Between the Dark and the Daylight

by Ed Gorman

  “Move it, old man,” Dub said.

  The old man swallowed again. Dub took a step forward.

  The old man moved it. He walked over to the pump, removed the nozzle, and turned the crank to run the counter back to where the zeros showed.

  The three men ignored him then and went into the store. It was lit by one small bulb that hung from the ceiling on a short frayed cord. The kid stood by the candy case, looking at the Baby Ruths and drinking his coke. The old man’s wife was behind the cash register.

  “Can I help you?” she said.

  The kid looked up at her, then turned around as if he hadn’t heard the men come inside. Maybe he hadn’t, but his eyes widened when he saw them. Nobody said anything about the pistol stuck in his waistband.

  “Can I help you?” the woman said again.

  The men paid her no attention. Dub and Roy went to the cooler and opened it.

  “You want a co’ cola?” Dub said.

  “They got a Dr. Pepper?”

  “No, they don’t have a Dr. Pepper. They got co’ colas. You want one or not?”

  “I want one.”

  Dub took two cokes from the box and closed the lid. He tossed one bottle to Roy and popped open his own.

  Roy looked at the bottle, then at Dub. “You shouldn’t have thrown it. It’s gonna fizz all over me.”

  Dub didn’t say anything. He drank half his coke in one swallow.

  Roy walked over to the cooler and popped the cap off his coke. It fizzed out of the bottle and over his hand.

  “Dammit,” Roy said.

  “You shouldn’t talk like that in front of a lady,” Dub said.

  “Don’t tell me how to talk,” Roy said.

  He was tired of Dub pushing him, tired of being afraid of Dub, tired of not getting to use his pistol.

  “You going to do something about it?” Dub said.

  “Yeah,” Roy said, and he dropped the coke bottle.

  The old man knew who was inside the store with his wife and the kid. The Jack Scratch gang. Couldn’t be anybody else. He’d heard about them on the radio, how they were on the loose in West Texas. He didn’t have a telephone, didn’t know what to do.

  He thought about the kid’s pistol. He ran back to the store and jerked open the door.

  Two of the men were facing each other with their own pistols out, their faces ruddy and twisted with anger. The screen door hit the wooden wall like a shot, and the men turned. Both of them fired at the same time. The old man flopped back outside. He looked surprised. The front of his shirt was crimson.

  The woman screamed. Roy turned and shot her in the head. She fell down behind the counter. Blood spattered the tin cans on the shelf behind where she’d stood.

  Roy laughed. His ears rang from the gunshots, but he was having fun and feeling good. Things had been about to get ugly, but they’d turned out all right, thanks to the old man, who’d taken Dub’s attention away from Roy.

  Trouble was, they’d probably gone and gotten Jack upset. He’d told them to mind their manners, and they’d killed two people. Jack wasn’t going to like that.

  Roy turned just in time to see Dub shoot Jack. Jack’s .38 spun backward and broke a bottle of bleach. The strong odor of the bleach blended with the smell of gunsmoke.

  Dub sprinted out the door. He jumped over the body on the ground and made a dash for the Ford.

  Roy had two choices. He could run into the room where the old couple lived and see if there was a back way out of the place, or he could finish off Jack.

  It wasn’t much of a choice. Dub would be at the car by now, and Roy wanted a ride. Too bad for Jack.

  Jack sat on the floor in a puddle of bleach. That wouldn’t be good for his suit. His right hand was mangled, and blood dripped off his fingers into the liquid on the floor.

  “Sorry, Jack,” Roy said. “You know how it is.”

  Jack didn’t answer. He looked at the kid.

  The kid nodded, as if this was something he’d been waiting for. He pulled the .45 from his pants and tossed it to Jack as if it didn’t weigh more than a bath sponge.

  Roy watched as if it were all happening in slow motion, the slow arc and turn of the pistol, Jack’s left hand reaching to snatch it out of the air.

  The next thing Roy knew, Jack had shot him three times. After that Roy knew nothing.

  The old man hadn’t stopped the pump, but Dub didn’t notice the gasoline overflowing onto the ground. He was too worried about Jack. He knew Jack would be coming after him, even if he’d been hit. Dub had shot to kill, but somehow he’d missed. He couldn’t figure out why, and he didn’t have time to wonder about it.

  Dub turned the trunk handle and jerked the trunk open to get the Tommy Gun. It was bundled in an old quilt tied up with twine. Dub pulled at the bow knot in the string and flipped the edges of the quilt out of his way.

  Instead of waiting for Jack to come for him, he whirled around and began firing. The heavy .45 caliber slugs tore into the building. They smashed straight through the weathered boards and sent splinters flying.

  Inside the store cans and bottles exploded. Their contents splattered the walls and the floor and glittered in the rays of sunlight that slanted in through the holes in the wall.

  Jack and the kid lay flat, keeping their faces out of the bleach and trying not to breathe too deeply.

  When there was a pause in the firing, Jack stood up. He went to the door. Dub sat in the Ford. He ground the starter as he tried to fire up the motor.

  “Dub!” Jack said.

  Dub looked through the passenger window. His face blanched. The starter caught, and Dub jerked the car into gear. His foot slipped off the clutch, and the motor died before the car had gone a yard. The pump nozzle came out of the tank and spewed gasoline across the ground.

  Dub made a dive for the passenger seat where he’d tossed the Tommy Gun.

  Jack fired three more shots, all into the Ford’s back fender. The shots set off sparks that ignited the gasoline fumes. In seconds the car was burning, and flames raced over the ground where the gasoline had spilled.

  Dub raised up and stuck the Tommy Gun out the window just before the car exploded. Hot metal rained down as Jack went back into the store.

  The kid heard the car parts hitting the roof and saw Jack coming. The flames were right behind him, as if he were walking along a trail of fire. The old man’s shirt was afire.

  Jack tossed the pistol to the kid, who caught it easily and gripped it as if he’d been born with it in his hands.

  “It’s yours now,” Jack said.

  “Was mine before,” the kid told him.

  “Not like it is now.”

  The flames had reached the walls of the store, and they started to burn.

  “There’s an old hoopie out back,” the kid said. “I don’t know if it’ll run.”

  “It’ll run,” Jack said. “Can you drive?”

  “Never learned how.”

  “I’ll teach you.”

  Jack held up his right hand. There didn’t seem to be much wrong with it now. He bent over and picked up his pistol from the floor. He opened his coat and holstered the gun.

  “You ready to leave?” he asked the kid.

  The kid nodded, and they went through the store. The kid looked down at the old woman when they passed her. There wasn’t much left of her face.

  “Bother you?” Jack asked.

  “Nope,” the kid said.

  The car was in the back of the store, just like the kid had said. It was an old Model A coupe, dark green and covered with dust. Jack got in the driver’s seat, and the kid got in opposite him.

  Jack fiddled with the gas valve and the timing lever. He pulled the throttle, worked the choke, and pressed the starter with his foot. The car cranked right up.

  “Where we goin’?” the kid said.

  “Everywhere,” Jack Scratch told him, and the kid smiled.

  Jack pulled the car away from the now flaming store just before th
e gas pump exploded. A ball of fire rose in the air, and the store burned like paper.

  An armadillo sat and watched the car until it was swallowed up in a swirl of dust. Then he was gone.

  BILL CRIDER is the author of more than fifty published novels and numerous short stories. He won the Anthony Award for best first mystery novel in 1987 for Too Late to Die and was nominated for the Shamus Award for best first private-eye novel for Dead on the Island. He won the Golden Duck award for “best juvenile science fiction novel” for Mike Gonzo and the UFO Terror. He and his wife, Judy, won the best short story Anthony in 2002 for their story “Chocolate Moose.” His story “Cranked” from Damn Near Dead (Busted Flush Press) was nominated for the Edgar award for best short story. His latest novel is Murder in Four Parts (St. Martin’s). Check out his homepage at www.billcrider.com, or take a look at his peculiar blog at http://billcrider.blogspot.com.

  The Kim Novak Effect

  BY GARY PHILLIPS

  Here I was, running a sweet little hustle, not really hurting anybody, and yet I find myself strapped spread-eagle, chest down, across a piece of three-quarter-inch plywood plunked across two sawhorses. My pinpoint Oxford Raffaello shirt was in tatters. This gruff cornfed ol’ boy in a cowboy hat standing behind me, ready to wail on my bare, bleeding back again with his heavy-buckled belt. The other ruffian leaned on a beam of the unfinished wall of the tract house. This one bopped his head to The Best of Warren Zevon playing on his iPod.

  “‘Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner,’” Leaning Man mouthed as Hat Boy took another chunk out of me. “Talkin’ about the man …” He smiled, absently scratching his threadbare beard. He took another swig of his bottled water.

  Hat Boy cocked back again like Roger Clemens goofy on the juice and let another one go. The leather sizzled on my flesh and the edge of the buckle dug another groove.

  “Ke-Rist,” I screamed into the gag tied around my mouth.

  “He looks about primed,” Leaning Man said, yawning. He straightened from the skeletal wall, wire conduits snaking through the holes cut into the framing lumber. He removed his earpieces and methodically wrapped them around his iPod. He then placed it carefully on a juncture of wood beams.

  “Yeah?” Hat Boy said dubiously. “A few more love taps would make sure.”

  Eager bastard.

  “He’s got to be conscious when Bishop George gets here,” Leaning Man pointed out. “That sonofabitch’ll skin our hides if sugar lips here isn’t conscious.”

  “I suppose,” his compatriot agreed reluctantly. He wiped at his forehead with his forearm, the Vegas heat particularly stuffy inside the raw plywood shell of the house’s second floor. Despite this, Leaning Man wore a bulky nylon windbreaker, shades, and a baseball cap.

  We were in what the blueprints indicated was the master bedroom — the homes in development on one of the higher plateaus of Red Rock Canyon. On the other side of the ridge, down in the womb of a valley, was an eighteen-hole golf course I frequented. Beyond that was the tail end of Summerlin, this where my latest operation was bivouacked.

  Leaning Man walked over and doused my back with what was left of his water. It wasn’t much, but I was mutely thankful. Funny how things work out, I reflected, as we waited for the big boss to arrive. Less than two weeks ago, my golf game was improving, my off-shore bank accounts were fat, and I was in my office doing, with gusto I might add, the wonderfully preserved late-’70s sexpot Jerri Rocklyn. She of the Ava of the Underground WWII actioners, wherein each installment included heady doses of sadomasochism.

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she joked as we finished up. On the lower right cheek of that gorgeous Nautilus firmed butt of hers was the mole made famous in the photo layout the real Jerri Rocklyn had done for Gallery, one of the slick skin mags, back in ‘78. Looking dreamily from that image I gazed out of my office window, which offered a view of Rainbow Boulevard. Life sure was good.

  Back in her clothes, Jerri sat on my desk crossing tanned, muscular legs. She lit a blunt and inhaled. Her real name was Helen Hobart. She was thirty-six years old, originally from Redondo Beach, California. But for the escapade we’d just pulled, she’d been modeled to look like Rocklyn, whom she happened to favor.

  “Do I really have to go back under?” she asked, blowing fumes and offering me a toke.

  I took the joint, sampled it, then answered, “We can’t have the mark spotting you at the craps table, now, can we?”

  She sighed heavily, getting off the desk with a flourish, those marvelous gel-filled breasts of hers swaying hypnotically. “But I like this look. And so do you.” She sucked in more smoke and put the joint on the edge of the desk.

  I stepped forward and we kissed while she guided my fingers slowly along her leg. Momentarily lost in lust, I eventually got back on track. “Doc’s ready to go, baby. And we’ve already agreed you can keep the tatas,” I murmured as I nibbled her scented neck.

  “But,” she started, then didn’t finish. She knew I couldn’t force her to get re-cut. But she also knew it would mean the end of any future lucrative assignments if she insisted on keeping the Jerri Rocklyn look. For like me, Helen was addicted to those pretty little green ones.

  “Fine,” she said, giving me a last peck and sauntering out of my office after putting the dead blunt in her handbag. I checked my appearance in the mirror of my tiny private bathroom, making sure my hair was just so and my eyes weren’t red from the weed. Then I opened the floor safe beneath the rug upon which sat a cylindrical glass case of sports memorabilia I’d pushed aside. I took out the acrylic-encased page from the 7/21/73 program book of the Braves versus the Phillies at Atlanta. I smiled crookedly, like Mel Gibson speaking at a synagogue, and put everything back in its place. Aluminum attaché case in hand, I left.

  Not forty minutes later I was sitting across from retired dental-clinic king Eldon Dudley in the Blue Velvet Lounge on Bridger. In fact, there was a Dr. Dudley Discount Dental facility several blocks away on this street. His big smiling face, circa thirty years ago, beaming down on the abscess-plagued and broken-toothed citizenry from the 3-D logo.

  “Wonderful,” Dudley said, examining the inauthentic certificate of authenticity I’d laid on him. I was especially proud of the hologram work on that bad rascal. That lab in Taiwan knew its stuff. He picked up the encased program page again, savoring the item. On that date in 1973, Hank Aaron hit home run number 700 in his irrefutable quest to equal, and eventually surpass, Babe Ruth’s home runs. Say what you want about Barry Bonds, Hank did it without ‘roiding up, while also putting up with racist death threats from jealous crackers. Sure I was a con artist, but I could appreciate the real thing when it came along.

  Scouring, as I do, antiques stores and estate sales, I’d chanced upon the actual program book from that auspicious day. The rest, faking Aaron’s signature and the certificate, then working the network I’d established for high-end sports memorabilia, was simply reeling in the right fish.

  “Okay,” he said, sipping his cranberry juice. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “This,” I said, reverently touching the artifact, “is not only a wise investment on your part, but a legacy to leave your children.”

  He snorted. “My grandkids, maybe. ‘Fraid my son and I don’t see eye to eye,” he lamented.

  He was like that, regurgitating those clichéd homilies now and then. I said nothing, merely sat back, tenting my fingers as he wrote a check for fifteen grand. The waitress came by our table.

  “Can I get you gentlemen refills?”

  “I believe we’ll settle up,” I said, adding after the right pause, “Noreen, is it?”

  Dentist Dudley looked up from his checkbook.

  “Yes, it was my grandmother’s name.” She put on a neon smile and glided away in her skimpy outfit after laying the tab on us. Naturally I picked it up. Dudley stared after her.

  “You okay?’ I asked.

  “Yes, uh-huh,” he said, handing me the payment. “Was she our server
originally?”

  I hunched my shoulders. “Maybe her shift just started.” I rose and said my goodbye, reassuring him once again about the timeliness and efficacy of his investment. I strolled out, sure that he was staring at the waitress named Noreen as I passed near her. She was earning her tips laughing politely at the inane Girls Gone Wild level of word foreplay of a couple of SC frat boys. I’m sure they were in Vegas to show us hairy-knuckled droolers how to party. I got in my platinum-colored 300, put on the factory air and a Celine Dion CD — what can I tell you, I actually like the way that broad belts out a tune. I drove over to the kitchen of a downtown casino to make a pickup. Then out to see my man.

  Dr. Mathias Steiner was the cat you’d cast to play the Nazi doctor if you were of a mind to make another Ava of the Underground flick. He was about medium height, stocky, with good-sized shoulders even at his age. Apparently back in the day he wrestled at Dusseldorf U or whatever the institution in Germany he attended was called. He wore a pencil moustache, touched up his gray locks, and his fashionable rimless glasses stood in relief over his steel-blues. His hands were long like a pianist’s, and it annoyed me to no end that his golf game was better than mine, even though he had a couple’a decades on me.

  “I’ll have Shauna call Helen. I’ll schedule her for the day after tomorrow,” he told me in the hallway of his cut shop after his new receptionist had buzzed me into the back.

  “Where’d this one come from?” I said, meaning the new receptionist called Shauna. She was a statuesque hottie I took to be no more than twenty-four or-five. Once upon a time, Helen had been his receptionist.

  Steiner took my elbow and guided me toward his open office. He liked nothing better than thinking about, touching, smelling, and pursuing women. He had an invalid wife. While he was a sucker for female flesh, he did right by the wife when it came to care and whatnot, so he wasn’t a total ogre.

  “Shauna Cheung. She’s studying Economics and Nineteenth Century English Lit at UNLV.” We were standing just inside his office and he gazed around the room as if worried his wife had planted a bug. “She made her college money with one of those Web sites where you watch her in the morning, rant about her boyfriend, feed the cat, and all that.” The tip of his tongue wet the center of his top lip as he grinned. “Of course she did these tasks mostly in short nighties and silken underthings, earning quite a few male and female subscribers.”