The Dame Did It

by Joel Jenkins

  Hazel tightened up her father’s jacket against the cold air. The trick would be to keep it open enough so as not to reveal her feminine curves, but tight enough that it would not get in her way. She’d need to have access to the hidden gun tucked in her waistband.

  She reached up to run her hands through her hair out of long running nervous habit, and at that moment the reality of the situation hit her full force like an oncoming train. The beautiful, curly hair her father always loved and got her attention at the clubs, now roughly hacked off and piled up in a washroom back home. She doubted it would be in any condition to sell for wigs, but no way could her father’s hat have fit even with it all bundled up. How she’d ever be able to go on stage after tonight Hazel did not know. She wasn’t even sure there would be another performance after tonight. Even if she lived, Hazel wasn’t sure she’d have the heart to keep on singing. She feared what she would learn this night would change her life so completely that she didn’t know where things would go next.

  Hazel crept slowly and carefully through the hallways of the old abandoned clothing factory. To think, at one point this place employed many people who made the very kinds of clothing her grandfather sold in his shop. Also, it would be the very same factory where her then dockworker father met her mother when the family came to tour the location. Tonight, Hazel vowed to find the person who had called for her father’s murder and bring that person to justice, closing a chapter in her life.

  At one point, she saw the man Cora called Bertram standing on the other end of a scaffold walk, looking down on an empty factory floor that once mass produced clothing. She stepped out on the scaffold walk, and it creaked, causing him to turn.

  “Cora?”

  Bertram turned, and realizing his visitor was not Cora, he turned and fled.

  Hazel chased the man down the corridors of the abandoned factory, down hallways that seemed as if they would go on forever. The object of her pursuit definitely gained an advantage by knowing the area far better than she. Still, Hazel refused to give up. This person stole her father’s life, and that of the man who managed her singing career. Even after all these years, it seemed this person made it his business to destroy her life. Hazel drove herself to make sure that would not come to pass.

  Around corners and up stairwells she followed her target, all the way to the top floor. She just barely managed to keep him in sight, though the unfamiliar shoes slowed her somewhat. Hazel didn’t dare call after the suspect to distract him as that would give away her identity, and the tables might easily turn if the man realized his pursuer to be female.

  At last, her target ducked into the old foreman’s office at the end of the hall. It dead ended here with nowhere else to go. Unless, perhaps as Hazel did herself to leave home, her target knew a way to safely get out the windows. She was not going to hesitate any longer to give him the opportunity.

  Hazel Atwood looked into the eyes of the man she knew gave the orders to end her father’s life, and that changed her Aunt’s life forever by abandoning her with a child. Staring him down without fear Hazel found herself looking at a pair of eyes which showed no ounce of compassion for humankind. They reflected back a cold, heartless, wooden sort of soul. Now she struggled to maintain a poker face, to not let him see the shattered little soul left behind when her daddy went away.

  My heart it aches remembering you

  And everything you used to do

  But now you’ve left and gone away

  Leaving me alone to stay

  It’s all tragic like a torch song

  Hazel heard her heartbeat race more and more, just like the intensity of the song increasing. Tension gripped her muscles as her finger moved to activate the trigger just as her father showed her as a little girl. He told her someday she’d need to defend herself.

  Time has passed and still I know

  My heart it cannot let you go

  You still live on inside

  And I have nowhere to hide

  It’s all tragic like a torch song

  That moment would be today. Right now would be an act of protection, but also an act of vengeance. If she did this, the man would never be able to hurt anyone again. Not like he’d hurt a teenaged girl named Hazel Atwood, and certainly countless others.

  She heard the sound of the bullet leaving the gun, of her target’s body hitting the wall from the force of the blow. Hazel took in the slithering sound as he slid down the wall and collapsed in a heap to the floor. She hadn’t missed. Daddy taught her well.

  Then Hazel realized the shot hadn’t been her own, and that she in fact heard the sound of a bullet whizzing past her. Hazel looked at Bertram, clutching desperately at his chest as blood oozed out from it.

  Slowly Hazel turned to look behind her to find her former singing manager’s wife standing there, holding a smoking gun pointed in Bertram’s direction. Her eyes emanated sheer anger. Slowly the woman lowered the gun.

  “Cora, toots,” Bertram coughed as he struggled to speak. “It didn’t have to end this way. Your husband wasn’t any good for you. That’s why I offed him, so you would see the light and come with me where you’ve always belonged.”

  Cora didn’t respond but kept the gun lowered. Hazel walked over to Cora, who stood rigidly with the gun still in her hand.

  “You want him to die, don’t you?” Hazel deduced. “Cora, this won’t bring your husband back.”

  “Stop meddling, Atwood! My poor late husband was a good man who just got in the way. That’s not what this is about. Bertram and I, we’ve got more personal matters to deal with.”

  Bertram collapsed to his knees, having lost enough blood to no longer be able to stand fully.

  “I should shoot you back for what you’ve done,” he coughed. “But I can’t bring myself to.”

  Hazel focused on Cora. “Listen, Cora. I’m going to try and save him. If you feel you need to shoot me, I’m not going to stop you. But I can’t let him die. I now realize I was wrong.”

  Hazel ran over and tried to do what she could to help stop the bleeding, but made sure to keep talking to Cora. “Cora, your husband paid me to follow you around. He feared you were getting in deep with some sort of trouble. I know that you had an eye on Bertram. So why shoot him?”

  “He wouldn’t give me what I wanted,” Cora said coldly. “All the money and the power, and I could not get the one thing I wanted most.”

  “What could be so important that it’s worth possibly getting sent to jail?”

  Cora stood there quietly and did not answer. Hazel finished what she could to help Bertram.

  “Why are you doing this?” he spoke quietly.

  “My father may be long dead thanks to you, but my Aunt Luella Wall is still very much alive and deserves to be able to come face to face with the man who ran out on her and changed her life.”

  Just then, Hazel looked over at Cora, shocked to find that Cora had it pointed at both Bertram and herself.

  “Cora, what are you doing?”

  “You said that your Aunt who runs the clothing store is Luella Wall.”

  “Yes I did,” Hazel replied, stunned. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

  “Luella Wall happens to be my birth mother. She gave me away. She doesn’t love me.”

  Hazel slowly looked back at Bertram laboring for breath. Things started to click into place. That meant Cora and Bertram’s relationship never was romantic in nature. If Cora’s statement held true, then she would be Bertram and Luella’s daughter.

  “So the one thing you wanted from Bertram was the love of a father and he couldn’t give it.”

  “Finally she gets it,” Bertram whispered. “You’re slower at putting the pieces together than your old man. I knew Luella hired him to track me down years later but at the time I didn’t know why this gumshoe tailed me. Finally one night me and some of my boys ambushed him, and tortured him until we made him sing. Then I learned about all the connections, and about Cora, though he d
idn’t know her name. Your father may have been a big, strong man, but in the end we took control, and his life with it. Sadly, he also found out too much about what was really going on with my plans. Couldn’t let that knowledge get out.”

  Now anger swelled within Hazel. Bertram reminded her of the original mission, why she undertook all this to begin with. Originally she’d saved his life to try to allow her Aunt closure, but now that she knew Cora to be the missing daughter, things took a very different turn.

  “All those years my Aunt Luella suffered after being led astray by a scum like you. My father lost his life on your orders while trying to find you after you fathered Cora. Cora’s birth kept my Aunt Luella from ever finding a happy life. Now Cora, you’ve tried to kill Bertram. I’m beginning to wonder how I can let either of you keep living; your existence continues to hurt me and the people I love.”

  “Looks like I’ll be making my exit soon,” coughed Bertram. “It’s curtains for me, toots.”

  Bertram fell back limp, dead. Hazel looked over at Cora, whose face remained emotionless.

  “For goodness sakes, he’s your father! Don’t you feel anything?”

  “No. Neither of my parents loved me. Why should I feel for them?”

  “That’s not true. Luella didn’t want to give you away. Let me take you to her, introduce you.”

  “I’m really not interested.”

  Hazel heard the click of the gun. Without pause, Hazel shot at Cora before Cora could shoot at her. Her father trained her well in hopes she would be ready for self-defense. To Hazel Atwood, tonight’s actions constituted a sort of self-defense—the protection of the emotional self. She hoped her Dad would forgive her for the shootings, wherever he might be. As to what Aunt Luella might think, she didn’t know how in the world she would tell her.

  “Well played, Hazel Atwood. Welcome to the family.”

  Hazel looked up at the man whom she’d found captivating from the moment they met.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “My name is Edmund Atwood. You are my granddaughter, and your father was my son.”

  Hazel looked at him doubtfully. “My father said all his family was dead.”

  Edmund shook his head sadly in the negative. “He did not mean it in the literal sense, my child. By that turn of phrase he meant dead to him. In your father’s youth, we lived well, and he dreamed of being a police officer. His mother then got sick, and caring for her meant he couldn’t complete the schooling he needed. After her death, he got mad at our family and left to forge his own future to not be reliant on us.”

  Hazel shuddered at the idea she’d been captivated by the man who now appeared to be her grandfather and somehow quite all right with being absent from her life for years.

  “But you look like you are doing well enough for yourself without your wife or your son, or caring about your granddaughter.”

  “When the market crashed, I lost all my money. That’s why I went into the speakeasy business. Ultimately, when I needed someone to look into why my booze runs stopped happening. When I told you at our earlier meeting that I’d wanted out, that only became true after my son died; after that, all the booze profits in the world didn’t mean much. Turned out Bertram was rerouting the profits for himself. I hired my son. I knew that he and his little girl really needed the money, and he finally gave in to his pride and took it. I didn’t know I would send my own son to his grave. All I have left is my newfound money, but it doesn’t make me happy. I want someone to share it with.”

  Hazel looked around her at the dead bodies of Cora and Bertram.

  “Even someone you’ve seen just kill someone?”

  “Yes, even so. In fact, we better contact the police to clean up this mess. Tell them that you shot in self-defense before they could hurt either one of us. Which is the truth after all, at least as far as you’re concerned.”

  Hazel looked down at the dirtied clothes she wore.

  “And how exactly am I supposed to explain this?”

  “You’re an entertainer, my dear. Surely you can come up with some sort of costuming reason that explains the outfit and hair, and how it just so poorly timed with ending up here. As to why you were here, admit that you came here to meet your grandfather. No sense hiding it now. The bodies will have this all over the news.”

  Hazel and Edmund headed out the foreman’s office door.

  “So what were you doing here anyway? Did they kidnap you? Were they planning to hold you for ransom?”

  “My reason for being here was to complete a business transaction, one I didn’t expect to live through. But you saved me.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Bertram and I were to meet here and go over the final papers for him to buy this abandoned factory from me. He didn’t know it was me, all he had was a company that I controlled but I wanted to carry this final step out personally. I’d done it as a trap to hope to lure him back into town, but also hoped you’d figure out who he was in time and get here as backup since I figured Bertram would want to take all the money I have—which you did and I thank you.”

  “Thank you, I guess,” Hazel said. “You got plans for this place? Now that the deal’s off I mean.”

  “Actually I do have a thought,” Edmund said as they walked outside into the dark night. “I was thinking it might make a good converted nightclub once the investigation wraps. The history may add some mystery and intrigue. Our nightly main attraction performer spot would be open. Would you be interested? I hear it’s a passion of yours.”

  Hazel looked over at the newfound member of her family, still a bit dumbfounded and dazed by it all. “Maybe tonight won’t end tragic like a torch song after all.”

  SHIKATA GA NAI

  by

  Percival Constantine

  — :: —

  Kyoko Nakamura lowered the Seven Stars cigarette to the tray and tapped it with her thumb to discard the loose ash from the smoldering end. With her head lowered slightly, her long, dark hair masked her face. She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, who could easily make herself look ten years younger when she chose to apply make-up.

  But tonight wasn’t one of those nights. Tonight she sat in a corner of the fifth-floor shot bar, the counter up against the window overlooking Osaka’s Shinsekai neighborhood. Kyoko raised the highball to her lips and sipped it slowly, staring at her reflection in the window. In that reflection, she saw another woman approaching her. This woman wore a long skirt with a fashionable top, and her handbag looked like it cost more than the rent Kyoko paid on her small apartment. The woman was quite a distinction from Kyoko’s burgundy top, jeans, and beat-up leather jacket.

  Setting the drink down, she stared at the woman’s reflection. “You’re late.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said while offering a slight bow. “Did we have to meet here?”

  “I like it here,” said Kyoko with a shrug. “Do you want something to drink?”

  The woman shook her head. “No, no thank you, Nakamura-san. I’d just like to know what you discovered, if you don’t mind.”

  “Have a seat.” Kyoko reached for the bag beside her chair and brought it onto her lap. She procured a black, plastic folder and laid it on the table. The woman carefully sat in the tall chair next to Kyoko and stared at the folder. She reached for it, but Kyoko placed her hand on top of the folder. The woman looked up and saw Kyoko staring at her with some sympathy in her eyes.

  “Before you look at this, I want you to know something,” said Kyoko. “You paid me to follow your husband, but it’s your choice whether or not you actually want to see what I found out.”

  “Do you think I shouldn’t?”

  Kyoko shook her head. “I can’t answer that. You need to decide for yourself. Some people can’t live with not knowing, they need certainty. But sometimes, that certainty can be far worse than paranoid suspicions. Some people can’t live with that knowledge.”

  The woman’s eyes drifted back to the fo
lder with Kyoko’s hand resting on top of it. She took a deep breath and offered a meek nod. “I think… I have to know the truth. I can’t live with the suspicion.”

  “If you’re sure.” Kyoko removed her hand from the folder and the woman reached for it. She pulled the documents and the photos out and looked over them. The woman gasped at the images.

  “Judging by the financial statements, it seems he’s been seeing her for at least a year,” said Kyoko. “He’s also paying the rent on her apartment.”

  Her hand went to her mouth, her eyes beginning to tear up. “I-I know her… she works at his company… met her at a function one night…”

  Kyoko sighed. “There’s more, I’m afraid. Keep looking.”

  The woman shuffled through the documents and then she stumbled upon it. Photos of the two of them entering a women’s clinic. “Judging by her increase in weight, I’d say she’s pregnant.”

  The documents and photographs fell from her hands, hitting her lap and scattering over the area. It took her a moment to realize that she’d dropped them and by that time, Kyoko was already collecting and collating them once more.

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “It’s fine. I can destroy these if you’d like.”

  “No… I want to hold onto them.”

  Kyoko nodded and placed them back in the folder. She reached for her cigarette and took a drag on it. “Would you like that drink now?”

  Her client shook her head, taking the folder and placing it in her handbag. She was clutching the bag so tightly, her knuckles began to whiten. “No… I think I should just go home…”

  “What will you do? Confront him?”

  “I don’t know… I need to think about it. I’m just a housewife, I don’t know if I’d be able to survive out there without him.”

  “I understand,” said Kyoko. “Shikata ga nai.”