Kwik Krimes

by Otto Penzler (ed)

  So when it was time for the second test—the real one—Hightower took the young man aside.

  “Play along. We’re gonna weed out the weaklings.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young man said, looking like he was about to salute.

  Wonderful. Hightower was 99 percent sure he had his man. The one who’d help him ride a 1981 Ford Econoline to glory. (You try loading a van with a thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane when you have a bad back.)

  “Come on,” Hightower told the others a minute later. “I want to show you something.”

  The ammonium nitrate was under tarps at the back of the barn. The guys from Hoosier Feed & Fertilizer had given Hightower funny looks when they’d unloaded them. They could see his farm wasn’t growing anything but mold anymore. That’s why he had to move fast.

  He looked at the young man, the old man, and the girl. Back in the Clinton era glory days, he’d had dozens of comrades in arms. Now he had three, all strangers.

  At least he wasn’t alone. At least he could choose who to die with.

  “Friends,” Hightower said, “there’s a traitor in our midst.”

  He pulled a gun from under his windbreaker and pointed it at the young man.

  “Whoa!” said the young man.

  “Wait!” said the old man.

  “Aaa!” said the girl.

  “I heard him calling his handlers,” Hightower said. “He’s an ATF spy.”

  “That’s crazy!” the young man protested. “I’m a patriot!”

  He didn’t sound very convincing.

  Good. He was keeping his head, acting the part.

  The young man was still the front-runner. But the test wasn’t over.

  “Come here,” Hightower said to the girl.

  “Me?”

  “You. Come here.”

  The girl moved to his side with hesitant steps.

  Hightower kept the gun pointed at the young man with his left hand while his right grabbed the girl by the wrist.

  He forced her to take the gun.

  “Shoot him.”

  “What?”

  “We’re in here with enough explosives to blow the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to China, and he’s about to call in the storm troopers. Shoot.”

  The gun was shaking in the girl’s hands.

  She turned it on Hightower.

  “Look,” she said, “my name’s Hannah Fox and I write for the Herald-Times and my editor knows I’m here working on a story about your ad so you’d better let me leave without any trouble or—”

  Hightower pulled out his other gun and pointed it at her.

  “Your safety’s on,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Get the gun. Quick,” Hightower told the young man.

  He did as he was told. Of course. The girl’s betrayal hurt, but at least Hightower was about to have his winner.

  “Now,” he said, “you shoot her.”

  The young man swung his gun toward Hightower instead.

  “Drop it.” He offered Hightower a grim grin. “ATF. Really.”

  Hightower’s heart was breaking even as he said, “You stupid Zionist goon. Don’t you know a BB gun when you’re holding one?”

  The young man’s grin disappeared, leaving only the grim.

  Hightower turned toward the old man, about to sigh. “Guess it’s down to you.”

  The old man’s fist smashed into his face. By the time Hightower hit the ground, the gun had been ripped from his grip.

  The old man gave him a moment to clear his head, then said, “My name’s Erie. I’m a private investigator. Your ex-wife was worried you were up to something foolish with that money you owe her. Looks like she was right.”

  Damn, Hightower thought. You can’t trust anybody anymore.

  The ATF thug was going to drive Hightower to a police station.

  “You’re by yourself?” the PI asked him. “No backup?”

  “It’s not people like this we’re worried about anymore.”

  Salt in the wound.

  The goon turned on the radio as they drove off. To discourage Hightower from talking, he figured. Fine. He just listened.

  On the radio, they were yakking about some senator running for president. His name wasn’t Osama bin Laden, but close.

  It actually cheered Hightower up.

  A Muslim in the White House? Let ’em try! Then America would drop the United We Stand mask and show the world what it was truly made of.

  Hightower watched the houses and farms zipping by.

  He wasn’t really alone. He still believed that.

  Maybe he just had to wait.

  Steve Hockensmith is the author of the Holmes on the Range mystery novels, as well as the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls. His short fiction has been nominated for the Derringer, Shamus, Anthony, and Barry awards, and three collections of his stories are available: Naughty, Blarney, and Dear Mr. Holmes. He lives in Alameda, California. Visit him at SteveHockensmith.com.

  HIJACKERS

  * * *

  * * *

  Chuck Hogan

  He had pushed it as far as he could go—farther, actually. He’d hoped to begin the next morning on the other side of Denver but needed to get off his bike. Cities had limits; so did he.

  The Days Inn looked like a good place to disappear for a night. He parked his bike and checked in, then carried his helmet and saddlebag straight into the lounge.

  A sign above the backlit bar advertised a discount “for members of our armed forces,” but to him it was worth the extra 10 percent not to have to deal with that yet. He experienced a singular moment of joy when he saw the overhead television showing the opening minutes of a Lakers-Nuggets game and dropped his bag and helmet onto a bar chair.

  “Pretty bike.”

  She wore a scoop-necked black T-shirt and faded jeans, cleavage being a standard feature of the hotel bartender’s uniform. He sensed somehow that she was a person in transition, but whether her life was moving from worse to better or the opposite, he could not know. His Screamin’ Eagle Fat Boy was visible through the window blinds, two-tone red and black.

  “I can still feel the vibration from the road,” he said, flexing his numb hands.

  She reached across the bar to grip the fingers of one hand and quickly pulled back, feeling it. “You need a drink,” she said.

  “Stoli, rocks.”

  The bottle was near. “How far you going?”

  “LA.”

  She poured. “What’s in LA?”

  “Palm trees. Earthquakes. More street gangs and museums than any other city in the world.”

  She set his drink on a Days Inn napkin in front of him. “What’s in LA for you?”

  He picked up the glass, holding it there without spilling, commanding his hand to be still as though proving something to himself. “Home,” he said, and brought it trembling to his lips.

  Muffled applause came from behind the closed double doors of a nearby function room.

  “Food, too?” she asked.

  “Give me a few minutes,” he said, and the bartender went to key in his drink order, and he settled back to focus on the game—for the moment, blissfully content.

  The double doors opened, and the attendees exited in a wave of energetic chatter. White males in their thirties, handwritten nametags affixed to their shirts. A training seminar, or maybe a hobbyists’ convention. He was determined to tune out their shop talk as they crowded tight around him.

  But instead of unwinding, they remained on a group high, loudly carrying on. Like bits of gravel kicked up underneath his helmet visor, certain key phrases breached his consciousness:

  “Controlled demolition…”

  “Building Seven…”

  “…jet fuel…”

  He drained half his glass, ice and all, in one pull.

  There was more. Box cutters and Saudi double agents. Missiles disguised as passenger airplanes. Cell
phone signal range. The Mossad. Holograms.

  The bartender was busy pouring drinks and taking food orders. He flexed his sore hands at his side. He wouldn’t go back to his room. He could be alone right here if he worked at it hard enough.

  “This guy. Let’s get his opinion.”

  Iverson put a spin move on Fisher, but the ball rimmed out.

  “Hey?” one of them said. “Excuse me?”

  He couldn’t hear the play-by-play anymore, but a graphic told him that Odom and Camby were in early foul trouble.

  A hand rested on his shoulder. He turned as though a wasp had landed there.

  The man to whom the hand belonged had soft cheeks and a tight smile.

  “We were just wondering, I mean, you’re not here for TruthCon, right?”

  The motorcyclist said nothing. The attendee, intoxicated by a day of groupthink, was further emboldened now by the growing attention of his fellow hobbyists. “You look like a real guy, an average American…and I’m just wondering…I mean, regular people, people on the street…planes don’t just disappear when they crash into buildings, right? I mean, at the very least you know…there’s more to it. Am I right?”

  The others hung on his response. The motorcyclist felt pressure from the crowd. A simple yes would grant them the satisfaction they craved and return to the motorcyclist his privacy, though not his solitude.

  “People are afraid of the truth,” he said.

  The attendee nodded heartily, as did others around him. “You can say that again.”

  “They reject facts that threaten their worldview. They want simple answers to complex questions. They are immature and wish to remain that way.”

  More enthusiastic nodding. “True, that.”

  The lounge had fallen nearly silent, all focus on the motorcyclist. “Here, I think, is the real question,” he said, addressing the faces turned his way. “If some secret entity could seed charges throughout twin one-hundred-and-ten-story skyscrapers without anyone knowing…if they could frame nineteen Arabs as terrorist hijackers…if they could fake a plane crash at the Pentagon and shoot down a passenger jet over Pennsylvania…if they could pull off all this and more in front of billions of people watching on live television…then how can they allow any dissenters to live? I ask those who have exposed the real truth—why haven’t they come for you yet?”

  The attendee’s resolve flickered, his brow furrowing as he formed his response.

  “What if…” the motorcyclist said, stopping the attendee before he could answer. As he did so, he pulled out his brand-new mobile phone and rested it atop the bar, like a detonator. “What if they have been waiting years to get you all together, in one location? What if, this time, they sent in just one guy, to finish the job…?”

  The bartender emerged from the kitchen two minutes later with a large tray of chips and appetizers in her hand—and stopped, looking aghast at the empty lounge.

  Only the motorcyclist remained, his eyes on the overhead television.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Kobe got fouled on a three.” He finished his drink with a steady hand. “I think I’ll order something now.”

  Chuck Hogan is the New York Times best-selling author of several acclaimed novels, including Devils in Exile and Prince of Thieves, which was awarded the Hammett Prize and adapted into the 2010 hit film The Town. He is also the co-author, with Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, of the international best-selling Strain Trilogy. His short fiction has twice been anthologized in The Best American Mystery Stories annual.

  FULL BLOOM

  * * *

  * * *

  Wendy Hornsby

  The old apple tree in the back corner of Stella Mary’s garden began to bloom early in the spring. By late June its branches were heavy with ripening fruit.

  “Funniest thing.” Arlo Holbrook, Stella Mary’s next-door neighbor, leaned his elbows atop the fence that separated their yards and eyed the tree. Eyed her, too; nosy, horny bastard, she thought. “All these years, that scraggly tree never produced anything but dead leaves for Fred to rake in the fall. Now look at it.”

  “I’ll have a pie or two from it, that’s for sure.” Stella Mary continued troweling fresh mulch into the soil around the base of the tree. She knew from the way that men—Arlo among them—had begun to take particular notice of her again that the tree wasn’t the only thing in her garden that had blossomed that spring.

  “Yep, that puny tree used to piss off Fred,” Arlo said.

  “A lot of things pissed off Fred,” she said.

  “What do you hear from him?”

  “Not one word since October, Arlo.” She raised her chin enough to see his face. “Remember, I have a restraining order.”

  Arlo had the grace to blush. “I told you before, I’m sorry I asked him to come over that day. It’s just that Fred’s a real strong guy and I needed some muscle to help dig out that big ficus tree—roots you know, fouling the sewer line. Jesus, seems like we dug down halfway to China before we got them all.”

  “I remember.”

  “Anyway, frame of mind Fred was in at the time—getting served with the divorce and all—it wasn’t a good idea for me to put an ax in one hand and a can of beer in the other. I guess it just didn’t occur to me…” He seemed properly chagrined.

  “Don’t know that I ever thanked you for returning the ax, Stella Mary. Your back door looks good as new.”

  “Uh-huh,” was all she said, and went back to work.

  “Your garden puts mine to shame this year.” He surveyed her yard, took in the fat red tomatoes spilling over their frames, the lovely cukes and peas, the masses of ripe blackberries hanging heavily in the corner bramble. “It’s almost like that ficus poisoned the soil; nothing wants to grow back there. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong. What’s your magic?”

  “No magic, Arlo, just dig, fertilize, water, pray.”

  He studied the fresh soil around the base of the apple tree. “That what you did here? Dig?”

  “Root-bound,” she said. “Like all living things, the tree needed room to grow and breathe.”

  Arlo was silent long enough that Stella Mary began to hope that he had come to the end of his conversational string and would go tend to his own business. She had been so perfectly happy that morning, working in solitude under the shade of the tree, the air perfumed by sun-warmed apples and fresh-turned earth. Until Arlo showed up.

  She raised her chin and found him still there, staring at her.

  “The guys at the club were talking about Fred the other day,” he said. “No one has heard from him since that set-to last fall. When he didn’t show up to be Santa Claus at the Kiwanis Christmas banquet, well, folks understood; still embarrassed about the restraining order and all that. But when he hadn’t bounced back in time for the club’s Memorial Day golf tournament…”

  There was something accusatory in Arlo’s voice, in the intensity of his expression as he studied her. Stella Mary sat back on her heels and wiped her cheeks with the cuffs of her garden gloves—pretty new ones—as she met his gaze. Surely Arlo understood that Fred’s constant “bouncing back” after she filed for divorce was the reason she had to get a restraining order.

  He said, “I have this gut feeling that something bad has happened to Fred.”

  “Knowing Fred as I do, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.” She rose and dropped her trowel into the pocket of her gardening apron. “Tell Cora I’ll save her enough apples for a pie.”

  She turned and strode purposefully toward the house. The blessedly tidy, quiet house.

  The table was laid for her supper when the doorbell rang. On the front porch she found a trio of uniformed policemen with shovels, a cadaver dog, and a search warrant.

  “I would never have suspected my neighbor to be possessed of such a lively imagination,” she said as she led the officers around back to search under the apple tree. They promised not to harm either the tree or its burgeoning crop, and
so, leaving them to their task, she went inside to enjoy her meal.

  “Sorry you were inconvenienced, ma’am,” the sergeant in charge offered as he finished the fresh blackberry cobbler Stella Mary served the men when they had finished their search. “But since your neighbor is on the city council, well, certain pressure was brought to bear.”

  “I understand,” she said as she wrapped a basket of blackberries for the officer to take home to his wife.

  “I hope there isn’t bad blood after this,” he said.

  “There’s no bad blood,” she said, handing him the berries. “Not on this side of the fence.”

  Wendy Hornsby is the Edgar Allan Poe Award–winning creator of the Maggie MacGowen series and is the author of many short stories. Her ninth mystery, The Hanging, was released by Perseverance Press in September 2012. Her first seven books are now available from MysteriousPress.com in electronic-reading formats. When she isn’t writing, she teaches history at Long Beach City College. Visit her website at WendyHornsby.com.

  THE BLACKMAILERS WANTED MORE

  * * *

  * * *

  David Housewright

  He heard the fear in her voice the moment she recognized his.

  “No phone calls,” she said. “We agreed to communicate only through chat rooms.”

  He assured her that it was an emergency and directed her to a park they both knew.

  “Are we in trouble, Kevin?” she asked.

  “Yes, Emma. I’m sorry.”

  He was sorry, too. Sorry for her, but mostly sorry for himself. A year ago, Kevin was named the youngest vice president in the firm. Old Man Torrance himself had taken notice and often invited Kevin and his beautiful bride, Lisa, to gatherings at his fabulous estate—that’s where he was introduced to Emma, Torrance’s long-legged trophy wife. Unfortunately, he and Lisa had drifted apart, mostly because of the grueling hours Kevin worked and the long trips Torrance sent him on. They hadn’t enjoyed sex in weeks. Kevin decided if she was going to be that way…He met Emma in the elevator. She was willing, so he slept with her that evening. Kevin meant for it to be a one-night stand, something to remind him that he was still desirable to women. Yet he saw her again the following week and then a third time three days later—never at the same place twice. They had been very careful.