Castle Danger--Woman on Ice

by Anthony Neil Smith

  I felt the shot before I heard it. The percussive thrum against my back, making me dive forward milliseconds ahead of the blast, the one that took my breath away.

  The wife’s cry lit up the air, a swirl of seething hate and grief.

  I turned. One hand on the doorknob, the other yanking my gun from its holster. I didn’t dare turn it. Refused to walk into my own death. “Get back, the other side of the car!”

  They did, scuffling like crabs until they reached the shelter of our borrowed squad.

  I took in a deep breath and wished I didn’t have to do this.

  And, well, I didn’t have to.

  The knob twisted in my hand without me moving a muscle, and just like that the door swung open. Joel standing there. His pistol hanging by his fingertips, and the Chief’s revolver shoved into the front of his waistband.

  His face … angry is too light a word. Devastated not nearly strong enough. This was the edge, his expression. The knife edge between two emotions I hope none of you will ever have to feel this intently.

  He stared at me, eyes as dead as the Chief. “Suicide.”

  A peek behind him into the cabin, I could see the blood on the couch, the windows, the Chief’s fallen body.

  Back to Joel. His eyes. Still nothing wavering there. No sign of what he’d just seen.

  “Suicide?”

  The wife had come out from behind the car at a full run. I caught her, held her back. She scratched at me, tried to maneuver around. I wouldn’t let her go. The boy stood behind the car. Blank.

  Joel nodded. Once, slowly. “Yep. He was determined.”

  Our cop telepathy wasn’t working anymore. It fizzled, just like that. I had no idea if he’d shot the Chief or not.

  He wasn’t stupid, though. All the proof came back later — powder burns on the Chief’s hand, his prints on the Colt, one empty shell in the wheel, the proper angle — but still, I wondered. What had happened? Really?

  That moment outside the cabin was when our already fragile partnership unraveled to the final thread. Of course I was going to back his story. Of course. But he knew I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. The man had been toying with us. He’d already planned the whole show. The Chief would not have ended things by his own hand.

  I said it again. “Suicide?”

  Joel tightened his lips. He pulled out his phone and turned from me. “I’m going to get wheels rolling our way. Deal with these two.”

  He walked away.

  The Chief’s widow bit my arm, and I let go. She pushed back into the cottage, ran into the living room, and stopped shouting. Hands covering her mouth. I rubbed the spot where she’d bit me — no broken skin — and called out, “Don’t touch anything.”

  Seemed more appropriate than “Sorry for your loss.”

  Because I got a feeling all she’d lost was a heavy weight on her shoulders.

  I closed the cottage door and sat on the front step.

  The wind. I didn’t mind the wind. It felt like it was finally blowing what was left of Manny away. All he’d done, all he’d seen, all he’d felt. Manny felt like a character I’d been playing to get away from who I really was, and I’d played him well. But maybe I wouldn’t need him much longer. Maybe.

  In the meantime, Manny had finished what he’d set out to do: find justice for Hannah.

  Or had he?

  Days later, I was sitting in the wind again. Spring wasn’t quite ready to overtake the North Shore, but we could all feel her breath in the air and hear her footsteps in the cracking ice on the Lake. I waited for her on the back deck of Hannah’s cottage … or should I say my cottage? Andrew had been true to his word. I could be myself here, as long as I put on my Manny costume for his campaign. Nothing against ‘Hannah’, but he didn’t want any confusion. Besides, I wasn’t ready for a public coming out party, not quite yet. In the meantime, I was free to sit on the deck and be me. Who I wanted to be; whoever that was. I had no need to constantly question myself. Just being me felt good enough.

  To be honest, I was greedy when I made that deal with Andrew. Selfish. I thought I’d won a negotiation. But … what if I hadn’t won anything at all? Now I was beholden to him. It was in my best interests to defend him, champion him, make sacrifices for him.

  It only struck me later that he might have more of a reason to take out Neudecker on the sly than ‘justice’ alone. After all, being Hannah’s brother, Marquette might have as much reason as Raske or the Chief to support the club financially. If it provided a safe place for Hannah, maybe it was worth the cost. In that case, Neudecker hadn’t been nearly as big a threat to the Marquette empire as Joel and me.

  How does a political mover-and-shaker like the Senator handle his political enemies? By hiring them. By keeping them close.

  Shit. Maybe the trap set for Joel wasn’t the real one. Maybe I was the one who stepped in, grabbed the cheese, and got my neck snapped, even though it felt like victory.

  Not much to do about it now. Not with a cottage like this, a rich man’s townhouse in the Cities, and a job better than any I’d ever had.

  Joel and I hadn’t spoken much since the ‘suicide’. I’d gotten him the job with Marquette, but we probably wouldn’t be working together that much, if at all. Not that either of us wanted to. I had the distinct impression that we’d gone as far as we could go together.

  The final thread, snapped.

  I knew he was in deeper with Robin, more drama and more desperation keeping them together. He hadn’t moved in with her yet, but he spent most of his nights there, only returning home when they boiled over.

  Paula was back to her old self, and had been to see me at the cottage a couple of times. While she hadn’t flat out told me, I could tell the idea of me asking to be called ‘Hannah’ freaked her out a bit. I don’t know why I felt compelled to do it. That one night in her skin, pretending to be her, it just felt like Hannah’s work was unfinished.

  She had more to teach me. I hoped everyone would come around, eventually. But if not, fuck ‘em.

  As far as I knew, Titus was keeping himself close to home. His father’s secret was still safe. I considered that a victory, not so much for Raske as for the women he was protecting. The only good thing about that asshole.

  So yes, there I was, in a soft dress, shaved all over, my wigged head in one hand, a cup of hot tea in the other, as I gazed across the Lake. I would never forget what happened in the Chief’s cottage, but the Lake helped keep it quiet, as quiet as its many other ghosts. What went in never came out.

  But don’t mistake this for a happy ending. Don’t mistake this for an ending at all. In a few minutes, the phone was going to ring. The new campaign manager would call and give me my marching orders. And no, they wouldn’t have much to do with tweeting the Senator’s election sound bites. How could I be sure of that, you ask? Well, let’s just say a little birdy told me. Mr. Marquette had bigger plans for Manny, and I had bigger plans for Hannah. Oh yes, it was going to be a busy election year in the Twin Cities.

  You want to know more? I’m glad to hear that. But let me finish my drink first and welcome you to my world, everyone. Nice to meet you.

  My name was Manny.

  My name is Hannah.

  You don’t know the real me. But if you stick around, you soon will.

  A Chat with Anthony Neil Smith

  © Anthony Neil Smith

  In Castle Danger Neil digs deep into the underbelly of political corruption and documents the brutal journey to becoming one’s true self. Here he talks about his work and the process of sculpting an idea into a finished story.

  How long has the idea for “Castle Danger” existed? What enabled you to finally bring it to life?

  It was gestating for at least a handful of years before I wrote it, especially the opening section that led up to finding the body on the ice. It took a long time to figure out the character of Manny, and I went back and forth with the idea of who he was at that point. Allan Guthrie was my soundi
ng board, and there came a point where he mentioned a possible “injury”, and for some reason Manny’s life opened in front of me. I was able to get past the first section because I now knew what he wanted, what the obstacles were, and how he needed to proceed.

  When I finally pitched the full idea to Allan, he thought it was really intriguing. It took a few months, though, for him to come back and say, “Can I see that pitch again? I want to show it to someone …”

  What makes Castle Danger different from your past work?

  Most obviously, fewer dead bodies. The violence in the book is less than what I’ve written before. That wasn’t part of the plan, but it just happened. What violence there was came organically from the story—it was necessary. But in the past, my characters tended to end up in much more gory or explicit situations.

  No spoilers, but who is your favorite character in the book?

  I really liked writing about Paula, and her personality bloomed more and more every time she showed up. Without spoilers, I can tell people that Paula is a transwoman who looks an awful lot like Paul Stanley of KISS without the make-up, and she knows it, so she adopts the name Paula Livingston (think about it for a moment …).

  When you wrote the character Manny, how did you want readers to respond to him?

  No idea. I mean, as the protagonist, I want readers to get into these stories he’s telling—both his own journey and the case he’s following—but if his personality comes off a little off-putting, that’s okay, too. He starts the book angry and depressed, and he only “gets better” when he discovers why he feels that way, and starts trying to do something about it. Without spoiling the journey, I can say that I tried to put myself in his place: confusion, anger, distrust, and he’s not being completely honest with himself, meaning he’s not with the reader either. But hopefully, the reader will bear with him as he bares all (ha).

  As a man, how did you channel what Manny was feeling as he transitions to a woman?

  It’s of course very hard to inhabit a person who is going through things that I haven’t had to go through, but I only write about characters who interest me rather than trying to make sure they’re all sort of like me. As Manny goes through this, I had to research what a lot of trans people experience, as well as try to imagine how Manny himself would react. He’s not a stereotype, so I didn’t want it to be “by the book”, but the similarities to others’ experiences had to feel psychologically honest.

  I continue to use the pronoun “him” for Manny in this book, because I don’t think he’s quite come to terms with who he wants to be (or who he really is) at the end of it, but that’s because his journey continues in earnest in the second CASTLE DANGER book, called THE MENTAL STATES.

  What is the most interesting reader feedback you’ve ever received?

  My editor on CASTLE DANGER definitely set me straight on how a woman thinks when it comes to dress, make-up, and other physical details women go through every day that men take for granted. So that was helpful.

  But for another book I wrote, a very explicit and nasty thing called XXX SHAMUS, I would call up a friend of mine to tell him what I had written about that day—usually very salacious, pornographic sex scenes—and we’d laugh about just how ridiculous it all sounded. But then I asked him to read the final draft. He called me up after and said, “Dude …that was NOT funny.” He was surprised at just how serious the story was, and how the sex just added to the malaise of it all.

  Any other juicy tidbits about the writing process or Castle Danger, which you’d like to share with us?

  My writing process is kinda boring—morning writer, after coffee. But I do listen to a lot of music while I write, something to match the mood of the book. There’s a big gay dance club scene in CASTLE DANGER that was one of my favorite parts to write. It felt really *big* for Manny as part of his journey. So I was listening to a lot of dance music, including two bands I love—The Gossip (with Beth Ditto) and Minneapolis darlings Tickle Torture, who do some crazy shows and tunes. I would’ve loved to use lyrics from those two bands (filthy lyrics), but using lyrics means clearing rights and paying money. Instead, I handed them over to my line editor and German translator Len Wanner, and he ended up creating the fake lyrics for that scene that are perhaps even filthier than the originals. That could be a whole new career for him!

  The next book

  The CASTLE DANGER saga continues in THE MENTAL STATES as Manny and Joel work together doing what they do best: getting into deep trouble.

  State Senator Andrew Marquette looks like a shoo-in for the governorship — appealing to votes across the political spectrum — and he’s brought Manny and Joel aboard to help steer the ship. But when one of Marquette’s most trusted advisors goes missing, our heroes can’t help but play detective once again, in spite of everyone around them trying to block their path. Is there more to this disappearance than meets the eye? It will take a harrowing journey around Minnesota’s backwoods, the back alleys of the Twin Cities, and the mysterious “dark web” online, where some sick individuals pay a fortune to see their most depraved wishes come true.

  Castle Danger — The Mental States

  by Anthony Neil Smith

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