by John Kenyon
It was an open secret about Charlie and Lucy. He’d spent a fortune on surgery turning her into the woman of his dreams.
With breasts that size Danny wondered how she managed to stay upright.
Ralph arranged the girls into a neat line, tallest to shortest, and Charlie went to introduce himself.
There was a routine to it all. He’d shake hands, tell them to open their mouths and do a little twirl. Next he’d let his hands wander and decide where to send them.
While he was at it, Jenny walked into the garden innocent as you like. Paid no attention to what was going on and went straight over to help with the washing.
She knew damn well what she and her dad got up to in the laundry room. Kept it to herself in case she could use it to her advantage one day.
It was nice for Danny to have something else to look at while Charlie prodded and poked, but he couldn’t help turning back to see what he was up to.
He was halfway through. Had reached the feisty one. Maybe Danny should have warned him.
She was turning into a woman all right, her hips accentuated in her new pair of jeans.
Charlie put his hand up into her armpit. Let his thumb rub at the buds protruding from her chest. Slid his palm down her waist and then along the curves.
That’s when it happened.
A ball of spit flew from her mouth and landed in Charlie’s eye.
He pulled his hand back and went for the slap, but he was too slow.
The girl ducked and ran.
There was nothing anyone could do, but she was never going to get away. Probably knew that all along.
Straight for the maid she went. Pounced like a lioness. Had her down in one movement.
When down flew a blackbird and pecked off her nose.
She had her teeth around the poor maid’s nose like she was born to such a thing. Her head swung from side to side like she was watching a pulsating tennis game.
When she straightened up there was a lump of flesh in her mouth. It was small, but she was smiling like it was the biggest prize of all.
Ralph got to her first. Dragged her off by the arms.
Charlie was next. Gave her such a kick in her belly that the nose spilled free from her jaws. It lay there in the grass like an end of raw sausage.
Hearing the commotion, little Jenny Wren,
Came down into the garden and put it back again.
The maid stayed down like a boxer taking the eight, her mouth hanging open and trying to scream.
Jenny reacted first. Picked up the tip of the nose and pressed it back where it was supposed to be, connecting it to the blood supply as if everything might be right as rain.
Ignoring his bit on the side, Charlie followed Ralph as he dragged the girl away.
Didn’t need to be a clairvoyant to see what her future held.
Danny saw the look of satisfaction in her face. Wished he’d taken her under his wing. Sent her home and given her a chance, the chance she’d given her friends—twenty-three girls sprinting in different directions towards the perimeter hedge, hoping to find their land of milk and honey.
King Flounder: A Monologue
By Loren Eaton
“King Flounder: A Monologue” was inspired not only by “The Fisherman and His Wife” (my favorite Grimm’s fairy tale), but by memories of flats fishing in Key West with my father and a certain scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather involving a brazen confrontation in an Italian restaurant.
Quando sederis ut comedas cum principe,
diligenter adtende quae posita sunt ante faciem tuam…
Hmmm? What is it, Johnny?
Tyler Hooper’s been waiting outside almost an hour? Who’s Tyler Ho—
Oh. Yeah. The Good Samaritan. Fine, show him in.
Tyler! Glad you could stop by. Sorry if Johnny kept you waiting, but I’m a busy man. You know Johnny from the neighborhood? No? Remind me to tell you a story.
Hey, it’s about lunchtime, and I always like to talk business over a meal. Johnny, run down to the kitchen for us, would you? Whatever you want, Tyler, just say the word. A sandwich? That’s rich. Johnny, bring us a couple of steaks, Delmonicos if we have them. What’d you want to drink, Tyler? A Coke? Heh, it gets richer. Bring him his Coke and me a bottle of Cab. You’re a gem, Johnny.
Coke. That brings back memories. When I was a young man this Jersey gunsel came here to negotiate a certain understanding. He asked for coke, too, only not the kind in a can. I had to explain to him that I run this house like I run the organization—clean. Not interested in poisoning the community or my people. Then asks why I have so many boys—that’s his word—who aren’t Family. I gotta explain the economics of integration to this halfwit? Forget it, I was a busy man, even back then.
People come in here with expectations. “Gonna see the King,” and all that. At least Brando got a sensible moniker, you know? They look at the marble floors, the Degas on the wall, that fish mounted right above you. They start getting ideas. They forget I’m a man. I have expectations of my own. Johnny knows something about that.
Since we’ve got a few minutes before we eat, let me tell you a story about Johnny. Truth be told, Taylor—that’s your name, right, Taylor?—it’s just as well he’s not here. This story makes him a little uncomfortable. He wasn’t always wearing Armani and standing in air conditioning.
Not long after that little visit with the Jersey gunsel, I took a vacation to the Keys by my lonesome. This was before the wife and kids. Now, if I’d been thinking, I’d have waited to see how everything shook out after that meeting. But I was young. I wanted to catch some rays and a bonefish or two. Which is how I met Johnny: He was a guide, poling a skiff over the salt flats. Hard work. Hot work.
I thought we were going out alone, but the morning of this other guy turned up. Broad-shouldered. Quiet. Wearing jeans and an army jacket. Not dressed for fishing, in other words. Plus, he couldn’t cast to save his life. Flats fishing is fly fishing, and soon as we got out there he started losing flies, snarling his line. I was thinking I should’ve insisted on privacy, but I was young, on vacation, taking everything as it came. Plus, I didn’t really care as long as I caught something. See, Johnny worked with this taxidermist who’d take your catch right at the dock, mount it and overnight it to you. I’d given Johnny the office address beforehand and everything. But the way this yahoo was scaring the fish, I’d be going home empty-handed, and when was I going to make it to the flats again?
So, I was about to give up hope when I snagged something. It wasn’t weed because it began to fight, although not as hard as a bonefish. I was just landing it, Johnny scooping it up with the net, when I heard a splash. Army jacket had dropped his rod in the water. That wasn’t all. He had four inches of steel in his fist and was glaring right at me.
“Francesco Palmera,” army jacket said, “I have a message for you.”
Now Johnny was a little slow on the uptake back then. He’d only just stuck the fish in the cooler—ugliest fish I ever saw, by the way, all flat and brown and slimy—when he saw the knife. He froze, and his eyes about leapt out of his head.
“Keep back, and you won’t get hurt,” army jacket said to Johnny.
“He’s lying,” I said, trying to reach my waistband real inconspicuous. Always carry a throwaway piece, Taylor, that’s my advice. “He’ll dice you and dump you over. You help me, I’ll watch out for you.”
“Look,” Johnny began, “I don’t want any—”
But army jacket was already coming at me. Those skiffs, they’re narrow. Johnny could’ve sidestepped. Instead, he tried to knock army jacket down, got that knife in the side for his trouble. You ever seen a man stabbed, Taylor? It isn’t like the movies. Blood everywhere, right like that. But it gave me time to pull my piece. Put one in army jacket’s throat, another in his chest. In the drink he went, all nice and neat. I tossed the gun in after him.
The flats are no-wake zones, but I burned that skiff over them all the way back to
dock. Forget the pole. Army jacket had gotten Johnny through muscle far as I could tell, but the hospital was far off. I came up with a story and told him to stick to it. Didn’t matter much. He was barely conscious when we hit the ER. Myself, I didn’t even get to finish telling the triage nurse about the supposed crackhead who jumped us down at the dock because this plainclothes cop showed up. Real spit-and-polish that one. Could cut yourself on the creases in his slacks. Shoes so shiny you could shave in them. Hair all slicked back. And, get this, he was wearing an overcoat. In the Keys. He tucked his hand in his pocket at one point, and I saw this nickled .45, bright as chrome. He called himself Lieutenant Ramirez. I told him what I’d started telling the nurse, and when I got done, he just stared at me.
“Mister Pittoni,” he said, because that was the name on the ID I happened to be carrying, “why don’t you repeat what happened from the beginning.”
I didn’t like that. He started interrupting, probing, asking me what color the perp’s hair was, exactly what he said, which way he fled. Fortunately, I’ve got a good memory, even for things I’ve made up. Finally, he gave me his card and the whole “don’t leave town” bit, and said he was going to talk with Johnny’s wife, who’d apparently come in.
There goes my vacation, right? I wasn’t worried about Ramirez for his own sake. Even back then I knew people who golfed with judges. No, I didn’t want any attention alighting back home. One of those better safe than sorry situations, you know? I went back to the hotel, called my people, ordered Chinese. Then the phone rang. I answered, and who was on the other end but Johnny.
“Mister Palmera,” he said, “I wanted to let you know the doctor thinks I’ll be okay.” He sounded drugged to the gills, but basically together.
“How’d you get my number?” I asked.
“My wife called around. I remembered your, uh, other name from when you paid me earlier. Listen, Mister Palmera, we could use some help.”
“Yeah?” I said, feeling stupid, because on the skiff I’d promised to look out for him, and I don’t break promises.
Johnny went on for a while, telling me how guiding doesn’t pay much, how his wife wouldn’t be able to watch after him because she had to work, how he’d need home healthcare to help him piss and everything till he got back up on his feet.
Now, Taylor, that tugged at my heartstrings. He was just a bystander after all. I called home again, got the name of an expat in Miami named Mattias Donegan. The Family had him on retainer, and he had a reputation for being light-fingered and laundering lily-white. Polite, too. Next day, Johnny got a care package delivered by a guy with an accent. Brownies, books—and five thousand in mixed bills at the bottom.
I didn’t think about Johnny much after that. I had enough to worry about back home. My best supplier started his car and ended up pieces of himself scattered across half the county. My secretary went to check on my house and found my cat with most of its insides on the outside. And Lieutenant Ramirez called to request my presence at the station when I happen to have a moment. Real genteel. The last person I wanted to bother with was Johnny. But that phone had to ring again.
“Mister Palmera,” he said, “I’m calling to thank you for all you’ve done.”
“Hmmm,” I said. Taylor, you don’t admit anything on an unsecured line, you know that, right?
“I’m feeling better today. A lot better. Really, really better.”
Silence. I could hear machines beeping in the background, code something-or-other blared over a PA, then this woman saying, “Tell him why you called, John.”
Johnny went all stuttery then. “Mister Palmera, it’s just that, uh, guiding’s pretty physically demanding, it’s not like I can, well, just switch to a motor, a-and it may be, may be two or three months before I, uh, before I can get back to work, so I, you know, I…”
He trailed off.
I waited. Finally said, “What’re you getting at?”
Nothing. Not a single word. Johnny might as well have been struck mute.
I hung up. Fishing the flats was fine. Fishing around me, not so much. But, yeah, I’d made a promise and Lieutenant Ramirez had seen Johnny’s wife, so I figured another gift was both charity and insurance. That night Johnny got a pizza misdelivery, a ten-G misdelivery. Still, all that money irked me. Understand, I was young back then and didn’t have much margin to play with. Ramirez was a problem. The goons muscling in back home were a problem. Now Johnny was becoming a problem. When I have problems, I like to solve them cheaply.
Morning after, I went to this café across the street, ordered an omelet and mulled over what to do next. I love omelets, great brain food, and this one was almost as good as the ones my mama used to make. Shrimp, bacon and mushrooms. I was halfway through it when this woman sat down at my table.
“Seat’s taken,” I said, not looking up.
“We both know you’re alone, Palmera,” she said.
I looked up then, let me tell you. This woman wasn’t anyone I’d choose for a breakfast partner, Taylor. Rawbone thin, sallow complexion, hair all stringy. And she had these eyes, all cold and evaluative and somehow stupid, like she thought she had you summed up but didn’t know it showed.
“Seems I’m at a disadvantage,” I said. “You know my name. I don’t know yours.”
“Ilsabil.”
“Funny name.”
“It’s German. I’m here because of John. You owe us.”
Sometimes all the facts line up in a row and stand at attention. Johnny’s stuttering, his nervousness, his inability to complete a sentence—he didn’t want money at all. His wife did.
I shrugged. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened, but why do you think I—”
“I saw your face once. On the news. I have a good eye for them. Something about a hijacked tractor trailer. You can help us. We both know it.” She went on from there, how my life must be worth a lot more to me than what I’d paid her husband, how she intended to take me for every penny—or make a personal visit to Sargent Ramirez. She opened negotiations at two million.
Here was my true problem, Taylor. Not Ramirez. Not the Jersey goons muscling in on my territory. This woman was a leech. The only thing she knew was “take” and “take.” You know how you remove a leech? Some people say to let it feed until it gets full, then it’ll fall off. I say you burn it off.
I told Ilsabil I’d pay the full amount, everything she wanted, with two conditions: I’d need twenty-four hours to gather the cash, and we’d meet on Duval Street, where it’s nice and public and safe. After she’d left, I called Donegan. Then I went shopping for the appropriate clothes. Then I went to the hospital to see Johnny.
One of these days, I’ll have to ask him why he married Ilsabil. I mean, he’s a good-looking guy, tall, thin, all that hair. Not like me, that’s for sure. Could’ve had his choice of women. Well, with him I didn’t even have to get past three sentences. Told him I was always looking for good men, and any man who took a knife for me was good in my book. He said, “Thank you,” and reached over and pulled out his IV. He knew what was going down. Maybe he’d been waiting for someone to do it for him. I gave him a few hundred, asked if he could drive, told him I’d scheduled a rental to be waiting in the parking garage. He leaned on my shoulder, and out we walked.
Ilsabil showed up early for our meeting, but I was earlier, parked on the corner in a Chrysler Donegan had boosted for me.
“You won’t mind if I inspect it,” she said when I rolled down the window.
“Be my guest,” I said and got out and opened the trunk. She didn’t comment on my new overcoat or calfskin gloves. “That’s a big bag,” she said when she saw the army duffel. She unzipped it, and I think she was going to say more from the way her eyes widened at the newspapers inside. But by then I had drawn Lieutenant Ramirez’s .45. I probably didn’t have to empty the magazine, a .45’s an overpowered gun after all. But I wanted witnesses watching the man with the long coat and shiny pistol. An internal investigation distracts
even the most diligent cop.
I wish I’d bothered to ask Donegan how he’d gotten a hold of that gun. He’s dead now, you know. Bad liver.
Funny thing, there was this package waiting for me when I got home. See that fish up there? Same one I caught with Johnny. A flounder. Someone must’ve hosed down the skiff before the taxidermist came. That’s where my nickname comes from. King Flounder.
Oh, there’s lots more. Those Jersey goons, for instance. See, we caught a lucky break when—
Yeah? Ah, Johnny! We’ve been talking about you. Rib eyes, huh? Fine with me if it is with Taylor. Wait, I’m getting that wrong. It’s Tyler, right? My apologies.
Since the meal’s here, let’s get down to brass tacks. You did us a good turn when the First National job went south a few weeks ago. I owe you. What would you ask from King Flounder?
Come on, time is money. Don’t sit there staring.
I’m a busy man, after all.
Henry, Gina and the Gingerbread House
By Kaye George
My Fairy Tale Crime Story is an updated, hard-boiled takeoff on “Hansel and Gretel.” But I think the original was quite hard-boiled, too. Aren’t all fairy tales?
“Get in there and fess up, you little hoodlums.” Vanessa shoved Henry and Gina toward the door of the Gingerbread House. “And quit sniveling, Gina. I know you’re faking.”
Gina leveled a cold laser stare at her stepmother. And quit sniveling. It hadn’t taken the bitch long to figure her out, Gina reflected. The fake crying had only worked for about a month or so. Henry had had the same luck with his stomachaches. Except Gina knew those were real. That red-headed she-devil could give anyone a stomachache.
A bell, shaped like a heart, tinkled innocently as Vanessa flung the door open and pushed the children inside the candy shop.
The blowsy bleached-blond owner, Brenda Pritchard, ambled through the beaded curtains from the kitchen and squinted at them.
