We met at Marciano’s in Midtown at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesdays. Hump Day. We sat at the long mahogany bar and drank dirty martinis. She was in her mid-twenties and called herself Anna. She had long legs that ran like the interstate to red, slingback heels and wore short skirts. After three months, I figured it was a standing date. But a glance at my phone indicated 8:15 p.m. and still no Anna. No messages either. That was unlike her. 
I hope she’s safe, I thought.
     I paid for her time. Cash.  And I paid well. Especially since all we did was talk. 
    No, really. Since my wife Mary had passed away over a year ago, I needed someone who’d listen. 
    Anna was that someone. 
    At 8:30 p.m., Anna walked in with an athletic guy half my age. He was boyish looking, but probably close to thirty. She strolled right by, didn’t even give me a nod. Her musky perfume hit me like a cinder block to the head. 
    At 9:15 p.m., after downing two cocktails at a corner high top, they left arm-in-arm, her face nuzzled in the nape of his neck. Her hot, breathy voice singing sweet nothings in his ear.
    I followed them closely for a few blocks and slipped into the apartment building they entered before the main entrance swung shut. I skulked up the stairs behind them and hung back until they closed their apartment door. 
But they didn’t. They left it half open. 
    Why?
    I didn’t surprise them when I finally entered. They were waiting for me. The main room was empty, not a single furnishing or decoration. Anna stood at the center under the warm glow of a dome-shaped ceiling lamp. She held a pocket-size .22. Her male companion was off to her side. He had a snub-nosed .38 pointed at my gut. My heart pounded in my throat.
    Anna broke the silence. “Close the door, Don.”
    I held fast, my feet planted on the hardwood floor.
    “Now,” she said.
    I pushed it shut.
    “What’s going on?” I said, my voice wavering. “I thought we had an arrangement. Then you show up with this clown. And now guns?”
    Anna cleared her throat. “You’re getting excited. That’s not like you.”
    I took a step forward and her companion moved closer. I stopped.
    “You’ve been playing me.”
    “It’s not like that,” she said. “Be smart. No one needs to get hurt.”
    I raised my voice. “It’s a little late for that.”
    “Calm down.”
    “What do you want?”
    “What do you think?
    “Money?” I said.
    Before she could answer, her partner spoke up. “Ten grand.” His voice was thin and didn’t match his muscles.
    I laughed.
    “You can afford it,” he said.
    He was right. 
    “How do I know you won’t kill me after you get it?”
    He smirked. “You don’t.”
    “I don’t carry ten grand on me.”
    He gestured with the .38. “But you can get it.” 
    Anna glared at him. “We don’t have time for that. I told you to keep it simple.” 
    She turned to me. “Hand him your wallet, Don. At the end of the month, you can cancel the credit cards. After that, I promise you won’t hear from us.”
    “You ‘promise,’ huh?”
    Her jade eyes turned dark. “I’m in trouble. I owe some people money.”
    I grinned. “Really?”
    “It’s the truth. We’re leaving town tonight.”
    “And I’m an easy mark.”
    “I need a fresh start.”
    “Then you should’ve come to me.”
    “It’s too late for that,” she said.
    “We could’ve figured this out. You wouldn’t have had to run.”
     “These people want their pound of flesh.” 
    “I could’ve—”
    “Enough!” her lover said. “One old man can’t solve this.”
    I fixed my eyes on Anna. “Have you really thought this through?”
    She nodded but it lacked confidence.
    “How do you know I won’t cancel the credit cards tonight? Or call the cops?”
    “The same way I knew you’d follow us. You’re a good guy, Don. But you can’t let things go.”
    I shook my head.
    “After three months,” she said. “I know you.”
    “I’m not so sure you do.”
    “You’re no regular john. I know that.”
    “No,” I said. “I’m not.”
    Anna stepped out of the light. “Help me now. Please.”
    I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m going to reach for my wallet.”
    I slid my hand into my inside blazer pocket. I grabbed my wallet, opened it, and handed her partner the credit cards. 
    “The cash too,” she said.
    I handed him ten hundred dollar bills.
    “Now forget us,” she said.  “And remember, it’s just money.”
    “It’s more than that.”
    “Don’t be dramatic. This isn’t personal, it’s business.”
    “Everything’s personal,” I muttered.
    Anna raised her .22 level with my chest. “Don’t let pride force me to do something we’ll both regret.”
    I let her words hang there. 
    Then I walked out and down the stairs to the street and headed south. The 9mm Sig Sauer holstered under my left shoulder dragged me down. 
    Why hadn’t I pulled my gun when I reached for my wallet? Why hadn’t I put Anna and her boyfriend down? I was a professional. Retired, but with years of hits under my belt. It would’ve been easy to kill them: a nice Sunday stroll on a cool autumn day. 
    But she’d listened to me for three months. Twelve Wednesdays. She’d softened the edges of my loss and heartache with her comforting words and smiles. Even if it was all an act, she’d helped me to heal. 
    Maybe this was a small price to pay to ease a broken heart. Maybe I owed it to her. Maybe I got what I paid for after all.
    I slipped my hand to my weapon. The grip was comforting, an old friend. 
    Then I let it go.
    If Anna shook me down again, she’d get more than she bargained for. She didn’t know me. Not really. 
    Not my heart.
    Next time, I’d have no trouble settling up.

​About the author:

James Patrick Focarile is an award-winning writer who resides in the Northwest, U.S.A. He holds an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and an M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in the following: Mystery Tribune, Guilty Flash, Shotgun Honey, Close To The Bone, Thrill Ride Magazine, and more. For more info, visit: JamesPatrickFocarile.com   

     The first thing Hallie did when her fiancé died was to shear off her hair. His corpse was still warm in the bedroom as she stood before the bathroom mirror, washed the blood from the blades of the scissors, and watched it swirl down the drain. She lifted her long blond tresses away from her neck and began to cut. As the tangled strands landed in the trashcan she felt a heavy weight falling away. 
     She looked in the mirror and smiled. The person smiling back was someone she didn’t know, a naked woman with tears in her eyes and jaggedy points of hair sticking out all over her head. Hallie could hardly wait to get to know this beautiful stranger. 
     Now she could start fresh, begin her life all over again.
She turned on the shower and when the water was almost too hot to bear, she stepped in. She lathered herself with shampoo and soap that released the scent of flowers.
     After drying herself with a thick, fluffy towel, she used it to wipe down the shower and the sink. She stuffed the towel into the trashcan and, almost as an afterthought, she dropped in the scissors too.
     She stepped into the bedroom, averting her eyes from Martin’s body on the bed. Her clothes still lay heaped in the corner where they’d been when he died. She carried them into the bathroom and hastily put them on, glad to see that her jeans and shirt showed no traces of blood.
Hallie hadn’t intended to kill him. It was an act of self-defense. Martin always liked to play rough in bed, but this time he’d closed his hands around her throat more tightly than ever before. Struggling to breathe, she choked out, “Basta!”—Italian for enough, their safe word, the signal that he must stop. He ignored her. Squeezed harder.
   Her body bucked, her arms flailed. She banged her hand on the bedside table and felt something metal. Cool, hard.
     The scissors.
   Earlier in the afternoon they’d been shopping. Martin had bought a new cashmere coat. Back at the house, he’d taken the coat and Hallie into the bedroom. He snipped off the hangtags and hung the coat in the closet. Then, abandoning the scissors and tags on the table, he flung Hallie onto the bed. 
As his hands crushed her throat, she gasped for breath. Her lungs felt ready to explode. Pinpoints of bright light danced in the darkness in front of her eyes.
Her fingers closed around the scissors. She pulled them in close, next to her head. 
    “Basta!” She tried to scream it, but she couldn’t push the word past the band of fists sealing her throat.
     Frantic to make him release her, she jabbed at his hands with the scissors. Jabbed again. 
     Without letting go, he lowered his head to kiss her.
     It was luck, or perhaps fate, that guided the blades to the hollow at the base of his neck and thrust them deep into his flesh. Martin collapsed on top of her, bathing her face in his blood.
     For a long moment she lay there, too shocked to move. Then she rolled out from under him and curled into a ball, crying as she sucked in sweet, wonderful air. 
     Surely Martin hadn’t planned to kill her, any more than she intended for him to die. But what if he had meant it? What if he’d concocted a scheme to get rid of her and blame her death on innocent lovemaking that, in their passion, they let get out of hand? Or maybe he wouldn’t explain what happened but would simply wrap her body in the cashmere coat and toss her in the lake, as if she never even existed. 
    Lately they spent most of their time together quarreling. She’d been pressing him for decisions about their future. Maybe his hands wringing her throat had been his answer to her demands.
     The shifting slant of the afternoon light through the curtains told her time was running short. She made herself get up and go into the bathroom. That was when she took the scissors to her hair. Martin loved it long. He once said he’d kill her if she cut it. She always assumed he was making a joke, using a figure of speech. 
     Now she stared at herself in the mirror again, running her palm over her shorn head. It felt so odd. She wondered if anyone she knew would recognize her. If not, that was okay. She scarcely recognized herself.
     Better take the stuff in the trashcan with her, Hallie decided. She lifted out the plastic liner with all of its telltale contents and shoved it into the shopping bag that had held the cashmere coat. The bag would look less conspicuous if someone saw her leaving the house.
     Self-defense, yes. Even so, Hallie didn’t want to stay around to tell her story to the police.
   She paused by the bed long enough to pull a blanket over the body. “Goodbye, Martin,” she said. “I loved you, you know. I believed all the promises you made. I should have known that for you, love would never be enough.”
     Hallie had no idea where she would go, what she would do next. For so long, her life had revolved around Martin’s plans, Martin’s needs, Martin’s whims. She no longer had a real sense of what she, Hallie, wanted and needed. But she was eager to find out. To her surprise what she felt now was not grief but relief, not a sense of loss but an opening of possibilities.
     The bedroom door made a satisfying click as she shut it behind her.
     Martin’s wife was in for a surprise when she got home.

​About the author:

Margaret Lucke flings words around as an author, editor, and teacher of fiction writing classes in the San Francisco Bay Area. She writes tales of love, ghosts, and murder, sometimes all three in one book. She is a former president of the Northern California chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Visit her at https://margaretlucke.com/

   Remember, Ricky, when we were kids and used to throw stones off the bridge into the Susquehanna? The second the stone left your hand, you knew its whole future was set, how it would soar and splash and fall to the bottom of that river that seemed to flow on forever. I wish you were here right now. God, I do. 
     The Blue Haven is the way you remember. Cold and rainy as it is today, this bar’s as good a place as any to shelter from the weather. The neon sign in the window glows like blue ice.  I’m sitting at our regular table near the front. You know how I like to keep an eye on who comes through the door. I’m drinking my usual, Tenec’s Rye and water.  That first sip of the day is like the kiss of a princess, but now I have a spin in my head and my tongue is a little numb. Terry’s tending bar. You know how he brags about the baseball bat under the counter. In twenty years, we never seen or heard of him laying a hand on it, right? Especially today.  It’s slow, only a couple of old guys nursing their drinks ‘til they can go home to supper.
    When I first knew you were dead, I’m not kidding, it was like being dropped on the dark side of the moon. No air. No light. You wonder how a person’s heart can stand such pain. Since we were kids, Ricky, I always looked on you as a little brother, didn’t I? In a fight, you were very good with your hands. I was more the thinker, trying to use my brain to get us out of scrapes. When we grew up and chose the life, I swore that I would have your back. You know that.
Your funeral this morning was beautiful. Rosewood casket, buckets of flowers. The largest wreathe was mine. All our friends were there, showing you tremendous respect. Even Lorenzo showed up, if you can believe it. God bless your poor Claudia and the kids. They were wrecks but put on brave faces. What could I say to them? 
    The graveside service was a little rushed because of the wind and rain. As the priest droned on, I couldn’t take my eyes off the tarp covering the pile of dirt and your grave wide open like a mouth. I tried to slip away quiet at the end of the service, but Lorenzo cornered me, patted me on the back, shook my hand. After that, I needed to drop in here for a few drinks to restore my soul.
The word on the street is that your exit was a professional piece of work. And everybody knows that you were treated with respect. It was late at night, so no witnesses. The paper said that you were probably walking with someone in the park, someone you knew, under the streetlights along the river. That the shooter fell a half-step behind and pumped one quick round into the back of your neck. Like flicking off a light switch. The shot didn’t leave a mark on your face. They left your body along the main park road so that you would be quickly found and trucked to the morgue, before rats or weather could mess with you. And the shooter tucked a C-note in your hand to tell the world that you were somebody, a high-value target. 
    Ricky, I’ll probably never find out what you did to earn the bullet. But we both know how the hit would have come down. A call comes from a boss that you got to erase a guy and it has to be you because he’s your friend and trusts only you. If you say, “No, thanks, he’s a buddy,” well, you’re in the life and you know the rules. You get rubbed out for refusing the order and a second-string shooter takes out your friend instead and maybe botches the job. 
    People say the greatest gift you can give a friend is to take a bullet for him. They’re wrong. The greatest gift is to have the guts to put a bullet into your friend with mercy and dignity. Knowing that you will have to live on, tasting ashes…
   ​ But where are my manners? Here, I told Terry to pour you a shot of rye. I’m sorry for the rough weather you’re suffering out there today. I hope this nip warms your spirit. Take it, Ricky. Drink your fill, the angel’s share. 
And rest easy.

​

     “This gon’ be a good one,” says Deon, shoving french fries into his mouth. He likes to talk with his mouth full. Or at least it doesn't stop him. 
     “Let’s talk about it in the car,” I say. 
     We’re in a gyro shop on Halsted Street at 9:00 pm, closing time, and the two guys behind the couple of inches of security glass bolted to the front of the counter are anxious for us to leave. They’ve already locked the front door to keep out other customers. They’re anxious, but they’re not asking. 
They know better than to do that. 
    Deon finishes off his fries as I crumple my food wrappers, condiment packets, and used napkins into a ball and shove them into a garbage can by the door. Deon carefully wipes his hands and follows me, leaving his trash on the table. 
     In the car he tells me that the girl we’re going to see is named Teeny. Deon knows her from our boss’s club, but I don’t. He says, “Her brother got picked up by the cops on some shit that happened down on the Low End.
     “Real?”
     “Yep. Been in lockup for a couple of weeks. Some gang shit. The opposition is making life in jail hard for him. Had his ass beat twice already. Family’s been trying to get the money up for bail, but they’re short. Teeny works at the club so she went to Brent to talk to him about it.”
     “What he say?”
     “Told her she didn’t have enough under her dress to cover that kind of loan.”
     “Now he’s worried about her talking?”
     “Brent’s got somebody in the prosecutor’s office and word is that Teeny wants to give them something on some dirt Brent did. And in exchange, they’ll work out something for Martell’s fat ass.”
     “The brother.”  
     “Right.”
     “What’s she got?” 
     Deon shrugs.
     “She a damn waitress. Still, she sees who comes and who goes. Might have heard something she shouldn’t. Maybe fucking somebody on one of Brent’s crews that told her something. Whatever. Can’t have her giving up anything at all.”
     “So we talk to her?”
     “Yeah. And if we find out she’s been running her mouth, we convince her to shut up. She’ll tell them she was only pretending that she knew something so they’d help her brother.”
     “What if it turns out she ain’t been talking?”
     “Either way,” he say, “we gon’ see what’s under that dress,”  
     We both laugh at that.
     We have some time to kill and we use some of it trying to decide how to get our hands on Teeny. We settle on following her home after her shift at the club. We spend the rest of the time talking about the things we’re going to do to Teeny once we have her.
     Her shift finally ends at 1:00 a.m. and she gets a ride home. We watch her go in as the car drives away. We park at the corner where we have a decent view of the place. 
     Teeny barely has any neighbors. Most of the houses on the block have been condemned or torn down over the years. It’s mostly vacant lots full of trash and weeds flanking the little house that Teeny rents. The house is backed up against elevated train tracks that run above a fifteen-foot concrete wall. 
     We sit there for two hours, figuring we’ll give her a chance to go to bed and make sure she isn’t having any company that we might have to deal with. But she seems to be having a hard time settling down. She has the lights on and we can see her moving around in the house, cheap curtains showing her silhouette. Finally, the lights go out. 
     After another thirty minutes of anticipation, we start the short drive up the block. 
    We walk right up to the front door, real easy, like everything is fine. We decide to make a grand entrance that matches our eager mood after so much damn waiting.
     Deon snatches open the flimsy screen door as I put a boot to the cheap wooden one. It damn near flies off of the hinges and we charge in, the dim light of the street lamp revealing a wide-awake Teeny. She comes out of the kitchen like a shadow, fully-dressed and armed with what appears to be a little piece of shit Hi-Point pistol. She starts shooting at us. 
     It’s a bad gun and she has bad aim. But it’s a small house so it’s enough. 
     I put up a hand to block the bullets and she shoots me in it, then two more bullets find my belly. Deon is standing behind me and one of the shots hits him in the side of the head before he can get to the Glock on his hip.  
     We hadn’t considered this. 
     Maybe she’d lie about what she had been saying. Or wouldn’t want to talk.        Maybe she’d even try to run. All of those things would have been okay. 
    Hell, we’d been up all night thinking about what we’d do to her for those things. 
     But this? That she might have a gun? That she’d shoot without warning? Did we ever think about what she might do to us?
     No. We hadn’t. 
     So now I’m on the floor trying to hold in my guts. She looks down at me, the gun still smoking and aimed at my head. I’m on my side, curled into the fetal position and dimly aware of Deon repeatedly kicking me in my ass. It’s not his fault, really. He’s dying. I close my eyes. She walks around me and starts pulling on Deon, going through his pockets. 
    Thirty seconds later, I hear the screen door bang shut and the distinctive growl of Deon’s V8 engine as she races off down the street. 
     Shit. I guess she’d been up all night thinking too.

​About the author:

Chris L. Robinson is a writer born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. He has been published in Shotgun Honey and Pulp Modern Flash. He has a beautiful wife and a son that is gradually winning all of their wrestling matches--please send help. He can be found on Twitter as @ChrisLRobinson3.

     ​I didn’t appreciate having to wait a full minute after knocking on Frank Butler’s door. I knew he was home; the sounds of shuffling feet and creaking floor told me that. But useless threats through the door wouldn’t get me anything besides attention from nosy neighbors.
     When Frank finally cracked the door, his eyes widened. He kept his head down and his mouth shut, pulling the door open with a certain urgency. I walked in and Frank stepped backwards like a dog who’d learned to fear his master.
     I’d never been in Frank’s apartment, but it was exactly how I imagined it: clutter across the floor, dishes piled in the kitchen sink, furniture that hadn't been cleaned in years. He kept the blinds closed like he wanted no part of the real world seeping in.
     I brushed loose papers off a mahogany kitchen chair and sat. Frank took the chair across the table and quietly situated himself on top of a wobbly mess of magazines. He was sweating like a pig in August.
     Frank said, “I’ve seen you around the club the last few weeks. You’re working for Mr. Salvatore now?
     “Yeah, and you know why I’m here.”
     He nodded so vigorously I thought his head might fly off.
     “Good. Then grab the five grand you owe, and I’ll be gone. I’ve been asking around and I know you’ve managed to glom onto at least that much.”
     “Well—”
     I was already bored of excuses I hadn’t even heard yet. I took the .45 from beneath my leather jacket. I didn’t need to say a word, just let him stare at the gun long enough to know he didn’t have many options.
     He cleared his throat. “I’ll have Salvatore’s money in two days. It’s true I’ve got the cash, but it’s tied up—”
     I cocked the .45’s hammer.
     Frank raised his hands. “I’m not trying to skip or welsh. I swear.”
     “Good. You wouldn’t make it far.”
     “I’m asking for two more days.”
     There was a creaking sound. We both turned to see a girl of about five with yellow pigtails and bright blue eyes standing at the edge of the kitchen. She wore Kermit the Frog pajamas and held a doll with the same blonde pigtails she had herself. I hoped I hid my surprise.
     Unfazed by the scene in front of her, the girl rubbed her eyes. “Daddy, you woke me up.”
     “I’m sorry, honey. Just go back to bed.”
     She moved her whole body, turning towards me. Her eyes focused on the automatic.
     “Daddy, is that a real gun?”
    Frank forced a laugh. “No, of course not. It’s a toy. My friend was just showing it to me.”
     Slowly, I turned the barrel towards the girl, keeping my focus on Frank. You could have heard a pin drop. Frank rose from his seat to put himself between me and his daughter. His back to me, he said, “Honey, it’s past your bedtime. I’m gonna talk to my friend for a few minutes and then I’ll read you another story, okay?”
     Whatever was on his face was convincing; wordlessly, she turned and left the room.
     “You’re a piece of shit, Frank, but that isn’t news. Do I need to tell you what happens if you keep stalling?”
     Frank looked at me for a long moment, saying nothing, then moved to the kitchen counter. He opened a drawer, rummaging in it. I heard silverware scraping metallically. I tensed as his hand came out slowly, but it only held an envelope, pinched between thumb and forefinger. At a snail’s pace, he pushed the drawer back in, still stalling. Feet dragging, head hanging, he inched his way to me and held out the envelope.
     “Sit down,” I told him, motioning with the gun.
     Frank sat. I counted hundred-dollar bills, watching out of the corner of my eye, wondering if Frank was dumb enough to try anything, thinking I was distracted. He sat still, arms crossed, his wrists together like they were tied—like he was trapped.
     He was trapped and he knew it. He owed Salvatore money. That was cleared, but now Frank would instead owe whoever he got the money from and probably piss off whoever was expecting it.
    Satisfied with the count, I stood, both the gun and the envelope in my jacket pocket. At the apartment door, I looked back to find Frank still in his chair, unmoving, head in his hands.
     “You were a terrible husband, the worst mistake of my life. I don’t know who you conned into actually procreating with you, but I’m sure you’re a terrible father, too,” I told him. “Clean up your fucking act—for her sake, if you don’t give a shit about yourself.”
     Frank looked up at me. There was defeat in his eyes, but maybe something else too, like he actually heard me.
     Whatever, it wasn’t my problem. I had a job to do and I did it. I kept thinking of that little girl though, and what might have been if I’d maybe known how to get tough with Frank all those years ago.

About the authors:

Patrick is a lifelong Maryland resident. He graduated from Southern New Hampshire University with an M.A. in English and Creative Writing. His short fiction has been published in Mystery Tribune and The Penmen Review. His debut novel, Pierce, was published last March. 

Brandon Barrows is the author of several crime and mystery novels. His most recent is And Of Course, There Was the Girl from Full Speed Publishing. He has also published over one hundred short stories and is a three-time Mustang Award finalist and a two-time Derringer Award nominee. Find more at http://www.brandonbarrowscomics.com and on Twitter @BrandonBarrows

     His finger twitched, poised on the trigger. He adjusted the rifle’s scope a couple of millimeters to the left. In complete stillness, his breathing became the only perceptible movement. He lined up the shot. Held his breath and pulled. 
     The gunshot startled the deer and it fled. Birds cawed and flapped their wings furiously, flying out of the trees. He ran towards the mass slumped on the ground. He checked for a pulse. Nothing. He reached for his phone and, with trembling hands, dialed 911. 
     “Hello. Paramedics, please,” he said, panting. “I've just shot a man… it… it was an accident.” He stumbled over his words, “I was trying to shoot a deer.” 
     He agreed to meet the paramedics and Sheriff Hawley back at his house and lead them into the woods. They didn't try to resuscitate the man. The gaping hole in his head was the obvious indicator he couldn’t be saved. The police took the shooter into custody.
     He sat in a cold, sterile cell. The overpowering stench of bleach did little to mask the underlying human unpleasantness. With nothing to do, he picked his fingers raw. Why did I pull that trigger?
     ​The door creaked open, and they escorted him to the interrogation room. A mirror hung on one side, reflecting his ashen skin tone. Hitting the record button, the officer reminded him of his Miranda rights.
     “We've spoken to his wife,” the Sheriff said. “And apparently, you and the deceased were feuding.” 
     Shifting in his seat, he stressed, “Yes, he kept trespassing on my land, but I'd never harm the man. You gotta believe me.”
     “His wife reported that you said if he kept trespassing, you’d shoot him.” 
     “Yes, but I didn't mean it,” he said, his response quick. Sweat started to bead on his forehead and top lip; his cheeks flushed at the line of questioning. “I said that when we were arguing. It was the third time in January I’d caught him again. He didn’t even apologize. Said he’d do what he wanted. His attitude made me furious, but I wouldn't kill the man. Please, I'm telling the truth.”
     “She said her husband loved birdwatching. You had a problem with him documenting wildlife for conservation purposes on your property?”
     He hesitated. “Well… it's my property.” 
     “And you did say you’d kill him?”
     “But only because I was so angry,” his voice quivered as he continued to fidget. “Please, I’m not lying. You saw him. Wearing a camouflage jacket. I literally couldn't see him for the trees.” 
     The officer paused, observing the man’s state. “His wife also said he never leaves the house without the orange vest and cap.” 
     “But you saw him without any reflective gear.” His hands were clammy and animated. “I told you I had a deer in line of sight, but somehow I missed. Check the area, I promise they'll be deer tracks,” he pleaded. Desperation oozed out of every pore as his eyes darted between the officers. “Yes, the trespassing incidents annoyed me, but I would never hurt him. I would never hurt anyone.” 
     They kept him in custody for the next three days while they continued to analyze the crime scene, search for evidence, and interview those known to the pair. He cooperated throughout. Once they completed the preliminary investigations, and with no evidence of intentional harm, they let him out. Advising him they would continue to investigate. 
    Exhausted, he thanked Sheriff Hawley, grateful to finally be leaving. Stepping out into the crisp, cool air, a weight lifted off his shoulders. 
     Back home in his yard, he threw a few logs of chopped firewood in a barrel. He poured in gasoline and struck a match. The flames roared and cackled. He pulled out the orange vest and cap, ripped off his neighbor's body, and threw them into the fire. An acrid smell of burning fabric rose up. He watched them disintegrate as he warmed his hands and face.
     ​He let out a laugh and said, “I did warn you.”

​

Los Angeles, 1965.

   Dale knew the job was fucked from the moment he pried open the file cabinet. Breaking into the two-story office bungalow off Santa Monica had been easy enough. He sapped the overnight guard, relieved him of his keys, and waltzed right in. 
     He left the old bull snoozing in his chair. In Dale’s experience, the older the bulls got, the less trouble they wanted. This area of Hollywood was mostly deserted at night anyway. But Dale could never be too careful. Five years in Folsom after a job went sideways taught him that.
     It also gave Dale a sixth sense of when a job was about to jump the rails. And right now, as Dale’s penlight washed across the contents of the pried open file cabinet, that internal klaxon was blaring like a five-alarm fire. 

     They approached Dale at The Dirty Bird three days earlier. The Dirty Bird was a dive bar down at the end of Culver Boulevard in a gritty little beach area known as Playa del Rey. It was the kind of place where a man could hole up and never be found. It was also the closest thing Dale had to an office.
     There were two of them, square as the day is long, which meant they stuck out like sore thumbs in the dive.
     Dale was nursing his third beer of the morning, wondering how the hell he was going to make rent that month and pay for his daughter’s doctor bill, when they sat down next to him. 
     “You Ricochet?” one of them asked.
     Dale stared into his beer. That was a nickname he picked up in Folsom after bouncing a mouthy punk off a cell block wall. 
     “Who’s asking?” he replied.
     “Got a job for you.”
     Dale was a safecracker. A second-story man. One of the few professional burglars left in Los Angeles with a code. Dale was in it for the money. Nothing else. And he had one rule–no one ever got hurt.
     But Dale had told himself that after his last stint he was done. That he was going straight. Folsom made him come to terms with the fact that his line of work had a shelf life. That no matter how tough a man was, it would gnaw him up and spit him out. Deep freeze him for fifteen to twenty. Or worse, put him in the ground for good. 
     Dale didn’t want to go out that way. He owed his little girl that much at least. It was an epiphany that made Dale feel something he hadn’t in years. Happiness. But happiness didn’t get an ex-con a job on the straight and the bills didn’t pay themselves. 
     So Dale looked the two squares in the eye and said the words he’d regret for the rest of his life.
     “What do you need done?”

     Henry Townsend was not the kind of man Dale would ever knowingly fuck with. Townsend parlayed a modest Ohio manufacturing business into an empire that spanned industries. He was as powerful and connected as they come. He owned a mansion on a ten-acre lot in the Pacific Palisades that was bigger than Dale’s hometown. Townsend was a kingmaker in a town full of heavyweights. Rumor was, he was harder than half the yard at Folsom. And he wasn’t afraid to fight dirty.
     Yet here Dale was, standing in Townsend’s private office, his penlight washing down on a single file in the file cabinet he had just pried open. And Dale knew he was fucked. 
     The Two Squares told him they were digging up dirt on a business rival to take him out. They lied. Because the classified documents stamped in faded red ink across the jacket of the file meant this was heavier than any weight Dale had ever lifted. 
     This was the kind of weight that got men killed.
     And as Dale stared at it, wondering how he was going to dig himself out of this hole, he knew in his bones there were only two ways it could go.

   The Two Squares waited for Dale in an idling sedan. The driver held a Browning Hi-Power out of view.
     “Think he knows?” the Passenger asked.
   “Men like Dale Barnes exist for one reason,” the Driver replied. “They’re means to an end. Nothing more. I doubt he’s even aware enough to know that.” The Driver scoffed. “It’s like asking if a gnat knows it’s about to be swatted.”
     The Passenger chewed on that as he peered back out his window. “Here he comes.”
    The Two Squares watched Dale exit the building and hurry towards them, holding the file. They were distracted by the slight smile on his face. Which meant they didn’t see the .38 coming up in Dale’s other hand.
     It was only after, when Dale rifled through their pockets, that he found their badges.

     Dale rocketed away into the night after dumping the Feds’ bodies, a single question burning a hole in his head. Who threw the fix on him?
     Dale had a pretty good idea. Even thinking about the man made something terrible rise in Dale’s chest. A rage that threatened to incinerate him. Dale told Sonny Palmisano that he was hanging it up. That he wanted to do something different with his life. 
     Now Dale was barreling towards some unknown future because Sonny had other ideas. Dale’s headlights sliced through the night, navigating the windy road over the hill towards Sonny’s hideout in Burbank. He knew any hope he had for a quiet existence with his little girl was as dead and gone as those two he dumped in the Hollywood reservoir. Because he could never go straight again. 
     Well, Sonny was about to meet a man who’d broken his one rule. Dale would figure out the rest afterwards. 
     But that was the life Dale chose, ricocheting between happiness and despair. 

​About the author:

Woody Strassner is a screenwriter based in Los Angeles. Most recently, he was on the writing staff of the hit crime procedural STUMPTOWN for ABC Studios, where he co-wrote two episodes. Currently, Woody is writing a crime audiodrama for Echoverse, as well as co-writing a feature script. He’s a graduate of UCLA and is represented by UTA.

     The cow was standing on the side of the hill behind Mr. O’Leary’s house, and we thought if we ran down the hill and rammed it, we could tip it. We were right. The problem was, when we hit the cow, Cody slipped underneath so the cow landed on top of him, which was sort of like a brick landing on a tube of toothpaste. The cow acted just like a brick too, laying there like it was knocked out or maybe dead–though I was pretty sure the dead one was Cody.
     Sometimes panic is smart. I started to run away, which would have been the smart kind of panic. If I’d done it right then, everything would’ve turned out just fine. Cody would’ve died and nobody would’ve known what happened. I would’ve been in the clear. It’s not like somebody was going to get my fingerprints off a dead cow.
     But I froze. And then, right when I was ready to run, damn Cody if he didn’t ask me for help. Sort of. The moonlight was shining on his face, and he looked at me bug-eyed with blood bubbling out of his mouth. He started making this raspy sound, which made it seem like he wanted me to do something. I tried to push the cow off him, but it was like trying to push your house down the street. There was only one other thing to try. I grabbed Cody’s head, which was the only part of him sticking out from under the cow, and I yanked as hard as I could. Cody didn’t react any way at all, and after a second yank, I knew I was wasting my time, so I stopped.
     Now the bad panic hit. I knew I couldn’t save Cody, and even though it was an accident, I thought people would blame me for what happened, so how could I make sure I didn’t get into trouble? The smart answer hadn’t changed. I needed to run. But I was thinking so hard that I forgot how to be smart. I thought I had to make it look like something had happened other than the truth, something nobody would think I had anything to do with. I thought I would make it look like some kind of real crime had happened. Like some kind of gangsters had been here or something.
     There’s not much crime around here to the point that people leave their houses unlocked, so I walked right through Mr. O’Leary’s back door without making a sound. It was late enough that everyone was in bed and the lights were out, but there were night lights around so I could see where I was going. I’d been in Mr. O’Leary’s house once before when I was selling light-bulbs to raise money for Cub Scouts, and I remembered that his gun cabinet was in the den. It wasn’t locked either. I took his 12-gauge and a box of cartridges.
     I went back to Cody and the cow and got to work. The cow still looked to be dead, and Cody looked the same, which made me feel a lot better about doing this. I wasn’t going to kill anything. I was just going to re-kill some things to confuse people about how they got killed in the first place. No idiot cow-tippers here. This was the work of some stone-cold killers.
     I used up all the cartridges. It was a whole lot of racket, but I was too busy to think about that. I made the cow look like a burger you’d never want to eat, and I made Cody look like he’d never had a head in the first place. 
I was wiping my fingerprints off the gun and looking around for some place to stash it when I saw Mr. O’Leary coming down the hill from the farmhouse to see what all the noise was, yelling my name and asking me what I thought I was doing. If I hadn’t used up all the cartridges, I might have shot him too, but now I couldn’t think of anything else to do other than what I should’ve done in the first place. I ran.

About the author:

David Rachels is co-editor of the publishing imprint Staccato Crime, which resurrects forgotten noir and true crime from 1899-1939. As well, he has edited four volumes of short stories by the classic noir writer Gil Brewer.​

     Sam fiddled with the cuffs of his flannel, unsure if he should unbutton them, roll them up, or leave them be. It’s not that Amy Chandler made him nervous, though he hadn’t been on a date in ages. He was, however, bored out of his fucking mind.
     “He actually had the balls to tell me I couldn’t return it,” Amy said. “The stitching was frayed! You should have been there. At Saks of all places. It took every ounce of my patience not to raise my voice. We’re not talking about a cheap knock off purse. This is a Moynat Rejane. What am I saying? You already know, you asked me to bring it!”
     “Got into designer purses thanks to my ex.”
     “Divorce? I’m so sorry. Wondered why you asked about purses on the dating app.”
     Sam pinched himself for some excitement. He did it out of Amy’s sight on the other side of their wine glasses. Gave him something to focus on. 
     “Can tell a lot about a lady by the type of arm candy they carry. Must have been terrible dealing with that return,” he said.
     Amy had carrot-colored hair tied in a ponytail and wore a pair of dark cat’s eye glasses. Dating profile said she liked reading and hiking, one of which interested Sam. Her info failed to mention the boredom. 
    “You have no idea,” she said. “I nearly pulled a Karen and asked for the manager. Terrance, that was the clerk’s name, knew enough not to provoke me that way. Not at Saks. Not after I’d spent thousands!”
     “Smart man,” Sam said.
    For the date, he’d donned a black flannel with gray stripes and a pair of black corduroys, with a black JanSport backpack parked near his feet. Figured he didn’t need to dress to the nines. Place told him otherwise. One of the fancy joints downtown. La Ciccia on 30th Street. 
     “Avoid the world, it’s just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end,” Sam quoted his favorite author. “Kerouac wrote that line. Kind of seemed appropriate to your situation.”
     Amy leaned closer. “Oh, the name rings a bell. Does he write YA fantasy?”
     “Stream of consciousness stuff.” Sam sipped his wine. Couldn’t tell if it was worth forty bucks a glass.
     Amy seemed to notice him for the first time. Made duck lips and ran her eyes across his chest. She found the view either savory or unsavory. Sam couldn’t tell which.
     “I love reading,” she said. “I’m big into the Percy Jackson books.”
     “My kid loved them.” Sam turned his attention to the compact lavender purse on the back of her chair. “Never finished your story. Did you get to return it?”
     Her eyes rolled up into the top of her glasses. She took a deep breath. Words spewed forth. Sam didn’t listen but stared at her anyway. With his wine on the table, he pinched himself again. The homemade bread and butter, for now, provided the only sustenance. He knew she’d returned the purse.
    The waiter, a savior who told them about grad school, appeared with his pad in hand and jotted down their dinner order. Amy barked out her request for baked salmon. Sam asked for the chicken parm.
   The waiter sauntered off looking just as bored. Amy winked and made the duck lips again. “Where was I?” she asked. “The smell outside the place. Bad enough I had to return a designer bag, right? But that stench.”
     “City’s like a rotten corpse some days,” Sam said.
     “Right? Sometimes I think I’d be better off in Santa Cruz where things are a little slower. Did I tell you my sister lives there?”
     “Jesus,” Sam said. He caught himself. “I don’t think so. A sister you say?”
     She was mid-sip when he asked the question. She held up a finger.
     “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back from the powder room. She had such a year. Runs a Montessori School near the Beach Boardwalk.”
     “Familiar with the Boardwalk.”
     “Back in a jiff,” she said. He watched her stroll in and out of the pricey mood lighting. Once out of his view, he grabbed the backpack and pulled it into his lap. Unzipped it. Pulled out an eggplant purple knockoff that looked identical in every way. Grabbed her purse and exchanged it with the fake. Dropped the backpack to his feet.
     An empty wine glass greeted Amy when she returned to the table. Sam was gone.
   Outside, in an alley off Cheney Street, he met up with Terrance. He’d been waiting since Sam and Amy sat down and looked pleased to see Sam so soon.
    Sam handed him the backpack. Terrance handed over an envelope of cash.      “Your cut, lady-killer.”
     “Got another two dates tomorrow. Have more of those fakes ready?”
    “People flaunt wealth like I flaunt desperation. Course I’ll have them ready. You’ll get tonight’s cut times two. What happened in there, by the way? Why’d the date end so soon?”
     “You met her when she returned the first bag to you. Went like that,” Sam said.
     “Same bad taste in women as when we worked at The Chronicle?”
     “Two ex-journalists and both single. Might need to work on our tastes,” Sam said.
     “Designer black market pays well, Sam.”
   “Don’t know shit about purses or women, but I do know how to be an asshole. Look for my text tomorrow.”
     Sam walked a block to Randall, hoping he wouldn’t bump into the angry date. Shame he had to leave La Ciccia so soon. Hadn’t had chicken parm in ages.

​​About the author:
Patrick Whitehurst writes from the sweaty, cactus-ridden dustiness of Tucson, Arizona.