"First time?"
"Robbing a bank. Or trying to, anyway."
"That's none of your business. Just give me the money."
"What's your rush?"
"This is a bank robbery. They're supposed to be fast."
"A note would have helped speed things up."
"You want me to write one now?" I grabbed the pen tethered to the counter.
"Too late for that, but I appreciate the thought."
I returned the pen to its holder.
"So,” Bev continued, “we're noteless. Let's see what you did bring. How about a gun?"
"No, ma'am."
"Knife? Bomb? Flamethrower? Crossbow?"
I shook my head four times.
"So what's the threat? Why should I give you a penny?"
"Because I'm dangerous."
Bev let loose an ego-deflating laugh.
"Look out, it's Public Enemy Number One!"
"You're mocking me, Bev."
She faked a frown.
"Sorry, sweetie. But let me tell you something. I've been working in banks longer than you've been alive. When I worked in Dallas I saw more robberies than most FBI agents will ever see. I've had guns shown to me and pointed at me. I've had dudes holding briefcases and backpacks claiming they were filled with explosives. I've even been in a takedown robbery with all the big guns and ordering people onto the floor and such. So it's gonna take a little more than no threat whatsoever to get me to cough up any cash."
"Fine. I do have a gun,” I said, quickly lifting, then lowering my shirt, giving her a flash of the dollar store cap gun stuffed into my waistband. “I just didn't want to scare you."
"How thoughtful of you,” said Bev. She could have taught the Sahara a thing or two about dryness. “I'll play along and pretend that's a real gun. Did you bring a bag for the money?"
"Actually, no, I didn't.” This was getting embarrassing.
Bev shook her head. “Do you think we keep bags handy just in case we get robbed by a forgetful crook? Because I can assure you, we do not."
"I hadn't thought about that,” I admitted.
"Sounds like there's a lot you haven't thought about. Maybe this isn't the profession for you . . ."
She left it hanging there, waiting for me to fill in my name. It took me a few seconds to think of one.
"Rex,” I said.
Bev laughed again and repeated my fake name, adding a marathon-length ess sound to the end. Everyone else in the bank must have thought we were having a grand old time.
"Okay, Rex. So you showed up without a note, sporting a toy gun and lacking a bag for the money. Not good. Care to tell me why you want the money?"
"I need it."
"Well, yeah. Of course. But tell me why you need it."
"It's none of your business."
"Okay. But I'm gonna make a guess anyway. You lost your job and you're only robbing a bank because the satellite TV company is threatening to cut off your service if you don't pay."
"Dang,” I said, “you got it on the first try."
Bev gave me a withering look that could have turned a grape into a raisin in the blink of an eye.
"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Rex,” said Bev. “You need to give some serious thought as to what you're doing here and if it's what you really want to be doing with your life."
"Tell you what,” I said. “Give me all the money in your drawer and I promise I'll leave and think about what you said, long and hard."
Bev stared me in the eye. It felt like the human lie-detector thing my mother used to do.
"Does your mother have any idea what you're up to?"
"She's my getaway driver,” I said.
Bev let loose a belly laugh that caused heads to turn in our direction.
"I'm guessing she's at home wondering what her little boy is up to. Probably has no idea you've entered into a life of crime."
"No, ma'am."
"Be nice if it stayed that way."
"It's a little late."
"Maybe. I think I know a good boy when I meet one. You haven't made any real threats or demands or called me any bad names. So there's hope."
"If you say so."
"I do,” said Bev, finally getting around to loading cash into a plastic grocery bag she dug up from somewhere, “Well, I'll just get this together for you and let you get on your way."
"Thanks."
"See? You're polite.” She paused “Do you want the change too? Probably another ten or fifteen dollars worth here."
"No thanks."
"Okeydokey."
Bev stole a glance toward the front door.
"Haslam's finest waiting for me out there?"
"To be expected, isn't it?"
I nodded.
"You've got the gift of gab, Bev. Kept me talking like a fool for how many minutes now? Bet you pressed the alarm button the second I told you to give me the money."
Bev winked and said, “I'll tell ‘em to go easy on you, this being your first time and all."
"Thanks,” I said, leaving the money on the counter.
I walked out of the bank with my hands raised, but there were no police waiting for me. Nor were there any behind me as I passed the Haslam City Limits sign. I kept my speed under the limit, said a silent “thank you” to Bev, and pondered a career change.
Copyright © 2011 David Dietrich
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Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
One of the foremost publishers of international crime fiction, Soho Press has just released a trio of impressive new books that take readers to relatively unusual locations for mysteries: Iceland, the Solomon Islands, and Brasilia, Brazil. As usual, each has even more to recommend it than just the interesting setting.
Graeme Kent, a freelance writer and novelist who headed the BBC Schools broadcasting service in the Solomons for eight years, introduces Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita in Devil-Devil (Soho, $25). Set in 1960, Kent's mystery takes place during a time of much social turbulence. The aftereffects of the bloody battles of WWII are still much in evidence. British rule is weakening and preparations are slowly being made for the islanders to play a larger role in their own governance. Native customs are being challenged by Western ways and religious teachings, opening up conflicts between those who reject the new ways and those who embrace them.
* * * *
* * * *
Ben Kella is a Catholic, British-educated islander who has yet remained an adherent of native customs. He occupies the dual role of police sergeant and aofia, the hereditary peacemaker of the Lau people. He is dispatched to his home island of Malaita, a mission station, to find a missing scientist, Dr. Mallory, and told to do “nothing else.” But Kella cannot help but get involved when islander Senda Iabuli is murdered and the death threatens to create a blood feud.
Meanwhile, he crosses paths with the intrepid American nun Sister Conchita, who inadvertently becomes the target of a killer. Kella, as aofia, is personally responsible for her safety. In addition to the murder of Iabuli, they encounter a kidnapping, smuggling operations, a killing that reaches back to the recent war, and a potential uprising against British rule. Together the duo has plenty to work out, as Sister Conchita strives to adapt to an unfamiliar culture where acts and intentions are easily misinterpreted, and Kella tries to meld his diverse upbringing into a unified whole.
Kent's story works very well as a mystery but the addition of local customs and history enriches this novel far beyond a simple whodunit. From the legacy of WWII battles in the the Solomon Islands to native customs such as the roles of the ngwane inala (ghost-caller) and the aofia, Kent imbues his novel with a unique sense of time and place that leaves the reader looking forward to further chapters in this captivating series.
Nordic mysteries have captured a lot of attention in the past few years, led by Stieg Larsson's bestselling Swedish trilogy. Icelandic mysteries remain a rarity however, and Quentin Bates's first novel, Fro
zen Assets (Soho, $25), is a welcome entry.
* * * *
* * * *
Bates is a marine journalist who spent a decade in Iceland before writing Frozen Assets, which introduces Sergeant Gunnhildur “Gunna” Gisladottir of the Hvalvik police force. Policewomen are a rarity in Iceland, and Officer Gunnhildur, who runs the small station in the (fictional) coastal village of Hvalvik, is unusual even among that subset of the country's police force. A thirty-six-year-old widow with a grown son, Gisli, who's a seaman, and a teenage daughter, Laufey, at home, Gunna is described unkindly as “a big fat lass with a face that frightens the horses,” though she has her share of admirers as well.
Gunna runs the Hvalvik station with only one staffer, Haddi. The discovery of a drowning victim near the dock and the routing of heavy traffic to a new smelter plant are cause for Gunna to seek additional staff from Chief Inspector Vilhjalmur Trautason.
The additional staff allow Gunna to pursue the investigation into the death of the stranger eventually identified as Einar Eyjolfur Einarsson, an employee of Spearpoint, a Reykjavik marketing company involved with the smelter plant. When forensics eventually confirm (what readers already know) that Einarsson's death was a homicide and the suspicion grows that his death may be connected to other violent incidents, Gunna ends up, to her own surprise, being chosen by the National Commissioner's deputy, Ivar Laxdal, to head the investigative team.
Bates uses several devices to help the reader keep up with or stay ahead of the investigation. The posts of an anonymous blogger calling himself Skadalblogger spread salacious and often true gossip about various government and industry figures, including the ambitious head of Spearpoint, Sigurjona Huldudottir, and her minister husband, Bjarni Jon Bjarnason. The activities of the killer, a foreign enforcer who goes by various names, are described from time to time, although his employer remains unclear.
Throughout the novel, Bates paints an interesting picture of an Iceland with a surprising number of immigrants and tourists, a changing economy hampered by a cumbersome and corrupt bureaucracy, and a land where everyone seems connected to everyone else by blood or some shared history. It is a volatile mix of old and new that Gunna must master to solve a crime that threatens to come very close to her and her family.
* * * *
Leighton Gage's Chief Inspector Mario Silva of Brazil's Federal Police is a delightful creation, who often thwarts not only criminals but corrupt officials within the police force itself or within government as well as pompous individuals of whatever stripe. At the start of Every Bitter Thing (Soho, $25), the fourth book in the Silva series, two murders, one in Santa Teresa and one in Brodowski, are both likely to be dismissed as unsolvable crimes. But the third murder in Brasilia is that of Juan Rivas, son of Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Rivas, and his death cannot be easily dismissed. In fact, the bigwigs are on it in a flash, and Delegado Walter Pereira of the Civil Police is instantly ready to arrest Rivas's former lover, Tomas Garcia, for the crime.
* * * *
* * * *
Silva stalls Pereira long enough to check the national violent crime database and discovers four additional murders with similar characteristics. The five victims, each shot in the stomach and then beaten to death, lived in different areas of the country. Silva, though, believes that they were not random victims.
Finding the link that connects them is relatively easy, but the significance of that link is very elusive. Silva's handpicked crew of agents, Arnaldo Nunes, Haraldo “Babyface” Goncalves, and Silva's nephew Hector Costa among them, are unorthodox but effective as they maneuver through Brazil's tangled web of incompetent or corrupt officialdom to deliver justice within the law when possible, without it when necessary.
Leighton Gage, whose wife is Brazilian, lives in Brazil part of each year and has authored four books featuring Chief Inspector Mario Silva. The Silva series is easily one of the top South American mystery series and is still improving.
ALL POINTS BULLETIN: AHMM author Jim Fusilli is releasing his new novel Narrow's Gate only as an audio book, on Audible.com. The book is read by professional reader Joe Barrett, but the dialogue is read dramatically by actor Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos), who like Mr. Fusilli is a native of Hoboken, New Jersey, on which the town Narrow's Gate is based. * Brad Parks's 2009 first novel, Faces of the Gone (Minotaur), picked up a Shamus Award this fall for Best First Mystery from the Private Eye Writers of America, and now he's received the Nero Award as well from The Wolfe Pack. His novel is also set in New Jersey, in this case Newark. * Skyhorse Publishing has just released The Nomination, the final work of William G. Tapply, who died in July 2009 from leukemia.
Copyright © 2011 Robert C. Hahn
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Fiction: THE CASE OF THE TELEPHONING GHOST by Joe Helgerson
* * * *
Art by Linda Weatherly
* * * *
The only reason that Sheriff Huck Finn ever went fishing was to catch forty winks, and no, a wink isn't some kind of fish you've never heard of. So as soon as I spotted him down by the river holding a bamboo pole, the dreads hit me. For one thing, it was too early in the day for him to be out and about, unless he was dodging work. And if he'd already caught wind of the fact there was some sheriffing needed doing, that doubled or tripled the hazards I was facing as his deputy.
So I waited a while, secretly hoping that someone else might wake him up. After all, there was an entire survey crew working along the riverbank where he was resting, but he snoozed on, ignoring the way they shouted numbers back and forth, and slammed their poles around, and pretty near tripped over him. Hearing other folks work was like the singing of a lullaby to that man.
Finally I gave up waiting and went to stand beside him, positioning myself so that my shadow fell over him. It was a coolish October morn in the year 1904, and cutting off his source of heat woke him up sooner than gunshots would have. Lifting his white hat for a look, he grumbled, “Can't you see I'm thinking?"
"We got us another one,” I told him.
"You sure?"
"All the signs,” I told him. “Ain't breathing. Don't yelp when I poke him. Look of terror on his face."
"Well, you've been known to make mistakes before, Deputy. Maybe you better go double check."
"Don't you even want to know who?"
"Not yet.” He eased his hat down over his eyes. “Might get my hopes up."
In addition to being lazy, the sheriff was also a stubborn cuss, known to hold grudges and play favorites whenever possible, though so far as I knew, wishing his enemies dead was as far as he ever took it. I wandered off without mentioning where I was headed and when I might be back. Naturally I made a point of walking away from the Whipplemore place, not that I expected to fool him. Something told me he already knew which way I was headed.
* * * *
Marquis, Iowa, where we lived along the Mississippi, had maybe a half dozen streets you could count on in the wet part of the year. After a drought or hard freeze, another dozen streets became passable. During a flood, you'd better have a boat.
Cedric Whipplemore had lived on one of those back streets that no one had bothered to name. His place had gables and tall windows that were shrouded with heavy draperies that people said had once belonged to a famous theater. That was back in Cincinnati, where Cedric came from. The curtains gave the windows a heavy, haunted look, which fit right in with everyone's view of Cedric, who owned the local opera house. No need to tell you which. There ain't but one.
At first his opera house was a rip-roaring success. Around these parts howling cats can nearly always draw a crowd. But eventually Cedric made the mistake of falling in love with one of his singers. After that, it was all moonlight and mud. Same old story. St. Louis has quite a pull around here and it was calling to her. He begged her to stay. Right on the main street he did it, down on his knees. There's old-timers around willing to tell you the story. Don't even have to bribe them with a chaw. But she laughed
him off and said she didn't want anything to do with his little one-balcony opera house. To everyone's surprise—and delight—he rose up off his knees and cursed her. Said he hoped that steamboat she was boarding never made it to St. Lou but ended up planted on the bottom of the river. And do you know, he got his wish. A huge explosion ripped that boat apart down by the Clarksville ferry.
Reason I'm telling you all this? That's how Cedric Whipplemore got his ghost. She came back to try for a high C whenever there was a ring around the moon and hearts were full of romance. Poor Cedric had to shut his business down because she scared all his customers off. Least that's what Cedric always claimed. Me, I think maybe he was just too brokenhearted to go down there anymore. Whichever the case, the Whipplemore opera house has been vacant since before the sheriff hired me on as a deputy, told me that my given name of Stanley Two-shot didn't fire up his imagination any, and took to calling me Injun Joe. It wasn't a huge insult that he didn't like my real name, seeing as how he didn't care for his own either. A name like Humfredo Mullendorfer, which was the handle the sheriff's ma and pa dropped on him, didn't have voters doing handsprings along the levee, so he changed it. Plucking a name out of a boy's book, he took to calling himself Huck Finn and got himself elected a lawman.
And now Cedric Whipplemore was an old man, an old dead one at that, having flopped over his dining room table with a look of terror on his splotchy face and his telephone receiver clutched in his splotchy hand. I was sitting in the next room with the closest things he had to family, waiting on the sheriff.
"Well?"
That well belonged to Becky Finn, who had enough of them to spare. Being the wife of the sheriff, she had plenty of chances to put them to use too. She was a handsome woman, in a stern, blonde way, and I generally stayed as far from her as I did from thundering locomotives, especially when she started asking where her husband was.
"Expect he'll be along shortly,” I mumbled, praying that was the case. “He had a little work to finish first."
AHMM, May 2011 Page 11
