The Case of The Dying Vampire

This Sherlock Holmes story takes place in the Conan Doyle era, where Sherlock and his brother Mycroft travel to Transylvania at the request of Count Dracula in order to find out who is slowly turning him into an invalid. It was submitted to Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine in late 2014, and Marvin Kaye, the editor at the time, said he admired the story & my writing style. A week later Marvin informed me that he couldn't use the story, due to Conan Doyle's rule of never mixing fantasy in with his Holmes work. 

Then Marvin had the nerve to ask me if I could turn it into a pastiche. I felt that tearing the story down to its base pieces and removing Sherlock's personae from the plot would leave the story uninteresting, bland, and a total waste of time. I turned Marvin down and was now stuck with what amounted to a piece of Sherlock Holmes fanfiction.

So, here for your reading pleasure, is the almost-published Sherlock Holmes adventure, "The Case of the Dying Vampire."

My dear Watson,

I am writing to you in the hopes that you are in better health.  I regret departing London on this arduous journey to Transylvania without you at my side, but Mycroft has proven to be an adept partner, although he is not particularly bright or very agile, considering his size.  Nevertheless, I must report to you the events that occurred during my brief but memorable visit to this sad and lonely part of the world, and the adventure that awaited me at Castle Dracul, home to none other than the king of the vampires, Count Dracula.

You will note from our prior experiences with the supernatural that I do not believe in such things as ghosts, specters, and poltergeists.  There is a simple, logical explanation for every occurrence in our universe, Watson, and if I cannot find it, then I'm afraid to say that nobody can find it.  As Mycroft and I rode inside a rickety stagecoach up into the Carpathian Mountains, I realized for the first time that our surroundings had changed from the brightest of days to the blackest of nights, and that a wicked wind was blowing through the peaks and canyons.  It was almost as if God himself were attempting to stop our arrival at Castle Dracul.

But alas, Watson, not even the Lord Almighty could put a stop to the strong black stallions that carried us to the very peak of the mountains, where a flat plateau existed.  On that plateau sat Castle Dracul, an ominous force that rose into the sky like a black obelisk.  As rolling thunder echoed from the horizon and vicious lightning danced across the Heavens, I got the impression that Mycroft and I should be departing the stagecoach and entering the castle, lest we disturb the good Lord's intentions.

The driver of the stagecoach, a queer-looking fellow garbed in black, from top hat to coat and even to his shoes, waved Mycroft and I forward as we stood on the plateau and took stock of our surroundings.  The sky had grown darker still and the lightning had grown fiercer.  By the time Mycroft waddled his way up to the front gate, it had started to rain, and by the time the gate opened (by what you might call "magic," Watson) and allowed us passage into the castle, it had started to pour in a raging, angry manner like I had never witnessed.

Standing inside the foyer of Castle Dracul as the gate closed behind us, I was struck by how decrepit the structure looked on the inside.  The draperies were yellowed with age; the carpets worn ragged from years of use; and the hearth had not been used in quite some time.  Mycroft and I wondered if anybody lived here at all, but upon that ponderous thought, a young woman appeared before us.  Well, to be clear, Watson, she didn't so much as appear as she scared Mycroft and I to near-death; she descended a spiral staircase from the upper floors of the castle, and when her shoes struck the limestone floor, it made quite the clatter.

She introduced herself as Adrianna Moonstone, the Count's nursemaid and caretaker.  Wondering what the mighty Count Dracula required a nursemaid for, she led a leery Mycroft and I down a narrow hall and into Dracula's study.  The carpet was heavily worn in this room, and I noticed several blood stains scattered on various sections of the material.  Mycroft noticed them as well, and acknowledged the observation with a nearly imperceptible nod.  Apparently his brain synapses were firing at full capacity all this time, Watson, and I had never truly realized it. 

Adrianna stood in the darkened left-hand corner of the room, behind an aging man with thin white hair, a long, white beard, and skin so wrinkled it was almost hard to categorize him as human.  He was locked to a wooden wheelchair, and attached to the back of the chair was an apparatus that seemed to be transfusing him with blood at a constant rate.  I had never seen such a machine before, let alone heard of one, but the slight sucking noise it made as it transfused the blood kept my curiosity at bay.

I suppose it's time I told you, Watson, why I even agreed to travel the long distance to Transylvania and visit the dreaded Count Dracula.  It started over a month ago, when he scribed that letter to me that you so graciously read aloud in the presence of Inspector Lestrade (the one that made him leave our flat in terror, you'll recall).  The letter requested our presence at Castle Dracul to solve a matter of "great urgency."  I had heard of the Count before and how he was the terror of his nation, but for me, the intrigue did not lay in having an audience with a so-called vampire (again, I do not believe in such beings).  The intrigue was that the Count never described what this matter of great urgency was.  I remember your comment that perhaps he felt himself too important for explanations, but when I stood before the man in the wheelchair that had once been the mighty Count Dracula, I realized that ego had nothing to do with it--he had no time for explanations.

For you see, my dear Watson, Count Dracula was dying, the cause of which was a mystery...a mystery that was now up to me to solve.

Adrianna left the Count's study after Mycroft and I were seated across from him.  I noted that Adrianna wore a rosary and a crucifix around her neck, as if having both would offer her two layers of protection against Dracula's powers.  I had little time to ponder the meaning of her wardrobe choices, however, because Dracula had started to speak.

The once-mighty vampire pontificated in a voice that sounded as though he had spent the last hundred years wandering the deserts of the world.  If sand would have expelled from his mouth, Watson, I would not have been surprised.  He explained to Mycroft and I about his brief history as the king of all vampires and how he rose to power in Transylvania.  Mycroft inquired as to how the Count could even be real, due to Bram Stoker, the author, claiming that his novel was a work of fiction.  This Dracula chuckled and informed us that Stoker was a "stupid old sod" who had discovered pages from a collection of journals that Dracula had attempted to burn.  He did not expound on why he had burned the journals, and I did not press the issue, for the memory seemed to come from a very dark place and time for him.

Mycroft asked the next question on my mind before I could articulate it: Was the vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing real?  Dracula laughed boisterously, which I'm sure required a lot of effort on his part, and confirmed our suspicions that yes, Van Helsing was a real individual as well.  Dracula explained that Stoker had consulted with Helsing before writing his book, and that Helsing's ego "seeped from the pages like blood from my fangs."  The Count then revealed his fangs to us, which sent a shiver running down my back and right into my soul.  The fangs were real, Watson, as completely in tune with his mouth and upper teeth as our normal incisors are.  I was beginning to doubt my belief that everything supernatural was all imagination when I asked the Count how he ended up in such a crippled state.

The Count's fervor seemed to fade quite a bit when he realized what I'd asked, and as he launched into the story, I could understand why.  Dracula claimed that after he had slain Abraham Van Helsing in battle (a fact I was not aware of), Transylvania fell into a great depression.  Food was scarce, even for vampires, and if they did not feed every twenty-four hours, according to the Count, their bodies would slowly deteriorate.  Disease spread through the crops in the farmer's fields, and many of Dracula's subjects died from food poisoning.  As the situation grew more and more dire, Dracula shut himself off in his castle and began taking blood transfusions with Adrianna's assistance.

The problem, Dracula explained, was that with every transfusion, he grew weaker and older.  He could barely see across the room, he said, and did not possess the strength to push his own wheelchair.  He suspected that someone was poisoning his blood supply, with what he didn't know, but that the apparatus on the back of his wheelchair was the only thing keeping him alive.  It was also, he suspected, the very thing that was killing him. 

Adrianna entered the room and brought us all some warm tea.  The rain outside was slamming against the windows of the Count's study, lashing out in fury at the unholy creature that was contained within the castle walls.  I caught a glimpse of a lightning bolt striking just outside the castle windows, and it startled everyone in the room, so much so that we did not see the individual who entered the room in its wake.  He was quite tall and well-muscled for his age, which appeared to be somewhere in his fifties, and possessed a shock of white hair and a scar across the right side of his face that had sealed his right eye shut.  With his gait strong and his stride purposeful, I knew this individual could only be Abraham Van Helsing, the legendary vampire hunter the Count had claimed to be dead.

Adrianna was busy pouring my tea when Van Helsing joined us, and once she laid eyes on him, the teapot crashed to the floor and spilled all over the carpet.  Mycroft stood from his chair as Van Helsing strode past, one step at a time, measuring the distance between himself and the invalid vampire in the wheelchair.  I told Van Helsing to stop where he was and explain his purpose for being here, since the Count had not summoned him, and his words shook me to my very core. 

He said, "I am always welcome in my daughter's home."

Dracula turned his weary eyes toward Adrianna, who hid her face in shame, and then looked to me for supplication.  In truth, Watson, I had already suspected she was Van Helsing's daughter, and this only confirmed it.  Mycroft started making wild accusations, throwing his hands this way and that, but I rose from my chair and silenced him with a curt nod.  As you know, Watson, once my brother gets started, sometimes it's hard to get him to calm down, and I suppose I am like that at times as well.  But Lord love a duck, Watson, the last thing I needed at that moment was Mycroft calling the greatest vampire hunter of all a yellow-bellied coward. 

Van Helsing ordered me to sit down, but I politely refused, and launched into what I consider one of my best pontifications of crime and punishment ever.  I started by explaining to Count Dracula that yes, his nursemaid was not Adrianna Moonstone, but Adrianna Van Helsing, and she had been sent by her father to keep an eye on the Count after their last confrontation, the one where Dracula was certain he had slain Van Helsing.  The man in question scoffed at the idea and presented us with a clearer view of his scar, saying that the tumble he took off the castle wall cost him his dignity and his right eye, but that he had survived to fight another day. 

Admonishing Van Helsing for interrupting my dissertation, I continued, explaining that Count Dracula was indeed being poisoned, but not in any method known to current medical academics.  The perpetrator would have to know the specific weaknesses of a vampire, such as their vulnerability to wood, in order to perform the crime and escape without being caught.  For my final stroke, I pointed out that when Adrianna had first introduced us to the Count, she had been wearing a rosary and a crucifix, and upon returning with the tea, the rosary was gone. 

Adrianna faced her father and Count Dracula and reached into the neck of her dress.  She removed a small pouch, and in that pouch were each of the wooden beads from her rosary, ready to be dropped inside the Count's blood transfusion machine.  Adrianna explained that once inside, they would eventually dissolve and enter Dracula's bloodstream, where they would slowly cripple him to the state he was now living in.  If this treatment continued, the Count would surely have perished in a few months.

The interesting thing about all of this, Watson, was that during Adrianna's confession, she had tears in her eyes, and when she was finished, she shed them.  Here was the daughter of the great Abraham Van Helsing, who had tried to dispatch with Count Dracula in her own way, and she was weeping over what she had done to the poor fellow, like he was a treasured friend.  It made me realize something else, Watson, something I hadn't considered before.  Adrianna wasn't doing this on her father's orders.  She had come to Transylvania of her own volition, and any action she took was her own choice, and not her father's will exerted over her.

Van Helsing had heard enough, apparently, for he drew a wooden stake and mallet from his coat and held them above Count Dracula's withered body.  To his credit, the Count didn't flinch or recoil in any way; he merely smirked at the great vampire hunter and asked him if this was the way he wanted to end their relationship.  Mycroft and I were about to intervene when Adrianna wrenched the stake and mallet from her father's hands and threw them out the study's windows, shattering the glass and ushering in the storm, which was brewing like a tempest outside.  Rain soaked the carpet and the wind tore at everyone's clothes as Adrianna explained why she had come to Transylvania to kill Count Dracula.

I would paraphrase, Watson, but I am running out of space and paper.  The key element in Adrianna's vociferation was her desire to kill the Count and see her father's obsession with him end, so he could live his last days in peace.  When Van Helsing saw the tears in his daughter's eyes and heard the desperation in her voice, a change came about him.  His face appeared ragged, old, and I noticed several wrinkles and lines in it that I hadn't seen before.  If I were to guess, I would say that Time, being the cruel mistress that she is, had finally caught up to Abraham Van Helsing, and he realized how much of a toll that mistress had taken on him.  He turned to Adrianna, lowered his head, and told her to pack her things, for he planned to leave within the hour.  He then exited the room without so much as a backward glance at us, or even a sneer at Dracula, who relaxed in his wheelchair and let out a long sigh of relief.

I must say that events wrapped up rather neatly thereafter, my dear Watson.  Adrianna unhooked Dracula from his blood transfusion apparatus, and within the course of a few minutes I saw his condition improve dramatically.  Adrianna asked him if she should stay and nurse him back to health, and while I thought that would have provoked a bitter response from the Count, he merely walked over and embraced the girl, ordering her to go with her father and to "watch out for vampires."  Adrianna thanked the Count, thanked myself and Mycroft, and left Castle Dracul with Abraham Van Helsing, who never once looked back.

I shook the Count's hand as he thanked me for my efforts, his once-cold flesh warming up considerably.  Mycroft shook the Count's hand with a wary glance, because--and this is the strangest part of my escapade in Transylvania, Watson--Count Dracula had fully returned to his former self.  I was about to inquire as to how he had achieved such a marvelous recovery and to the sloppy appearance of his mouth and lips when the Count saw us to the gate, where the queer stagecoach driver and his stallions were waiting for us once again.  Mycroft and I climbed aboard and were led down through the Carpathian Mountains, and during that rickety trip I had time to consider Dracula's sudden recovery, and I came to this conclusion.

Dracula's lips appeared sloppy because he had recently drunk someone's blood.  He had drunk Adrianna Van Helsing's blood when he embraced her, for the briefest of moments, and she had probably only felt something comparable to an insect bite.  Unfortunately, there's another side to this coin that troubles me, Watson, for if I am to believe the legends about vampires, then it would mean Count Dracula's bite has turned Adrianna into a vampire...and I can think of no crueler revenge to take upon a foe than that.

Your dear friend,

Sherlock Holmes

 

The Father & The Gun

Here's a butt-kicking hardboiled story to kick off the new year. It's about a Catholic priest living in a small Mexican border town who gets involved with a bunch of drug traffickers in a very bad way. His name is Father Gibbons, and this is his story.

In El Concito, a little town near the Mexico/California border, there lived a priest. His name was Father Gibbons.

Father Gibbons lived and preached in a small one-room church situated in the center of El Concito. He slept upstairs in the church attic, with its creaky floorboards and rotting wood. The townspeople thought it strange that a white man had been sent to their town to preach in their language. Regardless, Father Gibbons preached every Wednesday night, Sunday morning, and Sunday night, no matter how many or how few parishioners came to hear his message.

Father Gibbons knew the people of El Concito didn't like him. He could see it in their sideways glances, could hear it in their lowest whispers, could feel it when they shouldered past him. They hated him, not because he was white, but because he preached a message nobody wanted to hear.

El Concito served as a stop for drug traffickers. The cocaine, produced in Mexico, was driven through the desert and up into California, where it was sold for profit. The traffickers always spent a night in El Concito before they traversed the sand to the California border.

One fateful night, a trafficker by the name of Suarez entered the little blue church that served as Father Gibbons' home. Father Gibbons, with the oppressive summer heat and the lack of air conditioning, wasn't in a preaching mood. Suarez asked the priest if he could confess his sins. Father Gibbons stepped into a confessionary, and Suarez took his place on the opposite side.

"Please forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," Suarez began.

"Cut that shit out," Gibbons replied. "When is the shipment crossing the border?"

"Tomorrow. One o' clock. Two at the latest."

"Where?"

"Toward Yuma. Then Winterhaven. It's picked up by another crew from there."

"What's the signal?"

"I'll piss inside my canteen."

"Shit. Seriously?"

"Seriously, amigo. These fuckers don't fool around."

"Fine. My agents will be waiting for you."

"Should I look for them?"

"No, you imbecile," Gibbons snorted. "You look for them and you'll draw unwanted attention to yourself." He sighed. "Have you got that?"

"Got it."

"Good. Now get lost, my son. Find yourself a whore for the night. There's plenty of them in this dump."

Suarez exited the confessionary and walked out of the little blue church. He made his way up to Rita's, the local brothel, and stepped inside. The townspeople gave him a curious glance and wondered if he had confessed sins he'd already planned to commit.

Father Gibbons stood on the front steps of his church and reached for the flask of whiskey he kept in his robes. A loose chicken clucked at him.

"Go with God," Gibbons told the future McNugget, "and all that good shit." He took a slug of his whiskey. Took another. Replaced the flask. He didn't want, or need, to get drunk tonight.

After all, if everything went as planned, tomorrow would be Father Gibbons' last day in El Concito.

***

Father Gibbons woke with a start when he heard a mighty fist slam against the side of the confessionary he was napping in. Gibbons snatched up the wrinkled Playboy he'd been reading before he fell asleep and stuffed it under his robes.

"Father Gibbons!" a voice called from inside the church. The voice sounded angry and carried enough venom to kill a snake.

"Over here, my son," Gibbons replied in his priestly voice. He slid his side of the confessionary open and waved. There were three men, all of them of Mexican origin. One of them, the angry one, stormed over and dropped into the confessionary's seat.

"Well, we meet at last," the angry one said. "Wait a moment. I don't believe we've been properly introduced." He drew a large revolver from his back pocket and cocked the hammer. "My name is Alberto Ricardo Rodriguez." He grinned. The teeth he had left were all yellow. "But you already know that. Right, Agent Gibbons?"

"Do you have something to confess, my son?" Gibbons said. "If you do not, then please leave this--"

Rodriguez fired his revolver. The weapon roared inside the small church and tore a hole through the confessionary, past Father Gibbons, and out through the wall next to him. Lord only knew where the bullet went after that.

"Let's drop the bullshit, shall we?" Rodriguez said with a twitch of his neck. "I heard all about you from your buddy Suarez. You remember Suarez, right?"

Remember Suarez? In Father Gibbons' eyes, using that word when it came to a person was never a good sign.

Rodriguez cocked the hammer on his revolver again. "You're wondering what happened to Suarez. You're wondering what happened to your little squad of D.E.A. agents." Rodriguez snapped his fingers at his closest comrade. "Julio! Bring me the bag!"

Father Gibbons didn't like the looks of this. Rodriguez was a psychopath and had a gun that could blow a hole through the thickest Bible. He was also blocking Gibbons' only escape route.

Julio returned with "the bag," which was nothing more than a leather sack that looked better suited to Indiana Jones than Mexican drug dealers. Rodriguez laid his revolver down, undid the clasp on the bag, and emptied it onto the wooden shelf in the confessionary. What Father Gibbons saw nearly made him throw up--Rodriguez had gathered Suarez's index finger, and those belonging to Gibbons' squad, and lined them up in a neat display of savagery.

"Well, Agent Gibbons?" Rodriguez said with another twitch. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a sick fuck, Rodriguez," Gibbons replied. "I also think I'm going to kill you."

Rodriguez stared at Gibbons through the confessionary's latticework window. Then he burst out laughing.

"You? Kill me?" Rodriguez asked through his tears of laughter. "That's, that's...what's the word you gringos use?"

"Rich?" Gibbons offered dryly.

"Exactly!" Rodriguez roared with laughter. "How do you plan to kill me when you don't even have a gun?!"

"I don't need a gun," Gibbons said. "I've got yours."

Rodriguez searched his side of the confessionary. His revolver had vanished into thin air.

"What--the hell--?" he stammered.

"Adios, amigo," Father Gibbons said. He squeezed the trigger on Rodriguez's revolver and delivered him into the devil's eager hands. The recoil from the gun threw Gibbons against the wall and made him slide to the floor, as Rodriguez recoiled from the confessionary and blasted across the floor, his blood mixing with the dusty sand that coated the ceramic tiles.

Julio and the third bandito knelt alongside Rodriguez's dead body as Father Gibbons kicked the confessionary open and dove for the floor. Julio spun around and drilled the wall with his Uzi, emptying half of his clip into the picture of The Holy Virgin that hung on the wall.

Father Gibbons snaked across the floor, following the path of the wooden pews, as Julio took careful steps down the center aisle, which led up to the pulpit and the baptismal. The third bandito stayed by the entrance and watched for any escapees with his wild eyes and his finger tickling the trigger of his Ruger M-12.

Julio stepped up to the pulpit and stared at the picture of Jesus Christ on the wall behind it. Sunlight was filtering down from the attic windows, and it landed right on the picture, making Jesus look almost life-like. Julio seemed overcome with the Holy Spirit at that moment, took one hand off his Uzi, and crossed himself. He finished up by closing his eyes and whispering a short prayer in Spanish.

Father Gibbons couldn't believe his eyes. He also couldn't believe Julio could possibly be so stupid as to take his hands off his gun. Gibbons lifted the beastly revolver, cocked the hammer, and fired, the bullet tearing a hole through Julio's head and exploding it. Gibbons slid back against the wall and crashed into a clay pot, which shattered on impact, leaving shards of hardened clay in Gibbons' back.

Gibbons looked up in time to see the third guy sobbing and screaming at the top of his lungs. He took his Ruger in both hands and fired it in every direction but Gibbons', destroying the holy place and everything in it. Gibbons crawled to the front pews, trying desperately not to get shot, and ducked out from his cover long enough to pop a bullet in the bandito's right ankle.

The man fell flat on his face, screaming and cursing in Spanish, while his Ruger slid across the floor and stopped next to Gibbons' feet. Father Gibbons stood, keeping both hands on the revolver, and gave the bandito a kick in the groin before he stepped outside.

The sunlight had never felt better. The stickiness of the heat almost felt cool against his skin. The clucking of that chicken almost made him smile.

That's when Father Gibbons noticed the white Ford Pinto pulling up in front of the church. He sat down on the front steps, sat the revolver next to him, and removed his flask of whiskey. As he drank it straight down, a short, spectacled man in a plaid suit and bow tie emerged from the Pinto and combed his thinning hair back.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Father Gibbons asked.

"Father Gibbons," the rotund man replied. "Who are you?"

The priest threw his empty flask at the chicken and limped toward the Pinto.

"Nobody, apparently," the priest managed to say. He pointed to the church. "She's all yours." He climbed into the Pinto's driver's seat, but stopped and waved for the real Father Gibbons' attention.

"Yes, sir?" Gibbons asked. "What is it?"

"Watch that trap door on the first confessionary," the priest said. "It's a killer."

The priest closed the door on the Pinto as Father Gibbons, carrying three suitcases and a laptop bag, found his way to the church. The priest smiled, put the Pinto in drive, and headed for Yuma. Maybe he could get in touch with his D.E.A. contacts and set up another operation there. Maybe he could find a nice church with a nun who had loose morals. Or maybe he'd just get drunk and dance the night away.

The latter sounded like a good idea. 

It sounded like a real good idea.

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.