EQMM, July 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Terribly bloody frightened, Zoe. Christ, she's wearing the same dress. And look, on the table—it's the bag."

  "Where is she?"

  "I don't know. Looks like some sort of hotel room, maybe."

  "Turn it up!"

  "I'm trying . . . there—speaker menu. That's it. ". . . anyway, at least he gave me the five grand. Had to, really, didn't he? What would he have done if I'd gone to the papers with the photos? He'd have been ruined, and his precious law firm, too. And Rourke deserved it. One night he told me about some young lawyer he had working for him . . ."

  "Steve—turn it off. Now!"

  "Zoe—it's Rourke. She talking about Rourke. You were right, love. She was seeing him. And blackmailing the creep, too, by the looks of it."

  "Just turn it off. Please."

  "No way. I'm listening on. ". . . and when the guy's wife wanted to end the affair, Rourke had him fired. Just like that, a promising young lawyer, and Rourke goes and kills his career, just because his wife wouldn't sleep with him anymore. And the bit Rourke really loves?—this guy's trying to sell camping equipment or something, working these long hours, and sometimes he pops round there to . . ."

  "Turn it off!"

  "No way! Zoe—this is me, isn't it? This ‘guy’ is me! And the wife's you! And the reason I got fired was . . . hey, no! Give it back, Zoe! Give that mobile back right now!"

  "It's not us. Not me, not you. I'm getting rid of it."

  "Liar! You've been seeing Rourke. Rourke, of all people!"

  "No!"

  "Oh, for God's sake, Zoe! How many other people got fired from his firm, then started selling tents? Give me the mobile back . . . What the hell have you done?"

  "Smashed it. We don't need it, Steve. We don't need any of it. I'm sending it back. It's cursed, or something . . . “

  "Cursed? Are you mad? You heard the woman. She was in deep with Rourke. And so were you! How long, Zoe? How long has this been going on?"

  "Nothing's been going on . . . It's just some sort of mix-up, that's all."

  "The only ‘mix-up’ there's been is you mixing it up with Rourke! I'm going over there now—going to have it out with him!"

  "Steve, don't."

  "Just you try and stop me, Zoe. I'll deal with you when I get back."

  * * * *

  "Rourke? . . . Yeah, it's me, Zoe. He's just gone. . . . Yeah, it worked a treat, just like I said it would. . . . Wherever you got the girl, you did well, very convincing. She's a natural, we can use her again. I've never seen Steve so mad, and he's on his way over to you now. Just do what I said and everything will be fine. Let him in, provoke him a bit more, then kill him. Reasonable force, you know the law. I'll phone the police and act the terrified wife, tell them my husband's on his way over to settle a score with his old boss. Hopefully, you'll have done the deed before they arrive. A night in the police station to explain things and you'll be released in the morning, and we'll be scot-free, my love. You merely defended yourself when a ranting ex-employee broke in. Then we simply have to deal with your wife . . . “

  "Hi, Zoe."

  "Oh my God . . . Steve, I thought you were . . . “

  "I know. I parked at the end of the street, doubled back, let myself in, and have had an interesting time listening to you on the phone. Quite the devious wife, aren't we? Or, I suppose, now you're going to tell me I've got it all wrong again, have I?"

  "Steve . . . “

  "Save your breath, Zoe. It was all lies, wasn't it? The whole thing a set-up, just to rile me enough to go round to Rourke's and confront him. There never was an eBay parcel, was there? You just cooked this thing up to get me out of the way, that's all. And like a sucker, I nearly fell for it. But then I got to thinking about the dress. More specifically, the last time I saw it. A law-society function, and I was stood close behind it. Someone bumped into me, and I spilled my wine over the back of Rourke's wife."

  "You?"

  "Yeah, me, Zoe. All very embarrassing at the time. Perhaps the nail in the coffin as far as my law career went. She was understandably furious. It got worse. I tried to mop it up. The zip got caught and the bloody thing tore. That tear right there. It's Rourke's wife dress, Zoe. And she definitely isn't dead—yet."

  "Steve, please, listen to me. It's all just a bit of a joke that got out of hand, that's all . . . “

  "And you know the weirdest thing, Zoe? The moment I ruined Rourke's wife's dress—that was the moment I knew there was a career to be made from a new line of designer clothing that wouldn't absorb spills or stains. And that's what I've been doing, developing prototype dresses from the same material used in my Japanese tents. Amazing, it is. You could have someone throw a shovelful of wet mud at you, and it won't leave a mark. I got my first real interest today. Got a feeling it's going to go big."

  "But I thought you were . . . “

  "I know. Guess you had your secrets—I had mine."

  "But this is really good news, isn't it?"

  "For me, Zoe. Not for you. I suggest you get out of here while you can. Perhaps go and see Rourke. Or maybe take one of the tents—go camping. It's over. You're free. I won't tell the police about your little scheme if you simply disappear. Or maybe I will—I haven't decided yet. Either way, it's time you left."

  "Steve . . . “

  "Bye, Zoe. Sometimes mud really does stick, doesn't it?"

  Copyright © 2010 Phil Lovesey

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  Fiction: WITHOUT A BODY by Lawrence Block

  Lawrence Block's latest book-length release is a triple volume of three erotic novels he teamed up with Donald E. Westlake to write some years ago. The two MWA Grand Masters alternated chapters, proceeded, as he says, “without an outline and without ever discussing plot or characters. . . . And,” he adds, “I don't think I've ever had more fun writing.” See Hellcats and Honey Girls from Subterranean Press. His new story for us is based on a real-life case most readers will recognize.

  What's going on?

  I'm in my own house minding my own business, and he motions me over. That Manny, whatever his name is, but one thing I'm sure of is, it's not Manny. And that Eva of his, her name's not Eva.

  Is she even his mother? She's old enough to be his mother, but the way they act, the way they look at each other, you'd think they were something else. Let me put it this way, it's not something I want to say.

  He calls me over, this Manny, like you'd signal for a waitress. In here, he says. Something you should see, he says. Stand here, he says. And there's this plastic sheet spread on the carpet, like the painters put down.

  I ask him what's this, what's it doing here. Just wait a minute, he says, and he takes this thing out of his pocket, and I'm starting to ask him what it is, and he's saying something, who knows what, and he reaches out with the thing and before I can move he touches my neck with it, and the next thing I know I'm up in the air.

  Will somebody please tell me what is going on?

  I am up in the air. I am floating. One minute I've got both feet on the floor and the next minute I'm up at the ceiling, and . . .

  Oh.

  I'm both places. I'm up here, but I'm down there, too. Lying down, on this plastic sheet on the floor. That's my body down there, but up here is—what?

  Me. Me, myself. Irene Silverman, the same person, no different, but without a body. It's down there. I'm up here.

  It. I.

  What am I, dead?

  I must be dead. I don't know what he touched me with, but it was like sticking your finger in a light socket. It gave me such a shock that it shocked me right out of my body. Like being struck by lightning, and I'm dead, and there's my body down there.

  No, wait a minute. I'm not dead. I'm out of my body, I'm here and it's there, but it's still alive. I could go back into my body and sit up and walk and talk.

  When I'm ready.

  "What are you waiting for?"

  It's her, the mother.

  "Go ahead, honey. Finish wha
t you started."

  He kneels down next to me.

  "The gloves, honey."

  He puts on a pair of clear plastic gloves. Everybody wears them lately. Nurses, doctors. The girl who cleans your teeth. The clerk in the food market. In the market it's a sanitary thing, but the others are afraid of AIDS.

  So what's with the gloves? I'm an eighty-two-year-old woman, does he think I've got AIDS?

  Oh.

  His hands are on my throat.

  * * * *

  It looks so small, my body.

  I was always short, but a person shrinks. You get used to being short, and then you get shorter.

  Some system. What genius thought it up?

  I guess I'm dead now. I feel the same way, floating up above everything, as I did before he strangled me. But my body was alive then, and he choked me, and the life went out of me like a cork coming out of a bottle. But not Champagne, it didn't pop. It just came out.

  So where's the white light? Where's the long tunnel with the white light at the end of it? Isn't that what's supposed to happen?

  You die and there's this tunnel and this white light, and every dead person who ever loved you is waiting to welcome you. And so on. People come back and tell about it. It was beautiful, they say, and I wanted to stay, they say, but it wasn't my time.

  Very nice, I used to think, but personally I'd rather go to Paris.

  But did somebody just make that up? If I'm dead, what happened to the tunnel? Where the hell is the light?

  Maybe that only happens if you die and come back. Maybe when you die for keeps, that's it. Lights out, end of story.

  So what am I doing here?

  * * * *

  All wrapped up.

  They wrap me in the plastic sheet, stuff me in garbage bags, seal me in with duct tape. What am I, meat for the freezer?

  "No body,” she's saying. “No DNA, nothing. No trace evidence. She'll disappear and they'll never even know what happened to her. And if they suspect, so what?"

  I'm watching while they put me in a big duffel bag and carry me out to their car. There's another sheet of clear plastic lining the trunk, and they lay the duffel bag on top of it. The trunk lid's electric, you don't have to slam it. You close it gently and it shuts itself the rest of the way automatically.

  They get in the car, and it pulls away, and I'm floating in the air watching them drive off with my body. And the next thing I know they're getting out of the car at the edge of a field. The trunk's open and he's carrying the duffel bag.

  There's a hole in the earth. They dug the grave ahead of time. I was walking around, having my breakfast, reading the paper, and all along there was a hole in the earth, waiting for me.

  The duffel bag goes in the hole. And the plastic sheet from the trunk of the car. And the gloves he wore.

  The grave's filled in now. “She's gone forever,” she says. “They'll never find her."

  They never do.

  * * * *

  Time is different when you're dead. You're someplace and then you're not.

  I'm around when they get arrested. And then I'm all over the place. People are talking about me—my friends, people from the neighborhood—and I'm there.

  But I don't really care what they say. I stop listening, and I'm somewhere else.

  I'm at the trial. Powerful circumstantial evidence, the prosecutor says. He reads her notebook, and it's all there. Everything they did, so they could steal my house.

  Who kills a person so they can steal her house?

  Nothing but circumstantial evidence, the defense says. How can you convict without a body? How can you know for certain that a crime has been committed?

  But I have a body. Listen to me. If I could talk to you I could tell you where to look. If I could take your hand I could lead you there.

  * * * *

  Guilty, the verdict comes, guilty of everything. Oh, she can't believe it. How could they convict her? There's no body, there's no DNA, so how on earth could they convict her?

  Over a hundred years for each of them. I'm here, floating, seeing, hearing, and the sentence comes and the gavel comes down and they take them away in handcuffs.

  It feels like I've been holding my breath all this time. That's ridiculous, I don't have lungs to hold a breath with, but that's how it feels. And now I let it out, this breath that I haven't been holding.

  And now? They're done, they'll be in prison as long as they live, but what about me? Am I stuck with these two forever?

  Oh.

  Oh, there's the tunnel. It's like a whirlpool, an eddy, but not down. Through, it goes through. And there's the white light they all talked about, and it's so bright. I never saw anything so bright. It should hurt your eyes, but it doesn't.

  It's beautiful. And, oh my God, look who's here . . .

  I have to say, it was worth the wait.

  Copyright © 2010 Lawrence Block

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  Fiction: DANCING IN MOZAMBIQUE by Dixon Hill

  With ten years’ service in the U.S. Army behind him, first as a military intelligence analyst, then as a Special Forces engineer sergeant (a Green Beret explosives expert), Dixon Hill is clearly writing of what he knows in this story of conflict and murder on and off the field of battle. A native Arizonan, Mr. Hill has a degree in journalism and contributes to various publications, but his main occupation these days, aside from stay-at-home dad, is writing fiction. He debuted in our Department of First Stories in 2008.

  The Hotel Mozambique. Aptly named.

  It was a dingy, stained little five-story walk-up in a part of Chicago most residents tried to forget, wished they didn't have to read about in the morning paper. But crime reporters re-minded them with sensational headlines nearly every day.

  Of course, this was where I'd find Jai—where he'd go to ground. A man with a boy's name: Jai, Tarzan's son in the movies. Jai, the man who had never been a boy, except that he was bright-eyed, always laughing. And damn tricky.

  A little too tricky—he'd outsmarted himself this time.

  I knew a man could do that, could outsmart himself and live long enough to regret it. I'd seen it happen to other men, the first time thirty-odd years ago. I'd been a teenager then, nearing the cusp of twenty. Now I was graying up top, as if my weathered hair were storm clouds gathering over my brow. The African sun had burned my face to leather. My knees popped on cold mornings, but I tried to pretend they didn't.

  Gary Chandler had outsmarted himself and I'd seen it, when I was in the Rangers. That was back when I fought honorably in a war called dishonorable. I fought for my nation then; not cash. Or perhaps I fought for something else.

  I said it was to keep the dominoes from falling, so that South Vietnam might breathe free. But I'm a selfish man. In retrospect, I'm sure I was really fighting for myself—even then—to test my mettle, explore what I was made of. To discover who I was by walking the edge of that sharp, slippery ridgeline overlooking the Valley of the Shadow.

  Maybe I fought for selfish reasons all along. The difference was: I fought in that war—all the long months of three tours—with patriotism burning hot in my breast, while circumstance and people conspired to extinguish the flame.

  Gary Chandler outsmarting himself, that was a big bucket of cold water dumped on the spirit. Took me awhile to get over that one. Maybe I never did.

  Our Ranger company was posted to a firebase in the hinterland. We drew supplies from Saigon every two weeks—drove a small convoy of deuce-and-a-halfs down the hill, spent a night on the town, then drove the loaded trucks back out to the fire base. A three-day operation. And always, in Saigon, there were the half-castes, the street urchins fathered by G.I.s.

  Everywhere, they scampered about, always underfoot and with a hand outstretched. Yet, you could not deny them, these little girls and boys—all under ten, though most looked five or six—you couldn't turn your back on their ragged, soiled clothing, without feeling the phantom kick of guilt in the hollow pit
of your stomach. To see them, so young, outcast, scrabbling on the streets because no one wanted them. To know they would not be there, if we were not there.

  I could not turn my back on them, but I couldn't face them, either. I gave them chocolate and coins—threw handfuls in the air, so I could run off, escape while they scurried in search as if it were gold.

  We called them Street Monkeys.

  The Street Monkeys were the ones who told us what was happening to our supplies. Every two weeks, our convoys returned to the firebase missing supplies. Not much, just enough to be a nuisance. A few boxes of foodstuff or equipment. Boxes that started out on trucks in Saigon, but disappeared during the trip. The Street Monkeys explained that they were being stolen by Cong—our enemy, the Viet Cong guerillas—at a spot just outside town where a sharp bend in the road made it necessary to slow the convoy to walking pace. There, Cong ran out from the jungle, grabbed boxes off the back of the rear truck.

  Gary Chandler, our squad leader, formulated a special plan for dealing with the Cong. The next time we left Saigon, he rode in the back of the deuce-and-a-half I was driving. He had gotten the biggest meat cleaver in their inventory from the cooks, before we left the firebase. He held it ready in one hand, a .45 in the other.

  The convoy left Saigon with our truck in the rear; I let a large gap open between our vehicle and the one in front of us. The gap opened to a quarter mile by the time we left the city. As I slowed for the turn, I rechecked that my M-16 was charged and off safe, that my co-driver had his ready in his hands. I geared down and let the truck creep around the corner, chugging in granny low. We made it nearly all the way through the turn. I had begun to straighten out my wheels, was getting ready to up-shift. And then we heard the scream. And Gary screaming, too.

  I changed up gears, punched the accelerator, took us out of there. The truck bounced and rattled, raising billowing clouds of dust as I raced down the road for two minutes—branches and vines snapping against the windshield, whipping the canopy. Then I slammed on the brakes, grabbed my M-16, and ran back to join my co-driver at the tailgate—our weapons raised for action.

  There was bright blood on the tailgate—a great wet splash—like fire-engine red paint splattered over the olive drab, across the rusted patches where the truck's paint had long worn through.