The lock disengaged with a buzz and a thunk that echoed through the quiet hall. The man in black smiled, pushing open the door. The chain had not been set. The door swung open, and rebounded off the wall behind, but the Americans did not stir in their sleep.
Why would they have? They were three floors down, blissfully unaware of what the future had in store for them.
Inside the suite, the blinds were drawn. The lights were out. And the dry hotel air pricked with the heavy scent of iron – the scent of blood, of viscera, of death.
He flipped a switch. The lights came on. And there, just where he’d left them, were the ruined scraps of meat that had until this afternoon been a prominent London hedge-fund manager – one whose attempted takeover of his next-largest competitor was apparently deemed just a tad too hostile to let stand.
The man in black stood gazing at the disassembled man a while, lost in contemplation of his work. Then, suddenly, he was shaken from his reverie with the memory of why he’d come back.
The beauty of a large overcoat is it hides all manner of objects from sight. Objects like a shotgun, or a machete. Objects like a pair of pilsner glasses.
He removed the idiot Americans’ glasses from his pocket, and unwrapped them from the paper towels he’d taken from the Royale’s public toilet to keep them safe in transit. Then he fetched from another pocket the Scotch tape he’d purchased at the druggist, and – with the greatest care – pulled a couple choice prints off of each, transplanting them onto the hacksaw and the butcher’s knife he’d abandoned when he’d first left the room.
Twenty minutes after he’d arrived, the job was done. As he left, he removed the “Do Not Disturb” sign from the door, descending the stairs to the lobby with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.
An hour later, he was relaxing at his flat. He would have been home sooner, but he’d hiked two miles out of his way across the city to make a phone call.
“I met two men tonight,” he’d said in Dutch into the burner phone, so quietly the policeman on the other end of the line had to strain to hear. “Americans. One tall, one short – their hair in dreadlocks. They bragged they’d killed a man at our hotel.”
“Who is this? What hotel?”
“The Hotel Mon Signor,” he replied. “Please hurry – I think they may kill again!”
When he’d finished with his call, he’d thrown the mobile into the canal and gone home.
Had he been too harsh, he wondered as he finally drifted off to sleep, framing those idiots for murder?
Of course not, he decided.
They should have known better than to talk during a movie.
-
Chris F. Holm was born in Syracuse, New York, the grandson of a cop who passed along his passion for crime fiction. He wrote his first story at the age of six. It got him sent to the principal’s office. Since then, his work has fared better, appearing in such publications as Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Needle, and BEAT to a PULP. His short story “The Hitter” was selected to appear in The Best American Mystery Stories 2011. His debut novel, Dead Harvest, will be released in March 2012 by Angry Robot Books.
Clouds in a Bunker
By David Cranmer
“Hold on a moment. The teakettle is whistling.” The line went silent for a beat and then, “I’ll be right back.”
On the other side of the six-inch thick door, Chief Willis sat close, listening in, while the beady-eyed police negotiator Meeker tilted the phone for both officers to hear.
“Damn, the old man is gone again. I thought we had him this time,” Meeker said.
“He’s determined to go through with it,” Willis added. He drummed thin, calloused fingers on the butt of his holstered .38 and grimaced.
“Shouldn’t I talk to him?” Both officers turned to face Anna Olmstead, the old man’s daughter who hovered outside the narrow entrance to the underground fallout shelter. Her plump face and wide-set eyes were red and puffy.
Willis placed a hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t recommend it. The only reason your father is talking to us is that he’s waiting for you to show up. Once he has passed his message on, we suspect he’ll end his life – and your mother’s. You do understand?”
“Yes.” Anna wiped a tear from her eye, another forming right after it.
“So, we’re stalling him by saying that you left work before we could reach you and we have a squad car waiting at your house to pick you up.”
Anna nodded.
Willis shifted his attention to the only other occupant in the cramped space. “Doctor Meyers, will you come with me, please.”
A well-dressed man with a bushy mustache and steady eye followed the chief away from the shelter. Outside, a sea of uniformed cops and firemen swirled with a sense of purpose while curious neighbors gaped from the sidewalk behind yellow tape and a local news crew readied the camera for the daily exclusive.
Willis and Meyers walked to the corner of the two-story New England home. “You’re his personal physician, right?” Willis crossed his arms. “Tell me about his condition and that of the Mrs.”
“Mr. Spaulding is entering the final stages of dementia. Basically, his mind is deteriorating and functions like memory, attention, language, and problem solving have become difficult for him.”
“So, he’s senile?”
“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. A senile person might forget where he placed his car key but he’ll eventually find it and be on his way. Whereas an individual with Mr. Spaulding’s condition will not only forget where he left the key, but when he finds it, he may not remember what it’s called or what it does.”
“How far gone would you say he is?”
Meyers removed his glasses and began cleaning the lenses with a red-and-white checkered handkerchief. “Mr. Spaulding is easily confused and should be living in a retirement home. He’s at the stage where dark clouds pass frequently over his mind and moments of clarity are becoming fewer and far between. He has begun referring to objects he can’t remember with made-up names. For instance, at his last appointment he referred to his hearing aids as earwigs. A flashlight was a shining torch. And so forth.”
“And his wife?”
“Mrs. Spaulding requires twenty-four-seven care. The clouds in her case have regrettably settled for good.” Meyers hooked his wire-frame spectacles over his ears and tucked the handkerchief in his front right pocket.
“Hmm...” Willis said. “What a shame for them to end their lives on this note. And for us – stuck here while Hank Aaron is about to break Babe Ruth’s home run record.”
“Sorry my family’s problems are conflicting with your television viewing, Chief.” Anna brushed around them, clambered up the porch steps, and slumped on the two-seated swinging chair. She stared at her shoes as she gently rocked back and forth.
Willis shook his head in embarrassment and then returned to the bunker.
***
“Mr. Spaulding?”
“Yes, I’m still here.”
“Mr. Spaulding –”
“You can call me Ian.”
“Okay. Ian,” Meeker continued, “how is your wife?”
“She’s fine. Why wouldn’t she be? Who exactly are you again?”
“Police negotiator, sir,” Meeker said. “May we check on her?”
“She’s my wife and I can take care of her just as good as anybody.” Ian Spaulding’s voice hardened. “Listen, I asked to speak to my daughter.”
“We are still trying to locate her, Ian. But until then, it would help us if you would allow us to talk to Mrs. Spaulding.”
“What don’t you folks understand about I can take care of her myself.”
“Ian, we appreciate your situation and will leave you alone after we check –”
“Look now, I was in the process of calling my daughter when that damn headshrinker showed up. I want her here – ah, dang blast it, the teakettle.”
Meeker put the phone up against his bar
rel chest. “Again? Why would he need to keep checking on the teakettle? Any chance of getting in another way, Chief?”
“Hardly,” Willis said looking about the enclosed space. “We’d have to drill through the ground, which he’s bound to hear and then he might end things sooner.”
Meeker gestured to Willis when Ian Spaulding came back on the phone.
“What did you say, Ian?”
“I was a uniform man myself once, during the war.”
“Oh, really? World War II?” Meeker asked.
“No, afraid a little older than that – the first one. I forget what it’s called but I was in charge of bomb disposals.”
“That sounds dangerous, Ian.”
“I didn’t see a lot of action. Broke my arm shortly after I joined and ended up spending what turned out to be the last year of the war in a hospital bed. That’s where I met my wife –” his voice trembled.
“Yes, Ian. Please continue.”
Silence. Then some shuffling. Finally, Ian mumbled, “I love my daughter. Please tell her the time had come. Let her know I left some trees on my desk that will explain everything.”
Meeker cupped the phone while Willis barked out the order, “Get her in here, now!”
***
“Daddy?”
“Yes, Coconut.”
“You remember my nickname.”
“How could I forget?”
Tears streaked down Anna’s cheek and over her fingers clutching the phone. “Why are you doing this?”
“I always promised to take care of your mother and now they want to take that away from me. Put us both in a home.”
“I know, Daddy. Remember, I talked to Dr. Meyers about placing you in Graceful Acres.” Static popped and hissed on the line, making the conversation seem like a thousand miles away instead of two feet. “Daddy … Daddy?”
“Why did you do that?”
“We talked about this. Remember? Because you have been diagnosed with dementia and in your condition you could be dangerous to yourself and Mom living by yourselves.”
“That’s rubbish. What danger?”
“Do you remember taking Mom for a drive, getting lost, and Uncle Carl had to pick you up at the police station? Or almost burning down the house after forgetting you were making dinner? Daddy, you know I’d never lie to you. Going to a home is best for you and Mom. I wish to God I could take you both in but the amount of care needed makes it impossible…”
“Sweetheart, if what you’re saying is… if that’s true, then I don’t want to go on. Not like your mom. Rotted away with no chance of reaching out. The idea of both of us… it’s unbearable. Please read the trees on my desk about final arrangements and there is some cash for you.”
“What do you mean, trees?”
“You know. I’ve written it all down for you in my study.”
“Okay.” She pressed the phone into the palm of her hand and turned to Meeker. “I don’t know what else to do. I’m afraid he’s ready to go through with it.”
“Try asking him to open the door.”
She nodded, her voice softening. “Daddy?”
“Yes, Coconut.”
“Can I give you one last hug?” Anna pleaded, breaking into big tears.
After a moment. “Yes, baby. But tell those people out there to stand back. I have my rifle.”
Anna held the phone away from her ear and murmured, “He’s going to open the door but asked everyone to stand back – he has a gun.” She put the phone back up to her ear, “Okay, you can unlock the door,” and then hung up.
She took a deep breath and shivered as the massive door unlatched with a loud clunk and swung open.
***
“Oh, Daddy!” Anna rushed into the shelter, her arms reaching out. She touched her father’s shoulder and then knelt down in front of her mother’s wheelchair. She held her mother’s cold hands in her own and rubbed them. The silver-haired woman stared vacantly ahead.
The officers peered around the sides of the door, watching the family reunion while sizing up the situation. They looked at each other with a sigh of relief – the old man, arms quaking from age, pointed a Red Ryder BB gun at them.
Willis raised a foot to enter the shelter when Ian shouted, “I’ll shoot you both.”
The chief looked to Meeker and shrugged with a smirk. As they walked in, tiny steel beads greeted them and bounced off their vests.
“Stop! You’re just going to upset him more.” Anna begged the policemen, “Can I please take my parents out of here myself?”
The chief nodded, sympathy inscribed on his face.
She stood and grasped the handles of the wheelchair and began pushing it toward the entrance. “C’mon, Daddy, it’s time to go.”
Ian, arms still shaking, kept an icy gaze on the officers. “Fine, but no one is taking my rifle.” He fired two more shots that ricocheted off Meeker’s forehead.
Anna smiled, sniffling through her tears. “No one is taking his gun, right Chief?”
“No, of course not.”
The old man stopped in front of Willis and hard-eyed him, “Lucky for you, God came down from heaven and stopped the bullets.”
Anna guided her parents out of the shelter, leaving the officers behind.
“I wonder what he meant, stopped the bullets?” Meeker rubbed the red welts growing larger on his brow. “Remind me not to get old.”
“You ain’t kidding.” Willis moved into the next room with shelf after shelf stocked with canned goods and other supplies. “I wonder where that damn teakettle he kept talking about is.”
“Who the hell knows.” Meeker chuckled as he followed in behind the chief. “Must be in here somewhere.”
Both men heard a sharp beep, beep that repeated several times in rapid succession.
“Ah, maybe that’s it,” Willis said turning to the shelf behind him, his eyes tracing over the boxes.
Another series of beep, beeps.
He gasped. At the far end of the shelf sat a bundle of dynamite wrapped with a motley set of wires and a timepiece counting down with just three seconds to go.
***
Outside the fallout shelter, gawkers watched as the Spauldings talked with the doctor at the back of the ambulance when a hushed explosion and smoke rippled out from the shelter entrance.
“What was that?” Anna quickly looked from one person to the next for an answer.
The World War I bomb specialist, sweeping the hair away from his wife’s empty face, calmly replied, “I guess they didn’t turn off the teakettle.”
-
David Cranmer is editor and publisher of the BEAT to a PULP webzine (http://beattoapulp.com/). He lives in Maine with his wife and daughter.
The Wife of Gregory Bell
By Patricia Abbott
I didn’t start out to be a criminal. Does anyone? But in my case, it made no sense. I was raised by upper middle-class people in a nice suburb of Philadelphia. There was no gang or disreputable friends to lure me into a life of crime. No incidents to jade me. My parents did all the right things and my two sisters are virtuous if slightly dull women.
It seems likely I was a genetic mishap because something inside me was restless and twisted from the start. Even as a child, if I could find a way to avoid work, I did. If I could discern an easy way out, I took it. If an opportunity to acquire something I wanted presented itself, I seized it. Yes, I wanted things and was particularly susceptible to things of beauty, seldom resisting a cashmere sports coat, a prom queen, a sports car. I took all of them out for a spin.
Neither particularly handsome nor excessively smart, I survived on the benefits of a pleasing personality, and such a gift goes a long way with most people. So I cultivated that one gift, honed it to where people believed me to be both handsome and smart.
Not everyone was fooled.
“It might be just as well if you attend a college in another state, Greg,” my father suggested. He’d intuited that someone else had sat for my SAT
s. Clearing his throat, he added, “Be good for you to see a little of this country.”
Before I ended up behind bars, he probably thought, but I was too taken aback to say much that day. If he’d been wiser, he’d have exposed me for what I was then. Instead, he sent me to Stanford where it wasn’t difficult to use similar methods to be a successful student, to procure a good first job.
“Gregory Bell, right?” my first boss said, picking up my paperwork. “This is one of the most impressive transcripts I’ve ever seen, Mr. Bell. It’s as if you tailored your coursework to fit the needs of our firm.”
Indeed I had, altering the records to match that of recent hires. My reference letters were bought or forged as well.
But my crimes were inconsequential until shortly after my twenty-ninth birthday. I was at a wedding, the sort of affair people threw before the bottom fell out of the world. Events where the host puts up the wedding party and out-of-towners at a luxury hotel, where a hospitality basket with expensive items awaited your arrival.
“Greg, it wouldn’t be a party without you,” the prospective groom said via email.
“Charming single men are in short supply,” added the prospective bride on the phone.
A Stanford man marrying a Sarah Lawrence girl. The guest list must have topped 600.
Let’s say the wedding was at The Plaza in New York. I arrived late and talked my way into a suite. I can’t deny this sort of thing happened to me more than with most people. As I said earlier, personality goes a long way, especially with people behind desks or counters. And such luck or opportunity drives men like me toward evil. Sometimes it’s gambling that attracts them. But I liked games with fewer risks, only putting down money on myself.
At the time, I was a middle-management employee of a large real estate firm. I specialized in lightning-quick assessments of commercial properties. We all had jobs like that back then.
“We need to put a bid in by day’s end, Greg. Is the neighborhood on the way up or down? How long till we can sell it for a profit?”
That was my typical assignment. Despite all the statistics and data I waved around, it was often just guesswork. Or no work – all guess. It’d be years before I was proven wrong (or right) and I expected to be somewhere else by then.
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