JD kept right on going, not seeming to notice the black mood which had settled over the kitchen. Great Depression, indeed. He finished his breakfast, draining his coffee cup at the exact moment he took his last bite of eggs, and said, “My ankle is feelin’ much better already. Lucy, I don’t know how you managed it, but in addition to bein’ the finest cook in the county, you are without a doubt also the best nurse. I’m goin’ to take my leave of you folks this mornin’ and continue my business trip. Lord knows I’ve imposed enough already.”
Well, Mama and Daddy tried to convince JD to spend at least one more day resting his injury, but his mind was made up and he would not be swayed. As we were heading outside to begin the day’s labors, JD walked to his Ford, limping only slightly, and slid behind the wheel. He fired up the engine and drove off toward Olathe, a cloud of dust trailing behind the car, waving goodbye as he went. We never saw him again.
The following week we started to understand what that mysterious stranger had meant when he said our fortunes were going to change. It had been eight days since we had said goodbye to JD and he had become just a memory. I finished my breakfast that mornin’ and walked outside toward the barn when I tripped over something propped against the back screen door. I stumbled but didn’t fall. It was still dark so I couldn’t immediately tell what it was that had almost caused me to take a header right off the porch.
I lifted the object and carried it inside. By the light of the kitchen I could see it was a fancy leather briefcase, a lot like the one Mr. Dressler had been carrying when he had paid us the visit last week. Taped to the front was a note folded neatly inside a plain white envelope.
I laid the case on the kitchen table and Daddy looked at it curiously. For a moment I thought he was just going to sit there staring at it, but then without a word he slit open the envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Written in careful block letters was the following:
I TOLD YOU I UNDERSTAND THE PLIGHT OF FARMERS. I’M SORRY I DIDN’T HAVE THE CASH WITH ME LAST WEEK, BUT AS YOU CAN SEE I’VE RECENTLY COME INTO A BIT OF MONEY, AND I WANTED TO REIMBURSE YOU FOR THE $4,000 IN MEDICAL SERVICES RENDERED. THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR HOSPITALITY. JD.
All activity came to a stop in the kitchen as everyone stared at the briefcase. To break the shocked silence, Mama turned on the radio as Daddy slowly raised the cover of the unlocked briefcase. Inside were stacks of cash, neatly banded. It was more money than I had ever seen in one place, and probl’y more than Mama and Daddy had ever seen, too.
The silence in the kitchen was broken by the sound of a news report on the radio—a “special bulletin,” they called it:
“To repeat,” the announcer said. “The First National Bank of Olathe, Kansas was robbed late yesterday afternoon by the notorious John Dillinger and his gang. Bank employees said Dillinger and his ruthless conspirators entered the bank just before closing time, armed with automatic weapons. Gang members held their Tommy Guns on bank staff and customers as Dillinger leapt over the counter and filled cloth sacks with cash from the teller drawers, before forcing bank president Elmer Dressler to open the bank’s vault. The outlaw and his gang then emptied the vault of cash as well before making their escape. Police gave chase but quickly lost the desperadoes as they covered their escape in a hail of gunfire.
“Sources say as much as $30,000 in cash may have been taken, most of it untraceable. Anyone with any information regarding this blatant act of thievery is urged to contact the Olathe Police Department or the FBI at their earliest convenience. We will continue our coverage of this story as more information becomes available. We now return you to your regular programming.”
Mama’s face was ghost-white as she clicked off the radio, swatting at the on/off knob three times in a panic before finally connecting. Daddy stared at the fancy leather briefcase with his mouth hanging open. The money lay stacked in the case, crisp and fresh and emerald-green.
Family Ties
In early 2010 a brand-new print magazine was launched called Needle: A Magazine of Noir. The inaugural issue contained stories from heavy hitters like Dave Zeltserman and Hilary Davidson and shortly after the launch, in May of 2010, editor Steve Weddle held a noir flash fiction contest to raise awareness of his new project. The only requirement, besides that the story be no longer than 750 words, was that a needle must be featured somewhere in the story. “Family Ties” was my entry, and it tells the story of a man sent to prison whose family cuts off all contact with him as a result. All, that is, except for one family member…
I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather lately. He took the needle back in ’87, put to death for killing a cop during a botched bank heist. Gramps was a wheelman, one of the best they say, back in a time when banks were still legitimate targets for enterprising young men with a criminal bent.
The disastrous job took place in 1964 and went sideways almost from the beginning. It was an inside job and as you know, or maybe you don’t, that type of job is only as good as the information provided. In Gramps’s case, that information was so bad it might as well have been a set-up.
The thing that I can’t get out of my mind, and the reason I keep thinking about a guy who’s been dead nearly a quarter-century, is what he said when I asked him why he didn’t just take off, drive away, save his own ass when he saw everything going to shit inside that bank. “Because, kiddo,” he told me, “sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done.”
I was only a boy when he told me that, and I didn’t really get where he was coming from. To be honest, I didn’t understand it at all. To me, he was just a stupid old man who had fucked his life up for no good goddamned reason. He told me he had meant to fire in the air just to give his crew a fighting chance to make it to the car, but instead had tagged a blueshirt right in the chest.
Bang.
Dead.
Capital murder. Game over.
My family disowned the old man, one final kick in the teeth for a guy who had lived a hardscrabble life because he knew no other way. He managed to put my dad through Penn Law, though, before he got sent up, and the ungrateful fuck demonstrated his appreciation by turning his back on the old guy.
I didn’t turn my back, although the rest of the family had no idea of that. I was fascinated by the old bastard, and went to see him on death row every couple of months, whenever I could get the time off work to travel. Once, during a visit, he told me where I could get my hands on one of his old guns, a Colt .38 revolver. “It’s in mint condition,” he said with a wink and a smile, “hardly ever used.”
I stared at him. “What the hell am I going to do with a pistol?”
“You never know,” he said. “There might come a day when you have to do what needs to be done, too. Your father, bless his soul, never had it in him to do what needs to be done, but I have a feeling maybe that particular trait skips a generation, like male pattern baldness or something.” He ran his hand over his head and winked again.
Now I thought he was crazy as well as stupid, but damned if I didn’t find myself picking up the Colt anyway. A buddy from the old days had been holding it for him and the old man was right on target about the gun—it was oiled and lovingly maintained and impressively deadly to hold. I had no reason to own it, certainly no intention of ever using it. That was twenty-five years ago.
I stashed it in a safe-deposit box and told no one. Every couple of months I took it out, cleaned and oiled it, and replaced it, still telling no one, still with no clear idea why the hell I was bothering.
Then I found out about my wife and my best friend.
Marilyn and Bobby. The two people I was closest to in the whole world.
A four year affair, the entire thing laid out in sordid detail on the computer, courtesy of a password she didn’t know I knew. Illicit weekends in cheap motels when I thought she was working, X-rated electronic love notes passed back and forth right under my nose, romps in our bed while I was away, the whole nine clichéd fucking yards.
And they
don’t know that I know.
And I’ve been thinking a lot about Gramps, and I think he might have been right; maybe he wasn’t quite the stupid old bastard I thought he was. I think maybe I will be able to do what needs to be done. I’m going to the bank this afternoon, gonna make a little trip to the safe-deposit box I rented so many years ago.
Then I guess we’ll find out.
PussyKat
Nobody’s perfect; we all know that. But some people just refuse to show even a minimal amount of respect for a dangerous situation. And when there’s a brutal killer roaming the streets, a level of respect way above minimal is called for. Especially when that killer is . . . well . . . different from everyone else in some important ways. “PussyKat” appeared in the online magazine House of Horror’s June, 2009 issue as well as their year-end anthology released in December, 2009 titled, appropriately enough, HOUSE OF HORROR BEST OF 2009.
The television was blaring much too loudly out in the living room as Walter Roberts dressed for work. He knew the volume was too high because he could hear it quite clearly in the bedroom, even through the closed door. Walter pictured Lorraine sitting transfixed in front of the local news as had become her habit of late, absorbing with rapt attention all the latest information on the terrifying murder spree currently ravaging the city.
“Authorities remain baffled as another victim was discovered this morning on the lower East Side.” Walter pulled on his trousers and listened to the breaking news report. He could hear every word as clearly as if he were seated on the couch next to her out in the living room. He wondered how she could stand it.
“As with all of the other cases, the murdered man was discovered alone inside a locked home, with no sign of forced entry. Details are sketchy at this point, but it seems likely that this latest victim, George Miller, was torn apart like all the others in the frightening series of killings that have gripped the city.” Walter buttoned his shirt, shaking his head in disgust at the image rising unbidden inside his head.
He pulled on his socks and shoes and walked slowly out of the bedroom as the breathless television news report concluded, “Authorities are urging anyone with information regarding this or any of the other murders to call local law enforcement immediately. If you have seen or heard anything you believe might be of value, please come forward and help bring this string of gruesome attacks to a close.”
Walter watched Lorraine closely as he entered the living room. She was staring unblinkingly at the television; he wondered if she even noticed he had joined her. Her face was pale and her lips ghostly white. His wife had become fixated on the ghastly killing spree, convinced she and Walter were going to be the unknown assailant’s next victims. The murders were all she could talk about.
Over and over he had tried to reassure her that the two of them did not fit the pattern the killer had established: all of the victims thus far had been men, all had been discovered alone inside otherwise empty, locked houses, their bodies mutilated, skin shredded off their bones in long bloody strips. Not one woman had been found murdered yet, but Lorraine would not listen to reason and Walter was starting to believe that his wife would soon suffer some sort of debilitating breakdown caused by obsessing over the tragedies.
He sat next to her on the couch and placed a hand gently on her knee. She jumped and flinched. Terror blossomed in her eyes.
“Watching all of this overly sensational news coverage is not healthy for you, Lorraine,” he said quietly, stating the obvious.
She moaned. “But how could someone do these awful things, and how are they getting into the houses of the victims, and how can we be sure we won’t be next?”
Walter placed a finger on her lips to quiet her. “I was thinking, perhaps this would be a good time for you to go visit your mother for a few days. You know, get out of the city and forget about all this for a while.”
“Just me? But . . . what about you?”
“I’ll be fine. I certainly won’t be opening up the front door and inviting some crazed maniac inside so he can butcher me in my own home . . .” A gasp of terror escaped Lorraine’s lips and Walter stopped speaking. “Sorry, dear,” he said, and he knew he had her.
***
As he cruised the red light district, Walter wondered what it was, exactly, that so terrified Lorraine regarding the ongoing mystery in the city. Sure, people were getting killed and at an alarming rate, but the metropolitan area was enormous, with hundreds of thousands of residents. Statistically, the odds of ending up dead at the hands of the person—or perhaps the thing—stalking the city were miniscule. As far as he was concerned, the whole issue wasn’t even worth wasting his time worrying about.
With Lorraine shipped off to her dried-up old hag of a mother’s house for the next week or so, Walter felt he could finally begin to relax and breathe again. It was not easy constantly walking on eggshells around his wife, worrying that with her deteriorating mental condition she might at any moment burst into tears or start ranting and raving about protecting themselves from brutal murderers, fearing every shadow in every corner and cringing in terror at every creak in the night as their old house settled on its foundation.
He had herded her onto the train this morning with the promise that he would check in by telephone every couple of days with any new information about the strange situation in the city as it became available. It stuck in his craw that he had to make this concession, but, really, he knew it was the only way Lorraine would agree to leave. And he knew she absolutely had to leave, for his sanity if not for her own.
Now, rolling slowly through the grimy streets of the red light district in his grimy little car, gazing with undisguised lust through his grimy little eyes at the streetwalkers who seemed to populate every corner, Walter felt he owed it to himself to cut loose a little. After all, he had been forced to deal with Lorraine’s paranoid delusions for far too long; it was time to enjoy a little relaxation.
Butterflies fluttered in his stomach. Even though he had made a habit of visiting the “other” side of the tracks every now and then over the three decades of his marriage, he had never gotten so jaded that he didn’t still experience that nervous clenching feeling in his belly as he examined the merchandise, trying to decide which hooker of the many he ran his hungry eyes over he was going to bring home this time.
He turned the corner onto Washington Street and spied a petite, long-legged beauty with shaggy tawny hair gliding along the sidewalk, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings. She was encased in a tight, form-fitting black leather bodysuit and moved with an almost feline grace, languid and sensual, apparently unaware of the double-takes she was causing and of the lingering stares of men and women alike.
Walter pulled to the curb, ignoring the honking horns of the angry drivers he had cut off, watching the young woman, spellbound. She walked directly to his car—were his intentions that obvious?—and he was again reminded of the graceful movements of a cat, a panther perhaps, slinking smoothly and quietly through the jungle as it stalked its’ prey.
“Hey there, big boy” she purred, her voice husky and smoky, and Walter knew that she was the one.
He reached across the passenger’s seat and opened the door, and the girl slid into his car with an economy of motion that was breathtaking. Slowly he pulled away from the curb, barely able to concentrate on the relatively simple task of merging into the sluggish flow of traffic.
“I’m Kat,” she said.
***
Walter held the front door for Kat as they entered the house, and then followed her into the living area. His eyes were glued to her body as she walked ahead of him, her every curve accentuated by the bodysuit swish-swishing in time with her graceful steps. Something about her beautiful head of hair caught his attention as she moved down the hallway. It seemed longer, thicker than it had been when he spotted her on the sidewalk as he drove slowly past, but of course that was impossible. It had only been a few minutes.
Seeming to sense his eyes track
ing her, she turned with a hint of a smile on her face. Her wide green eyes wore a look of amusement, tinged perhaps with barely concealed contempt. “Where’s the missus?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your wife, Walter; where is she?”
“How did you know—I mean . . . uh . . . what makes you think I’m married?”
“You mean, besides the clearly defined strip of white skin on the third finger of your left hand?”
Without thinking, Walter self-consciously covered his left hand with his right. “Oh, yeah, right. Uh, she’s away for a few days,” he mumbled, knowing he should not feel embarrassed or self-conscious in front of a hooker but discovering he did.
“Don’t worry, honey, I don’t care about your personal situation,” she drawled softly, tossing her purse onto the living room table and managing to sound superior and dismissive at the same time. “It’s completely irrelevant to what is going to happen here tonight.” She swiveled her head and peered at Walter with eyes that seemed to glow softly in the dimming early-evening light.
A sudden, visceral feeling of dread wormed its way through Walter’s bowels. Her words should have ignited his desire—after all, that was the whole point of cruising the red light district and selecting Kat, wasn’t it?—but the utter lack of inflection in her voice chilled him. She sounded almost dead; like she was saying only what she knew was expected of her. And those eyes! Obviously the glow in them was a trick of the light, of course it was, but for a second there . . .
Postcards from the Apocalypse Page 4
