Kwik Krimes (11 page)

Me and Ma held hands at the foot of the gallows while the deputies made Pa walk up them pine steps and stand there facin’ the crowd. Pa said sorry to me and Ma when he saw us. It was a
familiar enough word on his lips, so I recognized it right off even though we couldn’t hear the sound of the actual word above the hootin’ of the crowd. Ma wiped her eyes with a hanky from her sleeve, but I didn’t spill no tears myself. I’d heard that lie comin’ from him too many times before to believe it now, and I was done with cryin’ anyways.

Pa’s eyes searched ours in the last moments before they pulled the burlap sack down over his face and looped the noose over his head. I don’t know what he mighta been lookin’ for, but he sure as hell didn’t see it in my eyes. Ma turned away weepin’, but I watched to the finish. When the trap fell, he dropped down and his neck snapped. He didn’t kick or nothing, just became dead weight swayin’ on a line. The crowd hushed then, and I could hear the sound of the hemp rope whisperin’ against the crossbeam.

Back at the wagon I grabbed my bundle of things and told Ma I had to go check on somethin’. Most days she would have peppered me with questions, but she just nodded and climbed up on the wagon, seemin’ real sad on account of Pa. I kissed her on the cheek and run off. I don’t know how long she waited there before she figured out I wasn’t never comin’ back.

I didn’t really have nothin’ to check on except the time of the next coach out of there. Down at the depot, I paid for a ticket as far as Fort Boise and waited around for the stagecoach to come through at one thirty. A pretty lady showed me how to tell time on my gold watch. I told her it was an inheritance from my dearly departed grandfather. I felt good leavin’. I had some cash and an old Colt pistol in my bag, and I was hopeful that if I did good for myself I’d find a dentist who could fix these dentures I was carryin’ so they’d fit me proper. Otherwise, well, I guess they’d still just have to call me Whistlin’ Pete.

Chuck Caruso teaches American literature at Marylhurst University near Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife, Petra, and their two cattle dogs. Recently his Western noir tales have been published online at
The Flash Fiction Offensive, Shotgun Honey, Fires on the Plain,
and
The Western Online.
An assistant editor for
Dark Discoveries
magazine, Chuck also moonlights at Portland indie bookstore Murder by the Book.

William E. Chambers

S
he appeared in a pink bunny costume every day for one week straight.

I take the L train from Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to the last stop—Eighth Avenue in Manhattan—and walk several blocks downtown to my job tending bar in a gay/straight pub in Greenwich Village. Thank God—if He exists—that I miss the madness of subway rush hours. I leave home at three thirty p.m. and start setting up at about four fifteen for the opening five o’clock happy-hour rush. The Bunny is usually on the platform when I arrive at Eighth Avenue, and then she scoots up the steps throwing backward glances toward me as I follow. But she always trots uptown as opposed to my Lower Manhattan direction. I once called out “Excuse me, miss—” but she either didn’t hear me or pretended not to, which is just as well since this figure in pink was arousing instincts within me better left dormant.

I always close up between one and four a.m. depending on the crowd. The big Swede who owns this pub called Thor’s Hammer backs up his bartenders’ judgments. He trusts that neither I nor the busty young woman who replaces me on my days off will pull out early as long as the drinks—and tips—keep flowing. Common sense, right?

But there are weeknights where it doesn’t pay to stay open past one. So this Monday, having stood alone for more than an hour past midnight, I dimmed the lights and began upending the stools across the bar. That’s when the Bunny walked in. She had pink whiskers painted lips to cheeks and big green eyes. My heart leaped like a happy unborn in the womb. I fought the excitement back from my voice but couldn’t control the shock on my face I guess because she smiled coyly when I asked, “Can I help you?”

“Surprised, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I nodded, noting the colorful straw Easter egg basket in her left hand. “And delighted.”

“I’m delighted too, Mr. Ketchum.”

“Ketchum…” Blood rushed to my face. “My name’s Wally…”

The Bunny flipped the top of the basket open and withdrew a small revolver. “My sister Florence—”

“Sister?”

“…was beaten and strangled in the Pennsylvania mountains by persons unknown, but she confided in me beforehand that after her divorce and drug rehab and several years surviving lonely and depressed in rural seclusion she began an affair with one Wally Ketchum. Because she lived in a cabin in the woods, no witnesses ever saw this costume-fetish-obsessed lover she described to me as a bartender, handyman, and—in time discovered—borderline sadist. I offered to send her money to leave him, but she was too frightened. I couldn’t prove anything from the collect pay-phone calls she made to me, and local police just drew blanks. But as a successful California businesswoman, I had the wherewithal to hire the best PI in the state who tracked down a Horace Ketchum, Wally, who had done heavy time for brutal rape in Delaware. Your prison picture matched Florence’s description perfectly, and my gumshoe had no problem locating your latest whereabouts.”

“Gumshoe.” I slapped her hand so hard the little pistol flew over the bar and plunked to the floorboards. Grabbing her throat I marched to the main switch, doused the lights, and said, “Melodramatic aren’t you?”

The perpetual glow of the red exit sign above our heads revealed her lips twisted in an oddly cynical smile rather than the fright I expected to see on her face. This was disappointing since alarm heightens pleasure. So I squeezed a little tighter to alter that damn expression but was surprised to be greeted with a short laugh. Enraged by her audacity, I drew my right fist back, warning, “When I’m done you’ll think your sister’s ordeal was sheer ecstasy—”

An explosion erupted in my groin, and nausea swept me from stomach to tongue. Electric shocks surged through my left wrist and fingers, and my numbed hand fell from her throat. A sharp cramp shot along my Achilles tendon, and then her forehead struck my nose and I felt my legs being swooped upward. My head slammed to the tiled floor so hard I saw her and her double until I blinked the flashbulb bursts out of my eyes. While my sight was off, my hearing wasn’t, and she stated clearly, “Jujitsu, Ketchum—one of my many accomplishments.”

I managed to grunt, “Please—don’t kill me…”

“Never intended to. That’s why I let you take the weapon so easily.” She grinned. “Not even loaded.”

“Then…what…”

“What are Bunnies famous for?”

“Uh…”

“Humping.” She sniggered. “Now let me turn you over.”

I was too weak to stop her from rolling me onto my stomach, then kneeling on my spine. She placed her hands under my chin and drew me upward like a human bow. The first jerk of her palms sent fire up my spinal cord. The second triggered an explosion
between my ears. Then I felt nothing. She climbed off me, walked around the bar, and fetched the fallen gun. Upon returning she said, “This was carefully thought out, Ketchum. Rather than see you in jail, I imprisoned you in diapers—life sentence at that. Total paralysis waist down. No more sex life. No more beatings of women. And what will you tell police after I notify 9-1-1 on my throwaway cell of your
collapse
—attacked by a woman in a rabbit outfit? Or allude to me as Florence’s sister and implicate yourself in her unsolved murder? You don’t even know my name or the color of my hair and eyes—contact lenses work wonders. Plus my alibi’s been carefully arranged.”

She dropped her gun in the basket, headed toward the front door, turned before stepping into the street, wiggled her cottontailed butt, and chuckled. “I know. Tell them you were
really
humped by a bunny…”

William E. Chambers, Mystery Writers of America’s executive vice president, 2000–02, is the author of the novels
Death Toll, The Redemption Factor,
and
The Tormentress.
His short stories have appeared in major mystery magazines and anthologies in the United Sates and England. “If I Quench Thee…,” a story of murder through racism, is required reading in London’s and Scotland’s middle schools.

Joe Clifford

R
etreating inside his hoodie, Ricky sprinted into the midnight squall across the empty preserve lot to the car parked beneath the big tree. He pounded on the window. The large man behind the wheel looked over lazily, taking another slow drag on his cigarette, making Ricky wait in the pouring rain a moment longer before finally unlocking the door.

“Fuck, Wade,” Ricky said, climbing in front, “I’m drenched now.”

Wade cuffed the back of Ricky’s head, knocking him forward. “It’s Miami. What you want me to do about it?”

Ricky rubbed the back of his skull, mumbling incoherent soft consonants.

Reaching under his seat, Wade retrieved a brown paper bag and held it out. Ricky tried to grab it, but Wade pulled his hand back.

“Not so fast,” Wade said. “You know why I’m bailing you out with this?”

“Because I promised to pay you back twice as much?”

“It’s not a loan,” said Wade. “I’m giving it to you.”

“I don’t need any favors because I’m Big Rick’s kid.”

“Wrong. That’s exactly what you do need. Your father did right by me—and a lot of other people around here. He deserves better than a drug addict son who’s about to land his ass in Metro if he doesn’t fly straight.” Wade pinched his smoke and took a hard pull.

“Got an extra cigarette?”

“No. It’s a bad habit. You got enough of those.” Wade shoved the bag hard into Ricky’s gut like he was handing off a football.

Ricky doubled over.

“You’ve forgotten how to take a handoff.”

Ricky righted himself and narrowed his eyes. He started to open the bag, but Wade jabbed a hand and cinched it shut.

“Don’t worry. It’s all there.” Wade gestured out the windshield at the big tree they were parked beneath. “You know what kind that is?”

Ricky studied the tree, which looked like it had five trunks, limbs all knotted, gnarled and intertwined, roots anchored in the earth like arthritic alien leg bones. He shrugged.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have dropped out of school,” Wade said. “It’s called a banyan tree. Banyan trees don’t grow from the ground like other trees. They start high in the nest of a palm when a bird shits a seed into a frond. When the banyan starts to sprout, it chokes the palm to death as it slithers its own roots down into the soil.” Wade stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. “See, you can focus on one or the other. The violent birth, or the resiliency to rise above origins.” He turned to Ricky. “Me? I see a survivor. You dig what I’m saying?”

Ricky giggled.

“What’s so goddamn funny?”

“Nothing, man. Just, you know, Wade Wojcik. The Miami City Muscle. Getting all sentimental about a tree.”

“You get older, kid, you start seeing things differently.” Wade grabbed Ricky by the shoulder. “I was with your father the night you were born, and I seen how proud he was when you started playing ball, before you started fucking your life up with this wannabe gangster shit.”

“Well, he ain’t around anymore, is he?”

“Listen, you little shit. Your father could’ve gone to the cops, could’ve bought himself a little witness protection farm in Kansas, but he didn’t. You know why? Because he’s a stand-up guy who didn’t make excuses. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. No matter how screwed up your beginnings, you stake your claim, you dig in and don’t let nobody take nothing from you.” Wade leaned over, eyes earnest. “All any father wants is for his son to have a better life than him. It’s why I’m giving you this money. You pay back your debt. You make this right, however you have to. Then you get your ass back to school, back on the team—”

A loud knock on the driver’s side glass stopped Wade’s speech. He turned. Out in the rain, a kid Ricky’s age stood blank-faced, hands at his side. “What the—”