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- Herausgeber: Black Cat Weekly
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Welcome to our 150th issue.
This time, we have terrific original tales by Neil S. Plakcy, Britin Haller & Shane Gericke, Bob Tippee, and Teel James Glenn ... plus novels by Natalie Sumner Lincoln and Gans T. Field, and classic stories by Jack Williamson, Nelson S. Bond, Jack Sharkey, and Larry Tritten ... plus a solve-it-yourself mystery by Hal Charles ... all jam-packed into 521 pages! Hours of great reading await.
Here's the lineup:
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“The Shandiclere,” by Neil S. Plakcy [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
“The Campground Caper,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]
“So Many Shores in Crookland,” by Britin Haller & Shane Gericke [Barb Goffman Presents short story]
“Private Equity,” by Bob Tippee [short story]
The Three Strings, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln [novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“Shadow Hunt,” by Teel James Glenn [short story]
“The Bird of Time,” by Larry Tritten [short story]
“The Second Shell,” by Jack Williamson [short story]
“The Madness of Lancelot Biggs,” by Nelson S. Bond [short story]
“The Man Who Was Pale” by Jack Sharkey [short story]
The Pale Ones Shall Dance, by Gans T. Field [novel]
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 667
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TEAM BLACK CAT
THE CAT’S MEOW
THE SHANDICLERE, by Neil S. Plakcy
THE CAMPGROUND CAPER, by Hal Charles
SO MANY SHORES IN CROOKLAND, by Britin Haller & Shane Gericke
PRIVATE EQUITY, by Bob Tippee
THE THREE STRINGS, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
SHADOW HUNT, by Teel James Glenn
THE BIRD OF TIME, by Larry Tritten
THE SECOND SHELL by Jack Williamson
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
THE MADNESS OF LANCELOT BIGGS, by Nelson S. Bond
THE MAN WHO WAS PALE by Jack Sharkey
THE HAIRY ONES SHALL DANCE, by Gans T. Field
INTRODUCTION
FOREWORD
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2024 by Wildside Press LLC.
Published by Black Cat Weekly
blackcatweekly.com
*
“The Shandiclere” is copyright © 2024 by Neil S. Plakcy and appears here for the first time.
“The Campground Caper” is copyright © 2022 by Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet. Reprinted by permission of the authors.
“So Many Shores in Crookland” is copyright © 2024 by Britin Haller & Shane Gericke and appears here for the first time.
“Private Equity” is copyright © 2024 by Bob Tippee and appears here for the first time.
The Three Strings, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln, was originally published in 1918.
“Shadow Hunt” is copyright © 2024 by Teel James Glenn and appears here for the first time.
“The Bird of Time” is copyright © 1995 by Larry Tritten. Originally published in Pirate Writings, Spring 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“The Second Shell,” by Jack Williamson, originally appeared in Air Wonder Stories, November 1929.
“The Madness of Lancelot Biggs,” by Nelson S. Bond, was originally published in FantasticAdventures, April 1940.
“The Man Who Was Pale” by Jack Sharkey, was originally published in Fantastic Science Fiction Stories, December 1959.
The Pale Ones Shall Dance, by Gans T. Field, was originally published as a 3-part serial in Weird Tales, January to March 1938.
TEAM BLACK CAT
EDITOR
John Betancourt
ART DIRECTOR
Ron Miller
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Barb Goffman
Michael Bracken
Paul Di Filippo
Darrell Schweitzer
Cynthia M. Ward
PRODUCTION
Sam Hogan
Enid North
Karl Wurf
THE CAT’S MEOW
Welcome to Black Cat Weekly.
I can’t believe we’re already to 150 issues! There’s been a slow but steady series of changes since we first began, with the biggest being the addition of Acquiring Editors to bring in stories I wouldn’t have found myself. (Thanks to Barb Goffman, Michael Bracken, Paul Di Filippo, Darrell Schweitzer, and Cynthia Ward for taking up the editor’s pen for us over the last three years.) Our most recent staff addition is acclaimed author and artist Ron Miller, who has been providing us with stunning covers for the last few months (and gracing our pages with some terrific mystery stories).
Now, we have a submission portal to manage stories from authors (two from the issue came in that way), and we have more than a dozen other stories from the portal coming up. So yes, I do read and review all submissions. (The portal is at our website, blackcatweekly.com, should any of our readers care to submit a mystery or a science fiction/fantasy story).
If you’d like to join the Black Cat editorial team, I’d love to have a few volunteer first-readers to take a look at submissions. They’re coming in faster and faster as word spreads, and it’s getting harder for me to keep up. I would love to get BCW’s response-time to submissions down to less than a week. Email me at [email protected] if you’re interested. No previous editorial experience required, just an interest in reading stories and helping discover talent new and old.
Speaking of discoveries, please do share this special 150th issue with friends. You have my permission to forward it to anyone who might enjoy it. My goal for the next year is to double our readership. Black Cat Weekly remains one of the biggest bargains around for both mystery and science fiction fans.
As we look ahead to the next 150 issues, I definitely think we’re on the right track. So, on to more and even bigger things!
Now, here’s #150’s complete lineup—
Cover Art: Ron Miller
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“The Shandiclere,” by Neil S. Plakcy [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
“The Campground Caper,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]
“So Many Shores in Crookland,” by Britin Haller & Shane Gericke [Barb Goffman Presents short story]
“Private Equity,” by Bob Tippee [short story]
The Three Strings, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln [novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“Shadow Hunt,” by Teel James Glenn [short story]
“The Bird of Time,” by Larry Tritten [short story]
“The Second Shell,” by Jack Williamson [short story]
“The Madness of Lancelot Biggs,” by Nelson S. Bond [short story]
“The Man Who Was Pale” by Jack Sharkey [short story]
The Pale Ones Shall Dance, by Gans T. Field [novel]
Until next time, happy reading!
—John Betancourt
Editor, Black Cat Weekly
THE SHANDICLERE,by Neil S. Plakcy
One Saturday afternoon, my next-door neighbor knocked on my door. She and her roommate were flight attendants, and I had a soft spot for both of them.
“Hey, George,” Patti said, standing in my doorway. “Sandi has a crush on a singer named Jimmy Fowler, and she wants to go see him perform at this bar in Miami tomorrow night,” she said. “We heard the bar is kind of sketchy, so we were hoping you would come with us.”
“Which bar?”
“The Shandiclere,” she said. “It’s right on the other side of the Miami River from downtown.”
“I know where it is,” I said. “It’s a place where shady people conduct drug deals or find a hit man. The cops are all over it.” Sending the two of them unescorted to the Shandiclere was like thrusting Daniel into the lions’ den.
In addition to running my own private detection agency, which usually teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, I worked as a bouncer five nights a week at a gay bar called the Cockpit. Though the last thing I wanted to do on my night off was hang out at a skanky bar full of straight men, most of them criminals of one kind or another, I agreed to escort the two of them.
We drove over the causeway from Miami Beach in my 1958 lime-green Chevrolet Bel Air and navigated our way through downtown Miami. It was about nine o’clock on a Sunday evening, and the city was as dead as a vampire with a wooden stake in his heart. The storefronts on Biscayne Boulevard were dark, and the only people on the street were either ladies of the evening or workers on their way to midnight shifts guarding the doors of the rich or cleaning their toilets.
“How’d you hear about this singer?” I asked, as we drove.
“He was on a flight from New York, and Sandi flirted with him,” Patti said.
Sandi elbowed her friend. “I was just being sociable,” she said. “As soon as I heard his accent, I pegged him as from Tennessee, and I wanted to be extra nice to him.”
“He told us he was playing at this bar and invited us to come,” Patti said. “He is pretty good-looking.” She looked over and smiled at me. “Who knows, maybe he’s playing for your team, George, and we could hook you up.”
“I have my own man, thank you,” I said.
* * * *
The Shandiclere was in a two-story building nestled against the entrance to the South Miami Avenue bridge over the Miami River. Because so many of the local roads in the neighborhood dead-ended into the waterway, which snaked from the Everglades to Biscayne Bay, it had become a hangout for the kind of illicit characters that kept to the shady parts of this sunny city.
Patti and Sandi both wore cotton peasant blouses with flowing sleeves over long skirts. Both were pretty and blond, with shoulder-length hair and long beaded necklaces, and Patti had stuck a peacock feather in her hair.
I was surprised when I walked in to see Cliff Galanis at the bar. He was a regular at the Cockpit, and if he was hoping to get lucky at the Shandiclere, he was in for a world of trouble. I tried to hurry Sandi and Patti past him, but he reached out to me.
“George Clay,” he said. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a fan of Jimmy Fowler.” He leaned in close to my ear, and I smelled the cheap beer on his breath. “He’s straight as an arrow.”
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked.
He puffed up his chest like a peacock getting ready to spread his wings. “I’m his manager.” He looked over at Sandi and Patti. “You going to introduce me to your friends?”
Reluctantly, I did, and Patti was excited to ask, “Can we meet him afterwards?”
“I can make that happen.” He put one arm in Patti’s. “I have a table right up by the stage. Why don’t you ladies join me?”
There was nothing I could say to stop him, so we followed him to his table.
Jimmy Fowler was a striking figure, standing at six feet tall with a lean, athletic build. His sun-kissed, wavy hair fell just above his collar and framed a chiseled, square-jawed face. His voice had a country twang, and he sang songs about drinking down by the bayou, holding his baby close under the midnight sky. I saw his appeal—and if I wasn’t getting everything I wanted from my sweetheart, and Jimmy was so inclined, I wouldn’t have minded taking him out behind the bar for a quickie.
But instead, I shifted my legs to cover my interest, and focused on the music. After his set, Cliff waved Jimmy down to join us. He was just as handsome a guy in person as he was on the stage. His piercing blue eyes seemed to hold a depth of emotion that was reflected in his heartfelt songs. A well-groomed mustache and a hint of stubble on his chin added to his rugged charm.
“I promised Jimmy that if he’d come down here to Miami Beach for a while, I’d get him on The Jackie Gleason Show,” Cliff boasted.
“You can do that?” I asked.
“I’m a close personal friend of Rich Fazio, who books all the musical and variety acts. He was supposed to come here tonight to hear Jimmy, but I haven’t seen him yet. Jimmy still has another set to perform, though.”
Sandi joined my conversation with Rich, leaving the way clear for Patti to chat with Jimmy, and by the time he left to go back on stage, I could tell from the glow on her face that the two of them were getting along.
The girls had a noon flight the next day, though, so we couldn’t stay for the second set. I wished Cliff luck and led the girls outside, to the accompaniment of some hoots and catcalls from guys at the bar.
The girls just waved gaily at the men and took my arms, one on each side.
* * * *
I was in my office the next morning when I got a call from Frank Coyne, an attorney I had worked with in the past. He was a prominent figure on Miami Beach, gay and wealthy, though very discreet. “I understand you know Cliff Galanis,” he said. “I’d like to hire you to work on his defense.”
I sat up in my chair and grabbed a pen and a legal pad. “What’s he accused of?”
“First, you have to agree to work for me, so that everything we say is covered under attorney client privilege.”
“Sorry, I knew that. Yes, I’ll work for you on your defense of Galanis.”
“Excellent. He says you saw him last night at the Shandiclere, is that correct?”
“I did.” I explained how I’d come to be at the bar, and how Sandi, Patti, and I sat with Cliff to listen to Jimmy Fowler’s first set.
“Then what?”
“Jimmy got back on stage, and the girls and I left. Cliff was alone at the table, though he said he was expecting Rich Fazio, who he said books the musical and variety acts for The Jackie Gleason Show. You still haven’t told me what Cliff’s accused of.”
“Fazio was seen at the Shandiclere with Cliff for Jimmy Fowler’s second set. Then he turned up dead in a dark corner of the parking lot with his pants down around his knees.”
“Shit. And Galanis?”
“Galanis was arrested for the murder. He called me, and when I met with him at the police station downtown, he told me he’d been with you for part of the evening and suggested I hire you to prove he’s innocent.”
“I can try.”
I headed over to Coyne’s office in the middle of Miami’s growing financial district, signed the paperwork, and received a check for my retainer. Coyne’s secretary handed me photocopies of his handwritten notes of his interview with Galanis that morning. Galanis said that after Jimmy’s second set, the three of them had talked. Then Jimmy left for his hotel, and Cliff and Fazio walked out to the parking lot together.
Cliff said he’d gotten into his car and driven away. That was all he knew.
I drove back over to Miami Beach and deposited the check into my business account. Show business was off my path, but I knew one woman who might be able to get me started. Helen Cantrill was one of the June Taylor Dancers, the group that opened each show with specialty dance numbers and concluded with a high-kicking tap chorus line. I’d helped her with a problem a year before.
When I called and told her about Rich Fazio, she suggested I talk to Eddie Kelton, a rock and roller she’d dated briefly. “He told me Fazio wanted him to pay to get booked on Gleason.”
“Is that normal?”
“Not at all. Fazio worked for Gleason, and he was supposed to find the best talent. But the whole music business is still mired in payola, despite the scandals from the fifties. From what I understood, Rich took in a nice chunk of change in exchange for bookings.”
“And Gleason didn’t know?”
“Either he didn’t know, or he looked the other way.”
* * * *
When I left my office for lunch, I picked up a copy of the Daily Planet, a free alternative newspaper that listed live music. Eddie Kelton’s band would be playing that night at Churchill’s Pub—a British-themed bar that also served dinner. Which worked out well because it was my night to have dinner—and often something more—with the guy I was seeing, Alex Reyes. So, I called him.
“There’s a musician I want to talk to playing tonight at Churchill’s,” I said. “Eddie Kelton.”
“Eduardo!” he said. “He’s not very good.”
“Do you know every Cuban-American in Miami?”
“Only the interesting ones. What do you want to talk to him about?”
“I’ll explain when I see you. How open can we be there?”
“I won’t kiss you, but I might feel you up under the table.”
“Alex Reyes!” I said. “Kelton goes on at nine. If you come to my apartment at seven…”
“Say no more, mi amor,” he said. “I will see you then.”
* * * *
We didn’t end up leaving my apartment for Churchill’s until eight-thirty. The bar was dim and decorated with a dartboard, wooden booths and tables, and a very fake replica of a red telephone booth in the corner, which was covered with names and phone numbers and nasty messages. The air was smoky and smelled of spilled beer and fried food.
We took a table near the stage, and our fish and chips arrived as Eddie Kelton strutted on stage. He was slim and saturnine, with the pasty skin of someone who spent his nights in dive bars. He wore torn jeans and a very tight T-shirt.
He was marginally more talented than Jimmy Fowler, at least in my opinion, but I preferred Fowler’s laid-back sound to Eddie’s hard-core rock and roll. After he finished his set, Alex waved him over, and he joined us.
He was dripping in sweat, and the server immediately brought him a tall glass of ice water, a beer, and a clear shot. He drank the water first, then the shot, then most of the beer. “What brings you out this way, compañero?” he asked Alex, after he’d hydrated himself.
“This is my friend George Clay. Private investigator.”
I reached out to shake Eddie’s clammy hand. “What’s up?” he asked hesitantly.
“You know Rich Fazio?”
“That cabrón? Why?”
“Somebody killed him Sunday night in the parking lot behind the Shandiclere,” I said. “I’ve been asked to look into his murder.”
“You won’t find a shortage of suspects in this town,” Eddie said. “Fazio ripped off a dozen musicians and talent agents, promising to get their acts on the Gleason show.” He spat on the floor. “Nobody watches that show anymore, not even my parents.”
“Did he approach you?”
Eddie nodded. “Wanted a thousand bucks to get me in the lineup. And even then, he couldn’t guarantee I’d play if another act ran longer. I didn’t pay.”
The waitress brought him another beer and shot, and I waited until he’d downed them to ask, “You know anyone he cheated? Who paid to get booked and then didn’t get on the show?”
“It was the out-of-town acts he screwed, the ones he’d convince to fly down from Atlanta or New York.” He leaned close and his beer breath enveloped my face. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I heard the mob is moving into music in Miami. Using their connections at bars to push musicians.”
He got and walked away to forestall any further questions.
“You think that’s true?” I asked Alex. “That the mob is moving in?”
“The mob is already here, you know that,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were muscling into music.”
Alex drove us back to his house in Coral Gables after we left the bar, and we took a shower together to wash off the grunge, then picked up where we’d left off earlier that evening. I had begun to leave clothes and toiletries at his house, and he’d throw whatever dirty clothes I arrived in with his own laundry, and his maid never said anything.
* * * *
The next morning, he dropped me at my office, and I wrote up notes on my conversation with Eddie Kelton. I didn’t know much about the mob in Miami, but I had one contact, a guy I’d once helped out of a jam.
Pinky Feldman wrote book out of the back of a Brazilian restaurant on the north end of Miami Beach, and that afternoon I drove up there to see him. All I knew was that he was connected to the Bonanno crime family, and I didn’t want to know more.
He was a short, balding guy in a bad suit, sitting at a table with a telephone, a calculator and a thick binder of paperwork. I slid into the chair across from him.
“Hey, Pinky, how’s it going?”
He glared at me. “What do you want?”
I leaned in close so no one else could hear. “How are things going with your wife?”
He didn’t change his expression, but he said, “Interesting.”
I leaned back. “Good. I’ve been hired to defend the guy accused of murdering Rich Fazio behind the Shandiclere on Sunday night.”
“What’s that to me?”
“A little bird told me that the mob is moving in on the live music business in Miami.” I held up my hand before he could speak. “I know you’re a law-abiding citizen. But you’re also a smart guy with your ear to the ground. You heard anything that might help me?”
He continued to glare at me. “You know, with what I know about you and your fairy pal, I could get you put in jail and out of business.”
“That’s true. But I swore that I’d never use your name and ‘up the ass’ in the same sentence. And I haven’t.”
He finally laughed. “You know something, Clay, I kind of like you. You may like to ride the Hershey Highway with your boyfriend, but you’re all right.”
I laughed with him. “I’m glad you feel that way, Pinky, because I kind of like you, too. So, what do you know about the music business?”
“The Bonanno family is not involved,” he said. “To be honest, we’ve got too much trouble going on with the Feds to be expanding.” He reached over for his glass of club soda and took a swallow. “Now, the Gianellis, they’re another story.”
“I don’t know that name.”
“Small-timers out of Newark. Got a boss who thinks he’s the shit. Looking for ways to edge their way into other families’ territories. You didn’t hear it from me, but they’ve got a piss-ant enforcer named Vito Iovine in Miami these days. He came by to see me last week, a courtesy call, he said. Courtesy my ass.”
“He threatened you?”
Pinky shook his head. “Too smart to. Just let me know that he was around, if I need any help with anything.”
“You know how to reach him?”
“He said he’s staying in the Everglades Hotel on Biscayne Boulevard. Front desk can take a message for him. I gave him my message before he left.”
He held up his right fist, then slapped his left hand on his right biceps and pulled his right arm back. I knew that gesture. In my Master-At-Arms training in the Navy, we’d learned it was called the bras d’honneur or the Iberian slap, and we were told not to engage with anyone who used it on us.
I laughed. “If I run across Iovine, any easy way to recognize him?”
“He’s like a bantamweight rooster,” Pinky said. “Maybe five-six, walks with his chest puffed out. Dresses like a Jersey thug, jackets with big lapels. And he’s got a scar on his right cheek.”
I thanked Pinky. From his office, I drove over to Frank Coyne’s office in downtown Miami and was able to get the very important man to break away from whatever he was doing in his office to talk to me. He always seemed oily, and I wanted to wash my hands right after shaking his.
But he was paying the bills. I sat across from him, the breadth of a polished mahogany desk between us. I had the feeling that my chair was pegged a little lower than his, so I was in a position of supplication.
I relayed everything I had discovered.
“Interesting,” he said, his hands steepled in front of him. “Will Mr. Feldman confirm that information to a police detective?”
“I doubt it. He specifically used the words, ‘You didn’t hear it from me.’ If I sent a cop his way, he’d never talk to me again. I’m still building my network here in Miami, and I’d hate to lose anyone.”
“Then the best thing you can do is tail Iovine for a couple of days and see if you can catch him doing something the cops can pull him in for.”
“I’ll have to get somebody to sub for me at the Cockpit if I’m working nights,” I said. “There’ll be an extra charge.”
“Galanis is good for it.”
I stopped at a pay phone in the lobby of Coyne’s office building, called a buddy of mine from the Fifth Street Gym, and arranged for him to cover my shifts for a few days.
I left my car in the garage at Frank’s building and walked over to the Everglades Hotel. I walked into the lobby and bought a copy of the Miami News from the stand. The room was ringed with tall white marble columns which supported arches, with a carpeted walkway between the columns and the walls that allowed one to circumnavigate the room.
I did so, making sure there was no one resembling Iovine in the room, and settled myself in a plush green armchair and pretended to read. People came and went around me, families on vacation, businessmen with leather briefcases, and guests on their way to luncheons in one of the hotel’s banquet rooms.
Either Vito was up with the larks and had already left the hotel, or he was a night owl and sleeping in. I had no way of telling which was correct unless I sat there all day and into the evening.
So I did. My stomach grumbled and my throat was dry, but I knew if I ate or drank anything, eventually I’d have to visit the john, and it was just my luck that Iovine would take that opportunity to show up.
Not that he had any way of knowing he was under surveillance, but my limited experience of guys like that told me he’d be aware of everything around him.
Around six o’clock he came strolling out of the elevator, his gait reminding me of the bantam rooster Pinky Feldman had compared him to. He walked into the swanky bar, where a curved wall held a mural of the eponymous Everglades, a heron taking flight over sawgrass.
He ordered at the mirrored bar and leaned against it bar to look around. Waiting for someone.
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see Eddie Kelton walk in. He was wearing the same kind of outfit he performed in, a colorful T-shirt, torn jeans, and steel-tipped boots. He looked out of place among the suits and nice dresses of the rest of the clientele, and I wondered if he cared.
He walked right up to Iovine, as if he already knew him, and they shook hands. Kelton ordered a drink, and they moved to a table by the wall.
I used that opportunity to head to the restroom and relieve my aching bladder. I wasn’t going to be able to get close enough to them to hear anything anyway.
By the time I returned, their conversation had turned less than amicable. Eddie was scowling, and Iovine was leaning across the table, getting into his face. Eddie picked up the crystal glass that held Iovine’s drink and spat into it.
Then he got up and stormed out.
I really wanted to know what had caused Eddie to get so angry, but I could find him the next day to ask. Iovine waited a couple of beats, then got up from his table and walked out.
I followed him to the cab stand and lurked in the background so I could overhear him tell the doorman where he wanted to go. When I heard Churchill’s, I walked past him, got my car, and drove up there.
I hoped Iovine would be there for a while. I got myself a table, ordered a burger and a glass of water, and ate and drank as he did, listening to the opening act, a young woman with long blond hair who sang a bit like Joni Mitchell.
Only a bit, though.
Vito Iovine paid close attention to the next act, a female rocker with a raspy voice and a full head of blond hair that she swung around as she sang.
Iovine got up to leave when the blonde finished, and I tailed him outside. Once again, I lurked in the shadows until he was able to hail a cab, and when I heard him say he was going to the Everglades Hotel I gave up my surveillance and drove home.
* * * *
The next morning, I finished up some paperwork for other cases, putting together bills and doing some research for a new client. I ate a solid lunch, then went back to the Everglades Hotel lobby to wait for Iovine.
He met the pretty blonde rocker from Churchill’s for dinner in the hotel restaurant, and I followed them outside. They argued for a few minutes while they waited for a taxi, and in the end the woman got into the first taxi that arrived, leaving Iovine on the sidewalk. He told the next cabbie who pulled up that he was going to the Shandiclere.
Once again, I retrieved my car from the parking garage and drove to the Shandiclere. I parked under a streetlight and walked over to the club.
The first act was a young guy with shaggy hair who sang a couple of John Denver covers to mild applause from the audience. He was followed by a trio who resembled the Monkees, in funky clothes and goofy haircuts. Neither of the acts seemed to interest Iovine, who finished the last of his whiskey and stood up.
I was surprised to see that he went out the back door to the parking lot, since he’d arrived in a taxi. I waited a beat, then went after him. Wrong move, because I felt an arm around my neck as soon as I did.
“You’ve been following me,” he said.
I had years of experience in street fights by that point, including how to get out of a simple arm hold like that. In a moment, I ducked his grip, twisted around, and faced him.
I hadn’t counted on the knife, though. I should have; I knew whoever killed Rich Fazio had used one. With a quick move, Iovine had a hunting knife with a wicked blade out of his pocket, had ditched the sheath, and was facing me with it.
He had the look of a predator, one I’d seen often enough in the Navy. His eyes narrowed, his lips pursed. I danced back a few steps. “That the knife you used on Rich Fazio?” I asked.
“Stupid prick wouldn’t listen to reason,” he said. “I made him a decent offer. He could keep scamming the musicians and all he had to do was pay me a twenty-five percent commission.”
“Protection money,” I said. “To protect him from you.”
“That’s the way of the jungle,” he said, and he lunged forward, trying to slice the knife into my abdomen and then up, the way he’d done with Rich Fazio. I was too quick, though not quick enough, and he hit the left side of my stomach.
The pain was sharp, and I smelled my own blood. That enraged me enough that I darted to his side, wrapped my arm around his neck as he’d done with me, and put pressure there. Hold it long enough, you cut off a guy’s airway.
Iovine started to panic, grasping at my hands, but this wasn’t my first time subduing a rowdy guy. I’d practiced this hold enough on drunken sailors that I knew how long to hold until Iovine passed out—but not long enough to kill him.
As he slumped in my grip, one of the bartenders stepped out the back door with a pack of cigarettes.
“Do me a favor, call the cops, will you?” I asked. I pressed one hand against my side and then held it up, covered in blood.
* * * *
The cops arrived and called an ambulance that took me over to Jackson, the public hospital nearby, where an ER doctor stitched up my wound. “Lucky cut,” he said. “Didn’t do any major damage. But it’s going to hurt like a bastard for a while.”
I didn’t bother to tell him it wouldn’t be my first scar.
By the time he was finished, a detective showed up who wanted to talk more about Vito Iovine and what had happened at the Shandiclere. He was the same guy who’d caught Rich Fazio’s murder, and he was very interested in the knife Iovine had used on me.
“You told the beat cops you went out back for a smoke and Iovine asked you for money, then attacked you,” he said. “Now tell me what really happened.”
“Frank Coyne hired me to look for evidence that would exonerate Cliff Galanis,” I said. “Based on a tip I had, I put Iovine under surveillance for a couple of days, hoping to turn something up. And I did.”
“Where did the tip come from?”
“I believe that’s covered under my employment with Coyne,” I said. “You’d have to confer with him.”
He was kind enough to give me a ride back to the Shandiclere, where I’d left my car. I drove home, took some of the painkillers the ER doctor had given me, and went down for a nice long sleep.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Neil Plakcy (mahubooks.com) is the author of more than sixty novels in mystery, romance, and adventure, including the award-winning Mahu and Golden Retriever mystery series.
THE CAMPGROUND CAPER,by Hal Charles
As Sheriff Sue Jackson wheeled her cruiser through the entrance of the Shadow Lake Campground, she was struck by the vacant expanse. That weekend the campground had hosted a massive RV rally, but now only a large motor coach and a small conversion van complete with solar panels on top and what she recognized as an electric motorcycle attached to the rear remained.
After driving up a winding gravel road, Sue stopped in front of a small building with OFFICE over the front door.
“Sheriff Jackson,” said the portly man Sue recognized as Clyde Dalton, the campground’s owner. “Thanks for coming out so quickly.”
“You reported a robbery,” said Sue. “Exactly what was taken?”
Dalton wiped his brow. “All the receipts from this weekend’s rally.”
“When did you realize the money was missing?” said Sue.
“I go down to the entrance every morning at exactly 7:00 to check the mail, and when I got back to the office about 7:30 this morning, the money was gone.”
“Sounds like we need to talk with the folks down at the camp sites,” said Sue.
“I thought you’d want to do that,” said the owner, “so I called them and asked them to hang around.”
When Sue parked the cruiser next to the mammoth motor coach, she and Jones were greeted by a tall, graying man in jeans and a sweatshirt. Looking at the sheet of names Dalton had given her, Sue said, “Mr. Rosen, where were you around 7:00 this morning?”
“My wife and I were on a Zoom with our grandson. Today’s his birthday. I’m sure his parents can confirm the time.”
Without disclosing the reason for the question, Sue thanked Rosen for his cooperation and hopped into the cruiser.
Pulling in front of the conversion van, Sue saw a muscular young man in fatigues. “Mr. Thurman,” she said, exiting the cruiser, “can I have a minute?”
“When he called,” said the man, “I told Mr. Dalton I’d get him the rest of what I owe after my mom wires me the cash. I was discharged from the Corps last week and heading home.” Thurman shook his head. “I’ve run a little low on funds.”
Her eyes on the fatigued figure, Sue said, “Could you tell me your whereabouts this morning?”
“To be honest,” said Thurman, “after getting back stateside, I don’t sleep so well. I spent all night playing solitaire on my laptop and dozed off around dawn. Mr. Dalton’s call woke me.”
“Mr. Thurman,” said Sue, “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to the office while my deputy calls in for a search warrant for your van.”
Pulling up to the office, Sue saw a young man she didn’t recognize waving frantically and shouting at Clyde Dalton. As she and her passengers exited the cruiser, she heard the young man yell, “That’s him,” as he pointed at Thurman.
“And you are?” Sue said to the man.
“This is my nephew, Ben Colter,” said Dalton. “He’s been helping out during the busy season. Says he saw Mr. Thurman take the money.”
“That’s right,” said Colter. “I got up early to get the boats down at the dock ready for our next campers. I heard a loud roar up at the office and knew Uncle Clyde was at the entrance opening up as always, so I headed for the office to see if anyone needed help.” He pointed at Thurman. “When I got here, I saw him jump on that motorcycle he pulls behind his van and roar down the road.”
“Mr. Dalton,” said Sue as she grabbed her handcuffs, “I think you’re going to need a new helper.”
SOLUTION
When Ben Colter said he saw Thurman “roar” off on his motorcycle, Sue knew he was lying since an electric motorcycle makes almost no noise. Arrested, Colter confessed that he knew his uncle would be down at the campground entrance at 7:00 and saw a chance to grab the receipts. Since everyone at the campgrounds knew Dalton’s schedule, Colter figured the young veteran with money issues was an easy target for blame. To apologize and thank Thurman for his service, Clyde Dalton forgave the money he owed.
The Barb Goffman Presents series showcasesthe best in modern mystery and crime stories,
personally selected by one of the most acclaimed
short stories authors and editors in the mystery
field, Barb Goffman, forBlack Cat Weekly.
SO MANY SHORES IN CROOKLAND,by Britin Haller & Shane Gericke
I pushed the barrel into the back of his neck where his razor-cut hairline met his topmost spinal bump. He yipped. “Pipe down,” I said. “You brought this on yourself.”
“I didn’t do nothing,” he said, his voice crackling like overly fried bacon. “You got the wrong guy, I swear.”
Sigh. These end-of-life conversations with my boss’s clients were all variations on the same theme, I didn’t do it, but if I did, I didn’t mean it, and if I meant it, I’ll never do it again. All jobs had their tedium. This was mine. “You stole two million dollars from il capo. He’s what you might call unhappy, and I wouldn’t want to be in your cement shoes right now.”
“Two million…dollars? Me?” The feigned astonishment was more dinner theater than Broadway, but either way, he’d close on opening night. “I’m just a number cruncher. I can’t steal nothing.”
Intentionally ignoring the repeated double negative, I dug the gun barrel into a vertebra, making him cough like he had the plague. “C’mon. You guys and your keystrokes steal more in a few seconds than most crooks do in a lifetime. Say your prayers.”
“All right, all right,” he said, changing tactics. “I’ll do whatever you want.” Real magnanimous of him considering he was currently doing a face-plant against a slimy green wall of bricks. “What I want,” I said, putting my booger hook on the bang switch, which in English means I placed my index finger upon the gun’s trigger, “is for you to die in slime.”
“Die in slime?” He cocked his head like a beagle seeking approval. “Excuse me, but you don’t look much like the reading type. Are you seriously quoting Infinite Jest at a time like this?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, startled he knew the reference. Few did. David Foster Wallace novels are as impenetrable as the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It took me a year to grind through that one, but I understood most of it because the Jesuits pounded language skills and biblical metaphors into my thick skull. They did it with logic and leather belts, the ugly divot on my neck coming from Brother Joseph getting drunk one night and using the buckle instead of the flat. Brother Joseph still drinks his meals through straws at the nursing home. I send him get-well cards at Christmas.
“That you read Wallace makes you intelligent,” he said.
I shrugged. “For a leg breaker.”
He straightened as if hope rang the doorbell. “Smart enough to make a deal? I’ll give you the money. All of it. Nobody will know.”
“They’ll never know, yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Not my boss, Guido, not his partners, not their goon squads, not even my baby kittens?”
“You have kittens, wow, I love little—”
I finger-flicked his ear. “Focus.”
“Right. Nobody will ever know, I swear to God. You keep the entire take and tell Guido I died in slime. We both walk away winners.” Hope made his pitch rise from baritone to soprano.
“Were you born stupid? Or did you have to attend, you know, classes?”
“Right, right, I get your point. But I swear, nobody will know. Two million dollars for you, and a beach shack in Costa Rica for me.”
“If you give me the whole two million,” I objected, “how will you live? Shacks aren’t exactly cheap when you need to pay off the cops to stay unfound.”
“Well, naturally, I’ve saved a little more than that,” he said, with the slightest of smirks.
“Naturally,” I said, slightly smirking back.
“You take two mil. I disappear. You tell them I died in agony,” he said, ticking off each point with a raised finger. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re a pain in the ass,” I said. “But a pain in the ass with dough makes you somewhat useful.”
“I knew you were bright.”
“Shaddup. Where do you keep this two million and change?”
“In my wallet.”
I booted his tailbone with a steel toe. He gasped. “I wasn’t being a wiseass,” he whimpered. “The money is on a card in my wallet.”
“A card?”
“Connected to my bank.”
“Which is where?”
“Grand Cayman.”
Offshore island. As one arranges when one is clever. I considered my options.
“Give me the routing info,” I said. He began to reach for his pocket. I touched the barrel to his head, enjoying his flinch. “Shrewd guy like you memorized it.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, nodding like a bobblehead dog. “I just don’t want to mess this up.”
“Look, buddy, move your hands again, and you’re Hamburger Helper.” I loved that stuff. Mama, God rest her soul, made it Friday nights because we all hated fish, then she’d go to mass on Saturday with our family’s tithing to pray for the Lord’s forgiveness. Giving 10 percent ofour income to God every week ain’t for God, Johnny, she’d say. It’s for us. It’s a reminder ourGod will always be here to protect us.God protects those who tithe freely.
“Okay, okay, whenever you’re ready,” he said. “Just don’t blame me if I forget something.”
“I will blame you, so don’t forget.” I took out my phone, and he coughed up the info, his bravery increasing with each letter and numeral. I whistled as the total revealed itself, and transferred his money into my account, which I’d earlier created in another bank, off yet another shore. So many shores in Crookland.
“I told you I made a little extra.” His forehead still touched the crumbling bricks of the abandoned paper mill to which I’d taken him after the grab, but I heard triumph in his voice.
“A little extra like the Titanic bumped an ice cube,” I said, marveling at all those zeros. “There’s the two million you stole from my guy, plus the thirty-eight you also stole from a bunch of other suckers.”
“Stole? I made that from smart investments.”
“Nobody’s thirty-eight million dollars smart.”
“I am,” he said. “Is the transfer complete?”
“Yes.”
“Now you’ll set me free, right?”
“In a manner of speaking,” I said, booger hook squeezing bang switch. The bullet cored his razor-cut hairline and painted the bricks with his brains. I fired a second bullet for insurance and a third for annoyance.
Die in slime.
I might have let him go, just for the Infinite Jest of it all, but he’d insulted me by offering a reward so piddling it offended every sense I had. As Guido would have put it, “Feck dat feckedy feck.” Not David Foster Wallace, but then again, Wallace hadn’t clue one about how my world worked, and Guido did. Different scribes for different times.
I dumped the number cruncher in the black river behind the mill, which being more pollution and concrete pilings than water, made the splash more like a beer belch. Now I’d go home, drink six fingers of Lagavulin, and arrange a meetup with the boss, where I’d give him the entire account, every digital dime of the forty mil. He, in turn, would give me four million buckeroos. Not because he liked giving money—he was as greedy as the next guy—but because he understood what the Jesuits, and Mama, did. Something Mr. Die in Slime would never get.
Especially now.
God protects those who tithe freely.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Britin Haller is a mystery/fantasy/horror editor for Turner Publishing and creates magic alongside the legendary Oline Cogdill and Bill Hirschman as a theater critic for their website Florida Theater on Stage. As a celebrity wrangler, Brit rubbed elbows with sports, rock, and movie stars, and as a media escort, she toured with bestselling authors. Britin is on the board of directors for the Mystery Writers of America Florida Chapter and a recipient of the Flamingo Award, their highest honor. She is a film/TV reviewer for MWA-FL’s newsletter, The Rap Sheet, and a previous two-time co-chair of their mystery conference, SleuthFest.
Shane Gericke is the bestselling author of Blown Away, The Fury, and other crime novels. He’s also an internationally awarded landscape photographer. He was a founding member of the International Thriller Writers, chairman of ThrillerFest, and the first director of PitchFest. Before that, he spent twenty-five years as an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers. Gericke has written more than eighteen million words in his fifty-one-year career, and yes, his fingers ache. Two years ago, he traded his Chicago snow shovel for the high dry deserts of Arizona and enjoys the hunt for the perfect cactus photo. shanegericke.com
PRIVATE EQUITY,by Bob Tippee
Evan Stone steers past the two-story, four-bedroom monument to middle-class ambition to which he once drove beer-bleary Brad Moorehead home from the driving range. Brad and Brenda Moorehead, Evan knows, are at Gerry Linn’s Table, probably ordering rib-eyes or blackened tilapia, maybe second glasses of wine. By now they’re wondering whether Evan will make the meeting, for which Brenda’s hopes will be soaring and Brad’s anxiety, intense. Gas lamps bracket the Mooreheads’ front door, not bright enough to discourage Jonesy’s guy. Or guys.
Evan knows more than anyone knows he knows. Jonesy, the bastard, won’t know enough until it’s too late for him to do anything about it.
Evan clicks off the headlights, rounds a cul-de-sac, and stops his Solara in front of a dark house two outsize lots away from the Moorehead residence. He turns off the engine. He touches the folder on the passenger’s seat enclosing documents that transfer title to The Hilltop Golf and Grill back to Brad.
Someone will find them.
* * * *
Jonesy loathed the visits Evan reported. The first time, on a steamy Saturday afternoon, Brad and Brenda came together. Evan welcomed them to a butcher-block table in a cramped corner of the pro shop Brad built on the ground floor of an old farmhouse. He opened a can of Heineken for each.
“I heard you fired Hank Ripley,” Brad said, skin tightening across his lean face. Brenda, brown-haired and fit as Brad if not more, squirmed.
“Beers are on the house,” Evan said.
“Good man, Hank,” Brad said. “Fix anything and grow grass on concrete if you ask him to.”
Evan watched the only other customers in the shop—a regular patron and his wife—browse displays of golf clubs and bags. He watched Roxanne, the new cashier, attend to business. Before Brad could ask about her, Evan explained, “I needed somebody to manage the shop. I can do the handiwork.”
“Hank worked here since the start,” Brad said. “Five years.”
Evan stared at Brad. Brad stared back.
Brenda, her voice as alluring as her face, said, “We should be going. There’s a reception. Jerrold Construction’s welcoming a new vice-president for business development. Brad Moorehead.”
“Great news,” Evan said, offering a cross-table handshake. “Congratulations.”
Brad shook Evan’s hand. He said nothing.
Evan sighed. “I paid severance. A week’s pay for each year Hank worked for you. Helped him get on at The Oaks. Assistant greenskeeper.”
Brad raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Decent,” he said. “Real decent.” He reached for his wallet.
“On the house,” Evan said again.
“Nobody makes money giving away merchandise,” Brad said.
Brenda grabbed his arm. “Evan owns The Hilltop now, Brad.”
Frowning, Brad nodded and thanked Evan for the beer.
* * * *
“He misses the place,” Evan said when Jonesy asked. He knew Jonesy would ask. “What’s the harm?”
“Butting his nose in—know what I’m saying?”
It was Thursday, long past when the last customers packed in their clubs and drove away, tires crunching gravel down the hill, leaving Evan alone to refill the ball washer, collect wire baskets, straighten tables in the pro shop, turn off range lights. He had retired to his Airstream behind the transformed farmhouse. After a microwaved supper, Evan awaited the call. Jonesy always called late. He called every Thursday.
“He talks to customers,” Evan said. “Sometimes he sits in one of the rockers on the porch, drinks beer, stares down the range.”
“What’s he stare at?” Jonesy wanted to know.
“Beats hell out of me.”
“Golfers?”
“I said down the range. Golfers are on the tee pads. What’s the difference what he stares at?”
“Good answer: ‘What’s the difference?’ Means you don’t know what’s the difference, which is all you got to know. Know what I’m saying?”
“Saying about what?”
Jonesy sucked air—then registered the joke and chuckled. “Another good answer. What I like about you: You know how to run a business and you know what business to run and what business to stay out of. You’ll go far, you keep it up and don’t go falling in love again.” Jonesy laughed.
Evan didn’t laugh. He read Jonesy the numbers: Weekly sales by source—ball rental, food and drink, equipment and clothing. Weekly expenses.
“Lots of new customers,” Evan observed.
“This problem with Morehead—”
“Not a problem,” Evan said. “I’ll handle it.”
“How often—?”
“Good for business,” Evan said. “The old regulars who still come around like him.”
“I asked how damn often.”
“Just now and then.”
“Yeah, well if now and then turns into more now and more then, I want to hear about it. Know what I’m saying?”
“I’ll handle it. Not a problem.”
* * * *
Brad visited only on weekdays, always late in the afternoon. He’d saunter to the pro shop from the parking lot and buy a Heineken from Roxanne. Sometimes he sat at a table with customers he knew. Sometimes he sat on a wooden rocker on the porch, seeming to study the grass he once tended on the range and the yardage markers and lamp posts he had installed atop a lonely hill under siege from suburban growth but topographically resistant to development.
“You saved this place,” Brad told Evan on his fourth or fifth visit, both of them sitting in porch rockers. The sun was setting. The air cooled. Golfers left by twos and threes.
“How so?”
“I had an offer before yours.”
Evan sipped Diet Coke and said nothing.
Brad cleared his throat as if deciding whether to continue, which he did. “The guy wanted to blade away the driving range, build mansions.”
“Risky development with so much grade on the sides,” Evan observed. “Probably why he bid low.”
Brad gently shook his head. “Your bid was lower. Brenda doesn’t know.”
Evan stared at Brad, got no response. He said, “You build something, I guess you’ll give up a few bucks to keep from seeing it come undone.”
Brad turned toward Evan. “How’d you know I’d sell?”
“My backers watch for opportunities.”
“Backers?”
Evan waited until the last of the golfers had crossed the porch and entered the parking lot to the left. “Private equity,” he said. “It’s my name on all the records, so technically I own the place. But it’s not all my money—not by a long shot. I have investors.”
“Private equity,” Brad said. “I wish I’d known.”
* * * *
Roxanne started her days at ten in the morning and left at seven in the evening. She worked Saturdays for time-and-a-half. She never arrived late and worked past quitting time if Evan needed her. She never complained. In fact, she never expressed a thought on anything unrelated to work. She dealt pleasantly with customers. She kept the pro shop tidy, the table tops clean, the counter business efficient, the books orderly.
Evan sensed that Roxanne knew men enjoyed watching her, although she made no play for attention. She dressed modestly, wore her black hair short, applied make-up sparingly. Most mornings she came to work with wet hair, as though she’d been working out. What held men’s gaze slightly too long was not spectacular beauty but the confidently quiet way she worked, walked, talked, and deflected ogles with faint, fleeting smiles and eyes chilly with indifference.
Evan noticed all this. He welcomed the help. He looked forward to seeing Roxanne each morning. He had protested when Jonesy told him to fire Hank and hire Roxanne. But Jonesy was adamant. Roxanne would run the pro shop. Roxanne was the niece of somebody important, and there wasn’t any point arguing about it.
“Besides, you’ll need the help. Your business is gonna grow.”
“Yeah?” Evan had ventured. “How do you know?”
“Email marketing,” Jonesy said. “A business has to grow—know what I’m saying? That business we bailed you out of, if it had grown, maybe you wouldn’t be working for me now.” Jonesy chuckled.
“I’m not complaining,” Evan had said. “Do you hear me complaining about working for you?”
“Don’t bullshit me. Her name’s Roxanne Ventura. Treat her nice, but not too nice. Her uncle’s not somebody you want to fuck with. Know what I’m saying?”
* * * *
The first time Brenda visited alone, worry lowered her eyebrows and tightened the corners of her mouth. She found Evan painting canopies newly installed over the tee pads.
“It’s Brad,” she announced.
“Want to go inside?” Evan asked, looking up, still kneeling. “Have a beer?” It wasn’t raining now. The late-summer sun glowed low in a cloudless sky.
“I know he comes around,” Brenda said. “Are you all right with that?”
“Sure.” Evan stood and stretched his stiff back, now looking down at Brenda, on whom even a frown looked good.
“Does he ever talk about his job?” she asked.
Evan shook his head.
“He’s—well, he’s not exactly performing like everybody at Jerrold Construction hoped he would.”
Evan mumbled about not knowing how to help, but Brenda interrupted him.
“The thing is, I got him the job,” Brenda said, looking at Evan, who said nothing. She continued: “Jerrold Construction is a client of the marketing firm I work for. I rep the account. Brad started hinting about selling this place, so I figured he was ready to grow up, get a real job. I talked to Austin Jerrold, urged him to hire a proven entrepreneur, somebody who built and sold a profitable business. Austin loved it.”
Evan stooped and set the paintbrush on a rag. Straightening slowly, he asked, “This Austin Jerrold—has he got other vice-presidents?”
Brenda nodded. “Three. It doesn’t help that Brad won’t hesitate to tell any of them how a business ought to be run—or Austin, for that matter.” She sighed. “I need to go. I just wondered if he’d said anything.”
“Never talks about his job.”
Evan walked with Brenda along the asphalt path behind the tee pads, across the front of the pro shop, into the parking lot. Two customers were standing behind a white panel van, talking seriously—both of them men, both with arms crossed, both going silent as Evan and Brenda approached: a fat guy in Bermuda shorts that didn’t flatter him and a leaner, taller guy in blue jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
Brenda stopped at a black Avalon. “I hope you don’t mind—”
“Any time.”
“I meant Brad.”
“I mean him, too.”
Brenda smiled, but her eyebrows stayed low.
The panel van and a red pickup truck left after Brenda drove away.
* * * *
Not long after Brenda’s visit, Brad said he wanted to ask Evan something. He said it was important.
“Those backers of yours—did they know I had to sell?”
As usual when Brad dropped by, the sun was low. He sat in one of the pro shop’s porch rockers. Evan, wishing he’d grabbed his jacket, leaned against the porch banister, holding a Diet Coke.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Evan said.
Brad studied the range, striped with shadows. “County records, probably.” He sipped Heineken. “I had plans. A full golf course west of town, eighteen holes. Set up like a club but with day memberships. I bought the land with as much money as I could borrow and then some. Then—well, you know what happened to the economy.”
Evan watched three golfers trudge toward the parking lot, two of them the guys he had seen when Brenda visited.
“Anyway,” Brad continued, “a note came due, and I didn’t have the cash. I had to sell—the land, this place, everything.”
Evan said, “You came out whole.”
Brad nodded and shrugged. “Barely.”
“I paid a fair price,” Evan said. “My investors, I mean.”
“It’s not that,” Brad said. “You paid a fair price and agreed to keep this place what it is. I’m grateful for that. It’s just—well, Brenda doesn’t know.”
“You told me.”
Brad shook his head. “She also doesn’t know why I had to sell.”
“I’m sure she’d understand—”
“She never knew about the golf course, the land, the loan.”
Evan inhaled deeply and sipped soda. He sipped soda again.
“She thinks I made a potful,” Brad said. “She thinks we’re rich.”
* * * *
Brad began arriving earlier, staying later, drinking more. He talked less, smiling and nodding at Evan and customers he knew. Mostly, he sat on the porch, drinking, staring down the range.
As the sun set one rain-drenched, late-fall evening he fell off the porch in a stupor induced by three beers—or was it four?—and whatever he had drunk earlier. He landed hard on the asphalt walk. He laughed, too hammered to hurt.
Roxanne worked late so Evan could drive Brad home.
* * * *
“You got to stop this shit.” Jonesy called the day after Brad’s tumble, a Tuesday. He couldn’t wait for Thursday.
“Nothing I can do about the rain,” Evan said.
“You know what I mean, smart guy. Brad Moorehead coming around drunk, making a scene.”
“I don’t think his job’s going so good.”
“His job’s not your problem.”
“Numbers are down on account of the rain.”
“Not that problem. Brad Butthead butting his head in—know what I’m saying?”
“He’s embarrassed. Came by with Brenda this afternoon to get his car. Apologized. I laughed it off.”
“When you went to the parking lot, anybody else there?”
Evan had to think about it. “Yeah. A couple of guys.”
“What were they driving?”
“Beats hell out of me.”
“And Brad and his wife—either of them say anything about it?”
“No. What’s the deal?”
Jonesy asked, “And last night, when you carted him home, anybody in the parking lot?”
“Not that I remember. I had my hands full. Roxanne stayed ’til I got back.”
“You got to stop this shit.”
Evan said, “We should let nature take its course.”
“What kind of businessman lets nature take its damn course?”
“I mean Brenda,” Evan said. “She’ll straighten him out.”
Jonesy went silent for a couple of seconds—then chortled. “Since when are you the expert on women?”
“I’m right about this,” Evan said.
“Don’t tell me you got a thing for Brenda Moorehead.”
“No!”
“Oh, shit!”
“I said no,” Evan said, too loud.
