There’s a bar and a grid of heavy wooden tables. A man is seated at a table in the center of the grid. He doesn’t move when I shut the door. He doesn’t stand as I walk toward him. He just nods at the seat across from him, pulled out and waiting.
He’s got a half-eaten garden salad in front of him that he doesn’t acknowledge. He’s small but hammered out of iron. Tight military-style haircut and rigid shoulders. Even in the dim light, it looks like he’s vibrating. I set my feet in case he takes a dive at me.
He doesn’t, so I toss the briefcase onto the table and sit. He cocks his head.
“From Ginny,” I tell him.
“I know.” His voice echoes like it’s coming from another room.
“I got the first number for you.”
“She didn’t give you all three?”
“Wasn’t my job to look inside.”
Ginny was specific. When she slid the briefcase across her desk in Hell’s Kitchen, back where the weather behaves at night, she said: Deliver it and don’t open it. Acknowledge the contact was in receipt of the contents. Then come home.
She gave me the first number to the lock and said the other two were in Texas.
I did ask Ginny what was inside. She said, “A second chance.”
She didn’t need to explain what that meant. The last job I did, the job I fucked up, I thought that was the end, and my next living situation was on the bottom of the Hudson.
Ginny doesn’t dole out second chances. This was a generous offer and the whole ride down I wondered if it was too generous.
The guy cocks his head again, like it’s the only way he can express himself. He asks, “The number?”
“Three.”
He nods, rolls the other two numbers in place, and then clicks the top open.
He smiles. It’s the smile of a kid on Christmas morning, and for people like us that can only mean one thing.
I don’t even wait. I pull the Walther PPK from my waistband and put a bullet in his forehead.
The ringing in the air drowns out the music. The salad is on the floor, but I don’t know how it got there. He doesn’t fall off the chair, just sprawls back, his arms outstretched, palms to the ceiling.
I wait for something else to happen, and nothing does. Then I turn the briefcase around. Inside is a Smith & Wesson Model 500. A gun this big would have blown a hole through me, and then the back wall of the restaurant.
The silver gun is heavy in my hand. Maybe I’ll take it when I go visit Ginny. Because after this, she’s due for a visit.
I turn it over and find something stuck to the grip.
A magnet, the size of three stacked dimes.
I roll it over in my fingers. Ginny doesn’t do anything unless it’s on purpose.
Then my body erupts in sweat, sucking the warmth out of my skin under the strength of the air-conditioning.
I think I know what this is.
Under the red felt lining of the briefcase I find another, different kind of digital readout. These numbers are dropping, but not in a good way.
I look at the dead guy across from me.
“I guess we both fucked up.”
Rob W. Hart is a blogger and columnist at LitReactor.com. His writing has appeared at Shotgun Honey and in Needle: A Magazine of Noir. This story was originally published as “Second Chance” and was published in Shotgun Honey on August 17, 2011. You can learn more about him at his website, RobWHart.com.
BLINDFOLDED
* * *
* * *
John Harvin
She fastened her seatbelt, reached for the ignition, looked up, and stopped. Puzzled, she stared at the three small wires hanging where the rearview mirror should have been. At almost the same time, she felt the gun at the side of her neck and heard the man behind her say, “Don’t move, Judge Evans. Both hands on the wheel. Don’t turn around.”
“Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded higher than normal. She’d been to a class once on how to react in a hostage situation. She tried to calm herself. “What do you want?”
“Put that on your head,” the voice said. A small black silk bag floated over the seat.
“Now what?” she asked, voice muffled by the bag.
“Now you drive,” the voice said.
“I can’t see.”
“But you’ve driven your driveway a thousand times. It’s only, what, a quarter mile out to the road? Drive!” He jammed the barrel of the gun deeper into her neck.
Slowly she felt for the gears. She released the brake and pushed the accelerator. The engine revved, but the SUV did not move. She bumped the shifter down one and eased backward. A moment later she felt a thump, and slammed the brake.
“Hope that pot wasn’t expensive.” The voice laughed. “Tell you what. I’ll help you out. I’ll say ‘stop’ if you’re about to blow it. I don’t want you driving off one of those nice stone bridges and killing me. But here’s the deal. Only three times. The first three are free, the fourth time you die. Now drive!”
She shifted, slowly released the brake, and felt the car roll forward. Concentrate, Elizabeth, concentrate. She pictured the fountain and the slight curve to the right as she left the courtyard, then felt the transition from stone to blacktop under the tires and held her breath, waiting.
She heard a laugh. “Very good, Judge.”
Slowly she rolled along, trying to visualize the hard right curve at the end of the short straight. She pictured herself driving at night in a heavy rain. Or in the snow.
“Stop!” said the voice. “You need to turn right now or we go into the woods.”
She took her shaking hands down from the wheel and wiped them dry on the tweed skirt, turned the wheel sharply to the right, eased forward, and released the wheel on the count of a thousand-ten.
“What is this about?” she asked.
“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on the road, Judge?” The voice laughed. She could smell him now in the closeness of the car.
The driveway curved back to the left at some point, she knew. Without replying, she slowly eased the wheel to the left and counted to five, then released it.
“Good.”
She ran the movie of the road in her head, felt the rise and fall of the first bridge right where she expected it.
“Is this about the Riley case?” she asked.
“Bravo, Judge.”
She licked her lips. She should feel the second bridge any moment now.
“Stop!” the voice said. “You’re about to drive us right into it. Move left.”
She slammed on her brakes and felt his weight against the back of her seat. Slowly she backed up, cocked the wheel a fraction, and drove over the second bridge. Mentally she ran down the remaining road. Four curves. At the last curve, a forty-foot ravine. And at the highway, if they made it that far, traffic and a stone wall directly across from the mouth of the drive.
“What did you say at the sentencing?” the voice asked.
She stammered, trying to concentrate both on the road and to remember her words. “I don’t know.”
The gun jammed into her neck, forcing her head to the left. “Remember!”
“I said…”
“Stop! There’s a ditch. You need to turn left.”
Slowly she corrected and moved on. The temperature rose inside the hood, and she felt the silk sticking to her sweaty forehead. The air tasted moist and stale.
“That’s three, Judge. No more chances. Now what did you say today?”
Suddenly she remembered the shock on the face of the heavyset young man sitting in the third row as she handed down the maximum sentence. “I said, ‘Three strikes and you’re out.’”
They should be approaching the third turn now. She eased the wheel to the right and counted, holding her breath. At twenty she let go and straightened up.
“You’re getting pretty good at this,” the voice said. “How does it feel to be out of strikes?”
“I didn’t do what Riley did,” she said.
T
he voice in her ear almost screamed, “You have no idea what Riley did or why he did it.”
“I trust the system.”
“The system,” snarled the voice. “I know all about the system.”
“What do you want?” she asked simply.
“I want Riley freed.” Still too loud.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “You know I can’t do that.”
Then, “I need to concentrate for this next turn.”
She slowed and felt his weight against the seat. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the curve and the ravine. Slowly she eased the wheel to the right, and counted. At thirty she straightened.
“I never thought you’d make it,” the voice said. “Not that it matters.”
When she heard the click of the hammer, she floored the accelerator. The huge Mercedes leaped forward. She heard a gasp and felt the gun fall away. A horn blared, and then she felt the shuddering impact of the stone wall, the chest strap cutting into her, and her face sinking into the air bag. A weight flew by her right shoulder. She heard him slam against the dash.
Her airbag deflated, and she reached up and shakily pulled off the black bag. The man lay in a crumpled heap on the passenger floorboard. A hand pounded on the driver’s side window.
“Are you okay?” someone yelled.
She patted the air bag console. “You have to trust the system.”
In addition to blogging on politics and society (under the pseudonym Otherwise at ScholarsandRogues.com) and writing, John Harvin works with the CEOs of major corporations on strategic problems. He splits his time between his apartment in Chicago and various countries and cities around the world. This year he will attempt his fourth Ironman triathlon.
PRESENT COMPANY
* * *
* * *
Michael Haynes
Detective Collins straightened his jacket before entering the residence. He’d pulled Maple Hill’s first homicide in years and wasn’t about to walk in looking like a slob. He took one more swipe at his hair and stepped inside.
“What have you got for me?” he asked those already at work.
“Deceased is Margot Harris,” an officer named Hoffman said. “She lived here with her husband and two children.”
That children lived here was apparent. Toys were scattered on the floor—here a plastic dinosaur, there several random building bricks.
Collins looked at the corpse. Dressed for a day at the office, but blood stained her clothing. A purse was on the floor, and yet another toy, a stuffed animal, sat by her left hand. It, too, was bloodstained.
“A maid comes in once a week,” Hoffman continued. “She found Mrs. Harris like that and called 911. We had to have her taken down to St. Paul’s; she was awful shook up.”
Hoffman gestured at the body. “The techs say she was stabbed multiple times. She either moved herself or was moved before she died, but not far.”
Collins crouched, thought. “Where was Mr. Harris when this happened?” he asked.
“We’re still trying to get in touch with him. A neighbor says he takes the kids in to school before going to work.”
A tech stepped between Collins and Hoffman, bagged up the purse and bloodied toy, took them away as evidence.
“So, hubby and kids leave,” Collins said. “And sometime between then and when the maid shows up, Mrs. Harris is killed.”
“That’s what we’ve got so far.”
“Not much, is it?” Collins stood up. “Call me when you have something new. And get me the address of where Mr. Harris works. I’m going to pay him a visit.”
Collins entered the offices of Harris & Parker Accounting shortly after ten. In the reception area, a well-dressed man talked with the woman behind the desk.
“Pardon me,” Collins said, showing his identification. “Could I speak with Mr. Harris?”
“He’s out for coffee,” the man said. “Can I help you?”
“Actually, he just came back, Mr. Parker,” said the receptionist. She spoke quietly into her phone, then directed Collins to Harris’s office.
Half an hour later, Collins left, certain that Arnold Harris wasn’t their guy. He seemed stunned when told his wife was dead. Naturally. Anyone who’d watched a TV knew to act that way. But he also had people who could vouch for his movements all morning.
Collins also met with the maid when she came into the station to give her statement. A tiny middle-aged woman with thin hair and a premature stoop to her shoulders. No chance she overpowered Mrs. Harris.
He went home feeling like he’d gotten nowhere. That evening he spread the case file contents on the dining table. His wife, Claire, walked by. She muttered something he didn’t catch.
“Hmm?” he asked.
She gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, it was just…A joke in poor taste.”
“What about?”
“That photograph.”
Normally Claire avoided talking about his work. She said she preferred not knowing.
“What about it?”
Her face flushed. “I said you could rule out Yak Yak Bird kidnapping as the motive.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The doll there. It’s a Yak Yak Bird. They were hot last Christmas.”
“Never heard of them.”
She smiled crookedly. “Maybe if you’d helped me shop for your nieces and nephews you would have.”
“Huh. So, what was the big deal?”
“Oh. They talk.”
Collins shrugged. “Haven’t there been talking toys since we were kids?”
“No. I mean they talk back to you, repeat what you say.”
Claire kept talking, but Collins didn’t hear. He looked at the photo again. The bird sat by Harris’s hand. And the techs said they thought she’d tried to move herself…
He called the station. Frank Butcher took the call.
“Frank,” he said, “Could you sign out one of the pieces of evidence for the Harris case? I want you to check something. It’s the toy, a stuffed animal.”
Collins waited while Frank was away.
“I’ve got it. Ugly thing, ain’t it?” Frank said.
“Yeah, listen…What I need you to do is…” He realized he had no idea and put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“Claire, how do you get the thing to talk back to you?”
She thought about it for a moment. “Squeeze the wing.”
“You’re sure that won’t erase the recording?”
Claire nodded brightly. “Oh yeah, you have to push in its tummy to do that.”
Collins shook his head. This was nuts. Still, he uncovered the mouthpiece. “You got gloves, Frank?”
“Yeah.”
“Get ’em on. Then squeeze the bird’s wing.”
There was a long silence. Butcher finally answered, “It’s got two wings, Detective Collins. Which one do you want me to, um, squeeze?”
“I don’t know. Try one, then the other. Let me know what happens.”
There were some rustling sounds as Butcher followed his directions. Moments later, Collins heard everything he needed to hear.
“Whoa. Is that…” Frank said.
“Yes.”
The recorded voice of a woman making her dying declaration echoed through Collins’s head.
“Get it back to the locker right away,” he told Butcher. “And whatever you do, don’t press on its tummy…its stomach. I need to get some warrants.”
Collins went down to the holding cell.
“Want to tell me about it, Parker?”
“There’s nothing to tell because I didn’t do anything.” Parker picked at his shirt cuffs. “I’ll be out before lunchtime, Detective,” Parker said. “What makes you think you can arrest me for this?”
“Because I know you killed her. Because she wouldn’t help you cheat your partner, her husband, out of the partnership’s profits. And because she wouldn’t leave him for you.”
Parker’s eyes gave his fear away, but he still snorted
a laugh. “Right. And where’d you get that idea?”
Collins smiled as he turned to leave. “A little birdie told me, Parker. A little birdie.”
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN EVERY DAY FICTION.
Michael Haynes lives in central Ohio, where he helps keep IT systems running for a large corporation during the day and puts his characters through the wringer by night. An ardent short-story reader and writer, Michael has had more than twenty stories accepted for publication during 2012 by venues such as Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Daily Science Fiction, Nature, and many others. Visit his website at MichaelHaynes.info.
THE EINSTEIN DIVORCE
* * *
* * *
Gar Anthony Haywood
Through the bedroom door—his fucking bedroom door!—Lester could hear them inside. Laughing. Cooing. Moaning.
He gripped the gun in his hand tighter, all reservations gone now.
The sonofabitch had been right. This was the only way.
“She’s fucking around on you, isn’t she?”
Lester had spun around. “What?”
“I know, I know. It’s none of my business,” the guy had said, nine days ago, “but I kinda recognize the look. I’ve been there myself, man. I used to see that face in the mirror all the time.”
He’d taken the next seat at the bar without Lester noticing. It hadn’t been much of a trick: Lester was here for the liquor, not the company, and nothing else had warranted his attention.
The stranger, a shaggy-haired beach-boy type who had to be Lester’s junior by ten years, held out his hand. “Scotty Henson.”
Lester shook the hand but didn’t offer his own name, too inebriated to tell yet what this was.
“It does something to a man, the pain,” Henson said, sounding as if he’d already had a few drinks himself.
“The pain?”
“Finding out your woman is doing some other guy. This the wife or your girlfriend?”
Lester thought about lying, decided there was little point. “The wife,” he said.
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