Criminal Gold

by Ann Aptaker

  I aim the .45 at Sig. My hand is suddenly warm and supple as my finger wraps around the trigger. Vengeance has melted the ice in my veins. I’m warm all over.

  Even my name comes at me on warm breath. “Cantor.” It’s Rosie. Her hand is on my gun arm. “That’s a suicide play.”

  Sig doesn’t move. Neither does my aim. But Rosie’s pressing down on my arm. Her touch is insistent, stubborn with concern for me. Slowly, I lower my gun.

  Sig motions to the trucker and the guy with the bloody hand to get into the Lincoln. They make it snappy across the pier, get into the car. Sig, still looking at me, calls out, “Thank you, Cantor! You did well! You found Opal’s killer. I am in your debt and I will pay you. I always pay my debts.” He starts to get back into the car but stops and calls to me, “I understand you have been looking for a woman named Sophie.” Then he gets into the Lincoln. Celeste’s killer drives the car away.

  I stare at the Lincoln until the red glow of its taillights is gone, until there’s nothing to see except the darkening glow of New York’s skyline in the thin gray dawn over the river.

  “C’mon,” Rosie says. Her arm is around my waist and she’s tugging me gently. Her arm is warm and strong. But I slip through her grasp as I fall to my knees beside the woman who’s cold and pale and dead. I cry my eyes out for Celeste Copley.

  About the Author

  Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker has earned a reputation as a respected if cheeky exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Taking the approach that what art authorities find uncomfortable the public would likely enjoy, exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.

  She brings the same attitude and philosophy to her first love: writing, especially a tangy variety of historical crime fiction. Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions (2003 and 2004) of the noir crime anthology Fedora. Her flash fiction story, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet. In addition to curating and designing art exhibitions and writing crime stories, Ann is also an art writer and an adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology.

  Books Available From Bold Strokes Books

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