by Tom Pitts
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Stray Dogs: Writing from the Other America
By Jeffery Hess
Beachhead
Cold War Canoe Club
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No Going Back
Rules of Honor
The Lawless Kind
The Devil’s Anvil
No Safe Place
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LAdies’ Night
By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
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Last Exit to Murder
By David Housewright and Renée Valois
The Devil and the Diva
By David Housewright
Finders Keepers
Full House
By Jon Jordan
Interrogations
By Jon and Ruth Jordan, editors
Murder and Mayhem in Muskego
Cooking with Crimespree
By Lawrence Kelter
Back to Brooklyn
By Lawrence Kelter and Frank Zafiro
The Last Collar
By Jerry Kennealy
Screen Test
Polo’s Last Shot (*)
By Dana King
Worst Enemies
Grind Joint
Resurrection Mall
By Ross Klavan, Tim O’Mara and Charles Salzberg
Triple Shot
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Over Their Heads
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Coast to Coast
Coast to Coast 2
By Terrence McCauley
The Devil Dogs of Belleau Wood
The Bank Heist, editor (*)
By Daniel M. Mendoza, editor
Stray Dogs: Interviews with Working-Class Writers
By Bill Moody
Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz
The Man in Red Square
Solo Hand
The Death of a Tenor Man
The Sound of the Trumpet
Bird Lives!
Mood Swings (TP only)
By Gerald M. O’Connor
The Origins of Benjamin Hackett
By Gary Phillips
The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)
Treacherous: Grifters, Ruffians and Killers
3 the Hard Way
By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes
Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)
By Tom Pitts
Hustle
American Static
By Thomas Pluck
Bad Boy Boogie
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
Souls of the Dead
Envy the Dead
By Rob Riley
Thin Blue Line
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Devil in the Hole
Swann’s Last Song
Swann Dives In
Swann’s Lake of Despair
Swann’s Way Out
By Scott Loring Sanders
Shooting Creek and Other Stories
By Linda Sands
3 Women Walk Into a Bar (TP only)
Grand Theft Cargo
By Ryan Sayles
The Subtle Art of Brutality
Warpath
Let Me Put My Stories In You
By John Shepphird
The Shill
Kill the Shill
Beware the Shill
By Anthony Neil Smith
Worm (TP only)
All the Young Warriors TP only)
Once a Warrior (TP only)
Holy Death (TP only)
By Liam Sweeny
Welcome Back, Jack
By Art Taylor, editor
Murder Under the Oaks: Bouchercon Anthology 2015
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Grand Trunk and Shearer
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Mama Tried 1
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The Logan Triad
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Zoë
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Published by ABC Group Documentation, an imprint of Down & Out Books
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Down on the Street
By Grant Jerkins
Abnormal Man
By Robert Leland Taylor
Through the Ant Farm (*)
Published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books
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Hardway
By Angel Luis Colón
Blacky Jaguar and the Cool Clux Cult
By Nick Kolakowski
A Brutal Batch of Heartbroken Saps
By Albert Tucher
The Place of Refuge
(*) Coming soon
Back to TOC
Here is a preview Back to Brooklyn, the sequel to My Cousin Vinny by Lawrence Kelter…
Chapter One: Leaving Alabama
Jimmy Willis was dead, gone in the blink of an eye, rocketed to heaven on the wings of a .357 magnum slug.
He took with him the dream of one day owning the Sack-O-Suds convenience store where he’d worked for many years. He’d saved every last dime and was a little shy of the down payment he needed to make the store his own. Old man Scruggs, the founder, hadn’t been out of bed in years, but the store he’d built with his own two hands and operated for decades was supposed to live on through young Jimmy.
Supposed to.
The convenience store had been closed since the day of the shooting and would probably never reopen. Anything that had been fresh at the time of the shooting had rotted before the police finished with the crime scene. Vandals had looted all the canned goods and the gasoline tanks had been pumped dry. Old man Scruggs didn’t have enough fight left in him to put the store back on its feet, and as such, a senseless act of violence had not only taken a life but reduced a thriving community business to little more than a rotting sarcophagus with grime-covered windows and a leaky roof—a hideaway for hormone-charged teens to use for their pleasure.
Down the road from the Sack-O-Suds, Ernie Crane sat high atop his old John Deere lawn tractor cutting lazy eights in the grass. He’d skipped the last day of the murder trial because he’d been called upon to testify and wasn’t a fan of the crafty defense attorney from New York.
A flask of moonshine slipped from his grasp as his eyelids grew heavy from the caress of the strong Alabama sun. He didn’t see that New York lawyer and his girlfriend whizzing by, driving their car as if it were stolen, leaving a trail of dried Alabama mud in their wake.
Farm fencing disappeared a few miles north where fields of tall wheat bordered the road. Lanky blades of grass bent in the draft of a majestic red Cadillac convertible as it streaked by. Vince Gill’s velvety voice poured through the speakers while Lisa piloted the big Caddy on the long journey home.
Across the cavernous front seat, Vinny’s mind was somewhere else, probably ten miles back in the Beechum County courtroom. He was still pumped from his first courtroom victory after successfully defending his cousin, Billy, and Billy’s friend, Stan, against false murder charges. Sheriff Farley had arrested and railroaded the boys—making them the lead suspects in Jimmy’s murder case.
Vinny, nothing more than a fledgling personal injury attorney, had somehow snookered the highly respected judge, convincing him that he had the credentials necessary to represent the two boys in their murder trial. His he
art thumped with a pang of guilt as he realized how very close he’d come to losing the trial and with it, the boy’s lives.
He was staring at the countryside absentmindedly when his thoughts turned to his fiancée. His throat tightened for a moment while he thought about all the love and encouragement Lisa had given him during the lengthy courtroom ordeal. Judge Haller did not suffer fools gladly. He had chastised Vinny at every turn and held him in contempt three separate times. But the tension and sleepless nights they’d both endured were now behind them, vanishing like the sun setting on the horizon. He recalled the county prosecutor’s trial-ending words with great satisfaction, “We’d like to dismiss all charges.”
His eyes were soft as he drank Lisa in. She was his every dream come true: young, beautiful, capable, nurturing, and as free-spirited as a wild colt. They’d been together more than a decade. With each sunset, he wondered what she saw in him and why she’d waited for him so long, why a woman of such beauty had chosen him. She could touch his heart or infuriate him with a simple glance or a single word, and he loved her all the more for it, that crazy cat and mouse game they played that drove him insane and more deeply in love with each exchange.
In his heart, he knew that her insights and testimony, her guile and savvy, played a significant part in winning the case. It wasn’t his legal acumen alone that prevented a kangaroo court from sending two innocent boys to the electric chair. He gazed up at the blue sky and silently thanked God for her. She’d waited patiently for him to complete law school, pass the bar, and now finally win his first court case. They’d made a promise to each other many years back, and now it was time to make good on that sacred obligation. He had a sly expression on his face as he said, “I won my first case. You know what that means?”
She sassed him. “Yeah. You think I’m gonna marry you.”
“What, now you’re not gonna to marry me?”
“No way. You can’t even win a case by yourself, you’re fuckin’ useless.”
He considered for a moment. “I thought we’d get married this weekend.”
“You don’t get it, do you? That is not romantic. I want a wedding in church with bridesmaids and flowers.”
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. How many times did you say that spontaneous is romantic?”
“Hey, a burp is spontaneous. A burp is not romantic.”
He told her that he wasn’t in the mood to quarrel but that wasn’t the case, not even close. It was that old cat and mouse game beginning anew.
It was why Vinny would one day be a great trial lawyer.
It was why Lisa had been and always would be his match.
It was the very air they breathed.
Chapter Two: Still Leaving Alabama
Lisa had developed a small fondness for country twang from hearing it day after day for almost two months. The wind was in her hair as “Wicked Game” played on the radio. The sorrowful, conflicted tone of Chris Isaak’s voice turned her insides to jelly. As her mind wandered, she glanced over at Vinny and saw that he was dozing. She couldn’t help but smile because she loved the infant-like face he made when he slept. She envisioned her wedding reception—dancing with Vinny as the band played their song, “Linger.” For a few brief seconds, that dirt-swept stretch of Alabama roadway became heaven on earth.
She reveled in the moment and let her mind go. She thought about the life they would make together and a family of their own, a boy and a girl—they’d have the girl first…naturally.
And then…
She jammed on the brakes and swerved as a large raccoon darted from the shadow of a dense patch of brush, racing across the road just as the tires of the big Caddy threatened to pulverize it.
Vinny’s eyes shot open and he clutched his chest. “Whoa! What the hell, Lisa? You asleep at the wheel or something?”
“Me asleep? No, I’m not asleep.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Lisa, you gotta be more careful. You scared the ever loving shit out of me.”
“That’s because you were asleep. Some copilot you are. I could’ve been driving down a backwoods road where some good ol’ boys were waiting to go all Deliverance on your ass.”
“Me asleep? Don’t be ridiculous. I was just resting my eyes.”
“Well while you were resting your eyes a rat the size of a leopard shot across the road like Secretariat coming down the home stretch and almost took out the front bumper. What did you want me to do? Hit the fuckin’ thing?”
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “For the love of God, Lisa, look at the way you’re holding the wheel.”
“What? You don’t like the way I’m holding the wheel?”
“No. No, I don’t.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“You got your hands at the bottom. Ten and two, Lisa,” he instructed. “Ten and two.”
“Listen, Vinny, I’ve got five times more experience behind the wheel of this car than you do. My hands are just fine where they are, thank you.”
“Oh yeah? Then why do they instruct new drivers to keep their hands at ten and two when they take the test for their driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles?”
“They teach that, do they? What did you take your road test in? An Edsel? Or was it a horse and buggy?”
“Why? Are you saying something’s changed?”
“Yeah, it did. Something did. That’s right.”
“Well I drive just fine and I didn’t hear nothin’ about it.”
“That’s because you’ve been in law school and taking the bar exam for the last ten years. Ain’t ya ever heard of air bags?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Because. During a collision, an air bag will explode out of the steering wheel hub at more than a hundred miles per hour. It’s ignited by a detonator, just like the ones used to detonate bombs. As you know, it’s designed to protect the driver’s head and chest from slamming into the windshield, but with your hands at ten and two or higher, the driver’s arms can be thrown back at very high velocity and you can get severely hurt.” She nodded emphatically. “Keeping your hands lower down on the wheel prevents that. I routinely keep my hands at eight and four.”
“I find that very hard to believe.”
“Yeah? Well picture this. It’s a beautiful sunny day. You got the top down and the sun is shining in your face. You’re driving on a nice twisty road back to New York when out of nowhere the guy in the oncoming lane loses control, swerves, coming right at you, and bam! The next thing you know an explosion rips your arms out of their sockets and they’re pointing backwards, dangling in the breeze like the scarecrow’s after the flying monkeys had their way with him in The Wizard of Oz.”
“Oh,” he said. “So I guess you could say that eight and four is the new ten and two.”
“That’s a very good analogy.”
“Just like when people say that sixty is the new forty.”
“Also a good analogy. Only in your case, forty is the new eighty because you’re using driving techniques that went out of practice with the stagecoach. And don’t you dare wait until you hit the new sixty before you make a change in your driving habits.”
“Oh, yeah. And why is that?”
“Because…” She glanced at him over the top of her sunglasses. “You’ll be dead.”
Lisa’s father and brothers had all worked as automobile mechanics. Even though Vinny sometimes helped out in the garage, she had worked as a mechanic extensively and knew considerably more about cars than he did. She was a veritable compendium of automobile knowledge and had bested him yet again. He smiled nonetheless—he had a card up his sleeve and was dying to play his hand. He shook his head and grinned, slid closer to her and stroked her cheek affectionately. “You’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?”
She smiled happily. “Yeah, maybe I am. I mean it’s been a very, very good day for me. I watched my fiancé save two innocent young men from going to the electric chair, and I receiv
ed a proposal of marriage. Don’t get me wrong—you proposed like a real dope. Still, things could be worse.”
“So where do you want to get married? Back home in Brooklyn or right here in Ala-fuckin’-bama?”
“That’s a very silly question.”
“No it’s not.”
She looked at him as if he were crazy. “What do you mean? Didn’t you hear what I said about being romantic? How could you ask me a question like that after what I told you?”
“It’s not a silly question,” he insisted.
“Yes. It is.”
“No. It’s not!”
“Why isn’t it?” she asked, already sure from the confidence he displayed that he had her.
He pointed at the instrument cluster and tapped the fuel gauge. “Because, genius…we’re about to run out of gas.”
Chapter Three: Stuck in Ala-Fuckin’-Bama
“What luck,” Vinny boomed as he pointed up the road. “Look over there past the clearing in the trees. It’s a gas station sign. Pull in over there.”
Land was cheap in Beechum County. As they drew closer, they saw that the service station sat on acre upon acre of unimproved land, a Shangri La for rusted pickups and tractors. Weeds grew tall between the disintegrating car frames, taller than the cabin of one of the backhoes. A sapling had grown into a thick tree within a rusted car chassis and was now imprisoned by it. A scruffy white and gray mutt dashed out and howled at Vinny as he got out of the car. “Easy, boy,” he said as the dog sniffed his pointy western boots.
Lisa glanced at the dog. “How do you know it’s a boy?”
