Kwik Krimes

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  “Tell me again how it’s gonna go down.”

  “At two thirty p.m., we hotwire two SUVs at Union Station, drive to Honey Dew Donuts on Allens Avenue, and watch for a lime-green Isuzu box truck with Finnerty Shipping on the door panels.”

  “Why would he use Allens Avenue?”

  “Sheila says the driver don’t like the downtown Providence exit. Too much traffic. He always gets off on Thurbers and takes Allens going north.”

  “Okay.”

  “Soon as we see it, we pull outta the lot, box it in, jump out, and order the driver to get outta the truck.”

  “And if he don’t?”

  “He will when I shove my piece in his face.”

  “You sure he’s gonna be alone?”

  “Sheila says yeah.”

  “And then?”

  “We leave the SUVs in the street, jump in the truck, and drive to Grasso’s warehouse. His boys open the door for us, and we pull right in. Grasso hands us the cash, and we’re gone. Whole thing shouldn’t take more’n ten minutes.”

  “And he’s paying us how much?”

  “Twenty cents on the dollar. A hundred HP Pavilion laptops, seven hundred ninety-nine dollars retail, makes our cut just under sixteen grand.”

  “Sounds foolproof,” Mikey said.

  Just after three p.m., the partners slipped on ski masks, gunned it out of the Honey Dew lot, and forced the box truck to a halt. Bobo rapped his revolver on driver’s side window, ordered him out, and slipped behind the wheel. Mikey confiscated the driver’s cell phone, stomped on it, and climbed into the passenger seat.

  Bobo cranked the ignition, bulldozed Mikey’s SUV out of the way, and roared down the street. Five minutes later, they pulled into Grasso’s warehouse, the overhead door creaking shut behind them.

  Bobo and Mikey jumped down from the truck and slapped high fives with two of Grasso’s boys. Grasso stepped out of his office and strolled over.

  “Any trouble?” he asked.

  “Smooth as a teenage pussy,” Bobo said. “Give us our cut and we’ll be on our way.”

  “First show me what I’m buying.”

  Bobo reached into the truck and slid the key from the ignition. He unlocked the rear door and rolled it up.

  “Aw, shit!” he said.

  “What?” Mikey said. He peered into the back and saw nothing but a load of folding metal chairs.

  Grasso’s boys drew semiautos from their waistbands. Bobo’s piece of apple pie was stuck in his pocket. Mikey had left his slice of blueberry in the truck.

  “Boss?” one of Grasso’s boys said.

  The boss rubbed his chin, thinking it over.

  “Load their bodies in the back and dump the rig in the parking lot at Green Airport.”

  Bruce DeSilva is the author of the hard-boiled Mulligan crime novels. The first, Rogue Island, won the Edgar Allan Poe and Macavity Awards. The second, Cliff Walk, was recently published to rave reviews, including starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Previously he worked as a senior editor at the Associated Press.

  A TREE IN TEXAS

  * * *

  * * *

  Jo Dereske

  For Archie

  He woke up under a tree in Texas.

  A palm tree, actually, outside a baby-blue building, which, from James’s position, appeared to be a cruise ship on stilts. It had a curved prow and porthole windows and balconies like those underwater images of the Titanic. A group of gray-haired people lined the railing, pointing at him.

  He gave a halfhearted wave—au revoir—hoping for something better next time he opened his eyes. His head pulsed; his stomach roiled.

  James struggled to remember. Music festival, that’s right. Austin. Reams of people. Too much to drink, no shit. But then what?

  “Jimmy?” The voice sounded familiar.

  “Grandma?” he asked, opening his eyes as he recalled his grandmother was dead.

  “No, honey. It’s me, Lily.”

  It was them, the gray-haired people from the railing. Five, no, six of them, standing in a circle gazing down at him, all wearing lime-green T-shirts that read, CROQUET AT LA MIRAGE—IT’S REAL!

  “Lily?” Who was Lily?

  She blinked big eyes behind glasses, looking worried, like somebody’s grandmother, which was probably why James complained like a child, “My head hurts.”

  “Of course it does, dear,” she soothed, “after all that liquor. We were worried about you.”

  The others, three women, two men, gravely nodded.

  “Where am I?” James sat up, wincing.

  “Just you sit quiet for a minute,” the woman named Lily said. “Georgia, where’s that coffee?”

  A thick mug was pushed at James, and he gingerly drank the black brew while the women clucked and a man with a walker intoned, “Good for what ails you.”

  James absorbed his surroundings. More palm trees, a second baby-blue building behind the first. “How’d I get here?”

  “This is La Mirage, and you asked for a ride,” Lily told him. “To see the Gulf.”

  “My wallet…”

  Glances were exchanged. Murmuring. Lily’s face pinked. She appeared embarrassed. “Did you leave it in Dolly’s condo?”

  “Who’s Dolly?”

  More glances. Meaningful. Then, as if a group decision had been reached, “C’mon. We’ll show you.”

  They led him to an outside elevator. “Dolly’s on third,” Lily explained, and all seven of them piled into the elevator, jostling like tourists on an excursion.

  “We met last night?” he asked, still fuzzed. “All of us?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Georgia confirmed. “At the Palomino Bistro.”

  James had been high when he’d entered the Palomino. A vague image of old people yucking it up in the corner, louder than anybody.

  On the third floor, a passing elderly man shook his head. “The Croquet Club rides again, I see.”

  Georgia giggled, “High-ho, Silver. Away!”

  Everybody was old. “Is this a retirement home?” James asked.

  “A community,” Lily amended primly.

  Nobody answered Dolly’s door. “She doesn’t lock,” Lily said. “Go on in and find your wallet.”

  “Check the bedroom,” one of the men advised, and the women tittered.

  James hesitated, but they shoved him inside and crowded the open doorway, watching.

  It was a studio, and he spotted a lime-green T-shirt draped across a chair, gray hair, then her bare leg sticking unnaturally from beneath a flowered coverlet. “Holy shit.”

  They pressed inside, slamming the door. James heard their stage-whisper voices.

  “Is she?”

  “She is.”

  “Poor Dolly.”

  “Is that a bruise on her neck? Better call the cops.”

  And lastly, “Oh, Jimmy, what did you do?”

  “Nothing,” he squeaked in panic. “I don’t even know who she is.”

  “You knew Dolly last night, for sure,” Walker-Man said sternly.

  “You’re joking. Not me. She’s old.”

  Tut-tutting from the women.

  “I mean, too old for me,” James tried to amend. Too late.

  “Did you hurt Dolly?” Georgia asked.

  “Call the cops,” Walker-Man repeated.

  “No. Listen,” James tried. “It wasn’t me. I swear to God.” Sweat slid down his pits. “I didn’t do anything to her.”

  “You got reasons to be scared of the cops, young man?”

  “No.” But he’d paused, and they tensed. “Just a few outstanding tickets, that’s all.”

  James couldn’t look at the body. He hadn’t seen Dolly’s face, but he knew he hadn’t…he couldn’t have. A few drugs, a little light-fingeredness, maybe, but not…this.

  The stares and silence continued too long. His heart ratcheted. If he could just make it out the door…

  “Jimmy, honey,” Lily finally said. “I believe you.” The other
s grumbled and shifted.

  “Dolly was a wild one.” Lily shook her head. “And old people die. But you understand we have to call the police, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  She sighed. “I think I should take you to the bus station.”

  “Now?” he croaked, hopeful.

  James sat on the floor of Lily’s van, watching the fronded tops of palm trees. She hummed from the driver’s seat and, when she stopped, warned him, “Stay down. I’ll buy your ticket.”

  “My wallet—” he began.

  “Got it right here,” she sang out, and the door slammed.

  Lily waved from the ramp as his bus pulled away. The driver suddenly braked, and James froze, expecting the cops, but only a flustered older woman scurried aboard.

  “Thanks,” she told the bus driver and dropped into the seat beside James. “Almost didn’t make it.”

  James nodded, waving one last time to Lily, flooded with gratitude. She did look grandmotherly.

  “You know Lily?” the woman asked, gazing past him.

  “Not really.”

  “What’s that club up to this time?”

  “The Croquet Club? I don’t play.”

  She snorted. “Neither do they. They wear those T-shirts—it means they’re on an escapade.” She shook her head. “Old fools acting like the meanest kids you hated in school. The things I’ve seen them do. Ugly, just ugly bad tricks.”

  “Like what?”

  “You don’t want to know.” She shrugged and cozied into her seat. “Shame on me, gossiping. Dolly’s one of them, but if she hadn’t given me a ride, I’d have missed this bus for sure.”

  Jo Dereske is the author of eighteen published novels, including the Miss Zukas mystery series, and the Ruby Crane mysteries. She divides her time between Sumas, Washington, and the Bulkley River Valley in northern British Columbia.

  AFTER

  * * *

  * * *

  Tyler Dilts

  After the flash of terror, after the dull steel head of the hammer strikes again and again, there is darkness.

  And there is cold.

  And there is emptiness.

  Then you, squatting, looking down at the pool of blood on the floor, the tiny islands of bone and brain.

  Outside an old woman cries on the porch. You talk to her, say soft things, comforting things.

  There are people on the lawn. Inside the yellow line, they have uniforms; outside of it, they don’t. The woman sees someone in the crowd, on the other side, a young man in a hat. She starts to raise her arm to point, but you stop her, gently push it back. You call a uniform over, whisper something in her ear, and then she says something into a radio.

  The young man in the hat is surrounded by four officers and forced into the back of a police car.

  The old woman cries.

  In the back of the car, the young man in the hat stares out of the window with nothing in his eyes.

  You’re in the kitchen. Another woman is there, shorter, darker, in a suit the same dark color as yours. She looks away from the blood and up at you expectantly. You motion for her to join you. When she does, an unvoiced question hanging between you, you nod and you say maybe.

  The young man in the hat sits in a small gray room in the pale glare of the fluorescent light. There’s a table tucked into the corner. His left arm is resting on it. The hat is gone.

  In one of the stalls, a toilet flushes. You run a hand through your hair, then take a travel toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste out of your pocket. You tuck your tie in between the buttons of your shirt and lean forward while you clean your teeth. When you’re done, you spit again into the sink and make a cup out of your hand. You slurp water out of your palm, swish it around for a few seconds, and swallow. Another glance in the mirror, a deep breath, and you’re done.

  The old woman who was crying on the porch sits at a Formica-topped dining table staring down at an untouched sandwich. She doesn’t eat. She is still crying.

  Outside the room where the young man waits, the woman from the kitchen speaks to you. Tries to change your mind about something. You don’t change it.

  You sure? she says.

  Yes, you say.

  You’ve both taken off your coats. Your shirts are the same color, too.

  In the room it’s just you and the young man without the hat.

  You speak to him kindly, offer him food, something to drink. He says he is, now that he thinks about it, hungry. You leave but come back quickly with a sandwich and a can of soda. He thanks you.

  You talk to him while he eats.

  He answers between swallows.

  You say something funny, and he lets out a little laugh.

  The friendliness is surprising.

  In the hall with the woman before you came in, you were serious and composed. Not like this. Not like this at all.

  You ask him about baseball, about his hat. You talk about his favorite team. You sound like you know a lot about the game. After a lot of talk about teams and players and games, you’re talking about the team at the high school he graduated from and the community college where he’s now enrolled.

  He doesn’t realize you’re talking about him now.

  You lean forward and talk to him in an understanding and compassionate tone. As you lean back, you grasp the seat of your chair and pull it forward a few inches, so that when you settle against the backrest your face is the same distance from the young man as it was before, but now your knees are closer.

  Tell me about Heather, you say.

  In the next room, the woman in the same color shirt watches you on a video monitor and smiles a sad smile.

  The old woman who was crying on the porch and who didn’t eat her sandwich is sitting up in bed, holding her knees to her chest in the dark. She is still crying.

  You loved her, didn’t you? you say.

  The young man nods.

  Tell me about her, you say.

  He does.

  The two of you speak for a long time.

  You do the thing with your chair two more times. You’re very close to the young man now.

  He’s sad.

  So are you.

  You talk about unrequited love. You tell him a story about a girl you loved. How hard it was when she didn’t love you back. How sometimes it even made you angry. Angry enough to do something bad.

  He looks in your eyes. He begins to weep.

  The woman watching the monitor in the next room nods. There it is, she whispers to the empty room.

  The old woman in the dark is still crying.

  You wrap your arm around the young man’s shoulder and lean in even closer, your forehead almost touching his. I understand, you say, I understand. But I need to know about the hammer.

  The young man without the hat looks at you, lowers his eyes, and tells you about the hammer.

  After his confession, something is different.

  There is a receding.

  A fading.

  And the darkness comes again.

  And though I don’t understand why, I imagine that the cold does not follow, and that the emptiness, after you, is not quite so empty.

  Tyler Dilts is the author of the novels A King of Infinite Space and The Pain Scale. His shorter work has appeared in The Best American Mystery Stories, the Los Angeles Times, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and in numerous other publications. He received his MFA in creative writing from California State University, Long Beach, where he now teaches.

  NEXT RIGHT

  * * *

  * * *

  Sean Doolittle

  In the morning we met Julie for breakfast in the restaurant next door to the motel. She breezed in ten minutes past seven wearing jean shorts with the pockets showing, a low-cut T-shirt, and the cowboy boots she’d bought at a truck stop along the way. She looked almost like someone else’s grown daughter until she smiled and slid into the booth. Our girl.

  “Look at you,” I said. “All ready fo
r the rodeo.”

  Donna kicked my ankle under the table. Julie poked out her tongue, admiring her own heel. “I think they’re drop-dead,” she said. “Plus they make me taller.”

  “You were born taller.” I handed her a menu. “Order up, cowgirl.”

  While she browsed her options, Julie remarked that she liked people in this part of the country. “They just trust you. It’s nice.”

  Donna said, “Just trust you like how?”

  “Like this morning I went down the hall for ice,” Julie said. “But I left the key card in my room. So I went to the counter and asked for another, and the girl? You know what she did?”

  I sipped my coffee. “Gave you another key card?”

  “Just asked my room number and handed one over.”

  Donna laughed. “Why on earth wouldn’t she?”

  “She wasn’t the same girl as last night,” Julie said. “She’d never seen me before. I could have been anybody off the street.”

  “Maybe it was the boots,” I said.

  Donna bit back a grin.

  “Just for that I’m ordering extra everything,” Julie said. “I’m completely starved.”

  “Well, you’re getting taller,” I said.

  We made it to Laramie and found campus by midday. We could see mountains from the stoop of her dorm. Julie clapped and giggled. “Would you look at this place?”

  I still couldn’t get used to the idea. This kid of ours, who’d tripped over her own feet until she was fourteen, had offers to play volleyball for half a dozen schools, at least four of them closer to home. But the best had come from the University of Wyoming, located in—of all places—Wyoming. To Donna and me, it might as well have been the moon.

  We spent the afternoon unpacking the U-Haul and lugging her things up to her room. Then we all traipsed to a local used-car dealership. “I want a pickup truck,” Julie said. “With a gun rack!” We settled on a six-year-old Jetta with no rust and decent miles.

  An hour before dusk, we stood around hugging and telling our baby girl good-bye. “Only till Thanksgiving,” she said. “And Christmas. And I’ll call every week.” She waved from the parking lot as we pulled away.