A bushy-haired gent in brown tweed joined us. “Hilary, Gene,” said Scott, “this is my pal, Mike Prendergast. He’s an insurance investigator, and he needs your help.”
“Luce Novelties,” said Prendergast, “took out a hefty insurance policy last summer. The size of it surprised us because Benny Luce is the biggest tightwad since Scrooge. Cut to New Year’s Eve: the Luce warehouse burns down.”
“And you’re understandably suspicious,” Hilary said. “Fill me in.”
Prendergast bit a breadstick and consulted a yellow legal pad. “Here are the facts: This year, Benny added a line of Christmas decorations—Italian Nativity sets, strings of Japanese tree lights, garland, tinsel, the works—but the line tanked. The cost must have killed him, but he sent out mailing pieces, ran an incentive contest, even set up a giant Christmas tree outside and lit it up every night—still, the company ended up with a crappy season.”
Hilary brushed a strand of blonde hair away from her sky-blue orbs (she’d finally listened to me and stopped tying it into a back-knot). “Tell me about the fire.”
He nodded. Luce had been moving inventory down to the basement all day on December 31 to make room for spring merchandise. He was tired and knocked off early, locking up at five thirty. His wife had nagged him for weeks to take her to dinner on New Year’s Eve, so he did, but, halfway through the meal, his son phoned and told him the warehouse was burning down. Benny jumped up and ran out.
“I arrived on the scene a few days later,” Prendergast continued. “The night watchman said he’d discovered the fire shortly after seven p.m., while Benny was out dining. It was just getting dark out, and the watchman turned on the Christmas tree lights, then stepped over to the coffee machine in the building entry. He got a cup, sat down, and was drinking it when he smelled smoke. By the time the engines arrived, the place was nearly gutted.”
Prendergast paused while the waiter served him coffee and a snifter of Glenlivet. He didn’t notice Hilary’s lip twist, but I did; she’s a bit of a single-malt snob.
After a sip of the scotch, he proceeded. “Of course I talked to the fire chief. The blaze started in the cellar. Benny recently received a shipment of defective angels’ hair from overseas. Evidently it was not flameproof, and he’d stowed it in the basement prior to shipping it back. The fire reached it, and the stuff went up so fast that if the watchman had been downstairs, he would have been incinerated PDQ.”
Hilary fidgeted. “This is all suggestive, but weren’t there any clues as to how the fire started?”
“Yes, one, maybe. I don’t know how it fits. The fire chief found this badly charred block of black wood in the middle of the floor. It was nearly reduced to ashes, but part of it survived. In it there’s a circular depression and a smear that might have been copper wire.” Turning his legal pad around, he made a sketch.
Hilary asked me if I recognized it.
“Looks like what’s left of a magician’s flash pot, which could certainly touch off a fire. A flash pot has a treadle, which has to be pressed. It shoots a charge of electricity from a battery through a short length of wire into this round hole where explosive powder is placed.”
“Yes,” said Prendergast, “but Benny’s son is an amateur Houdini and keeps—kept—his equipment in the basement. And if anybody was near enough to step on that treadle, he would have burned to death. So I’m stymied.”
“It’s definitely arson,” said Hilary Quayle, “and I think you might be able to prove it.”
“How do you know?”
“It hinges on Benny Luce’s stinginess. Assuming he did commit arson, he would do it before the end of the year for tax purposes. He’d surely pick a night when he had to take his wife to dinner. When his son called him and he jumped up and ran out, I’ll bet he left her to pick up the check.
“Motive? A bad year because of an unprofitable line.
“Means? His son’s flash pot and lots of flammable angels’ hair, which arrived suspiciously late in the season. And since it was defective and had to be shipped back, why would he move it to the basement?
“Most important, he had string upon string of unsold Christmas tree lights, which means an ample amount of copper wire. All he needed was to splice wire together and run it outside to the Christmas tree, which he knew the watchman would turn on after Benny quitted the premises. I suggest you look for traces of that wire. With any luck, you’ll find some.”
Prendergast turned to his friend. “Thanks for having me talk to her, Scotty. She’s as good as you said!”
“De rien,” Scott demurred. “But I don’t see how you put it all together, Hilary.”
She laughed. “It was that outdoor tree. Why would a tightwad like Benny Luce run up his electric bill and turn on that tree every night through December 31—six days after the Christmas selling season was over?”
Marvin Kaye has written sixteen novels, including The Last Christmas of Ebenezer Scrooge, optioned as a feature film, and The Passion of Frankenstein. He has edited many mystery and fantasy anthologies, including The Fair Folk, which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 1996. He edits Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine and Weird Tales.
DADDY’S GIRL
* * *
* * *
Nicola Kennington
“Daddy?” I call out from a safe distance, just in case.
The man in the denim jacket and the faded cords sitting at the blackjack table and looking like he’s gotten used to handing over his chips, turns around. It’s him. Christ. After nearly twenty-five years and so many false leads, I’ve finally found my daddy.
I feel a vibration in my pocket, and I slip around the corner of a line of slot machines. I peer back as I retrieve my cell—the man has a puzzled look on his face, but he soon returns to his game. One of the doll-faced hostesses offers him a beer on the house. He takes two. He won’t be going anywhere soon.
“Yes?”
“Hey, Chicken, how’s it hangin’, baby?” Shit, it’s Paolo. Why didn’t I check caller ID?
“Hey, Paolo, just takin’ a break,” I say.
“Well, here’s the thing, Chicken. I hear you ain’t been workin’ for a coupla hours.” I hear him take a deep drag and exhale slowly. “Could even be more than that.”
That may be true—I’ve been combing Cleopatra’s Casino since dinner, and Vegas since forever. Everyone ends up in Vegas. Some never leave. Like me.
“I’ll get back to it, baby,” I say. “It’s just that—”
“It’s just nothin’, Chicken,” Paolo says pleasantly. “Now, get back to work an’ stop moping. Time is money. My money.” He takes another drag. “If you don’t wanna, remember what happened to Lola.”
Everyone remembers what happened to Lola. She slacked off, tried to get herself a real job ’cause of her little girl. She got visited by two friends of Paolo and now wears a permanent smile, ear to ear.
“Okay, baby, I wanna,” I say.
“Good girl,” Paolo says. “Go suck me some dick, lie back and pretend it’s me humpin’ ya, and remember who keeps you safe around here.”
I return the phone to my pocket. Shit, stop shaking, calm down. I look around again, just in time to see him getting up and heading toward one of the exits. Seems like Lady Luck isn’t on his side tonight. I tail him—it’s not difficult; he’s walking the careful walk of the slightly hammered.
Once outside, he finally pauses by a Dumpster and slumps against it. He burps, loudly. I go up to him and gently touch his arm.
“Hey, Daddy, it’s me,” I say. “It’s Rosie. Your little girl.” He stares at me with out-of-focus eyes.
“Wha’ the fuh?” His breath stinks of beer and nachos. His belly strains at his T-shirt, faded AC/DC decal and stained with something bad.
“You must remember me,” I say. “You used to read me stories at bedtime? Bathe me and Cassie when Mom was out working?”
“Sorry, lady, I think you want someone who gives a shit.” He’s sobering up quic
kly, confronted by a madwoman. He shakes his head, snorts, and tries to shuffle away.
The redness descends on me—my scalp starts to burn and crackle, and my heart is pounding like a drummer on acid. I grab the photo out of my back pocket and thrust it in his face.
“That’s me and Cassie!” I cry. “The last time we were happy! When you used to love us and tell us that we were your only girls and that no one made you feel like we did! We didn’t tell, Daddy! We didn’t tell!”
Now he’s scared, eyes wide, and he’s trying to run, but I kick him—hard—in the leg and he goes down. “I didn’t know Mom would come home early, I didn’t know she’d throw you out! You shouldn’t have left us, you motherfucking bastard!”
I stand over him, raise my foot, and then bring it down, over and over and over, just to stop the screaming. Whumpf! That’s for Mom, who cried herself to sleep for weeks, steadily drank herself into a stupor and out of a job, and then calmly stepped out in front of a train at Mayhew Crossing one bleak Thanksgiving.
Whumpf! That’s for Cassie, who felt so mixed-up and confused that she got herself pregnant by the first hick who snuck his hand down her pants, and who now has five snotty brats, a trailer home in the asshole of Crapsville, and a husband who beats her up on a regular basis to remind her how lucky she is.
The final heel in the face is for me, one of the hardest-working whores in Vegas, who has to keep turning tricks before her face and body give up on her, because she knows no other fucking trade, because somewhere and somehow a guy has to love her the way her daddy loved her. I turn over the sniveling wreck with my toe. Better make this look like a robbery. I feel inside his jacket pocket and pull out a wallet.
I take the bills and shove them down my shirt. I pull out his driver’s license. Hmm, so he calls himself Mike LaSalle now. Then I check his date of birth.
Oh no.
Fuck.
He’s only twelve years older than me. He can’t be my daddy. But he looks like him.
Doesn’t he?
I turn to Daddy—Mike—and I can’t be sure but I think he’s stopped breathing.
Shit, not again.
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN OUT OF THE GUTTER.
Nicola Kennington is a pseudonym. She is based in the United Kingdom, but has a soft spot for San Francisco. She gets inspiration from news and songs, and conversations that she overhears on trains and buses. She wrote her first crime story just to see if she could do it, and is now scared that others are clamoring to get out of her head. Still, as her mother says, better out than in.
COUNTDOWN
* * *
* * *
John Kenyon
10…
We were so close that her heart and my heart were touching, as if fused together. She looked up at me, her eyes clouded with confusion.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I have a confession,” I said. “I’m afraid it’s going to tear us apart, but I can’t keep on like this.”
“Oh God. I should have known,” she said. “Too good to be true. What, you’re married?”
“No. Remember when you said it was the worst thing and the best thing to ever happen to you? Well, please keep both possibilities in mind.”
9…
It was the first time we had made love with the lights on. It wasn’t teenage apprehension or the shame of flabby thirtysomethings gone to seed. There were simply things she didn’t want me to see. I knew they were there. They didn’t affect me. At least not the way she thought. She was worried about the surface, how she looked. But I was in love, and appearances didn’t matter. She was beautiful, and the flaws did nothing to take away from that. She was baring herself to me. I felt like it was time to reciprocate.
8…
“I really don’t mind the scars.”
She stood looking at herself in a full-length mirror affixed to the back of the bedroom door. She turned this way and that, twisting to find the right angle to take in another part of her body. In bra and panties, the scars were clearly visible. They snaked up her forearms, made red splotches on her lower legs and angry welts along her neckline.
“You don’t mind them, do you?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Now come to bed, and this time let’s leave the light on.”
7…
“I don’t know how I would have gotten through this without you,” she said.
She sat next to me on the couch in my apartment, her legs up under her, her head on my chest. I didn’t respond, simply ran my fingers through her hair. It had grown out into a bob that made her seem younger.
“I kind of feel like I’m falling for you,” she said.
“That’s not a surprise,” I said, taking her by the shoulders and pulling her upright. “I’ve been taking care of you.”
“No,” she said. “It’s something more.”
6…
Mr. Jennings paced back and forth across the back room. I caught a glimpse of collegiate flesh through the door to the front of the tanning salon.
“Is this going to be a problem for us?” he said.
“No, sir. It’s under control. It’s strictly professional.”
“It had better be,” he said, stopping directly in front of me. “There’s no room for guilt in this business, David.”
I nodded. “It was my mistake. I’m just trying to make it right.”
“Just don’t make it any worse.”
5…
“You’re doing what?”
Chris had just gotten back from picking up payments. We were sitting in the back of the salon.
“It’s only until she gets on her feet. I’m responsible, so I thought I’d help her out.”
“Well, she is hot. Saw her picture in the paper,” he said. “What did the fire do to her?”
“She has scars, but the doctor said they’ll fade with time.”
“Guess she won’t be coming in here anytime soon,” Chris said with a laugh. “These piece-of-shit beds would finish the job.”
4…
“Did you get that from me?” We were on my couch, watching TV. She had pulled aside the collar of my button-down to reveal a small, red scar in the shape of a heart.
“I guess. It’s just like yours,” I said, pointing to her neck. “Your necklace must have heated up in the fire and branded both of us when I carried you out.”
“I still don’t know how to thank you.”
“There’s no need,” I said. “Right place, right time. I was lucky.”
“No,” she said. “I’m the lucky one.”
3…
I wheeled her to the hospital door and then helped her up and led her to my car. “You’re sure you want to do this? I’ll be getting in your way.”
“Nonsense. I have plenty of room.”
“Okay,” she said. “I guess I should expect no less. You didn’t miss a day the whole time.”
“Figured you could use the company. Now I figure you can use the help.”
“My guardian angel,” she said, rising onto her tiptoes to give me a kiss on the cheek.
“Something like that.”
2…
I rushed in, pulling my jacket over my head to repel the flames already licking along the walls. The screams were coming from a bedroom in the back. I kicked in the door and found her trying to open a window that had been painted shut. I grabbed a blanket and picked her up in my arms. Holding her tight against me, I rushed back through the blaze and toward the sanctuary of the front yard.
1…
I packed the explosives next to the natural gas line that fed the furnace. It needed to burn so hot that no one could determine a cause. Mr. Jennings had made that clear. I wasn’t sure if it was an insurance thing or something more. He assured me the house would be vacant.
I stepped out to my car parked halfway down the block, and whispered a countdown under my breath. I fingered the trigger, heard a muted blast, and then everything was aflame. Then I heard the scream.
THIS STORY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THRILLSKILLSNCHILLS.
John Kenyon is executive director of the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature organization, edits Grift Magazine (GriftMagazine.com), and has contributed crime-fiction short stories to a number of publications. His story collection, The First Cut, is available from Snubnose Press.
ATM: GET CASH INSIDE
* * *
* * *
Jonathon King
This morning was the first and only time I ever lied about it, and wouldn’t you know it, the falsehood could have gotten me killed.
I’d always told friends, acquaintances, my mom, the cops, anyone who asked if I carried a gun on the job: “No. It’s not worth it. It would only cause more trouble. Screw the NRA. You pull one, they’re gonna pull one.” So why lie today?
Mine is a unique occupation. I work for an independent ATM company. I fill and fix cash machines in Miami-Dade County. I do this alone; no partner, no armored car, no uniform, no box or bag. I walk into Kwik Stops, 7-Elevens, Brotherhood Grocery, U-Gas, the Pink Pussycat, and dozens of other joints with thousands of dollars in unmarked twenty-dollar bills in my pockets. I open the machines with keys on a ring, the safe doors with combinations stored in my head. I try to be unassuming when I take the bricks of cash from my cargo pants pockets and transfer it into the interior dispensers. But who am I kidding? Everybody who takes two seconds to notice me opening and crouching down at an ATM knows what’s up. The guys hanging out at 60 Liquors in Liberty City call me “money man,” as in:
“Sup, money man? First of the month, papi. Load it up good.”
Incognito? Bull. Not in this world. So I do what I do two dozen times a day. And even though some people say I’m a fool, I say it’s an honest job. Or it was until this morning, when I lied.
Kwik Krimes Page 21
