted it from the snow.

He swung and the metal head struck Dmitri’s bony chest. The strike rang hollow like Dmitri had no organs. Sent him flying into the brick wall with a thud.

Finally, sounds Lamar liked. Dmitri colored the snow pink with the blood he coughed up.

Lamar leaned in, whispered, “You worried yet?”

BIO:
Chris Rhatigan’s fiction has been published in A Twist of Noir, Mysterical-E, Yellow Mama and Pulp Metal Magazine. He also has work upcoming at the brand-spanking-new Pulp Carnivale. His blog, Death by Killing, is all about the world of short crime fiction.

STUPID BASTARD by Tony Deans

Let's give Tony a warm TKnC welcome on his debut...


Stupid Bastard


“He shot a man in Reno you know”, proclaimed Dean Dobie, the man responsible for the sudden increase in gun crime on the east coast.

“Why?” pondered Tommy Rich, the young gun charged with the prospect of assassinating Leroy Brown, the most dangerous killer the mob had ever dared hire.

“I don’t know, apparently he just wanted to watch him die”. These words made the daunting task facing Tommy even more unachievable, after all if Joe the Bull and Sammy Sims were unable to kill him what chance did he stand? Still he knew that to kill Leroy would be the only way he could become a made man. More importantly it would provide him with the respect he felt he deserved, all those years dealing dope and coke downtown would finally be paid off.

“Why you want him dead Mr Dobie?” asked Tommy, with the idea firmly rooted in him that if he was going to die he may as well find out the reasons why.

“As I’ve said before, he killed Ben and then proceeded to fuck the Don’s wife”.

“Oh yeah” replied Tommy.“

Now get up there and good luck, you pull this off and the family will get you anything you want”

“Thanks Mr Dobie”. Tommy got out of the car and entered the block of flats where Leroy was staying. Before he pressed the elevator button he made sure his gun was loaded, ensuring that he didn’t make the same mistake Sammy Sims did.

Leroy sat in the darkness of his hotel room with his gun pointing at the door, waiting for the next poor schmuck the Don sent. The others were so easy for Leroy to kill that he almost felt sorry for them. Almost being the key word in that phrase.

“All this for some stupid kid” muttered Leroy, disgusted with the thought that the Don had put his own wife and son before him. After all he had killed dozens if not hundreds of people for the man and this was the thanks he got? Fatigue was starting to set in on Leroy and he knew that he couldn’t keep awake all the time; soon he would have to go on the offensive and strike the Don at his home. As he slipped into a dream, he knew that if someone was to arrive now that they would probably be able to kill him.

Dean Dobie sat in the car gently prodding at the bandage covering his ear. Leroy had shot it off when Dobie had attempted to kill him. He was the one who had caught Leroy with the Dons wife but before he could call for help or even get his hand on the trigger of his gun, Leroy had already shot him. Dobie was aware of the fact that the only reason he didn’t have a bullet in his brain is that Leroy was distracted when he had burst in on him.

After all he had seen first hand how dangerous Leroy was; he remembered when he had first accompanied him on a job. It was to kill a soldier of the family called John Myra, who had grown too big for his own shoes and was taking a larger slice of the profits then he was entitled to.

They arrived at his house in the middle of night only to find that John was expecting them with a couple of his friends there to outnumber the duo. Dobie had managed to kill one or two of them but really it was Leroy who was carrying out the killing. He had managed to kill about seven or eight of them without wasting a bullet.

Just as it looked as if he had the drop on Myra, he had run out of bullets. Myra shot his last bullet directly into Leroy’s shoulder. Leroy didn’t even flinch.

He calmly walked up to Myra and grabbed his ears causing them to bleed before pulling out a knife that he kept in his back pocket. Leroy then proceeded to earn the pay check that the Don was going to pay him.

As they left the house Dobie asked Leroy whether he needed to take him to the family doctor. The fact that Leroy just laughed at this question had made Dobie feel uneasy. To say that he didn’t envy Tommy Richs job of having to kill the man was an understatement.

Tommy stepped out of the elevator and looked up and down the corridor to check if there where any people hanging around. After confirming that there was no one around he pulled out his gun and slowly made his way to Leroy’s room number.

“Just be calm” Tommy whispered to himself, “he probably isn’t even expecting you”.

These words just served to make Tommy even more nauseous and he had to stop and lean against the wall just to stop himself from being sick. He briefly considered running out of the hotel and making his way to Mexico to start a new life but he knew that if he done that, the Don would find him and kill him. He walked a bit further down the corridor before reaching Leroy’s room.

He recited his plan to himself “right Tommy, all you need to do is bash the door down and fire a couple of shots into the room and then pray to Allah, God, Brahman or any other Gods who are listening that you’ve killed him”. He took three deep breaths before attempting to shoulder barge the door down.

BANG. The noise woke Leroy and he fired a stream of bullets at the door only to find that it hadn’t even opened. He opened the door only to see a boy no older than twenty clutching his shoulder, lying on the floor.

“You stupid bastard” laughed Leroy. The boy had broke his shoulder trying to barge the door open. Leroy then cocked his gun and put a bullet into the kid’s brain.


BIO:
Tony Deans is a young writer originally from London UK. His previous short story “The Ballad of Jimmy Jazz” can be found at All Due Respect Magazine. He is currently writing more stories full of seventies musical references.

NOT ANYMORE by B. R. Stateham

Smitty's back...


Not Anymore


They pulled him out of the back of the Caddy with a rope. Jerked him out so hard he fell face-first into the mud of the back country road. Laughing and jeering the three men dressed in suits kicked the man in the ribs a couple of times and then yanked him out of the mud hole. He came out coated in mud, leaves; his clothing soaked in the frigid Autumn air.

Black coals for eyes narrowed—and watched—as just the suggestion of a sneer creased his thin gray lips.

Twenty miles of forest surrounded them. Twenty miles of forest in all its outrageous glory of a cold Fall morning. Overhead a giant V-formation of geese honking southward. Just a track for a leaf-covered road winding its way back into the wilderness. A good place to execute someone. Quiet. Out of the way. Isolated.

No one would hear the killing shot when it rang out.

No one who wasn’t an active participant in this grim opera.

The patsy was a fat little Italian who liked his food and wine too much. Bald, triple chinned, shaking like a virgin on her honeymoon night, the hood was a small cog in a big crime organization. And he was going to die. Moments away from getting a bullet in the head. And he knew it.

His hands were tied in front of him with rope. Across his fat mouth was a wide strip of gray duck tape. Rolling down his leg and onto his expensive Italian shoes was a stream of urine—bright yellow and actually steaming in the cold October late afternoon light. As the three hoods behind him laughed and slapped him around like a walking punching bag they kept pushing the fat little man toward the man with the coal black eyes and the shorter, heavier sat man standing behind him wearing a heavy wool overcoat, gloves, and a gray fedora over his eyes.

“Here he is, brother. He’s the little bastard that’s been soaking you for the last year. How much did you siphon off, Louie? A mil? Two mil? Ten mil?”

The one talking was a carbon copy of the man standing beside him. Only younger. Dressed in a gray overcoat, expensive suit, hand made leather gloves and wearing a gray fedora.

Danny Manfred. Little brother to Donavan Manfred—the man in charge standing beside the dark eyed man. Laughing and enjoying himself immensely Danny slapped the roped and silenced patsy hard with the back of a gloved hand and then brought it around again for the return engagement. The fat little man’s head snapped first to the left, then to the right, viciously. Knees giving away the little man started to sink into the mud. But Danny’s two bodyguards grabbed him and roughly brought him back to his feet.

“Want me to pop him, Donnie? Glad to do it. A couple of slugs in the knee caps first. Just to make him hurt. Then a slug right between the eyes to finish it off.”

Danny lifted a glove hand to reach inside his overcoat. But the older brother stopped him with a motion of a hand and then took a step closer to the condemned man. Placing a hand on the man’s shoulder the older Manfred bent closer and looked into the tear, red rimmed eyes of one his—he thought—most trusted employees.

“Louie . . . you? You’ve been ripping off the family? You? We grew up together. I’m your daughter’s god father. I paid for both of your sons’ college educations. You? You do this to me?”

He started to reach up and rip the tape from Louie’s lips. He wanted to hear an explanation—any explanation—that might lessen the punishment Danny was so eager to meter out. But Danny’s hand reached out and pulled his older brother’s hand away as he stepped in between the condemned man and his brother.

“Donny, why prolong this? It’s cold out here. We have the bastard whose been stealing our money under the table. I caught him cooking the books myself. Let’s just get this over with and go home.”

Elder brother looked into the eyes of the younger brother of a moment and then, reluctantly, nodded and turned away. A glance toward the man with the black eyes and a slight nod was enough.

From out of the heavy aviator’s leather jacket the dark eyed man was wearing appeared a Ruger Mk. III .22 caliber semi-automatic. Gun hand came up fast and sure.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Three shots. Two shots in the foreheads of the bodyguards for Danny Mangrave. The third shot in right kneecap of the younger brother.

“Aiiiiiieeeee!! Shit!!!” screamed the younger Mangrave as he collapsed into the foliage and mud and began rolling around in pain.

“Smitty! What the fuck are you doing!” Donny Mangrave shouted, face draining color as he watched the dark eyed man step up to his screaming younger brother. “Have you gone fucking crazy?”

Smitty didn’t bother to answer as he walked up to the younger brother withering in agony in the mud and leaves of the forest.

“Danny, you wanted someone to suffer? How does if feel?”

Danny’s screams of agony filled the forest. But not for long.

CRACK!

Sudden—absolute—bone jarring silence.

Except for the sobbing. Louie kneeling in front of Donovan, head down, sobbing uncontrollable. Tears dropping like raindrops into the leaf covered forest floor from fat, ruddy red cheeks.

Smitty took his time holstering his weapon underneath his left armpit. Took his time zipping his coat. Took his time as he turned and looked at the speechless—stunned—dumbstruck—white faced older Donavan brother.

“You wanted me to find and rub out the thief in your organization. I did. Danny’s been stealing from you for years. When he heard I was asking questions and snooping around he decided to give you a human sacrifice. Louie’s an idiot. A thief of pocket money. Small change. The perfect sap to whack and take the blame for Danny’s expensive habits.”

“But goddammit, Smitty! Danny is my brother!”

Black eyes glanced down at the bloody mess that once was Danny Manfred. A thin—evil—almost playful—sneer played across thin gray lips.

“Not anymore,” he said as he turned and began walking causally through the forest clearing toward the black Caddy CTS a few yards away.

BIO:
B.R. Stateham writes a vicious kind of noir. Comes cold and mean—which is, oddly enough—just the opposite of what B.R. actually is.