November Short Fiction and More
Hello! This month’s issue of the Crime Cafe Magazine, includes Part Five of Just Call Her Marlo: Something Rotten.
I adapted it from the screenplay version I wrote here. This is actually an added scene, not in the original.
And here’s where we last left off!
*****
Here’s Part Five of JUST CALL HER MARLO: SOMETHING ROTTEN!
Elsinore Heights had two graveyards. One for the rich people and one for the really rich people. I took a chance that Hamlet’s family and close associates fell into the latter category.
I pulled my roadster up before a two-story brick building with a grandly columned entrance. The lavish cemetery stopped short of rolling out a red carpet for visitors.
Upon entering, I was greeted by a short man who introduced himself as Mr. Pharo. He had a gleaming smile and head of dark hair lacquered to his skull.
He demurred when I asked about Hamlet. “I’m not at liberty to discuss our visitors,” he said in a high-pitched, nasal whine.
I offered him a sawbuck. He gazed at it, then at me. “Well …” He let the word trail off.
I added two more. Pharo tried to grab the cash, but I pulled back a hand and slapped him across the face with it.
“Give,” I said.
Looking wounded, Pharo rubbed his cheek. “Okay, I’ll spill. Hamlet was here. The funerals were real, and someone made sure Hamlet found out, to draw him in. That’s all I know.”
I gave that a thought.
“Did you see Hamlet leave?” I asked.
He shook his head. Negative.
I gave it more thought, then reluctantly pulled out more money.
“For a bit more cash, would you let me search your offices?” I asked.
Pharo chuckled and took the dough. “Sure, sure. Why not?”
The office provided nothing in way of leads, except to confirm that Hamlet’s family pretty much owned the place. A quick look at the visitor’s log showed Hamlet’s name scrawled toward the bottom of a short list. Followed by an R. Smith and G. Jones. Real clever, guys.
###
Between Hamlet’s freaky pronouncements and his bloody thoughts, I was worried. Where would he go next? Home to confront his uncle or stepfather or whatever he was?
That was my best guess. I returned to my car and aimed it toward the Hamlet Mansion. Something rotten was going on and I needed to find the source of the stench.
COMING IN JANUARY 2024
The door to the interview room pushed open.
Good cop - dark hair with a little bit of silver, early 40’s but lean and fit, movie star-handsome, aging like oiled wood. On my best day, I should look so good.
“Hey Flint. Can we get you something? Water? Coffee?”
“I’m good.”
“You don’t look so good.”
Beveled edge to the words. Maybe he and his partner had switched hats.
“Wish I could say the same – can I get a Coke?”
“What?”
“Coke. Soft drink.”
“Sure. No problem. Anything else? Pizza all-dressed? Back rub?”
Yep. New hat. He scraped the chair along the hard, pebbled floor pulling it back to sit down. Slip-resistant in case they had to get into it.
“So, tell me again when you last saw your girlfriend?”
“Ex.”
“Right. Ex-girlfriend.”
“Three weeks ago. Give or take.”
“That when she dumped you?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“I’m not following.”
We had been through this once already, but I knew the drill.
“She showed up at the club where I work - with some older guy. Sharp-dressed guy - Brioni and Testoni’s.”
“Older?”
“Bout your age – maybe a few years younger.”
He grinned. Not mean, digging the dig. He wasn’t cut out for bad cop.
“That’s when she told you to move along?”
I smiled…but it was tougher than I expected.
“She didn’t need to say anything – he used her ass for a hand warmer most of the night.”
“So, you kicked his?”
“He got drunk, made a scene at the bar and I tossed him.”
“Broke his nose.”
“You’ve got the report. He swung at me twice before I laid a hand.”
He looked me over.
“You’re not the kind we usually see on the door.”
Five nine and 160 – I knew what he meant. We stared across the table at each other and then he raised his eyebrows …So?
“That was a question?”
He couldn’t help smiling again. He pointed to a spot over my left eyebrow.
“How did you get that? Tossin’ the wrong guy?”
“Nah. Rough ride.”
“Come again?”
“Rode rough stock for a living. Got hung-up.”
I ran my thumb over the scar – couldn’t help it.
“Hoof or hardpack – we never did figure it out.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Rough stuff. Broncs. Bulls. You know…rodeo.”
“You’re kidding me? Thought you were from Brooklyn?”
“Long story.”
He leaned back in his chair staring at me, balancing so the back two legs were touching the floor.
“Well, I’ll be damned. A real-life concrete, bright lights, downtown cowboy. You any good?”
I shrugged.
“It was a living.”
I had been top 10 for three years and won the whole thing the year before I got run over – made more than a million dollars and couldn’t hang on to any of it. It still hurt - in more ways than one. He let the chair tip forward onto the floor and got back on track.
“Was that the last time you had any contact with Dasha?”
Dasha. Hearing her name was like a fist in the belly – I felt something give.
The cop knew it wasn’t the last time. They had the police report.
“Last time I saw her?”
“Not what I asked.”
I waved at the manila folder.
“You’ve got it there.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
I looked down at my hands and back up. He was watching me. Not smiling...not even a bit. Narrow, focused, hungry, trying to get past skin and skull, spoon into the soft stuff.
Fuck you.
“I went by her apartment. I wa…”
“When was this?”
I looked at the folder before answering.
“Four nights ago. Thursday night.”
He nodded for me to continue.
“I wanted to talk to her.”
“To say what?”
“I don’t know. The usual shit you say when you’re breaking up. Why? You bitch. Same old, same old.”
What do they call it? The long goodbye. From almost the first minute, I could feel the end. It had been like being a kid sitting at the side of the road watching the cars drive through on their way to somewhere else. Spotting them from far away, a spark and glint through the heat haze, the thrill rising from beneath your belly, waving as hard as you could and laughing as the car drew closer, long and shiny and black and then it was by and gone and you tossed a hand at the trail of dust as the nickel dropped cold and hard.
She was the kind of girl who was looking for the backdoor before she knew your last name.
I looked up. He must have said something.
“Wake up, Flint, are you with me? I said what happened next?”
I shook my head clear.
“You know what happened – she wouldn’t talk to me and I wouldn’t leave and eventually she called the cops. I got hauled downtown.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“I don’t remember. I was drunk.”
“You do that often?”
“What? Get drunk and yell at my ex-girlfriend?”
“Just the first part.”
“Somewhere between too often and not often enough.”
“She claimed you threatened to kill her.”
“I don’t remember. Doesn’t sound like my style.”
“Did you go back there Sunday night?”
I shook my head and shifted in the chair, stretching my left leg, levering out some of the ache.
“No. I was working – 10 to 3.”
“On a Sunday night?”
“It’s a big night for the bar crowd – waiters, line cooks, bartenders. Their party night.”
“Where do you work?”
“You know this, detective. Boom Boom’s. Off Roosevelt.”
“Busy night?”
“Crazy. They bring in the banda bands. Mostly Mexican clientele. Weekend cowboys.”
“Any trouble?”
“No more than usual. We had to run a couple of knuckleheads. Nothing that broke skin.”
We both looked around as the door clicked open. His partner stuck his head in, gave a quick nod and ducked back out.
“Gimme a second, Flint, I’ll be right back.”
I looked around. The interview room was the usual – grim, rough pebbled floor, yellowed and scuffed, cameras in the corners, one-way window along one wall, cheap plastic table bolted to the floor and cheap plastic chairs that weren’t.
I tried not to think of the pictures I had seen – they had slid a crime scene photo across the table at me early in the interview looking for a reaction - she had taken one to the back of the head, neat going in, splintered meat coming out. And that had been the ending, somebody had worked on her for a while before they had killed her. Somebody who had been pissed.
I tried not to think of her, rag and bone on a stained rug. She had been crazy – a human Catherine wheel, spinning and sparking, either on fire or burnt. Trying not to think of her was like talking to the wind, like keeping still on the cracking ice, like trying to smile against the lash, against the gas. It was a clown’s prayer. It was a waste of time.
The door opened and both cops came back in. The older, pouchy black cop held the door open. The other one spoke.
“Your manager confirmed your story. You can go, Flint. But we may need to talk to you again.”
I stood up and my bad leg gave and I had to grab at the table.
“You OK?”
I nodded.
“Foot fell asleep.”
The black cop spoke as I went by.
“I still think you’re good for this. Just because you weren’t there doesn’t mean you’re not our guy.”
He spoke again when I was almost at the end of the hall.
“We’re not done with you, Einstein.”
He wasn’t being ironic. That was me. Einstein Flint. Another long story.
Chapter 2
“Hey, L’il Mike.”
“What’s doin’, bra? Sorry to hear about Dasha.”
Miquel Carillo – L’il Mikey – bar back at Boom’s. His real job was to bounce but Freddie liked to keep the big guys off the door – figured that putting weight on the door was like tossing seal meat in a shark tank. And L’il Mikey was big. Biggest Mexican I had ever seen.
I slid up onto a stool. Mikey leaned down, pulled out a cold beer and held it up. I shook my head.
“I’m on tonight.”
He crouched to slide bottles into the bottom fridges.
“Heard you got pulled in.”
I could see the top of his head.
“Yeah.”
“Fucked up, man.”
“I’ll say.”
The room was cool, but my neck and face felt hot and my eyeballs ground left and right like the sockets had been seeded with sand and salt. But I couldn’t keep them still. Sleep had been hard to come by.
“You remember the guy she was with that last night she was in?”
Li’l Mikey stood to pull another case off the bar onto the floor beside him but didn’t look over.
“Yeah, tough to forget. Bangin’. Too old for her but he was pulling it off.”
Now he looked at me and smiled.
“But no instincts and a heavy bleeder – bad combo. You messed up his gear, man. You think he’s in this?”
NOVEMBER’S NEW RELEASES INCLUDE (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):
The Manor House by Gilly MacMillan.
The Girl in the Vault by Michael Ledwidge.
Wages of Empire by Michael Cooper.
Win Lose Kill Die by Cynthia Murphy.
The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor.
It Ends at Midnight by Harriet Tyce.
The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries by various authors.
The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak. (I’ve actually managed to start this one.)
War Against the Mafia by Dan Dorsky & Mike Campi.
Blood on Their Hands: Murder, Corruption, and the Fall of the Murdaugh Dynasty by Mandy Matney.
The Great Gimmelmans by Lee Matthew Goldberg. (Started and still reading.)
Past Lying by Val McDermid.
The Bachelorette Party by Carissa Ann Lynch.
Sweet Thing by David Swinson. (Started and still reading.)
The Mayors of New York by S.J. Rozan. (Started and still reading.)
PLUS! Free Shipping on all purchases made from Bookshop.org through Monday, Nov. 27, 2023!
BONUS LINKS
100 Years of the Hard-Boiled American Private Eye (1922). Via The New Thrilling Detective.
Short Story Wednesday Review: Morale Was Down by Evan Ronan. Via Kevin’s Corner.
Dead Women (Second Place Winner of the Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction).Via Philadelphia Stories.
HB Muriel: Re-Reading The Abbess of Crewe. Via K.A. Leity.
WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #151: DUST OF FAR SUNS By Jack Vance. Via GeorgeKelly.org.
And a Short Fiction Contest!
Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction. Not currently open for submissions, but you may wish to bookmark that one. Click the link for details.
PLUS MY BOOK REVIEW ARCHIVES!
Family Ties Run Deep in ‘U is for Undertow’
Review: U IS FOR UNDERTOW (Putnam 2009)
Author: Sue Grafton
(review originally posted on January 4, 2011)
When I started this 21st installment in the Alphabet Series, I was afraid its charm was starting to wear thin on me. Even the familiar "My name is Kinsey Millhone ..." recitation at the beginning was coming off a bit too much like a drone. However, the initial interview with her young client Michael Sutton was intriguing enough to keep me reading, even if the questioning did seem a bit like it was intended to prompt exposition more than anything. Years before, as a small child, Sutton recalls witnessing the burial (possibly) of a kidnapped girl named Mary Claire Fitzhugh. At least, he recalls the burial of something by two men ("pirates" he calls them). This was right around the time the girl went missing, never to be found. She was presumed to be dead.
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