Through the Ant Farm
Published by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books
By Greg Barth
Selena: Book One
Diesel Therapy: Selena Book Two
Suicide Lounge: Selena Book Three
Road Carnage: Selena Book Four
Everglade: Selena Book Five
By Eric Beetner
Nine Toes in the Grave
By Phil Beloin Jr.
Revenge is a Redhead
By Math Bird
Histories of the Dead and Other Stories
In Loco Parentis (*)
By Paul D Brazill
The Last Laugh: Crime Stories
Last Year’s Man
By Sarah M. Chen
Cleaning Up Finn
By Alec Cizak
Crooked Roads: Crime Stories
Manifesto Destination
By Pablo D’Stair and Chris Rhatigan
You Don’t Exist
By C.S. DeWildt
Kill ’Em with Kindness
Love You to a Pulp
By Paul Greenberg
Dead Guy in the Bathtub: Stories
By Paul Heatley
FatBoy
By Jake Hinkson
The Deepening Shade
By Preston Lang
The Sin Tax
Sunk Costs
By Marietta Miles
Route 12
By Mike Miner
Prodigal Sons
By Mike Monson
A Killer’s Love
Criminal Love and Other Stories
Tussinland
What Happens in Reno
By Chris Orlet
A Taste of Shotgun (*)
By Matt Phillips
Three Kinds of Fool
Accidental Outlaws
By Rob Pierce
The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet: Stories
Uncle Dust
Vern in the Heat
With the Right Enemies
By Michael Pool
Debt Crusher
By Chris Rhatigan
Race to the Bottom
Squeeze
The Kind of Friends Who Murder Each Other
By Ryan Sayles
I’m Not Happy ’til You’re Not Happy: Crime Stories
By Ryan Sayles and Chris Rhatigan
Two Bullets Solve Everything
By Daniel Vlasaty
A New and Different Kind of Pain
Only Bones
By William E. Wallace
Dead Heat with the Reaper
Hangman’s Dozen
Published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books
By Hector Acosta
Hardway
By Rusty Barnes
Knuckledragger
Ridgerunner
By Aaron Philip Clark
The Science of Paul
A Healthy Fear of Man
By Angel Luis Colón
The Fury of Blacky Jaguar
Blacky Jaguar Against the Cool Clux Cult
By Marie S. Crosswell
Texas, Hold Your Queens
By DeLeon DeMicoli
Les Cannibales
By Chris DeWildt
Suburban Dick
By Christopher Irvin
Federales
By Nick Kolakowski
A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps
Slaughterhouse Blues
By Preston Lang
The Carrier
By R. Daniel Lester
Dead Clown Blues
By Lawrence Maddos
Fast Bang Booze
By Mike Miner
Hurt Hawks
By Tom Pitts
Knuckleball
By Ryan Sayles
Goldfinches
By Max Sheridan
Dillo
By Albert Tucher
The Place of Refuge
The Hollow Vessel (*)
(*) Coming soon
Back to TOC
Here is a preview from Suburban Dick, the first Gus Harris crime novel by CS DeWildt…
Chapter One
Gus Harris wasn’t proud of himself, not by a long shot. But a job was a job. And this job had him sitting in his ’76 Cutlass Supreme and watching the kids leave South Elementary. In his hand was a photo of an eleven-year-old boy, blonde, nice looking kid if not a little runty, a mouth full of crooked teeth. Gus scanned the stream of kids leaving through the front gate, looking for the face that matched the photo before tucking the snapshot into the rubber-banded visor, next to another photo, this one a high school age girl, dark haired and pretty with a beautiful smile that seemed the antithesis of the boy’s.
The flow of students slowed to a trickle of after-school discipline cases and little bodies carrying giant band instruments and overstuffed backpacks. Gus was beginning to wonder if he’d missed the kid he was looking for and thought about taking a ride around the block when he finally saw the messy head of hair and the crooked teeth from the photo. Gus watched the kid peek outside the gate, scanning the sidewalks and across the street. He put his head down and ran.
“Oh shit,” Gus said. He shifted into drive and barely checked the mirror before pulling a wide U-turn amidst horn honks and profanity.
“You dumb mother fucker!” a lady in an SUV shouted out her window.
Gus laughed and gave her a quick bird. “Dumb mother fucker” he might be, but he was a dumb mother fucker with a job to do. He caught up to the kid quickly, passed him by and parked at an expired meter on the next block. He got out and watched the kid turn the corner. Gus hoofed it double-time and crossed the street, walked the same direction as the boy on the opposite side. Foot traffic was light but there were enough faces that Gus could move among them and not draw any specific attention from any of them; this job had to be done discretely.
The kid was looking over his shoulders, checking each small alley as he poised his body to run.
“Scared shitless,” Gus said to himself. The kid made another turn and Gus had to wait for the light and lost sight of the boy. Gus defied the flashing red hand and angered the medium-thick traffic into another chorus of honking woe.
Gus scanned the narrow street, but it was dead. He considered turning back, make sure he hadn’t been wrong.
Then the muffled voices, and yelling, laughter. He turned the corner into an alley, and found the source, behind a row of trash cans. It was two other kids, fourteen or fifteen, older than the kid they had cornered, bigger.
“Faggot,” one of them said. “Say how much of a faggot you are. Tell us how much you like to suck cock!” The older boys were giggling as one of them pointed a cell phone in the little kid’s face.
“Budding filmmakers,” Gus thought.
“Come on! You like it in the ass don’t you, you little faggot?”
The little kid stood stone faced. He had an angry look Gus recognized, a kind of pride that would make a kid bite his own tongue off before anyone forced him to say anything.
Gus stepped up like a cat and snatched the phone out of the cameraman’s hands.
“What the fuck? Give it back you fucking bum!”
The comment caught Gus off guard and he had to do a double take at himself, brown suit and loafers, worn but not necessarily dated or derelict. His beard was getting out of control though, and he hadn’t had a haircut in a few months.
“Give him his phone!” The second bully said, reaching in to snatch it. His finger grazed the back of Gus’s hand and that contact was the only pretense the man needed. He punched the little shit hard in the sternum, knocking him across the alley and on his ass.
“That’s assault!” the other boy said.
“What is it?” Gus said. Stepping a little closer.
“Assault,” he said again though the words stuck a bit in his throat.
“Huh?” Gus said taking another step forward. “You’re concerned with the law now?” The kid opened his mouth to speak Gus closed it
with a snapping jab that knocked the boy on his ass. “This fun for you? Terrorizing little kids?”
“What do you care?”
Gus looked at the kid. “He’s my client. I do the dirt he can’t. Kid said a couple shit heads were messing with him on the way home from school.” Gus turned to the little kid. “Did you mean these girls?” The kid nodded.
“Can I have my phone back?” the kid on
“Ha. No.”
“I’ll delete the video. C’mon. You got to. My dad will kill me.”
Gus looked at the boy for a moment, gave the impression he was considering it before dragging the kid to his feet and slapping him hard across the mouth. The kid just stood there with his jaw hanging open and Gus slapped him again, same side, drawing a trickle of blood from the corner of the kid’s mouth. The boy tried to run, but Gus caught him by the sleeve. The kid swung an arm and Gus dodged it easily, grabbed the kid by the scruff and showed the little shit the full man-strength he wouldn’t know until he was one.
“Let me go! Help me, Kevin!”
Kevin tipped the flat brim of his Dodgers cap and was gone.
“Let me guess,” Gus yelled after him, “you’re the smart one!” He laughed and leaned into the kid he was holding. “Like you’re in a boy band. Wait, is that one? The ‘smart one?’ Which one are you?” The kid was crying now and that’s what he sounded like, a little kid. “The sensitive one. I know that’s one.” Gus loosened his grip and shoved the kid to the street. The boy continued to cry and the crotch of his light gray jeans grew dark.
“Pissed yourself, tough guy,” Gus said as he held out the phone to the little blonde kid. “Wanna record it?” The kid shook his head no, and Gus gave him a wink. They watched for a moment, the crying, wet boy alone in the alley, fortunes shifted.
Gus nodded toward the street beyond the alley. “How about a ride home? Least I can do since one of them got away.”
“Okay,” the kid said.
In the car Gus took the confiscated phone from his pocket and began searching through the videos inside. He found a good amount of criminal chicanery: vandalism, underage this and that, one-sided fights, and more tormented kids. Gus deleted the most recent video and then sought out another. He played it, a nearly identical scene to the one he’d just come from: victimized kid, laughter, slurs. It was the video the kid had come to him about a few days earlier. The only thing that had saved the kid was the appearance of a bum who, coincidentally, did look like a parody of Gus, a rattier version in a greasy brown suit and wild hair who’d startled the kids and sent them all scattering. Gus deleted that video as well. He slid the phone into a yellow envelope and sealed it before handing it to the kid. “Glove compartment, huh?” The kid placed the phone into the glovebox and looked at the pistol inside. “Oh, hand that over.” The kid obliged and Gus put the piece in his shoulder holster.
Near the highway ramp Gus slowed, pointed into the sun at a baseball-capped figure walking on the shoulder. “That your friend? The one who got away?”
“Yeah.”
“Open your door.”
“Why?” the kid said as he opened the door, pavement moving slowly past.
“When I say ‘now’ you push that thing open. Hard.”
The kid didn’t say anything else and Gus wondered if the boy would do it, but he came through when Gus gave the order. The kid swung the door hard, knocking Kevin from behind and sending him hard to the gravel shoulder, Dodger cap knocked from his shaved head. The little kid slammed the car door closed as Gus sped up and hit the on highway on-ramp. He looked at Gus and smiled. God those teeth were a mess.
Gus pulled in front of the kid’s house, a white two story with a bright red front door. The grass was a little long and could use a mow. Same with the hedges.
Gus grabbed the kid’s shoulder as he began to climb out of the Cutlass. “You did good kid. I wanted you to know that. Now beat it, huh? I have to get back to the office.”
The blonde kid got out, gave Gus a wave and started toward the house.
“Hey,” Gus said. The kid turned. “Tell your mom I’ll be by around six. And do the dishes for her. You owe me.” The kid nodded, gave Gus that snaggle-toothed smile that was surely going to call for braces. Jesus Christ, how much was that going to set him back?
“See you later, Dad,” the kid said as he ran to the door.
Gus watched his boy go and glanced at the photos on the visor again. He hated the fact that he saw the photos of his kids more often than the kids themselves. But more than that, he hated himself.
Chapter Two
Gus spent the drive to the office thinking about braces and how much it was going to cost him. Jessie’s braces had set them back three grand and that was five years ago. Who knew what it would cost for Ernie? Medicine and cable TV seemed the only two technologies that got more expensive over time.
Gus parked at the curb and checked the time, he wasn’t that late, hopefully. Money wasn’t rolling into the “agency” and the last thing his assistant/girlfriend Nancy had told him before she quit that morning, beside “you owe me for the last two months,” was “You have somebody coming in at four.”
Gus climbed the dark staircase to his upper rental above a Hostetter’s Vacuum Repair. Fucking Vacuums. Fucking Hostetters. When Gus had signed the lease last year he thought he was getting a steal. That is until he spent his first week in an office directly above the vacuum workshop where whining, broken Hoovers screamed all day.
Gus stepped into the small reception area and found the couple seated, silent next to Nancy’s empty desktop. She wasn’t kidding this time. She was gone.
“Hope you weren’t waiting long,” Gus said as he looked over their contract paperwork for their names, “Mr. and Mrs. Hughes. “My receptionist had an emergency.”
“She was just here,” the man said. “She told us she quit.”
Gus looked at the woman. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. Gus looked back to the man. “Did she tell you why she quit?”
The man shook his head.
“Emergency,” Gus restated. “Personal. But what can I do for you? Come into my office. Please. You want something to drink?” Gus opened the little refrigerator where they kept water and soft drinks for clients. It was empty. “Never mind. Come in. Have a seat.”
Gus sat behind his desk, and Mrs. Hughes began to cry again. The man was stroked her shoulder in an attempt to comfort her to calm her. He tried to pull her to him but he resisted.
“Stop it, Gene!” she said to her husband. The man’s hand jerked away from his wife.
“Grace, please,” he said.
“Don’t!” she said. “Our son is missing!” She broke down again hard, as if saying the words made it real all over. Gus slid a box of tissue toward her and looked to Gene for the rest of the pitch.
“You probably heard about it. The wrestler from Horton High that died a few months back? He and Albie, our boy, were friends.”
Of course Gus had heard. It had been all over the news, Drew Davis, high school wrestler jumped off of a footbridge seventy feet above the rocky creek bed that ran through Horton Nature Preserve. The story had made the national cycle for a couple weeks, leading to a series of “special investigations” on teenage suicide across the web. The event also stood out because Gus’s home, or the home that now housed his wife Lucy and their kids, was in Horton. His daughter was a senior at Horton high this year and he and his wife, ex-wife, were alums of the small-town school themselves. Given all of that, it was a story that was hard to miss. The lesser reported part of the story was that another wrestler, all-state champion Albert “Albie” Hughes couldn’t be found and was wanted for questioning.
“You think your son is connected to that?”
“He’s on the Horton squad, was on it. He and Drew were best friends since they both joined the junior high team. We haven’t heard from him since that night.”
“I was so relieved when they said it wasn’t him!” the woman sai
d, “but then he called. We told him to come home, but he wouldn’t. He still isn’t home.” She began to sob and Gene pulled her again and this time she acquiesced, burying her face in his shoulder.
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
The man shook his head. “We did. Albie turned eighteen last summer. They said he probably ran away. But he left this.” The man pulled out his phone and laid it on the Gus’s messy desk next to the box of tissue as the voicemail he had queued up began to play.
Mom and Dad. I’m sorry. I wish you were there so I could talk to you. Where are you guys? I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving. Sorry for everything. A short laugh. I’ve got to go. Look for me on the news. Bye.
Gus thought for a moment and remembered the bottle of Maker’s Mark whiskey he’d stashed away. He pulled the bottle from the drawer and poured himself two fingers. “Drink?”
The man shook his head. “We don’t drink.”
“Please,” Grace Hughes said.
Gus poured a shot into a foam cup and gave it to her. “What makes you think he’s anything but run off somewhere?”
“You sound just like the police,” Grace said. “What makes me think he didn’t run off? A hunch.”
Gus resented the first statement given his own history with the Horton PD, but the last words made him cringe. Hunches were ghosts and ghosts weren’t real. But then, that didn’t matter to the case, to any case. Whether it was infidelity or insurance fraud or a missing high school wrestler; hunches more often than not, were nothing more than that. However, hunches paid the same as a solid lead, and a good ghost might just keep the lights on a few more weeks.
Mystery! Page 25
