The Brooklyn Rules

by Coleman, Reed Farrel

  THE BROOKLYN RULES

  collected short stories

  By

  Reed Farrel Coleman

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Killing O'Malley

  Requiem for Jack

  Requiem for Moe

  Pearls

  King Fixer

  Bathead Speed

  Reed's Bio and Bibliography

  Copyright Page

  A Preview of Counting to Infinity by J.L. Abramo

  A Preview of Saw Red by Bob Truluck

  A Preview of Wiley's Shuffle by Lono Waiwaiole

  Introduction to The Brooklyn Rules

  As I sit at my computer thinking about how to approach the subject of my own short fiction, I recall that the first fiction I ever wrote was a story entitled "Hector The Garbage Collector". I believe I was in sixth grade at the time and our assignment was to write a humorous story to read aloud to kids in the lower grades. Well, after penning that assignment, I pretty much abandoned short stories for thirty-five years. I spent much of my very early writing life working on overwrought poetry about a fourteen year-old boy's two favorite subjects: death and unrequited love. Eventually I moved beyond those two subjects and found I had a knack for poetry. Of course, poetry as a career is about as promising as painting watercolors at the bottom of a pool. In my thirties, I literally stumbled into the field of mystery fiction, but that's another tale for another day.

  I had the thoroughly mixed blessing of having the first long piece of fiction I ever attempted published as my first novel--Life Goes Sleeping (Permanent Press, 1991)--exactly twenty years ago. Although I have great affection for that book and its two sequels, Little Easter and They Don't Play Stickball In Milwaukee, I confess that I had no idea of what I was doing. To say I was raw is the height of understatement. Now on the precipice of the publication of my thirteenth and fourteenth novels--Gun Church (Audible.com, November 2011) and Hurt Machine (Tyrus Books, December 2011), I have been looking back to the firsts, and to the early works in my career.

  Somewhere around the late 90s, I got the bug to try my hand at short fiction again. I wrote a few, but I knew enough about writing by then to know they weren't up to snuff. I also knew that I enjoyed the process and felt each attempt helped sharpen my skills as a novelist. A few years later, short story anthologies began to make a comeback and I noticed that many of my friends and colleagues were included in these new collections. I also remember that my friend Victor Gischler, a superb writer, asked me if I'd be interested in trying to do a story for the Plots With Guns website edited by Anthony Neil Smith. As a guy who always loved a challenge, I said I would. I believe that story, "Kaddish" (not included in this collection), was published on the PWG site circa 2003 and was traditionally published in the Plots With Guns Anthology in 2005.

  The stories included in The Brooklyn Rules are the stories that followed immediately in the wake of that first story. These stories--"Requiem For Moe", "Requiem For Jack", "Pearls", "King Fixer", "Killing O'Malley", and "Bathead Speed"--are a window into a writer teaching himself craft. In fact, the title of this anthology is a kind of homage to that very thing. Growing up in Brooklyn when I did, a kid had to teach himself a lot of things--a loving family and great friends notwithstanding. I have always thought of that self-education as one of the Brooklyn rules. Some of these stories, like "Pearls", "Bathead Speed", and "Requiem for Moe", were written for specific publications. "Requiem for Jack" and "King Fixer" were written because I felt like writing them. Both found their way onto the pages of Crimespree Magazine. "Killing O'Malley" was written under my pen name Tony Spinosa for Hard Boiled Brooklyn, an anthology I edited.

  I have to take a moment to thank my friend Ken Bruen for the kindness of allowing me to use his Jack Taylor character in two of the stories. I also have to express my gratitude to those anthology editors who had enough confidence in me to invite me into their collections when they had no good reason to believe I could actually do what they asked.

  Reed Farrel Coleman

  Lake Grove, NY

  October 8, 2011

  Back to TOC

  Killing O'Malley

  (written as Tony Spinosa)

  Originally published in Hardboiled Brooklyn (Bleak House, 2006)

  Though only pushing forty, Pete Connell was a bitter old fuck, the kind of man to turn the Host into ashes at the touch of his tongue. Body of Christ, my ass! He was the worst kind of bitter old fuck, an impotent and drunken one and a liar to boot. His shamed relations claimed a thousand reasons for Pete's sour spirit, their favorite centering on the horror of D-Day.

  "Oh, poor Peter," they would say. "The war done him in. His heart sopped up the horror at Omaha Beach, and his soul broke in the face of so much death. And the bottle … It's ruined better men than himself."

  Eloquent for sure, but utter bullshit. The only sand to have touched Pete's boney white feet had come from Brighton Beach. There were too many Jews for his taste at Manhattan Beach. And the closest he'd come to D-Day combat was slapping around a two-buck whore in Omaha, Nebraska, for laughing at his limp dick. She'd slashed his face with a straight razor for striking her.

  "Kraut schrapnel!" he'd bark whenever anyone asked about the scar.

  Perhaps the weakest excuse of all was the drink. In the overall scheme of things, Pete Connell had certainly brought more troubles to the bottle than the bottle to him. No, some men are just bitter born. He was one. There was but one pleasure, one joy in the miserable bastard's existence, his beloved Dodgers. Them Bums were it for him. Forget Kelly green Irish blood, Connell bled Brooklyn Dodger blue.

  That night, the night at Muldoon's when the news fell on the patrons' heads like a British Comet falling out of the sky, Pete Connell was already feeling it. He was already several sheets to the wind, beer and bile indistinguishable to his palate. And what made the news that much worse to bear was the messenger. Pete Connell despised Michael Duke for everything Duke was and he was not.

  Whereas Connell had pissed away his police career--taking a five-buck bribe from a colored whore and getting caught in the act--Duke had built his American dream out of near death and dust. Then again, Pete Connell always sold cheap. Even now, as the produce man at the Packers Supermarket on Kings Highway, Connell had sown the seeds of his own demise. For months he'd been selling a quarter of his daily order to Marinelli's Green Grocer on Avenue P for ten cents on the dollar and putting the shortages down as spoils. Ten cents on the dollar, that was Pete Connell.

  Michael Duke had come to the States after the war with the first wave of refugees and camp survivors. When he arrived in Brooklyn in '46, he was Mikhail Dukelsky, a twenty-one-year old from Kiev who had exploited his wits and math skills to impress his Einsatz Groupen masters enough to last three years under their blood-red thumbs. He had used his ten-plus years in New York to change more than his name. Now a citizen and a CPA employed by the city, he lived a quiet, comfortable life with his wife and newborn son in a nicely appointed two-bedroom flat on Avenue H. He'd even purchased a plot of land in the Catskills on which he someday hoped to build a summer cabin.

  His one selfish pleasure was his after-dinner stroll to Muldoon's Tavern at the junction of Nostrand and Flatbush Avenues. Mike enjoyed the serenity of the Brooklyn College campus as he made his way to the bar for his nightly stein of Rheingold. It relaxed him, strolling across the peaceful green quadrangle, stopping to gaze up at the clock mounted atop the tall white steeple. He loved the chiming of the bells. In the Ukraine, there were clock and bell towers too, thousands of them. Not even the Nazis and accursed Soviets could have destroyed them all. But Mike Duke thought the Brooklyn College steeple most beautiful of all. It was so un-European, so devoid of reli
gious burden. That night, however, he did not linger by the clock tower nor was his stroll to Muldoon's a matter of simple relaxation.

  "If it ain't Mike the kike," Pete whispered just loud enough for Duke to hear.

  Usually, Michael ignored the prick's asinine barbs. Compared to the inhumanity he had suffered at the hands of the SS, Connell's bigotry was usually no more than the buzzing of a fly. But just lately, it had begun to eat at him. Maybe it was the birth of his son, Alan, that had changed his attitude. That he had been forced to endure the hatred of others in the old country was one thing, but this was America, he was an American, and Michael would be damned if he would let small-minded cowards like Pete Connell poison his son's life. Tonight he would see to that.

  The bar was empty save for Connell, Muldoon himself, Hattie the Hooker, and the Professor--a bum who had Einstein hair and scribbled nonsense on Bazooka Bubble Gum wrappers.

  "Hey, Mike," Muldoon muttered, putting up a tall glass of beer. "How goes it?"

  "Thank you, Patrick," Duke said, placing two quarters on the bar: one for the beer and the other as tip. "As to your question, I fear it goes not so well."

  "How's that?" the barman asked.

  "I bring bad news."

  "What, someone blow up the Hebrew National hot dog plant?" Connell blurted out.

  "Very funny, Pete. Why not cut the guy some slack?" Muldoon snapped.

  "No, Patrick, that's all right. After I tell you my news, we will all need to find a way to laugh." Duke sipped his beer.

  "Now you got me curious, Mike."

  "Yeah, Heeb, you even got my attention."

  "You know I work for the City Budget Office, right?" Mike began. "And if you recall, I mentioned several months ago that I was working on a very serious project that involved Brooklyn."

  "Sure. Sure!" Muldoon snapped his fingers. "But you said you couldn't talk too much about it because you could get in hot water."

  "Yes, Patrick, you remember."

  "Enough with the suspense, Heeb," Connell snarled.

  "I guess I should just say it then. Here goes. The Dodgers are leaving Brooklyn."

  Pete Connell spit out his drink. Hattie lifted her head off the bar. Even the Professor stopped scribbling.

  "I like you a lot, Mike, but you shouldn't ought to joke like that, not if you wanna live to see sunrise."

  "I wish only that it was a joke," Mike said, holding his hands prayerfully. "But I swear on the souls of my murdered parents that I speak the truth."

  Grief grew heavy in the air as Michael Duke explained how Mayor Wagner tried calling Walter O'Malley's bluff and how O'Malley had basically told Wagner to go fuck himself.

  "He did a little Irish jig," Mike said, lifting his trouser legs and hopping from foot to foot. "He said Wagner should come visit him in L.A. and that he would find the mayor some nice seats in the Coliseum with the wetbacks, Japs, and Chinks."

  Of course, this last part was a complete fabrication, meant specifically for Connell's ears. Mike went on for about ten minutes, describing in excruciating detail how Walter O'Malley had taken great pleasure in his own greed and the thought of spitting on all of Brooklyn.

  "The things he said about us … I am embarrassed even to repeat them. I will tell you, I was sick to my stomach."

  "Go on," Connell demanded, "tell me what he said."

  "First," Mike said, putting a ten spot on the bar, "a round for us all. You too, Patrick."

  "Okay, kike," Connell said, "let's have it, every word."

  Mike suggested that he and Connell retire to a corner table and discuss it between themselves. He said he knew that Pete hated him, but that on this issue they were brothers, that every Brooklynite had one color in common, Dodger blue. Pete agreed. Michael left the money on the bar and told Muldoon to keep the drinks coming.

  Michael laid it on thick, pulling Pete's strings with every word, whispering so that only Connell could hear. First he told how O'Malley admitted to always hating greaseball guineas, stupid Polacks, and thick-skulled kraut bastards and that the only reasons he ever let niggers on his teams was because the sheeny Jew bankers demanded it. But he saved the coup de grace for after Connell's third free drink. That was when Mike explained how O'Malley hated his own people worst of all.

  "Pete, may I call you Pete?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Mr. O'Malley called you all a bunch of stupid micks, donkeys that couldn't think your way out of a potato patch. Said the Irish who'd come over after the famine were the dregs of the race, the very worst kind of shanty scum imaginable."

  Connell seemed almost in shock. He laid his head down across his folded arms.

  "It's okay, Pete," Mike comforted, placing a hand on Connell's shoulder. "Let's get you another. Patrick, another, please. "

  The barman brought over the drinks. When Muldoon returned to the bar, Mike suggested to his new friend that he compose a letter to the Dodgers' owner.

  "You'll speak for all of us, Pete," he whispered, "and on my honor, I will hand deliver it to Mr. O'Malley."

  "Hey nut job!" Connell yelled at the Professor. "Gimme your fucking pen or I'll snap your geek neck like a fucking toothpick!"

  The nervous little man ran out the door, but not before dropping his pen next to Mike's empty beer glass. Mike unfurled a bar napkin and began to write as Connell dictated. Muldoon tried listening in, but couldn't make out a word. Ten minutes later, Mike stood up and placed the napkin in his back pocket.

  "Goodnight, Pete. I'm sorry to have been the bearer of bad news."

  "Yeah, sure. You jus' remember t'do wha' you promised with tha' note," Connell slurred.

  "I do not think so, Pete. I don't think you meant what you had me write down. In a day or two, you might feel differently."

  "Gimme tha' fuckin' letta, kike, or I'll finish wha' those Nazis couldn't!"

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. Dutifully, he handed the folded napkin to Pete Connell, who made a show of balling it up and shoving it into his jacket pocket.

  "Now gedthefugouttahere!"

  On his way out, Mike slipped Muldoon a further five bucks and told him to keep Pete's drinks coming.

  "You're a better man than me, Mike."

  "He is very very depressed, Patrick. Tonight, I guess, we are all in mourning," he said. "I too am a little schickered or I would stay and watch Pete. He is in such a bad way. Good night, my friend."

  Two hours later, Pete Connell stumbled out of Muldoon's into the moonless night. Using walls, fences, parked cars to keep upright, he made his way home. He was way too drunk to notice either the cold rain or the man across the street who shadowed his every step and turn. When Connell slipped into a narrow alley between his building and the subway trestle, his shadow closed ground.

  "Who'zzzz there?" Pete slurred.

  "It is just me, Pete, your new friend."

  "Wha'?"

  That word formed Pete Connell's mouth into the perfect shape to receive the barrel of Michael Duke's Luger. Connell froze. That pleased Mike very much, but not quite so much as his timing.

  "Do you not recognize this pistol?" Mike taunted. "You remember, you took it off a dead Wermacht captain at Omaha Beach. You tell that story with such conviction to every new patron who comes into Muldoon's, surely the police will not question it. That's what the note in your pocket will say."

  Connell's eyes got wide with fear and sudden comprehension.

  "That's right, buddy, not your drunken ravings about killing O'Malley. A suicide note."

  As the subway rumbled by, Mike blew Connell's brain out the back of his head with the Luger he had taken off an SS captain at Bergen-Belsen. Michael had slit the Nazi's throat as the Allies approached and urinated on him as he bled to death. What was that old saying about dancing with the devil? You don't change the devil. The devil changes you.

  But he did not urinate on Connell's body. Instead he placed the dead man's right hand around the Luger's handle and let both fall back to earth. Then he replaced the note in the dead man's pocket
with the one he had composed as he waited for Connell to leave the bar. After calmly checking that things were just right, Michael Duke walked home to his apartment. There he peeled off his gloves and clothing, throwing them down the incinerator chute. After his shower, Mike stood silent vigil in his son's room, watching the little boy toss and turn in his crib until the sun came up.

  At about the same time, the cops were rolling over Pete Connell's stiff body and reading the suicide note taken from his pocket. It was a rambling diatribe. The poor man couldn't bear the thought of the Dodgers moving out of Brooklyn. He didn't want to spend his days missing his beloved team and obsessed with thoughts of killing O'Malley. It was just easier, the note said, to end his own life. When news of the Dodgers' pending move broke later that morning, the detectives understood completely. They felt the same way. All of Brooklyn did. That day, Mike Duke was the only happy man in all the borough.

  Back to TOC

  Requiem for Jack

  A Moe Prager Story

  Originally published in CrimeSpree Magazine #6 (May-06)

  It had been years since Pete Parson had moved south and they'd turned Pooty's Bar and the space above into money sponges in the shape of lofts. Tribeca, once a bohemian refuge, had long since been declared an artist-free zone by the City of New York, the last starving painter tarred, feathered, and exiled to Williamsburg during the end days of the last millennium. The neighborhood was scrubbed and bleached of real character so that now it was sprayed on the streets in the dark and chipped into the bricks by Mexican day laborers for a hundred bucks cash and lunch.

  But still I came to look at where Pooty's had been. I'd walked over from the Brooklyn store, across the bridge, down Chambers Street and up Hudson. The whole time with the book in my hand. Book indeed. I couldn't remember the last time I'd read a book or even held one that didn't have something to do with wine or the business. I tried counting back the years to when Sarah was a little girl and Katy and I would read her to bed. Sarah, a woman now, self-contained, moved away, a veterinarian, her curls gone to light brown with only traces of little girl red peeking out at her dad at Hanukkah.