The Woman On The Bed

Here's a story I wrote around Christmas that had nothing to do with Santa Claus, elves, or whether you were naughty or nice. It's called 'The Woman on the Bed,' and I hope you enjoy it.

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I knew she shouldn't be tied up like that. It wasn't the proper thing to do with a young woman. She was barely in her twenties, and I a hard-nosed sixty. I might as well have been a shriveled eighty as far as she was concerned.

It was half past midnight on a hot Thursday evening. The city of York, Pennsylvania had advised everyone to conserve energy by turning off their air conditioning. I had none to speak of, and the constant sheen of sweat that built up on my skin did nothing to cool me off. That's actually what sweat's for, you know. It's your body's pathetic attempt to lower your temperature. A fat lot of good that did me, sitting on a plastic folding chair, in the middle of a grimy studio apartment on College Avenue.

I heard a siren go down the street, and it hit me like a lightning bolt to the heart. It also made the lady on the bare mattress jerk awake, like she'd been electrocuted by that bolt. She couldn't really sit up with her wrists and ankles bound to the bed frame via handcuffs, but she tried her damndest to.

"You're still here?" she said with a heavy rasp. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where's the other one?"

"Joshua's getting Chinese takeout at the moment," I told her. Joshua was my brother, ten years younger than I was, and every bit as hard-nosed as I. Perhaps even more so, considering it was his idea to kidnap this woman and spread-eagle her across the bed in cuffs.

"You want to tell me why I'm here?"

I remained silent.

"Oh," she muttered, "there's that look again."

I raised my left eyebrow in her direction. I wasn't aware I had a "look."

"Ever since you brought me here, I've been studying you."

"Didn't know you cared," I quipped.

"I don't." She frowned. "That look I'm talking about? That's the look that says 'I don't know shit.'" She moistened her chapped lips. "So, even if you wanted to tell me why I'm here, you can't, because you never got the memo."

I went silent again. The woman chuckled slightly.

"Oh God," she said, "there it is again."

"You know, you talk pretty tough for a broad without any clothes on," I growled.

It had been Joshua's idea to strip her naked before cuffing her to the bed, and while I wasn't exactly jumping for joy over the idea, it hadn't been all bad. Her skin was a creamy white, and she possessed long legs and fantastic breasts. I hadn't seen a real naked woman in quite a long time, and I hadn't felt the sensation passing through my groin and to my abdomen for longer than that.

"Stop staring!" she shouted.

"Can't help it," I said with a smirk. "Nudity is a crowd pleaser."

"You're nothing but a greasy pig with a fat gut and a small dick!"

"Wow. Did you read that in a comic book, or did you come up with that yourself?"

She huffed and turned her face away. I let out a sigh and looked up at the ceiling fan, hanging precariously from a large hole by a thin array of wires. It was minus two of its four metal blades, and I was not looking forward to fixing that thing should Joshua and I plan on an extended stay.

Three knocks came at the door, followed by two knocks, and then three again. I rose from my chair and let Joshua in before closing it behind him. His hands were full of brown paper bags whose corners were soaked in some sort of grease.

Joshua dumped the bags onto our rickety Family Dollar card table and riffled through them.

"I got you the broccoli and chicken, the lo mein, and the General Tso's," he told me.

"Joshua, we need to have a talk," I told him.

"Can it wait until after we eat?"

"No," I said quietly. "I don't think so."

Joshua turned to me, a styrofoam container in his right hand and a plastic fork in his left.

"You got something you want to say to me, bro?" he said in a politely angry voice.

"Why is she here?" I pointed toward the naked woman on the bed.

"We'll get to that after we eat."

"I think we'd better get to it now, Joshua."

"And I think you'd better sit the hell down and eat your damn Chinese before it gets cold."

My brother dropped his container of food on the table and pulled up a scuffed wooden stool before he sat down to eat.

I was still standing there, looking at him, waiting for an apology that I knew would never come.

"Come on, bro," Joshua said without looking my direction. "Nobody likes cold Chinese."

I turned my chair around to face our Family Dollar special and dug in. Joshua presented me with a large iced tea in a white styrofoam cup, and I took gulps of it in-between scarfing down my Chinese grub. I had no idea how hungry I'd been, and it took me a long time to realize that I hadn't eaten since yesterday. There was something very, very wrong with that.

I was halfway through my meal when the young lady cleared her throat again.

"Can I have something to drink?" she asked, her voice raspy from lack of liquid refreshment.

I reached for my iced tea and went to insert the straw, but Joshua snatched the straw out of the cup and crunched it in his hand.

"You don't deserve a drink, bitch," he said.

"Joshua, come on," I said in a low whisper. "She hasn't had anything to eat or drink in two days."

"Oh, so suddenly you care about her well-being?" My brother gave me a disapproving look. "What's gotten into you?"

"Maybe if you told me why we're keeping her--"

"Hey!" the woman shouted from her handcuffed prison. "It's a studio apartment! I can totally hear you guys and I want some answers! Who the hell are you and why the fuck am I even here?!"

I jerked in her direction, my blood starting to boil from a mixture of her agitation and my own agitation toward my brother. Joshua wiped his mouth with a napkin, stood from the table, and put a hand on my right shoulder.

"You finish your dinner," he said. "I'll handle this."

My eyes were fixed on the naked woman's body as Joshua pulled his leather jacket off and dropped it to the floor. He followed by unbuckling his belt and unzipping his jeans. Before he went any further, he looked over his left shoulder at me with chilling eyes.

"Go on, bro," he said in his politely angry voice. "Eat up. When I'm done, it'll be your turn." He nodded slowly to me, like a father assuring a child who is learning to ride a bicycle, and straddled the woman on the mattress.

I turned back to my meal as Joshua had his way with her. Sounds of her struggle and his assault splintered through my ears as I shoveled the last of my dinner into my mouth. The worse the sound got, the faster I ate, and by the time Joshua was finished, so was I.

As I took a long drink of my iced tea, one thought ricocheted through the walls of my cranium.

I didn't even know her name.

How could I have kidnapped, stripped, cuffed, and guarded an innocent woman without knowing her name?

More importantly, would I EVER know her name?

#

Joshua threw his jacket on the back of my chair and dropped his stool at the foot of the bed. The mattress had fresh stains on it from where Joshua had conducted his business with the woman, and it was all I could do not to stand up and pound the hell out of him for what he'd done to her. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't her pal or her savior. I just didn't go for kidnapping and rape. It had never been my thing. Joshua, on the other hand...

My brother reached inside his coat pocket and removed a stubby .38 Special from its confines. It was black as the night sky, and as he opened the chamber, I could see it was fully loaded with six slugs. He gave the chamber a spin, snapped it closed with a flick of his wrist, and sat on his stool carefully, holding the .38 in his right hand with his thumb on the hammer.

The woman on the bed wore a face of humiliation and shame as Joshua aimed the .38 at the space between her thighs.

"Hey," I warned him, "what the hell are you doing?"

"You want to know why we abducted Pussy Galore here and tied her up in this shitty apartment?" Joshua motioned toward her with his free hand. "Here's your chance."

"What do you two want with me?" the woman asked in a shaky voice. Her fiery personality had been doused somewhat, courtesy of my brother.

"Do you know a guy by the name of Jim Lydecker?" Joshua asked her.

"Of course I do," she replied. "He's my grandfather."

"And Jim Lydecker knew a man nick-named Goliath, correct?"

"I've...heard my grandfather mention his name," she said warily. "Why?"

"Goliath was our father," Joshua explained, pointing at me. "His real name was George C. Hemmingsworth, but whenever he got in the ring, they called him Goliath."

"Explains a lot," she said. "The three of you must share the same inferiority complex."

Joshua cocked the hammer on the .38. She bit her bottom lip as her eyes widened in terror.

"Now, back to the story," Joshua said with polite anger. "Goliath was on his way to win the U.S. heavyweight title back in his day."

"Can you speed this up? I've got a doctor's appointment in the morning."

Joshua jammed the .38 against her snatch. She quaked with fear.

"You want to be cute?" he seethed. "Be cute one more time, and the first one's going up the pipe." He scowled at her. "Is that what you want?"

The woman shook her head rapidly. I could see tears building in her eyes. My blood boiled again. I couldn't take much more of this.

"Like I said," Joshua continued, "Goliath was set to win the championship. Then he was introduced to Jim Lydecker, a big fight promoter at the time." Joshua's eyes never wavered from the woman on the bed. "Lydecker told our father that if he threw the heavyweight match, he'd double the champ's prize money and hand it over to him once the match was over."

"You never told me any of this, Joshua," I said. "Why now?"

"Because it just so happens that I owe fifty large to a loan shark and I ain't got a dime to pay it with, okay?!" It was the first time I'd seen Joshua lose his cool in front of anyone, including me. His face contorted into a sneer, and his eyes grew wild like a tiger's. I'd never seen him like this before, and I had to admit, I was terrified.

"What's fifty grand got to do with her?!" I demanded, rising to my feet. Another siren went past, and when the lighting bolt pulsed through my brain this time, all of the facts fell into place.

"There's that look," the woman said. "Only it's a little different now." She jerked her chin toward me. "There's a spark of intelligence behind those eyes."

"Dad was supposed to get fifty grand from Lydecker for throwing the fight," I said slowly, "and when he didn't, he went after the douche bag, and ended up being murdered?"

"Oh my God, bro!" Joshua scratched his forehead with the stubby barrel of the .38. "It took you THIS long to put that together?"

"Look, I don't know what my grandfather did with that money!" the woman shouted from the bed. "He did a lot of shady things back then, and whatever he left undone, he took it to his grave!"

Joshua and I exchanged glances.

"You mean he's dead?" Joshua asked.

"That's usually what happens when people are put in graves," the woman quipped, "or didn't your dip shit daddy tell you that?"

Joshua lifted the .38 in one swift motion and put his index finger against the trigger.

"There you go again," Joshua said in that polite anger of his. "Trying to be cute."

I swatted at the revolver as Joshua squeezed the trigger. The clap of the shot filled the apartment and rendered all of us deaf for a brief moment. The bullet passed through the mattress and into the floor, its path taking it centimeters from the woman's left ear.

Joshua backed up on the balls of his feet, steadied himself, and turned to me. His sneer was longer, sharper, and way more intense than before.

"Now you've gone and done it, bro," he said. "Now I'm going to kill you too!"

Joshua lunged at me, tackling me to the floor. The two of us tangled up into a mess of limbs and slid into the card table, spilling what was left of our dinners and drinks on ourselves.

Joshua was on his feet first, smacking me across the face with the .38 and making a solid connection with my nose. He followed that up by slamming his wrists into both sides of my head, knocking me dizzy, before he brought his knee into my solar plexus as the grand finale.

I fell to my knees, desperately trying to fill my empty lungs, as Joshua grabbed me by my hair and jerked my head back. The .38 was in my face before I could utter any sound, and as Joshua cocked the hammer, I had the funny feeling I was going to follow in my father's footsteps.

"You made a big mistake today, bro," Joshua whispered. "You went against my wishes, and NOBODY goes against my wishes!" His breath was hot against my face. "Have I made myself clear?"

"Crystal clear," I said, finding enough oxygen to utter the words. "There's just one problem."

"Oh, I'm dying to hear what it is," Joshua replied in an ingratiating tone.

"The ceiling fan you wanted me to fix?"

"What about it?"

"I never did."

Joshua looked up at the swaying ceiling fan, loosened by our struggle, as the wires holding it in place snapped one by one. Joshua screamed as I shoved him beneath the fan at the moment the final wire severed. The metal blades, sharp as they were, sliced through Joshua's flesh, tearing his chest and abdomen to ribbons.

As my brother's blood gushed out onto the floor and pooled under his body, I turned to look at the woman on the bed, still naked, still handcuffed, still looking at me like I was her enemy.

I fished the .38 from the mess of Joshua's hands and blasted the cuffs off the lady in question, who promptly kneed me in the nuts and slapped me stupid for a good five minutes. Who knew she had that much fight left in her?

As she collapsed onto the floor, I put a hand under the mattress and retrieved her clothes. She looked at me with grateful eyes this time, but as she started to slip into them, a siren blasted out front of the apartment building and made both of us freeze.

"Go," she said. "Get out of here!"

"Are you crazy?" I said back. "I'm not going anywhere!"

"They won't believe anything you tell them! You're still one of the bad guys, remember?"

"I’ll take my chances."

I tossed the .38 on the floor, got down on my knees, and put my hands behind my head.

"Don’t you get it?" she said. "They’ll put away for life!"

"I know."

A look of stark realization passed over her face as pounding footsteps announced the arrival of the York City Police Department. They burst in with Glocks drawn, shouting things I no longer heard, as they read me my rights, slapped handcuffs around my wrists, and drug me downstairs to the squad car.

Six months later, I was sentenced to sixty years in prison, with the possibility of parole in thirty years. By then I’d be ninety years old. I’d probably die in prison, that much I knew, but I felt I deserved whatever was coming to me.

One day before my sixty-first birthday, the woman on the bed came to see me. She was dressed in a Penn State hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, and black Converse hi-top sneakers. She didn’t look any different, but I could tell the ordeal Joshua and I put her through had taken a toll on her spirit.

She took her seat across from the glass partition and grabbed the phone. I grabbed mine and waited for her to speak.

"I’m sorry for what’s happened to you," she said. "You didn’t deserve this."

"Yes, I did," I told her. "What I did wasn’t right."

"But you made it right in the end. Don’t you see that?"

I shook my head. I don’t think I’d ever see any of it as "right."

She leaned toward the glass and whispered into the phone. She seemed distraught over something.

"When Joshua..."

"Raped you?"

"...he made me pregnant."

I leaned back in my chair, the air leaving my chest in one long, sad sigh. As if this couldn't get any worse...

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

Tears welled up in her eyes. "You mean did." A tear trickled down her face. "I aborted it." She stifled a sob and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Do you regret it?"

"Every day...but I didn't want to have a rapist's child."

I nodded.

"Why didn't you testify at my trial?" I asked the woman.

Her eyes widened a bit, as if she were casting her mind back to that awful summer night six months ago.

"I couldn't bring myself to do it," she explained. "I was still too traumatized by it all. I didn't want to relive that again." She closed her eyes. "Please try to understand."

"I do," I said. "Don't worry."

A security guard stepped toward me and pointed to his watch.

"My time's up, I'm afraid," I said. "Thanks for stopping by."

The woman nodded and went to put the phone back on the cradle. I caught her attention and pointed to the phone. She put it back up to her ear and listened.

"I never got your name," I said.

"It's Rachel," she said with a chuckle. "Rachel Lydecker."

"I'm Gus Hemmingsworth," I replied. "Hello, Rachel."

"Hello, Gus."

The security guard stormed toward me and pointed to his watch again. I stood from my chair, as did Rachel, and I looked her in the eye for the first time.

"Goodbye, Rachel."

"Goodbye, Gus."

We hung up our phones at the same time, and neither of us looked back.

Rachel never came to visit me again. I like to think she met a nice guy and is having some kids of her own at the moment. I also think about what I could have done differently that night, in order to make things come out where nobody had to die and nobody gets a sixty-year sentence, but all the scenarios I've played out in my head never end well.

The simple fact is I could have stopped Joshua at any time. I could have stopped him from kidnapping Rachel, cuffing Rachel, and raping Rachel...but I didn't. I was scared of Joshua and what he'd do to me and her. But I've also learned an important lesson: every action has consequences, and while my consequences landed me with this eight by eight cell, Joshua's consequences cost him his life.

And damn him to hell anyway.

Basement Dweller

Here's a funny little story I wrote that's a departure from my usual hardboiled work. It's called "Basement Dweller" and follows the adventure of a young boy and his fear of the "creature" that lives in his basement. Hope you guys like it! 

Something's living in our basement.

I've come to this conclusion because nobody in our family has ever gone down there. The basement door locks from the inside, and once when I tried to turn the knob, it clicked and these humongous feet pounded up the basement steps. I ran to my room, closed and locked the door, and armed myself with my Nerf dart gun. The next thing that came through my door, whether it be vampire, werewolf, or Bigfoot, was dead meat.

Turns out the next "thing" was Mom, inquiring as to why I had pelted her forehead with foam darts. I told her about my experience with whatever lived in our basement and how it never seemed to come out.

"Oh," she said, sounding surprised. "That's your brother."

My brother? Since when did I have a brother? Where had Mom been hiding this revelation at, and why was my brother locked in the basement, out of sight and out of mind? This would require further investigation, along with the acquisition of some new darts.

The next day I trekked to the basement steps, silent as a ninja, and twisted the knob on the basement door. To my surprise, it opened, and below me was a dark pit, the ultimate styngian death trap known as the basement steps.

I lifted my Nerf gun and fired a dart into the blackness.

I never heard it land.

The black hole at the bottom of the steps had swallowed it. Frightened for my life, I slammed the basement door shut and put all of my weight against it. The giant feet were assaulting the steps, each one creaking under each foot's mighty weight, until they reached the top. The door bucked against my back and threw me to the floor, and before the giant could do me bodily harm, I raced to my room and closed and locked the door.

I'd only gotten a partial glimpse of the giant that lived in the basement, but now I was convinced that he was not my brother. He was big, at least the size of an eighteen-wheeler; he was tall, about the height of the Empire State Building; and he was hairy, like...like...Bigfoot.

Was that it? Was the giant that lived downstairs the mythical, elusive ape man known around the world as Bigfoot? Was Bigfoot my brother?

I couldn't sleep that night after Mom tucked me in. Did Bigfoot really live in our basement? If he was my brother, how were we related? And if we were related, why wasn't I big, tall, and hairy like him?

The next day I ventured to the basement steps once more, Nerf gun in hand and extra ammo strapped to my belt. I studied the various signs on the basement door. One of them read "The Otaku Lives Here." Another one read "Baka on Board." A third one read "This Is The Mole Hole--Enter At Your Own Risk." I wondered if breaking into the basement was such a good idea with all of these warning signs posted on the door, but the last thing I wanted to be called was a chicken, so I turned the knob and let the unlocked door swing open.

The basement steps were black as pitch as I took them one at a time, doing my silent ninja thing, until I reached the bottom. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness, and soon I could see a door to my right that led to what looked like a separate room inside the basement. Was this where Bigfoot lived? Was he holding my brother captive inside? I had to know!

I walked to the door and turned its knob. The door opened a little too easily, and I entered Bigfoot's residence with caution. The only light came from the blue glow of the television, which was playing some kind of giant robot cartoon. Fast food sandwich wrappers, Chinese takeout boxes, empty soda cans, and wadded-up tissues littered the floor of Bigfoot's living room. A couch to my left had dirty clothes draped all over it. A makeshift kitchen to my right was smothered with moldy dishes and drinking glasses. And for the grand finale, Bigfoot's smelly sneakers were hanging from a blade of the ceiling fan overhead.

Wait a minute. Bigfoot didn't wear sneakers. Bigfoot didn't wear clothes. And Bigfoot didn't eat off dishes.

What was going on here?

The floor creaked under my feet. The whole room shook, like in an earthquake, as the giant stepped into the living room from the adjoining bedroom. His eyes, like burning, smoking coals, fell to me, and I did the only thing that came to mind.

I let the giant have it with all six darts in my Nerf gun.

Unfortunately, this didn't faze the giant, for he plucked each of the darts off of his body and threw them on the floor. Then he growled at me, roared his rage, and spoke the words that today still haunt me to my very soul.

"You're gonna get it now, dweeb!"

I'll admit to being chicken right about then. Silent ninja skills don't amount to crap when a giant comes after you. I dumped the Nerf gun and sprinted up the basement steps, the giant eating up the ground as he tore after me, yelling incoherently in his fury. When I reached the basement door, Mom was standing in my way, holding a much larger Nerf gun that was aimed at the giant.

"Oh, good!" she said. "You two are just in time for dinner. Care to join me?"

I stepped into the kitchen and saw the table completely laid out for dinner. The giant paused behind me, grunted curiously, and took a seat across from Mom. Mom kept her Nerf gun at her side as we ate, with my eyes on the giant, and Mom's eyes on me. She smiled whenever I glanced her way, and she asked the giant questions like "Is it good?" and "How was your day?" and also "Did you clean your apartment?" The giant made guttural responses to each question, and I couldn't tell if they stood for yes or no. As soon as the giant was finished with his cheeseburger casserole, he stood from the table, growled at me, and returned to his basement dwelling, locking the door in the process.

I asked Mom who the giant was that lived in the basement and why he had joined us for dinner.

"Silly," Mom said with a smile. "That's your brother. He's too old to live upstairs with us, so I gave him the downstairs apartment in the basement."

I asked Mom what the giant did down there all day.

"What all guys his age do," she answered. "Watch anime, play video games, update his Facebook status, read comic books...you know, the usual."

It didn't sound all that different from what I did all day, but I didn't tell Mom that. I didn't tell Mom much of anything, especially when she was still carrying that humongous Nerf gun around.

"Besides, it's only for the summer," Mom said as she rose from the table. "When college starts up again, he'll be off to the dorm, and he can make a mess out of their stuff."

Mom cleaned dishes while I finished my dinner and went to my room. So the giant living downstairs in the basement was my brother? I still didn't believe it. How could I have a brother who spent all of his time in the dark and didn't clean up after himself?

I went to bed that night a little nervous and a little wary of what the giant might do now that I knew the layout of his secret dwelling and his true identity. As I reached for my Nerf gun, just to have it handy, I realized it wasn't there, and remembered where I had left it: in the giant's living room, downstairs in the basement. He had it now, along with a full complement of darts, and my thoughts turned to the gruesome possibilities of the revenge he would exact on me now that he was armed and dangerous.

As a precaution, I climbed out of bed and went to lock my bedroom door. When my fingers brushed the lock, the door blew open and the giant stormed inside, aiming my Nerf gun at my head.

"It's time for some revenge, dweeb!" the giant growled at me. 

And I screamed...

Share A Drink?

Here's a hardboiled crime story that takes place on a sweltering summer day in the Louisiana bayou. I hope you enjoy the surprising tale of a femme fatale and the two men she conned in the story "Share a Drink." 

The day I died, the temperature was over one hundred degrees and the humidity was unbearable. We needed rain. The whole continent of North America needed rain. It was the middle of August and there hadn't been any relief from the heat for over two weeks. I'd also had it up to here with swatting gnats, flies, and mosquitos while sitting on the front porch of my Louisiana bungalow with Leanna.

Leanna's official job description was secretary and office manager. Her unofficial job description was sex kitten to the boss, but with this heat, neither of us was in any mood to fool around. Even Leanna was having trouble beating the heat, and had taken to walking around with nothing on but the radio, which was currently playing Jimmy Buffet's "Cheeseburgers in Paradise." I could have gone for a cheeseburger right about then, but my doctor (and damn all of those doctors anyway) had told me to watch my cholesterol and my triglycerides, so I was reduced to drinking strawberry kiwi lemonade through a straw and watching my skiffs bob with the current of the bayou, the mercilessly hot breeze creating ripples along the murky water every now and then.

"Leanna!" I called out, shaking the ice in my empty lemonade glass. "A refill, please!"

Leanna strutted her way onto the porch in all of her naked glory, her twenty-two year-old body fresh and unblemished. Her fire-red hair fell across her teardrop-shaped breasts, concealing their tanned texture. The rest of Leanna was easy on the eyes too, and had also built up quite a tan since she started working for me. A month ago, she showed up out of the blue in nothing but a blouse and bikini bottom and told me she needed a job because Mason, her jack-hole boyfriend, had kicked her out of the house, donated her belongings to Goodwill, and spent all of her money on booze and hookers. What was a man to do except take pity on the poor girl and give her a job?

"Comin' right up, Gil," Leanna said, her voice dripping with honeysuckle sweetness. "Would you like anything else?"

"Not right now, sweet pea," I told her, taking her hand in mine. "How are the books looking?"

"Not good," she replied, holding my lemonade glass in both hands. "If we don't get ten more rentals before the end of the month, we'll be in the red again."

I nodded and waved her off. This wasn't news to me; renting skiffs for a trip down the Louisiana bayou didn't have the same kind of appeal to tourists as it used to, and with the heat, it was something of a crap shoot.

I heard the approaching boat before I saw it, and when Leanna returned with my lemonade, her eyes went wide at the sight of the boat's driver.

"Mason," she whispered. "How'd he find me?"

"Whoa, slow down, sweet pea," I soothed. "He's still got a ways to go before he gets here. Go into the safe and get my sawed-off. I'll keep watch outside."

Leanna nodded and dashed inside the bungalow. I could hear her manipulating the lock on the safe, opening the door, and scrambling to pull the shotgun out of it before Mason arrived. I took a long sip of my strawberry kiwi shit as Leanna handed me my two-barreled side-by-side. By then, Mason's fishing boat had pulled alongside the skiffs, and as he cut the motor and climbed onto my makeshift wooden dock, his eyes fell on Leanna's naked body, studying all of her curves in detail.

"So this is where you've been!" Mason announced as he approached the porch. He was in his late twenties, well-muscled, and tall, with black hair greased back against his head and a set of biceps that were frighteningly huge. He had donned a sleeveless black shirt with a white skull and crossbones on it, along with black jeans and black leather boots.

"That's right," I said to Mason, rising from my chair and cocking my shotgun. "And if you're smart, you'll walk down that dock, get back in your boat, and forget you ever saw her." I stood in front of Leanna and jerked my head toward the bungalow. "Go get dressed, sweet pea." She nodded, backed away slowly, and shut the door behind her.

I aimed the shotgun at Mason and tried to keep my hands steady. I hadn't held the shotgun or fired it in over five years, and the last time I did it blew a guy's arm clean off. I didn't know if I still had the balls to pull the trigger.

"Look, this is all a simple misunderstanding, mate," Mason started. I realized for the first time that he talked with a British lilt in his voice. "If I can talk to my girl, we'll get this sorted out."

"She's not your girl," I said, hoping I sounded menacing enough. "She's not anybody's girl. And last time I checked, you threw her out on her ass with nothing but the bikini on her back."

Mason chuckled, put his hands on his hips, and shook his head.

"Is that what she told you?" he said in apparent disbelief. "You old sod. You stupid, old sod. She's taking you for a ride, mate, just like she took me!"

By now my mouth was hot and dry and my palms were getting sweaty. What was Mason talking about?

"Look, I'm going to lay it all out for you, okay?" He ran his hands through his slick hair. "A month ago, that little tart stole twenty thousand quid from my bank account. She robbed me blind and took off running. It's taken me all this time to find her, and when I do, I see her pulling the same scam with you!"

I wiped a hand over my eyes to clear the sweat from them. What was Leanna doing in there?

"In fact, I bet she's robbing you as we speak!" Mason finished.

"That's a lie!" I shouted. I blinked a few times to clear my vision. The heat was really getting to me.

"You think so?" Mason pointed to the bungalow's door. "Then why hasn't she come out of there yet?"

I turned to the bungalow and considered what Mason said, even though I was having a hard time putting two thoughts together. I walked over to the bungalow's door and rapped my knuckles against it.

"Leanna?" I called. "You almost done in there, sweet pea?"

There was no response.

"Leanna?!" I called again in alarm. "You okay in there?"

Again, there was no response.

Mason barreled up to the door and smashed his right boot into it, sending splinters of wood clattering to the floor. Mason stormed inside the empty bungalow, swore, and ran out the back door and into the bayou, wading up to his thighs through the mire without so much as a "goodbye." When I entered the bungalow, the safe door was open and the five hundred dollars I usually kept in there was gone.

My heart sank to my feet and flopped to death on the floor, waiting for someone to revive it. I staggered a few steps, unable to get oxygen to circulate through my lungs, and almost tripped over some broken floorboards. I steadied myself and realized that they weren't broken, just pulled up, and beneath them was a secret compartment. I kneeled by it, scrounging in the dirt for some kind of clue, and found a soggy hundred dollar bill lodged between two rocks.

"I'll be damned," I said out loud. Mason was right. Leanna had hid the twenty thousand she'd stolen from him under the floorboards of my bungalow. She'd only pretended to be my secretary and lover all this time. "Gil," I whispered, "how could you be so stupid?"

"That's what I asked myself every time I saw your face," Leanna's voice said from the bungalow's doorway. I stood up fast, too fast, and got lightheaded from the exertion. Leanna stood there in her blouse and bikini bottom, the garments soaking wet and clinging to her in just the right places.

"Leanna," I said through gritted teeth, "don't make me do this." I aimed my shotgun at her as my finger tickled the trigger.

She laughed in my face. "Oh, please," she said, "like you actually have the stones." She strutted to the icebox and poured herself a glass of the strawberry kiwi lemonade, my shotgun following every one of her movements.

"Share a drink with me, Gil?" she asked, a wicked smile on her lips.

"I'll pass," I told her.

She shrugged, drank the lemonade down in one big gulp, and smiled. "And now, I bid you adieu." She exited the bungalow and walked toward Mason's boat, which she had already loaded with a vinyl duffel bag that probably contained the twenty grand and my five hundred bucks.

I kept pace with Leanna, following her down the wooden dock that led to the boat, as she snaked aboard and started the engine.

"Well?" she said. "Are you going to shoot me or what?"

"I don't have to, sweet pea," I told her. "You just shot yourself."

She frowned. "How'd I manage that?"

"You poisoned my lemonade," I said. "I don't know what you used, but I feel like shit, and I know I don't have much time left before I leave God's green Earth."

"Your point, Gil?"

"You drank the same lemonade," I pointed out. "Which means you just poisoned yourself."

Leanna gave me this blank look, like she couldn't fathom she'd done something so stupid. She turned her head to the right, looked down at the water, and then started to laugh.

"Shit," she said. "I guess I did, didn't I?" She put a hand to her forehead. "I was so thirsty that I--I didn't even think about--" She stammered for the right words, couldn't find them. "What a way to go," she muttered.

That's when I gave her both barrels in the chest. She tumbled out of the boat and performed a dead man's float in the water, her blood tinging it from green to black. After a few moments, Mason came upon me and ripped the shotgun from my hands. He found his twenty grand in Leanna's bag, returned my five hundred to me, and left in his boat, rocketing down the bayou and leaving me with Leanna's dead body.

I didn't bother telling Mason about the poison. I didn't want to annoy him, and quite frankly, I wasn't sure he'd give a shit. Leanna is still floating in the water, drifting down the bayou, as I sit on the porch of the bungalow and listen to Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" while the unbearable sweat and feverish shivers take hold. It's not the way I pictured myself going out, but then again, none of us knows when and how we'll die; it's all in God's hands. 

But there is one thing I do know: the next time some half-naked girl with a sad story wants a job, I'm giving her directions to the nearest whorehouse.

Till Death Do Us Part

 A Valentine's Day noir story for you guys out there.  It's called "Till Death Do Us Part."  Hope you enjoy it, and don't forget to leave a comment in a comments section. 

Killing people isn't my idea of a good time, but you have no idea what atrocities you're truly capable of until you have a reason to commit them...and my reason was as good as any.

The name's Ace, Ace Daniels.  It makes me sound like I'm Indiana Jones or some comic book hero.  My Dad named me Ace after a matinee serial he adored as a kid.  I think it was called Sky Ace or Captain Ace.  I can't remember.  I can't remember much of anything with all the blood on the floor and this headache that's slicing my head to ribbons.

It didn't have to be like this.  That’s what I keep telling myself.  If the British guy in the Yugo hadn’t pulled up to my station, and if I hadn’t gone out to help him, and if my wife hadn’t shown up for lunch, and if the cops hadn’t come in with guns blazing, and if the Brit hadn’t turned out to be a criminal, maybe I wouldn’t be lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a bullet in my chest and this headache that refuses to go away.

Maybe I should back up and start at the beginning.  The trouble is, I'm not sure where everything began...

I run a bus station in Baker, California.  Baker consists of hot sand and prickly cactus.  Our days will burn you and our nights will freeze you.  It keeps a lot of tourists away, and that's how I like it.

One humid Friday afternoon, I was at the bus station cleaning the latrines, trying to wash the old hard-water stains out of the toilet bowl.  The station was just small enough that I could run it by myself, and it's not like anyone's going to take a job in the middle of Dirt Central for less than minimum wage.

As I was scrubbing away, I heard weary tires crunch against the sand outside the station.  I stepped out of the men's room and glanced through the front doors and into the parking lot.  A lime green Yugo drifted up, the engine coughing like a smoker who just needs a healthy dose of Robitussin.  I wiped my hands off with an old rag and stepped into the scorching sun.

There was a guy, mid-twenties, about one-sixty, with black hair that was matted to his head from sweat, standing in front of the Yugo.  He had the hood up and was examining the engine like it was a dead body on a slab at the morgue.

"You need something, mister?" I asked as I approached.  The guy jerked, startled, and whacked his head on the tip of the Yugo's hood.  He bent over and backed away from the car, cussing up a storm.  His blues met my grays and he frowned.

"Do I need something?" he said in a K-Mart British accent.  "You're damn right I need something.  I need a car that works!"

"You're a Brit?" I asked, knowing that the question was almost rhetorical.

"What, did my accent give it away?" the guy shot back.  He glanced at the Yugo's engine.  "Do you know anything about these?"

"A good bit," I said.  "My wife has one she refuses to get rid of."

"They're nothing but shit," the Brit said to me.  Then he turned to the Yugo.  "You hear me?  You're a piece of shit!"

"They're good in the snow," I told him.

"Snow?!" he replied incredulously.  "It doesn't snow in California!"

"Hey, that's what I tell the wife, but does she listen?" I said with a shrug.

The Brit gave me a harsh chuckle.  "I hear you, mate."  He extended his hand to me.  "Roger Bedard."

"Ace Daniels," I said, shaking his hand like a man should.  Roger returned it with one of those limp-fish handshakes.  That should have been my first clue.

"There's a fifty with your name on it if you can get this thing running again," Roger explained.

"Go inside--it's air-conditioned," I told Roger.  "Get yourself a Coke and a candy bar out of the machines.  I'll see what I can do."

Roger patted me on the shoulder as he walked past and entered the station.  I stared at the Yugo's engine and wasn't quite sure if I remembered what I was looking at.  I checked the oil, the filter, the anti-freeze, the fan belt--anything that could have made the poor car clunk like that--and came up empty.  Maybe I wasn't using my head, or maybe this should have been my second clue. 

A car horn beeped in the distance and my wife Clarice's lime green Yugo, nearly identical to Roger's, skidded to a stop on the sand.  She opened the door, slammed it shut, and stood there, looking at me like we were still in high school and this was our first date.

"Hey, Ace," Clarice said.  "Something on your mind?"

"You," I said with a grin.  "What're you doing out here?"

"I brought you lunch," she said, holding up a brown paper bag.  "Well, lunch for you and me."  She saw Roger's Yugo and her face lit up.  "Is this a desert mirage, Ace?  Do my wandering eyes deceive me?"

I laughed.  "Nope.  It's an honest-to-God Yugo, just like yours."

Clarice noticed the resemblance.  "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle," she whispered softly.  "What's wrong with it?"

"Can't tell," I told her.  "Think you can lend a hand?"

She handed me our lunch and came around to the front of the Yugo, rolling up imaginary sleeves and adjusting an imaginary cap.  Clarice had been part of the drama club in high school and got accepted to a liberal arts school once she graduated.  She never took one class, and that was probably my fault, because right around that time we fell in love and moved to California. 

I left Clarice with her new best friend and walked back inside the station.  Roger was exiting the restroom, the last swirls of a flushed toilet ushering him out.  I wondered if I'd have to scrub the bowl again.

"What's the verdict, Ace?" Roger asked.  "Is she dead?"

His question caught me off-guard.  For a moment I thought he was referring to Clarice.  Then I realized what he was referring to.

"My wife's taking a look at her now," I told Roger.  "Her Yugo looks just like yours."

"No shit?" Roger said.  "Same color and everything?"  I nodded.  "That's unreal."

Roger walked over to the soda machine and fed it a dollar and a quarter.  A can of Coke tumbled out with a clatter.  Roger took a step to the right and fed the snack machine a single. A Snickers bar took the suicide dive into the bin.  Roger snatched it up and dug in hungrily, like he hadn't eaten anything for miles.  I looked at the lunch Clarice had prepared and felt guilty for not sharing it with him.

"You get many customers up in these parts?" Roger asked between chews.

"Enough to stay open," I said, sliding behind the glass-enclosed ticket counter and having a seat on a rickety metal stool.  The leather on the stool was torn and the padding had come out of it years ago.  It was one more thing I couldn't afford to replace.

Clarice entered the station and wiped sweat from her brow.  She had some grease spots on her hands and one on her sundress.

"Sparkplug wires," she reported.  "Two of them are burnt to a crisp."  She glanced at Roger. "I'm afraid you're stuck here with us for a while."

"There are worse places I could be," Roger said, admiring Clarice's figure beneath the confines of her sundress.  That should have been my third clue.

Clarice laughed a little.  "A Brit in California?  What do you do, star in movies?"

"A little of this, a little of that," Roger said with a half-shrug.

"You're unemployed," my wife said matter-of-factly.

"For the moment," Roger replied, holding up an index finger, "but I've got a gig coming up in Vegas that I'm trying to get to."

"You're a little out of the way for Vegas, aren't you, Roger?" I asked in a hard tone.

"I may have made a wrong turn here or there.  I'm hell with maps."

"Get a GPS."

"Can't afford one."

"Huh!  Story of my life," Clarice interjected, jerking a thumb in my direction.  "This one won't buy a GPS because he thinks he knows everything."

"Excuse me?" I said.  "When we got lost that time in Twentynine Palms, didn't I get us home?"

"After you drove past that junkyard six times?" Clarice retorted.  "Yes, I suppose you did."

"Then we don't need a GPS."  I nodded to Roger, and that settled the matter.

"You know," Roger said as he stood up, "I think I may have left something in my car.  I'll be back in a bit."  He trotted out the door.  The door banged closed behind him.

"Stranger in a strange land," Clarice muttered.  "What's his name?"

"Roger Bedard, he says."

"Really?"

"Really."

"He just drove up here and you decided to help him?"

"He said he'd pay me fifty bucks if I could get his Yugo started again."

"Seriously?" Clarice glanced out the front doors at Roger's Yugo.  "He's jerking your chain."

"How so?"

"Because there's no wallet in his back pocket."

"Maybe it's in his front pocket, Clarice."

"If it was, then it would bulge.  He's not bulging."

"Good to know," I said with a grin.

Clarice smiled back.  "Are we going to have that lunch or what?"

"Let's have it right now."  I reached inside the bag and removed two ham and cheese sandwiches with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise on them.  My stomach gurgled at the sight of the delicious offerings before it.

Roger returned with a red backpack he was carrying by one strap.  There were luggage lockers along the far wall, and he opened one, shoved the backpack inside, closed the door, and took the key.

"Something important in there?" I asked.

"Yeah," Roger said coldly. "My underpants."

Clarice and I exchanged looks.  Roger's mood had gone from one end of the spectrum to the other.  What had crawled up his ass and died?

The sound of tires crunching against the sand drifted into the station again.  This time, Clarice went to see who it was.  An alarmed look passed over her face as she turned to me with wide eyes.

"Ace, it's the police," she said quietly.  "What do they want?"

"They want me," Roger said, standing up and reaching to the back of his pants.  "And if you both cooperate, there won't be any problems."  Roger's right hand returned to the front of his body with a Ruger .22 inside it.  Clarice gasped and backed away from Roger, but Roger was faster than her, and faster than me, as he snatched Clarice by the wrist and spun her around so her back was against his front.  He shoved the Ruger's barrel into Clarice's temple as Clarice screamed my name, and by that time I had come around the side of the ticket counter with a Beretta Silverhawk in my hands.

"Oh, nice one, Ace!" Roger exclaimed.  "That's a really big shotgun!"  He laughed.  "The problem is, you can't blow my head off without blowing your wife's off as well!"  Roger pulled Clarice against him and I nearly shot them both.  No, can't risk anything happening to Clarice, I told myself.  Just find out what the man wants, and if it's in your power, give it to him in exchange for Clarice's life.

The front doors opened and two middle-aged detectives dressed in suits entered.  I'd never seen the men before, but one was clean-shaven and professional, while the other had a goatee and looked like he slept on his couch.  Roger turned to the two men, and as they drew their Glocks, a shouting match ensued that threatened to blow the roof off the station.  I didn't catch all the details, but eventually Roger emerged with the right to speak.

"Ace, I'd like you to meet my two friends--Detective Massey and Detective Steele," Roger explained.  "They're from the Palm Springs Police Department.  Tell Ace why you're here, gentlemen."

"Sir, we're sorry to have drug you into this investigation," Massey, with the goatee, said.  "We've been looking for our friend Roger for the better part of a week, and the trail led us to this bus station."

"Could you speed this up a bit, Massey?" Roger asked, impatient. "I'm getting old just listening to you."

"Can it!" Steele, the clean-shaven one, shouted.  "I swear, Bedard, you so much as flinch and I'll plant one between your--"

"That's enough, partner!" Massey shot at Steele.  "I think we get the picture."  Massey kept his gun trained on Roger but turned his eyes to me.  "Roger was turning state's evidence against a suspect we had charged with multiple counts of homicide and conspiracy."

"The problem with Bedard here," Steele spoke up, "is that in exchange for his testimony, the district attorney released him on bail."  Steele's eyes narrowed to slits.  "And you want to know how he made bail, sir?"

"Oh, just come out and tell him already!" Roger groaned.  "The suspense will kill him faster than I will!"

"When one of our boys in blue wasn't paying attention, Bedard snuck into evidence and grabbed a bag of money we were holding for another case!"  Steele was practically foaming at the mouth, his jaws snapping like those of a vicious pit bull. "Now our evidence is missing, Bedard is free and clear, and frankly?"  Steele cocked his sidearm.  "We've had enough."

"What are you two fuckers gonna do?" Roger asked, jerking Clarice closer to him.  "Shoot me?"

"For starters," Massey said with ice in his voice.

My head was spinning from too much information and not enough time to process it.  I was sweating in the air-conditioned station, my hands clammy, my pits sticky, and my mouth as dry as the desert outside the windows.  If Massey and Steele were here to kill Roger, then that meant they'd probably kill Clarice and me too, since you can't leave any witnesses behind with things like this.  The fact that cops aren't supposed to kill and their job is to uphold the law never entered my mind as Steele, Roger, and Massey crept around the seats in the station and toward the front doors.

I had to do something, and I had to do it now.  If Roger went out that door with Clarice, I'd never share another lunch with her.  If Massey and Steele opened fire on Roger, I'd never see that look Clarice always gave me, the look that was like our first date.  I couldn't let Roger kill Clarice either, because if he did, then nothing would hold me back from sending him to Hell.

I brought the Silverhawk up and propped the stock against my shoulder.  I cocked both barrels, looked down the sights, and found Roger's forehead.  Massey and Steele were still arguing with Roger, but their voices sounded like they were miles away.  Everything shrank to one great desire--the desire to protect my wife, to keep her from harm, till death do us part.

My finger stroked the trigger of the Silverhawk and a 12-gauge shell blew into Roger's face.  Clarice shrieked and hit the floor as Roger stumbled, his face hanging off of his skull like a slice of lunchmeat, before he tumbled to the floor as well, blood soaking the tile I had just cleaned that morning.

Massey and Steele lowered their weapons and turned to look at me.  They were dazed and a tad perplexed.

"You dumb son of a bitch," Steele said, lifting his Glock toward me.  "Now we have to kill you too."

I took a step back and to the side as Steele fired, his bullet breaking the glass enclosing the ticket counter and sending shards all over the floor.  I lifted my shotgun and spent the other barrel on Steele's solar plexus.  Steele reeled back, blood ejecting from his chest like confetti out of a piñata, until he knocked over some chairs and sank to the floor.

"Wow," Massey said.  "You're not a bad shot, Ace."  He stepped toward me.  I stepped back.  "Your name is Ace, right?"  I didn't acknowledge him.  "I'd say you've just about cleaned everything up here."  Massey kept his Glock at his side as he spoke, his demeanor casual, his gait relaxed.  "Roger's dead, but then again, he wouldn't have made it back to Palm Springs anyway."  Massey took another step forward.  I held my ground.  "My partner's dead, but you see, he was always a little trigger-happy, and truth be told?  I'm glad he's gone.  He was holding me back."  Massey took another step.  We were face-to-face and nose-to-nose now.  "So let's make one thing clear, Ace--I like you...I like your style...but there is no way you're leaving this place alive."

Massey lifted his Glock.  I lifted the Silverhawk.  I squeezed the trigger on instinct.  Massey did the same.  There were two loud barks of gunfire inside the station, and then, Massey fell to one knee, dropped his Glock, and looked behind him.

Clarice lied there on her stomach with Roger's smoking .22 in her pretty little hands.  Massey coughed up blood as his face drained of all color.

"Shit," he blubbered.  "Killed by Mrs. Ace."  Then he slid to the floor and never got back up.

As Clarice stood up and ran to me, I could feel something burning below my heart that worked its way up through my chest and into my throat. I vomited, realized it was blood, and looked down at my shirt.  There was a bloodstain below my left pectoral, and the longer I watched the faster it spread and the worse the burning became.  I fell into Clarice's arms and I heard her sobs of sorrow for her fallen husband, don't go Ace, you're all I've got Ace, don't leave me behind, for the love of God, don't leave me behind...

With my last speck of strength, I squeezed Clarice's hand like a man should and nodded toward the luggage lockers.  She understood and went to Roger's body, searching for the key to his locker.  She found it as little fingers of darkness crept into the edges of my vision.  I couldn't move my head to see what Clarice was doing, so when she appeared above me again, it would be the last time I would ever see her.

Clarice had Roger's backpack in her hands.  She unzipped it as the darkness threatened to drag me down.  The last thing I saw was Clarice holding up stack after stack of plastic-wrapped money.

I wanted to tell Clarice, People will come for that money.  I won't be here to protect you.  No, honey, you'll do fine on your own.  Just take your little Yugo and drive.  Buy a GPS and go some place where it snows.  Prove to me why you held on to that lousy car all those years.  I'm sorry we never got to have lunch today.  Today was a real mess, wasn't it?  Oh God, what a mess.

Just remember one thing, Clarice.  I love you...till death do us part.