by Zane Lovitt
‘Hold on to your hat, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘I think I’m onto something.’
‘But I’m not wearing a hat, boss.’
‘Shut up and watch! You might learn a thing or two.’
I remembered that the killer had (blah blah). Then I played the tape and there it was! He was wearing the very same wig and beard!
‘Thought he could pull the wool over my eyes, hey,’ I said. ‘Well, he ain’t so smart. He ain’t so smart at all.’
‘But it looks to me like he wanted to be caught,’ said Jimmy.
‘Rubbish! I think it’s time we paid Mr Krymphixshon a visit.’
‘What if it’s a trap?’
‘A trap? If anything’s a trap, it’s me. I’m the trap. Anyway, who told you you could think?’
‘But maybe there’s other hypotheses.’
‘Rubbish!’
‘What about the letter, and the wig and beard – how he’s making such a big deal—’
Jimmy collapsed in his chair. I had chloroformed him. It was a last resort, you understand. He couldn’t see sense if it was stapled to his eyeballs – though having your eyeballs stapled mightn’t help you see much. Anyway, he was hampering the investigation. We had to act now – nab the killer before he realised his mistake and skipped town. It was late – after midnight – but as good a time as any. I made ready to leave. Yet the question of whether it was a trap still dogged me. Jimmy’s reasoning had made no sense, but if there was even the slightest chance, I had to be prepared. Normally, if we was making a bust on a serial killer, we’d bring half the force, but that might have been just what this killer wanted. On the other hand, if he knew we’d be thinking that, or if he knew that we knew that he knew, well, there was no telling what the fuck could happen. The bottom line was I couldn’t risk losing good cops. Call me a hero or call me daft, I was going to face this demon alone.
I carried Jimmy out to the car and threw him in the boot. Well, I couldn’t just leave him drooling on the office furniture, but I weren’t keen on him waking up neither, so the two of us headed off for the killer’s (blah blah), a warehouse in the industrial (blah blah). I crept down the passage, pausing at every turn, bracing myself at every open door, listening for the slightest sound. The place seemed deserted but it was hard to tell in the darkness. I had a torch, but I didn’t switch it on in case it attracted too much attention. Then I fell down some stairs, though I couldn’t see them, just feel them. They were metal and made an awful racket. I would have woken the dead if they hadn’t already been woken by the racket I made when I busted into the place.
At the bottom of the stairs, I shakily got to my feet. But suddenly I noticed, right in front of me, a monster of a man! He had the most frightful, sinister appearance. Then I realised he was holding a torch close to his chin, purposefully angled to make him appear scary. How immature can you get? How pathetic. I had to laugh. I laughed and laughed – and that’s when I realised it was myself I was seeing in a mirror.
Instinctively, I shone the torch around to see if anyone had witnessed my performance. The torch light fell on a wall covered with photos, newspaper clippings and scribbled notes, connected by bits of string crisscrossing everywhere. Just about everything was connected to a photo of me!
I took a step closer and bumped a table, shone my torch on it and realised someone was seated there. He wore a pair of night-vision goggles and gazed right at me. Before I could turn my gun on him, he pressed a barrel to my head.
‘Drop it, you sorry excuse for a detective.’
I placed my gun gently on the table.
‘God, you really are stupid,’ he said.
‘Who are you calling stupid, chauvinist!’
‘I don’t think you’re stupid just because you’re a woman! God! I’m a woman too!’
‘You mean … we’re both women?’
‘Yes!’
‘What about the stubble the maid saw?’
‘Jesus, you’re even dumber than you look! I’m amazed they put you on my case. Perhaps the chief of police hates crime fiction too.’
‘I wouldn’t get so cocky if I was you, Krymphixshon. Any second now the—’
‘My name’s Iyhait Krymphixshon! Never leave off the Iyhait!’
‘Come on. It’s always the surname used by authorities and the press – the Krymphixshon case, Krymphixshon versus the state—’
‘You bet it is!’
‘What?’
‘It’s trying to take over the state! It’s a scourge on our society – a threat to the integrity of the human race!’
‘Crime fiction?’
‘I told you not to call me that!’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Crime fiction. Fictional detectives are the worst – hard-nosed sleuths as individualistic as ants. But still crime writers churn them out, the same characters, same scenarios, same framework, over and over.’
‘What are you telling me for? I ain’t no fictional detective.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘Bullshit. I’m the real deal. I hate crime fiction.’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean what?’
‘You just said Iyhait Krymphixhon.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You are a fictional detective. Your story is being written right now, as we speak.’
‘You’re mad!’
‘Oh, I’m not the mad one. I knew he’d have to bring us face to face eventually.’
‘Who?’
‘The writer of this story! The source! He thinks he’s so clever, writing a crime story that’s anti-crime fiction, with all this postmodern authorial-intrusion crap. But he’s not anti-crime fiction. He’s perpetuating it, just like the rest of them! Or worse – laying the foundations for a new take on the genre!’
‘What the hell are you talking about? I’m not doing any of that crap!’
‘I’m not talking to you! I’m addressing the author.’
‘The author?’
‘The gig is up, Burger!’
‘What the hell do Burgers have to do with anything?’
‘Burger is the author’s name! Now shut up!’
‘Burger? You’re kidding me.’
‘It’s you I aim to kill!’ said Krymphixshon to the author. ‘Now raise your hands from the keyboard!’
The End
Ending 2
‘You can’t refer to the writer’s keyboard!’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re distancing the reader!’
‘Jimmy!’ I said. ‘I’m glad to see you. Krymphixshon has lost her marbles.’
‘I told you not to call me Krymphixshon!’ yelled Krymphixshon.
Jimmy had his gun on Krymphixshon but then he trained it on me.
‘What are the hell are you doing, Jimmy? Are you nuts?’
‘No way, boss. If this writer really is controlling everything, then he’s the one responsible for the murders. Since this is a first-person narrative, you practically are the writer.’
‘That’s crazy talk, Jimmy! Put the gun down!’
‘It ain’t crazy! You’re always havin’ a dig at me, talkin’ to me like I’m retarded or somethin’!’
‘Oh, I see. This isn’t about the murders at all, is it? Anyway, who told you you could think?’
(blah blah)
‘There’s no way you can kill the writer!’ yelled Jimmy to Krymphixshon. ‘He’s writing everything you do!’
‘I got this far, didn’t I! Maybe he wants to be shot.’
‘But what are you gonna shoot at? You can’t see him. He’s nowhere and everywhere – omnipresent, like a god.’
‘I could give him a heart attack. He could get too close to his creations, lose sight of reality and then have a heart attack from the horror of it all.’<
br />
Jimmy cried, ‘How do you know you won’t just kill a reader?’
‘A reader? But it hasn’t been published yet!’
‘I think it has.’
‘Nonsense!’
‘This story will end when one of the main characters gets killed.’
‘Then kill Krymphixshon!’ I yelled. ‘For god’s sake!’
Suddenly Krymphixshon shot Jimmy in the chest. He went down like he was winched to the floor. I checked his pulse but there weren’t none. I pulled open his shirt – Jimmy had breasts! Jimmy was a dame, too! The bullet had gone straight through her heart.
I reached across the floor for Jimmy’s gun but Krymphixshon had her barrel to my head faster than if it had been glued there all along.
‘I wouldn’t touch that gun if I were you,’ she said. ‘Besides, if what your friend Jimmy said is true, it would be better for you if neither of us died. We’re the main characters.’
‘I don’t need to kill you to see justice done. They’ll lock you away for life!’
‘You can’t arrest me. If you do, the case will be closed and the story will end.’
‘Do you expect me to let you just walk away, scot-free?’
‘Don’t forget who’s holding the gun. I could shoot you anytime.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘And don’t think you can beguile me with your feminine whiles, temptress!’
‘What the hell are you talking about? I was only adjusting my bra! God!’
‘I think it’s time for you to leave.’
With her gun to my back, Krymphixshon showed me out the door.
I called for backup the moment I was outside but by the time they arrived Krymphixshon had flown the coop. They carried Jimmy’s body away. I had mixed feelings about my old sidekick, but I would never have wished her dead. There was a lot of explaining to do back at (blah blah). Cases like this really busted my ovaries.
It had been a long night. With a couple of hours left before sunrise, I took to the streets and lost myself in the rain, paused beneath an awning, lit myself a fag and I thought about that strange conversation between Jimmy and Krymphixshon. Surely it was bonkers to think this was all part of a story by some writer. My life wouldn’t end if Krymphixshon died or went to prison. Besides, my job was done. We knew who the murderer was and it was just a matter of time before she was nabbed. My story could hardly go on if I never saw her again. It might as well end right now.
The End
Ending 3
After more wandering, I found myself once again prowling the neighbourhood of my old flame. Her bedroom light was on. I felt game enough to give her another shot. The worst she could do was shut the door in my face, and that was nothing compared to the wringer I’d been through lately. I picked up a pebble and threw it at her window. In a moment she opened it and looked down angrily, but her expression changed the moment she saw it was me.
‘Oh, Edwina! Edwina!’ she cried joyously. ‘I thought you’d given up on me!’
‘Can I come in for a nightcap?’
She vanished from the window and reappeared before me in the doorway. My old flame, every bit as ravishing as the day we’d met. If this was a dream, you could shoot me now, I thought. It would be better than shooting me if this wasn’t a dream because then I would die.
She held out her hand to me and led me inside. What was to follow was beyond words … but that’s another story.
The End
Eddy Burger
Contributors
Tony Birch’s books include Shadowboxing (Scribe, 2006), Father’s Day (Hunter, 2009), Blood (UQP, 2011), The Promise (UQP, 2014) and Ghost River (UQP, 2015). He is currently a Research Fellow in the Moondani Balluk Academic Unit at Victoria University.
Carmel Bird is the author of thirty books, the most recent being a short story collection, My Hearts Are Your Hearts (Spineless Wonders, 2015), and an extended essay, Fair Game (Finlay Lloyd, 2015). Her Dear Writer Revisited and Writing the Story of Your Life are widely used by students of writing. carmelbird.com | carmel-bird.blogspot.com
Eddy Burger is a Melbourne writer of funny and experimental fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in Australian and international journals and anthologies. He has had chapbooks published by the Melbourne Poets Union and Small Change Press. Eddy is an anti-realist, postmodernist and champion of the imagination. He was runner-up in the 2015 Carmel Bird Award for New Crime Writing.
Peter Corris has been a full-time writer since the early 1980s. He has published more than 70 works of fiction and about a dozen non-fiction titles. He is best known for his series about Sydney private detective Cliff Hardy. The 41st book in the series, That Empty Feeling, was published in 2016.
Melanie Napthine is a Melbourne-based writer. She has recently won the Boroondara, Ethel Webb Bundell and Margaret River Short Story competitions and was shortlisted in the Overland, Katharine Susannah Pritchard, Olga Masters and Henry Handel Richardson competitions and was runner-up in the 2015 Carmel Bird Award for New Crime Writing. She works in educational publishing, and any time left over is spent reading, running, travelling and parenting.
Andrew Nette is a Melbourne-based writer and journalist. He is the author of two novels, Ghost Money (Crime Waves Press, 2012), a crime story set in mid-nineties Cambodia, and Gunshine State to be published by 280 Steps in 2016. His short fiction has appeared in a number of print and online publications. His online home is pulpcurry.com | @Pulpcurry
After 13 years in the NSW Police PM Newton went to Mali to write about music and India to study Buddhist philosophy. Award-winning author of The Old School (2011) and Beams Falling (2011) published by Penguin Books Australia. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The Intervention Anthology (2015), The Great Unknown (Spineless Wonders, 2013), Seizure, Review of Australian Fiction and Anne Summers Reports. ‘The Mango Tree’ first appeared in Making Tracks: UTS Writers’ Anthology. pmnewton.com
Amanda O’Callaghan’s short stories and flash fiction have been published and won awards in Australia, UK and Ireland. Amanda won the 2015 Carmel Bird Award for New Crime Writing. A former advertising executive, she has an MA in English from King’s College, London. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Queensland. Amanda lives in Brisbane.
Leigh Redhead has worked on a prawn trawler and as a waitress, exotic dancer, masseuse, teacher and apprentice chef. She is the author of the award-winning Simone Kirsch private eye series: Peepshow (2004), Rubdown (2005) Cherry Pie (2007) and Thrill City (2010), published by Allen & Unwin. She is currently completing the fifth in the series while studying for a PhD in Australian noir fiction.
Angela Savage is an award-winning Melbourne writer, who has lived and travelled extensively in Asia. Her Jayne Keeney PI series, including Behind the Night Bazaar (2006), The Half-Child (2010) and The Dying Beach (2013), is set in Thailand and published by Text Publishing. She won the 2011 Scarlett Stiletto Award for her short story ‘The Teardrop Tattoos’. Angela is studying for her PhD in Creative Writing.
angelasavage.wordpress.com | @angsavage
Winner of the Ernest Hemingway Flash Fiction Award, Michael Caleb Tasker was born in Montreal, Canada and spent his childhood New Orleans. He has been published in numerous literary journals including Shenandoah, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The New Ohio Review. He was runner-up in the 2014 John Steinbeck Short Fiction Contest and in the 2015 Carmel Bird Award for New Crime Writing
David Whish-Wilson is the author of two crime novels set in 1970s Perth – Line of Sight (2010) and Zero at the Bone (2013) published by Penguin Books Australia. His most recent publication is the Perth book in the NewSouth Books city series. The third novel in the Frank Swann series – Old Scores – is due for release in 2016. David lives in Fremantle, Western Australia, where he coordinates the creative writing program at Curtin University.
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sp; Editor
Zane Lovitt’s story ‘Leaving the Fountainhead’ won the SD Harvey Short Story Award at the 2010 Ned Kelly Awards for Australian crime fiction, while his debut novel, The Midnight Promise, won the 2013 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Fiction. That same year he was named a Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist. His second novel, Black Teeth, will be available in July, 2016 through Text Publishing.
Spineless Wonders publications are available in print and digital format from participating bookshops and online. For further information about where to purchase our print and ebooks, go to the Spineless Wonders website:
www.shortaustralianstories.com.au
Spineless Wonders
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New South Wales, Australia, 2012
https://shortaustralianstories.com.au
First published by Spineless Wonders 2016
Text copyright retained by individual authors
Cover image copyright Bettina Kaiser
Editorial assistance & copyediting by Bronwyn Mehan, Annie Parkinson, Maximilian Korbas and Emma Walsh.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be produced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval sysem, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro
Printed and bound by Ingram Spark Australia
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Edited by Zane Lovitt
