Introduction

The Big Guys
Flash fiction, winner of the Derringer Award.

A Fistful of Cozy
A satire of the mystery cozy genre.

Cleansing
An ancient crime of biblical proportions

Lying Eyes
Solve it yourself, given the clues.

Perfect Plan
Another solve it yourself. Don’t you remember One Minute Mysteries and Encyclopedia Brown?

Piece of Cake
Another solve it yourself, originally featured in Woman’s World.

Animal Attraction
Solve it yourself.

Urgent Reply Needed
A cautionary tale about dealing with spammers.

Blaine’s Deal
A parody of hardboiled noir.

Light Drizzle
A light-hearted send-up of hitman stories.

Don’t Press That Button!
An essay about the gadgets in the James Bond universe, and which you need to buy.

Piranha Pool
A writer seeking criticism pays the ultimate price.

A Newbie’s Guide to Thrillerfest
Never been to a mystery conference? Here’s the in-depth dirt.

Inspector Oxnard
He’s either brilliant, or too stupid to breathe.

One Night Only
A sports fan ends up in jail, all for the love of the game.

An Archaeologist’s Story
How digging up old bones leads to fresh corpses.

Could Stephanie Plum Car Really Get Car Insurance?
An essay about Janet Evanovich’s famous character.

Cozy or Hardboiled?
Take the test to find out which type of book you’re reading.

Addiction
What’s the worst drug you can get hung up on?

Weigh To Go
A humor column about health clubs.

Exclusive Ebooks by JA Konrath

Excerpt from Disturb by J.A. Konrath

Excerpt from Whiskey Sour by J.A. Konrath

The first grown-up books I ever read, at the age of nine, were mysteries. This had more to do with them being on my mother’s bookshelf than any particular design on my part. But I fell in love with them. Spenser and Travis McGee were my first literary heroes. I really enjoyed Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct, and the Remo Williams Destroyer series by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy.

Then I got into hardboiled and noir. Mickey Spillane. Max Allan Collins. Lawrence Block. Ross MacDonald. Donald Westlake and Richard Stark. Chandler and Hammet. Andrew Vachss. Reading about cops and PIs was cool, but reading about criminals was cool too.

In my teen years, I was floored by Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, and that started me on a serial killer binge. I devoured John Sandford, James Patterson, Robert W. Walker, David Wiltse, and Ridley Pearson.

Which is probably why my novels are such a mishmash of different genre styles.

When I sit down to write a short story, it’s for one of two reasons. First, because someone asked me for one. Second, because I have an idea that begs to be written. If I’m writing to fill an anthology slot or crack a market, I usually start with a few lines, which leads me to a premise, which leads to conflict, which leads to action. But if I already have an idea, it usually springs full blown from my head and onto the page as fast as I can type.

Often, I have story ideas that won’t fit into the Jack Daniels universe. Sometimes these are horror stories, or straight humor, or sci-fi, or a combination of different styles.

Sometimes they’re crime stories, many of which are included in this collection. But crime doesn’t have to mean serious. If I could turn an unbiased critical eye toward my own work, I’d say the thing that makes it unique is the humor.

My standard author bio says I used to do improv comedy. In college, I wrote and starred in a comedy play called The Caravan O’ Laughs, which was a collection of insane skits that had a few shows in Chicago and southern Illinois. I’m comfortable in front of an audience, and from early on I could always find the joke in any situation.

Comedy has its roots in the same part of our brain that responds to fear. We laugh at things that scare us, confuse us, and surprise us. We’re wired to recognize and process millions of pieces of incoming information, and when something defies our expectations, laughter is the result. An evolutionary tension breaker to help us deal with being confused.

Most of my writing contains varying degrees of humor. I can’t help it. When I’m editing, the thing I spend the most amount of time doing is cutting jokes for the sake of the story. I hate cutting jokes, and if I snip one I’ll usually use it later in another tale. My work desk is scattered with little pieces of paper, each containing a joke, many of them awful.

It’s a sickness, really.

Some of the following shorts use various forms of humor to varying degrees of success. There’s satire, and parody, and black humor, and puns, and inappropriate humor, and one-liners, and slapstick, and a lot of irony. Out of everything I’ve written, the funny stories have the most of me in them. And while I’m aware that a few of these pieces can’t really be called crime fiction, I hope you enjoy them just the same.

Joe Konrath, February 2010

This was one of three stories written for Small Bites, an anthology of flash fiction to benefit horror author and editor Charles Grant, who needed assistance paying some hefty medical bills. Flash fiction is a story of 500 words or less. Strange as it sounds, writing shorter is sometimes harder than writing longer, because you have less words to fit all of the story elements in. Small Bites used three of my flash fiction shorts. This piece won a Derringer Award.

“I’m surprised you asked me here, Ralph. I didn’t think you liked me.”

Ralph grinned over the wheel. “Don’t be silly, Jim.” He cut the engines and glanced over the starboard bow. There was some chop to the sea, but the yacht had a deep keel and weathered it well.

“Well, we’ve been neighbors for almost ten years, and we haven’t ever done anything together.”

Ralph shrugged. “I work crazy hours. Not a lot of free time. But I’ve always considered you a good friend, Jim. Plus, our wives are close. I thought this would give us a chance to get to know each other. Belinda mentioned you like to fish.”

Jim nodded. “Mostly freshwater. I haven’t done much deep sea fishing. What are we going for, anyway?”

Ralph adjusted his captain’s cap.

“I was originally thinking salmon or sailfish, but it’s been a while since I went for the big guys.”

“Big guys?”

“Sharks, Jim. You up for it?”

“Sure. Just tell me what I need to do.”

“First step is getting into the harness.” Ralph picked up a large life vest, crisscrossed with straps and latches. “This clips onto the rod, so you don’t lose it, and this end is attached to the boat, in case you get pulled overboard.”

Jim raised an eyebrow. “Has that ever happened?”

“Not yet, but it pays to be careful. These are Great White waters, and some of those bad boys go over two thousand pounds.”

Ralph helped Jim into the vest, snugging it into place.

“What next?”

“We have to make a chum slick.”

“I’ve heard of that. Fish blood and guts, right?”

“Yep. It’s a shark magnet. You want to get started while I prepare the tackle?”

“Sure.”

Ralph went to the cooler and took out the plastic bucket of chum. Even refrigerated, it stank to high heaven. He handed it to Jim, with a ladle.

“Toss that shit out there. Don’t be stingy with it.”

Jim began to slop chum into the blue waters.

Ralph swiveled his head around, scanning the horizon. No other boats.

“So,” Jim asked, “what’s the bait?”

Ralph gave Jim a deep poke in the shoulder with a fillet knife, then shoved his neighbor overboard.

Jim surfaced, screaming. Ralph ladled on some guts.

“Not very neighborly of you, Jim. Screwing my wife while I was at work.”

“Ralph! Please!”

Jim’s hands tried to find purchase on the sides of the yacht, but they were slippery with blood. Ralph dumped more onto his head, making Jim gag.

“Keep struggling.” Ralph smiled. “The big guys love a moving target.”

“Don’t do this, Ralph. Please. I’m begging you.”

“You’d better beg fast. I see that we already have some company.”

Jim stared across the open water. The dorsal fin approached at a brisk pace.

“Please! Ralph! You said you considered me a good friend!”

“Sorry…wrong choice of words. I actually meant to say I considered you a good chum.”

It took a while for Ralph to stop laughing.

Satire, written for the webzine ShotsMag.uk at their request. This pokes gentle fun at the sub-genre of zero-violence cozy mysteries, with their quirky but spunky amateur sleuths.

“This is simply dreadful!”

Mrs. Agnes Victoria Mugilicuddy blanched under a thick layer of rouge. Her oversized beach hat, adorned with plastic grapes and lemons, perched askew atop her pink-hued quaff.

Barlow, her graying manservant, placed a hand on her pointy elbow to steady her.

“Indeed, Madam. I’ll call the police.”

“The police? Why, Barlow, think of the scandal! Imagine what Imogene Rumbottom, that busy-body who writes the Society Column, will say in her muck-raking rag when she discovers the Viscount de Pouissant dead on my foyer floor.”

“I understand, Madam. Will you be solving this murder yourself, then?”

“I have no other choice, Barlow! Though I’m a simple dowager of advancing years and high social standing, my feisty determination and keen eye for detail will no doubt flush out this dastardly murderer. Where is Miss Foo-Foo, the Mystery Cat?”

“She’s in her litter box, burying some evidence.”

“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes’s voice had the pitch and timbre of an opera soprano. “Come immediately and help Mumsy solve this heinous crime!”

Miss Foo-Foo trotted into the foyer, her pendulous belly dragging along the oriental rug. Bits of smoked salmon clung to her whiskers.

“Barlow!” Agnes commanded, clapping her liver-spotted hands together.

Barlow bent down and picked up the cat. He was five years Mrs. Agnes’s senior, and his back cracked liked kindling with the weight of Miss Foo-Foo.

Agnes patted the cat on the head as Barlow held it. Miss Foo-Foo purred, a sound not unlike a belch.

“We have a mystery to solve, my dearest puss-puss. If we’re to catch the scoundrel, we must be quick of mind and fleet of foot. Barlow!”

“Yes, Madam?”

“Fetch the Mystery Kit!”

“Right away, Madam.”

Barlow turned on his heels.

“Barlow!”

Barlow turned back.

“Yes, Madam?”

“First release Miss Foo-Foo.”

“Of course, Madam.”

Barlow bent at the waist, his spine making Rice Krispie sounds. Miss Foo-Foo padded over to Agnes and allowed herself to be patted on the head.

Straightening up was a painful affair, but Barlow managed without a grunt. He nodded at Mrs. Agnes and left the room.

“To think,” Agnes mused, “only ten minutes ago the Viscount was sipping tawny port and regaling us with ribald tales of the gooseberry industry. Just a waste, Miss Foo-Foo.”

Agnes’s eyes remained dry, but she removed a handkerchief from the side pocket on her jacket and dabbed at them nonetheless.

Barlow returned lugging a satchel, its black leather cracked with age. He undid the tarnished clasps and held it open for Mrs. Agnes. She removed a large, Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass.

“The first order of business is to establish the cause of death.” Mrs. Agnes spoke to the cat, not to Barlow. “It’s merely a hunch, but I’m compelled to suggest that perhaps the lovely port the Viscount had been sipping may have been tampered with.”

“An interesting hypothesis, Madam, but perhaps instead it has something to do with that letter opener?”

“The letter opener, Barlow?”

“The one sticking in the Viscount’s chest, Madam.”

Agnes squinted one heavily mascaraed eye and peered through the glass with the other.

“Miss Foo-Foo, your hunch proved incorrect. The poor, dear Viscount appears to be impaled through the heart with some kind of silver object. But what can it be, puss-puss?”

“A letter opener, Madam?”

“Could it be a knife, Miss Foo-Foo? Perchance some rapscallion gained entry to the den though the window, intent on robbing the rich Viscount? Perhaps a fight ensued, resulting in the bloodthirsty criminal tragically ending the Viscount’s life with this vaguely Freudian symbol of male power?”

Barlow peered at the body.

“It appears to be the letter opener you bought me for my anniversary, Madam. The gift you presented to me for fifty years of loyal service.”

“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes bent over the fallen Viscount and lightly touched the handle of the protruding object. “Why, this is no knife! It’s Barlow’s letter opener! I can see the engraving.”

“‘How lucky you must feel to have served me for so many years.’” Barlow intoned.

“This changes everything!” Mrs. Agnes placed the magnifying glass back into the satchel, her gnarled fingers latching onto a tin of fingerprint powder. “Some heathen must have stolen Barlow’s lovely gift—”

“Sterling silver plated,” Barlow said.

“—with the intent to frame our loyal manservant! Barlow!”

“Yes, Madam?”

“Open this tin so I may dust the offending weapon!”

“Yes, Madam.”

Mrs. Agnes used the tiny brush to liberally apply a basecoat of powder to the letter opener’s handle.

“Why, look, puss-puss! There’s nary a print to be found! The handle has been wiped clean!”

“Perhaps the murderer wore gloves, Madam?” Barlow reached for the powder tin with a gloved-hand.

“Or perhaps, Miss Foo-Foo, the killer wore gloves! This fiend is no mere street malcontent. This seems premeditated, the result of a careful and calculating plot. But why the Viscount?”

“Perhaps he was a witness, Madam? To another murder?”

Mrs. Agnes squinted at her manservant.

“That’s daft, Barlow. Even for a lowly servant such as yourself. Do you see another victim in this room?”

“Indeed I do, Madam.”

Barlow removed the cheese grater from his vest pocket, a gift from Mrs. Agnes for his forty year anniversary, and spent forty minutes grating off the old dowager’s face.

The old bat still had some life left in her after that, so he worked on her a bit with his thirtieth-year-anniversary nutcracker, his twentieth-year-anniversary potato peeler, and finally the fireplace poker, which wasn’t a gift, but was handy.

When she finally expired, he flipped the gory side face-down and spent a leisurely hour violating her corpse—something he couldn’t have managed if she were alive and yapping. Sated, Barlow stood on creaky knees and picked up the bored Miss Foo-Foo.

“You have a date with the microwave, puss-puss. And then I’m the sole heir to Madam’s fortune.”

Miss Foo-Foo purred, making a sound like a belch.

Three minutes and thirteen seconds later, she made a different kind of sound. More like a pop.

“There’s a line.”

A long line, too. Thirty people, maybe more.

Aaron cleared his throat and spat the result onto a rock. He could feel the desert heat rising up through the leather of his sandals. An unforgiving sun blew waves of heat into their faces.

“It seems to be moving.”

Aaron squinted at Rebekah, fat and grimy. The wrap around her head was soaked with sweat and clung to her scalp in dark patches. Her eyes were submissive, dim. A bruise yellowed on her left cheek.

Looking at her, Aaron felt the urge to blacken it again.

“I cannot believe I let you drag me here.”

“You promised.”

“A man should not have to keep the promises he makes to his wife. In another nation, you’d be property. Worth about three goats and a swine. Perhaps less, an ugly sow such as you.”

Rebekah turned away.

Aaron set his jaw. A proper wife did not turn her back on her husband. He clutched at Rebekah’s shoulder and spun her around.

“I could have you stoned for insolence, you worthless bitch.”

He raised his hand, saw the fear in her eyes.

Liked it.

But Rebekah did not finch this time, did not cower.

“I will tell my father.”

The words made Aaron’s ears redden. Her father was a land owner, known to the Roman court. A Citizen. On his passing, Aaron would inherit his holdings.

Aaron lowered his fist. He tried to smile, but his face would not comply.

“Tell your father—what? Any husband has the right to discipline his wife.”

“Shall I open my robe to show him the marks from your discipline?”

Aaron bit the inside of his cheek. This sow deserved all that and more.

“Our marriage is our business, no one else need intrude.”

“And that is why we are here, Husband. I will not tell Father because you consented to this. It is the only way.”

Aaron spat again, but his dry mouth yielded little. The line moved slowly, the sun baking their shadows onto the ground behind them.

As they approached the river, Aaron’s throat constricted from thirst.

But this river was not fit to drink. Shallow and murky, the surface a skein of filth.

“Perhaps I should tell your father that his daughter has been seduced by a cult.”

“My father knows. He was cleansed a fortnight past.”

“Your father?” Aaron could not believe it. Her father had clout and status. Why would he jeopardize that by fooling around with fanatics?

Aaron stared at the river, confused. Another person waded into the center. Unclean, smelling of work and sweat, someone’s servant.

The man known as the Baptist laid hands on the zealot’s shoulders and plunged him underneath the scummy waves.

Then the Baptist yelled in a cracked voice, about sin and rebirth and Jehovah. A few seconds later the servant was released, gasping for air.

“He has been saved,” Rebekah said. “John has cleansed his soul.”

Aaron frowned. The man did not look saved. He looked muddy and disoriented.

“You are a fool, Rebekah. This talk of souls and one god is illegal and dangerous.”

“It works, Aaron. I have heard the tales. Healing the lame. The sick. Purging anger and hatred from men’s hearts.”

“I will not let that fool dunk my head in that putrid water.”

“Good day, Father.”

Aaron followed her eye line, turned.

Rebekah’s father Mark smiled at Aaron, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“There is nothing to fear, Aaron. The stories are true. At my baptism, I felt as if released from bondage. I felt my soul shrug off the chains of sin and soar like a bird.”

Aaron stared into Mark’s twinkling, smiling eyes and calmed a bit.

“I am not afraid, Mark.”

“Good. You are next.”

Rebekah and her father stepped onto the bank with Aaron. The warm water lapped against his toes.

“Am I to go alone?”

“We are family,” Rebekah said. “We shall all go together.”

She took his hand, a gesture that she had not made since their wedding day. As a unit, they waded over to the man called John.

“Are you ready to cast aside sin and be reborn in the glorious love of your Father, Jehovah?”

Aaron looked at Rebekah’s father. The older man smiled, nodded.

“Yes,” Aaron said. A quick dunk and it would be over.

John put his hands upon Aaron’s shoulders and shoved him downward.

The water was hot, alive against his skin. Aaron’s shoulders were pressed down to the bottom and the muck parted to accept him.

He held his breath, straining to hear the words John would speak.

But John spoke nothing.

Aaron shifted, placing a hand on John’s thick wrist. He gave it small squeeze, a signal to begin.

The wrist did not yield.

Aaron felt another hand upon him, and then a weight against his chest.

He grasped at it.

A foot.

Alarm coursed through Aaron. Something was wrong. He opened his eyes, peered up through the murk.

John held him firm, Rebekah hunched beside him. Her eyes were venom, and it was her foot that pinned down Aaron’s chest.

Aaron tried to twist and thrash, but he had no leverage. A burst of precious air escaped his lungs, bubbling violently up through his field of vision in an endless stream.

This crazy cult was going to murder him.

He reached out his hand, grasping at Rebekah’s father. He could not allow this.

Mark caught his wrist, held it tight…and pushed Aaron deeper into the mud.

Aaron screamed, sucked in a breath. The water tasted sour and burned the inside his lungs as if they’d inhaled fire instead. He pried at John’s fingers with his free hand, and a moment of clarity flashed through the chaotic panic in his mind.

This was not John the Baptist. He’d seen this man before. He was a servant of Rebekah’s father.

The crowd by the river. They’d all been Mark’s servants.

And through the weighty distortion of the water, he could hear them cheering.

The following four stories were all written for the magazine Woman’s World. Every week it publishes a 1000 word mini mystery, in the tradition of Donald Sobol. The story provides the clues to solve the crime, then the solution is explained. I wrote four of these for Woman’s World before finally selling one. This one was a reject, but was later published in the magazine Twisted Tongue. Can you solve the mystery?

It was a textbook kidnapping, or so they thought…

Billionaire David Morgan didn’t look anything like he did on television. His distinguished face appeared worn and tired, and his piercing blue eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.

“I just want her to be okay,” he said, for the hundredth time.

Detective Starker patted his should.

“I know, Mr. Morgan. The kidnapper said he’ll call with your wife’s location.”

Morgan’s eyes released another tear.

“Are you sure they have the money?” he asked.

“We’re sure.”

Starker thought back to the money drop, and his insides burned. One million dollars in unmarked bills, left in a suitcase in a parked car. The kidnapper had warned the police that any attempts to stop him or track him would result in the death of Celia Morgan, David’s young wife.

Nonetheless, Starker had made sure there was a tiny transmitter in the suitcase, housed in the lining and impossible to detect.

But at the money drop, Starker had watched the kidnapper transfer the cash into a large plastic bag, leaving the suitcase and the tracking device behind in the parking garage, leaving the authorities with no way to find him.

Now Celia’s only hope was that the kidnapper was a man of his word, and would reveal her location.

“What if he doesn’t call?” Morgan asked, voice trembling. “When Margaret, my first wife, passed away, I never thought I’d love again. I couldn’t bear…”

His words were lost to another crying spell. Starker gave the millionaire another pat on the back.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Morgan. We’ll get her. Let’s go over your list of enemies again.”

“Enemies? I told you before. I’m the CEO of one of the largest manufacturing companies on the planet. I’ve been in this business for forty years. I have more enemies than there are names in the Manhattan phonebook.”

“Does anyone stand out? Someone who felt you wronged them? Someone wanting money from you?”

“You saw the list. Everyone on it hates me. I told you before, Detective, that line of investigation is hopeless.”

“How about around your home? Fired any of the help lately? Landscapers? Maids? Chauffeurs?”

“Celia handles all of that. Wait—I did have to fire the pool cleaner a month ago. I came home from work early and found him in our living room, watching television. Fired him on the spot.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember. Celia will know…oh dear…”

The mention of his wife’s name brought fresh tears. Starker felt awful for the man.

“Where did you meet Celia, Mr. Morgan?”

“She…she was one of my house cleaners. I pretty much ignored her for the first few weeks she worked for me. But she always had a kind word, a bright thing to say. Soon, I began to linger before going to the office, chatting with her over morning coffee. I know she’s barely a third of my age, but she makes me feel young.”

The phone rang, startling Starker. He nodded at Morgan to pick it up.

“Hello? Is she okay? Where is she?”

Starker, listening in on an extension, wrote down the address for the storage facility where the kidnapper claimed he’d left Celia Morgan.

“Let’s move,” Starker told his people.

Super Value Storage was across town, but Starker arrived in record time. He led his team, and the anxious David Morgan, to storage locker 116. It was a large sized unit, used for storing furniture, and the door had a combination lock on it. One of the cops used the bolt cutters, and Starker raised the door, a chemical stinging his eyes and making him squint.

He shone his flashlight inside, revealing a terrified-looking Celia Morgan.

She sat in the dark, tied to an office chair, a gag in her pretty mouth. Behind her were two empty buckets of something called sodium bisulfate, and a large empty cardboard box that had BROMINE written on the side.

David Morgan rushed to his wife, white granules crunching under his feet.

“Mr. Morgan!” Starker shouted. “Don’t touch anything until we’ve collected evidence!”

Starker stepped in, snapping on a pair of latex gloves, removing the gag from Celia’s perfectly made-up face. She was a strong one—her mascara hadn’t even run. He then used a utility knife to cut the clothesline that securely bound her, careful to leave the knots for the crime lab to analyze.

“Celia, my love!”

David Morgan embraced his wife, and she kissed his cheek.

“I’m okay, David. He didn’t hurt me.”

Starker motioned for his team to come in, and he reached overhead and fumbled with the bare bulb hanging overhead, burning his fingers before eventually finding the pull cord and bathing the area in light.

“Did you have a chance to see your kidnapper?” Starker asked the woman.

“No. I’m sorry. I never saw his face,” she said, her clear blue eyes drilling into him. “I’ve been sitting here in the dark for hours.”

“Hours?” Starker repeated.

“Yes.”

Starker gave Morgan a final pat on the back, and then separated the married couple.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan, but I’m going to have to arrest your wife…as an accomplice in her own kidnapping.”

How did Starker know?

SOLUTION: Celia’s make up was perfect. If she’d been in that room for hours, locked up with chemicals that made Starker’s eyes sting, her own eyes would have been red she would have been crying. Plus, when Starker reached up to turn on the light, the bulb was hot, meaning it had recently been on. Thus, Celia had just gotten there, and was lying to them. Since bromine and sodium bisulfate are pool cleaning chemicals, Starker suspected Celia was in on the scheme with the pool cleaner Morgan had fired a month previously.

Another Woman’s World rejection. Though these are short, fast reads, they took a bit of thought to produce. They were a fun exercise in the mystery tradition of seeding clues.

The heist was flawless, except for one large detail…

Marty had been watching them for over a month. The Richardsons were an attractive young couple, wealthy by chance—they had rich parents on both sides. Five nights a week they prowled the town, dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry. Sometimes to the theater. Sometimes to a five star restaurant. But they enjoyed riverboat gambling the most.

Mrs. Richardson’s weakness was hundred dollar slots. She could go through ten thousand dollars an hour. For Mr. Richardson, the allure of blackjack proved irresistible. He was what casino folks called a ‘whale,’ betting more money on a single hand than Marty earned in the last three years—and Marty held down two jobs and couldn’t even afford a car. By day, Marty drove a school bus. At night, he cleaned casino ashtrays and emptied trash cans.

But if Marty’s plan worked out, he’d never work another shift at either job.

Marty had seen the Richardsons gamble many times, reckless in the way the very rich tended to be. Mostly, they lost. But sometimes they won, and won big. When they did, they took their spoils in cash. On those big win days, the casino sent an armed escort with the Richardsons, to make sure they arrived home safely.

Marty watched, and waited, polishing slot machines and vacuuming gaudy plush carpeting. He was biding his time until the Richardsons hit it big, because the next time they did, he would relieve them of their winnings.

Marty had followed them all around town, many times. He’d made frequent, secret visits to their house. In the past four weeks, Marty had learned a great deal about the Richardsons.

He knew they had an electric fence, but he had a plan to deal with the electric fence. He knew they had a dog, but he had a plan to deal with the dog. He knew they had a burglar alarm, but he had a plan to deal with the burglar alarm. He knew they had a safe, but he had a plan to deal with the safe. He even had a way to deal with the Richardsons themselves, if they woke up during the robbery. Marty had a gun, and would use it if he had to.

Marty had planned every tiny detail.

All Marty needed was for the Richardsons to win big, and that night, it happened. Mrs. Richardson hit the Double Diamond Jackpot—a cool half a million dollars.

The Richardsons celebrated, cheering and laughing. The casino manager came by to congratulate them both. The couple left with two satchels full of cash, accompanied by two armed guards.

Marty followed.

The Richardsons lived exactly 6.3 miles away from the riverboat. They always took the same route, but just to be sure they didn’t deviate from their routine, Marty kept them in sight. He tailed them up to their estate and parked across the street. Once the Richardsons were through their electric fence, the armed guards waved farewell and drove away.

Which left Marty alone to do his work.

He kept his tools in a large satchel under his seat. After setting the parking brake, he grabbed the bag and exited his vehicle through the rear door.

The electrified gate crackled in the night air. From the bag, Marty removed some heavy rubber gloves and galoshes. Rubber didn’t conduct electricity, and Marty climbed over the fence safely.

The mansion stood three stories high, boasting dozens of rooms. Marty located the five bullhorns attached to the outside of the building. Any unauthorized person trying to get in through a door or window would trigger these sirens. He filled each bullhorn with a can of aerosol insulating foam—the kind homeowners use in their attics to reduce drafts. The foam filled every crack and crevice, quickly hardening into a solid material. The sirens would still go off, but they wouldn’t be any louder than a whisper.

With the alarm system beaten, Marty located the living room window and pushed a plumber’s plunger onto the surface. Using a diamond edged tool, he cut around the plunger until he could remove the glass.

When he had a hole in the window, he took a thermos from his bag and shook out a ball of raw hamburger.

Scruffy, the Richardson’s harmless but noisy pug, came running into the room. Before the dog could begin barking, Marty stuck his hand through the hole in the window, holding the hamburger. Mixed in with the meat were sleeping pills.

The dog gobbled up the treat, then stared at Marty, waiting for more. Marty gave the dog a rawhide bone. Scruffy chewed for five full minutes, then closed his eyes and began to snore harmlessly.

Marty felt for the latch and opened the window. He listened closely for the Richardsons, hearing a TV in another part of the house.

The safe, Marty knew from his many reconnaissance visits, was behind a large painted portrait of Mrs. Richardson. Marty crept up to it in the darkness, removing a cordless drill and a feather pillow from his bag. Unzipping the pillow, he placed the drill inside until just the large bit protruded, and then began drilling the safe, the sound muffled by the feathers.

He’d barely begun when the lights suddenly switched on. Marty spun around, reaching for his pistol, but decided against it when he saw the room was filled with cops.

Marty dropped the drill and raised his hands.

“How did you get here so fast?” Marty asked. “My plan was perfect!”

The lead detective answered. “The casino helped the Richardsons set up the phoney slot machine payoff tonight, to lure you here. We’ve been waiting for you for over an hour. You made one very big mistake.”

What was Marty’s mistake?

SOLUTION: Marty didn’t own a car, so every time he followed the Richardsons and parked near their house, it was using his work vehicle…a school bus. The Richardsons spotted it easily, and knew something was going on because there are no school buses that run at night.

This is the Mini Mystery that Woman’s World finally bought. I still have no idea why they preferred this one over the other three. It’s actually my least favorite.

Some folks will do anything to win…

The Bitsy Farmer Rocky Mountain Cake Bake-Off had played host to many wonderful desserts over the past ten years, but this was the first time it played host to a criminal.

Bitsy stared at the five finalists and frowned. When she began the contest a decade ago, it was to help new chefs. But things had gotten ugly. Really ugly.

Bitsy’s skills in the kitchen had given rise to a multi-million dollar cake-mix company. Always the innovator, Bitsy used the Rocky Mountain Cake Bake-Off to encourage amateur cooks. The winner received ten thousand dollars, plus her recipe would be sold through Bitsy’s company. But never before had Bitsy been faced with this dilemma.

An anonymous phone caller had informed Bitsy that one of the remaining contestants was planning to sabotage her competitors. Not only was that unfair, but the scandal could hurt the integrity of the event—an integrity Bitsy had spent years building.

Bitsy knew she had to figure out who the villain was, before the competition was ruined.

She walked over to Contestant #1, Suzi Snow. The elderly Ms. Snow reminded Bitsy of her grandmother; hair up in a gray bun and always smiling.

“Hello, Ms. Snow. What are you baking for us today?”

Ms. Snow grinned, showing off super-white dentures.

“My famous angel food cake, with a fresh raspberry glaze. I have a secret ingredient, passed down through six generations.”

“What is it?” Bitsy asked, curious.

Ms. Snow winked. “I’ll only share it if I win.”

Bitsy wished her luck, and walked through the kitchen studio over to Contestant #2, Maureen Hamilton. Maureen was Bitsy’s age, but shorter and perpetually scowling. She looked to be in a mood when Bitsy approached.

“The altitude is murderous,” Maureen moaned. “It will be a miracle if this chocolate cake turns out. Plus I don’t think this oven is calibrated correctly. I don’t want to lose because of faulty equipment.”

“I’ll send a technician over to check it out,” Bitsy said. She spoke into her walkie-talkie and asked someone to come by.

Maureen frowned and kept mixing.

Contestant #3 was Maria Espinoza. She’d brought her teenaged daughter with to assist, which the rules allowed. Both wore white latex gloves, which was definitely sanitary, but somewhat unusual.

“This will be the best angel food cake you’ve ever eaten,” Maria beamed.

Bitsy noticed that Maria’s daughter was opening a package of raspberries.

“Are you making a raspberry glaze?” she asked.

“Yes. I know that other lady is making a similar cake, but mine will be better. You’ll see.”

Bitsy bid her good baking and moved on the Contestant #4, Holly Doolittle. Holly was opening up packages of cream cheese, and Bitsy noted that her counter top was covered with graham cracker crumbs.

“Bitsy! I’m so excited to meet you! You’re my idol!”

“Thank you,” Bitsy said, a little embarrassed.

“I only hope my cake is half as good as one yours. You’ve got the be the best baker in all of Colorado. Boy, I just love you!”

Bitsy endured a hug, then moved along to the final contestant, Georgia Peters.

“Ms. Peters, I…”

“Shhh!” Georgia put a finger in front of her lips. “The first layer of my quadruple golden layer cake is in the oven. With this elevation, I can’t take any chances.”

“Sorry,” Bitsy whispered, somewhat mollified. “Good luck.”

“I don’t need luck,” Georgia whispered back. “This cake will win for sure.”

Bitsy’s walkie-talkie squawked. Georgia shot Bitsy an evil look at the intrusive sound, and Bitsy hurried away.

“What is it?” she asked into the radio.

“We found something.” It was Niki James, Bitsy’s assistant. “You’d better come and look.”

“Where are you?”

“In the hospitality suite.

Bitsy flew through the kitchen, down the hallway, and to the suite. When she arrived, Niki was as pale as cake flour.

“It was under the sofa, in a plain paper bag.”

She pointed to the table, and Bitsy gasped when she saw a gun laying next to a bowl of chips.

“When I became your assistant, I never knew I’d have to deal with anything more dangerous than a spatula,” Niki said. “Who would bring a gun to a bake-off?”

“Did you touch it?” Bitsy asked.

Niki nodded. “I didn’t know what was inside, so I reached in.”

“No name on the bag?”

“It’s just a regular paper lunch sack,” Niki said.

“How about on the gun?”

“I didn’t look close enough.”

Bitsy thought out loud. “How long has the hospitality suite been open?”

“It’s been open all night. I know for a fact that every contestant has been in here, some several times.”

Bitsy rubbed her temples. She couldn’t believe that one of the women she’d just met would commit murder just to win.

“Should we call the police?” Niki asked.

“Yes. We’ll have to cancel the bake-off.”

“The negative publicity will be devastating.”

“I know. But there’s nothing—”

Bitsy’s voice trailed off when her eyes locked on the gun. There was something unusual about it. She crept closer to get a better look.

“This isn’t a regular gun,” she said. “Look at the writing on the side.”

Niki came over and read the word engraved into the stock.

“Starter pistol? What’s that?”

“It’s used for races. It doesn’t fire real bullets. Only makes a loud noise.”

As the words left Bitsy’s mouth, she smiled.

“Call security. I know who the saboteur is.”

Who is the saboteur, and how did Bitsy know?

SOLUTION: Bitsy believed Holly Doolittle had brought the starter gun. A loud noise, especially at the high altitude in the Colorado Rockies, would cause flour-based cakes to collapse. Holly was making a cheesecake, which would be unharmed by the loud bang, ensuring a win. Holly had bragged about her plan to her next door neighbor, who placed the anonymous call to Bitsy.

After I sold Piece of Cake, I figured I had a new market that would take everything I wrote. I was wrong. After buying my previous story, Woman’s World gonged this one. My hat’s off to Encyclopedia Brown, because this isn’t as easy as it looks.

Only obscure knowledge will lead to a killer…

The First Annual Spokane Zoologist Convention ended on a very sour note…a murder.

To make matters even worse, no one knew who the dead man was.

“I’m sure he’s a registered zoologist,” said the convention organizer, Dr. Myrna Simmons, who claimed she recognized the deceased from the day before. “I checked him in at the reception table. I remember searching for his name tag. But for the life of me. I can’t recall his name. The poor man.”

The victim was a handsome forty-something male, wearing a blue suit and a red tie. His wallet was missing. A cheese knife pierced his back—it had apparently been taken from the hors d’oeuvres table. A napkin was wrapped around its handle, preventing the killer from leaving fingerprints.

The body had been found lying face-first on the coatroom floor. One of the convention attendees had gone to hang up her jacket, and almost tripped over him. Immediately afterward, the police had been called, and the banquet hall sealed. No one was allowed to leave without permission from the authorities.

Detective Robbie Walker personally checked the alibi of every person in attendance, and was left with four remaining suspects. During the course of his investigation, Walker cross-referenced the guest list and discovered that there was one person too many in the banquet hall. Walker deduced that this convention crasher was the murderer, and he’d taken the dead man’s name tag in an attempt to blend into the crowd and escape.

None of the four suspects had any form of picture ID on them, and each was unable to confirm his identity.

Walked needed to figure out who the imposter was.

He approached the first man, an elderly fellow with a bushy white beard who claimed to be Dr. Jordan McDermott.

“Dr. McDermott, what types of animals do you specialize in?”

“I study the duck-billed platypus,” McDermott said, a bit too cheerfully considering the morbid circumstances. “Its fur is among the softest in the world. It lays eggs, and after they hatch it nurses its young. The male platypus is also poisonous. Quite an amazing animal.”

Walker was skeptical. “Is all of that true?” he asked the others.

They each shrugged.

“Zoology has so many specialties,” said Dr. Apu Patel, a tall, thin man with penetrating brown eyes. “It’s impossible to know everything about everything.”

“What do you specialize in, Dr. Patel?”

“Elephants. They can smell water from three miles away. And an elephant is the only animal that cannot jump.”

“Really?”

“It’s true. Did you know that African elephants only have four teeth?”

“I did not know that,” Walker admitted. It sounded very suspicious.

“That’s nothing,” said Dr. Harry Reinsdorff, a fat man with thick, round glasses. “I’m a marine biologist, and I’m studying why sharks don’t get cancer. Did you know that sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water from five miles away? And besides the five senses humans have, they also have an extra sense called the Line of Lorenzo, which lets them detect electrical fields in the water.”

Walker felt a headache coming on. He didn’t know if any of these outrageous facts were true or false.

“How about you?” he asked Dr. Mark Kessler. “What do you specialize in?”

“I unashamedly admit that I study cockroaches,” Kessler said. His bulging eyes and brown suit made him look sort of like a cockroach himself. “They’re really fascinating creatures. Their blood is white, not red. They can hold their breath underwater for more than ten minutes. And did you know a cockroach can live up to two weeks with its head removed?”

“Yuck,” Walker said. The other suspects echoed the sentiment.

“Let’s go over your stories again. Dr. McDermott,” Walker said, turning to the platypus specialist, “Where were you when the body was discovered?”

“In the bathroom,” McDermott said. “I wasn’t feeling very well. Too many libations last night. I tried a drink called a rusty nail. Vile stuff.”

“How about you, Dr. Patel?” Walker asked the pachyderm professor.

“I was on my cell phone, checking my voice mail. I’d gotten a message from the San Diego Zoo. Apparently one of their elephants has elephant pox.”

“And you, Dr. Reinsdorff?”

“I was also on the phone, confirming my reservation tonight at an expensive Japanese sushi restaurant that serves sea cucumbers. They can be poisonous, unless you remove the brain at the center.”

Walker said, “Yuck,” again, and then asked, “How about you, Dr. Kessler?”

“I’m afraid I was just staring out the window, doing nothing at all. I’m not a very sociable person.”

Walker had no idea what to ask next, but fortunately Dr. Myrna Simmons, the convention organizer, came hurrying over.

“Detective Walker! I’ve got that book you wanted.”

She handed him a copy of The Complete Encyclopedia of Animals. Walker thanked her, excused himself, and went into the other room for some fact-checking.

He returned ten minutes later, a broad grin on his face. With dramatic flourish, he pointed at one of the suspects.

“I’ve discovered that you are lying. I’m afraid you’ll have to come downtown with me to answer some more questions.”

Which of the suspects was lying?

SOLUTION: The so-called shark expert. Walker discovered that sharks do in fact get cancer, that they can only smell blood in the water from a quarter mile away (not five miles), and that the sense that detects electricity is called the ampullae of Lorenzini, not the Line of Lorenzo. He also discovered that sea cucumbers don’t have brains, therefore their brains could not be poisonous, and the man must have been lying about his sushi restaurant reservations. Incredibly, all of the other facts strange animal facts were true. The imposter soon confessed that he had snuck into the convention and murdered Dr. Reinsdorff for having an affair with his wife.

Another Amazon.com short, this one in response to the email spam we all get, seemingly all the time. I’ve remained undecided if the last page hurts the story or helps it, and I’ve cut the ending many times. Here it is uncut.

When Conroy saw the message in his INBOX, he smiled.

URGENT REPLY NEEDED!!!

Allow me sir to introduce myself. My name is Dr. William Reingold, executor to the estate of Phillip Percy Jefferson III, former CEO of…

According to the email, Dr. Reingold had 17 million dollars that he was required to distribute to Jefferson’s heirs, and a detailed genealogy search had turned up Conroy.

Conroy considered his luck. Just last week, a diplomat from Nigeria had emailed him requesting assistance to help distribute 42 million dollars in charity funds, and a month prior he was contacted by an auditor general from Venezuela with 24 million in a secret arms account and a lawyer from India trying to locate the relatives of a billionaire who died in a tragic plane crash. He’d also recently become a finalist in the Acculotto International lottery in Madrid, which wanted to give him a share of a 30 million euro prize.

Conroy hadn’t even bought a lottery ticket.

“Wonderful thing, the Internet,” he mused.

“Playing computer solitaire again?” Ryan, from the cubicle to his right, spoke over the flimsy partition.

“Email. If I just give this fellow my bank account number, he’ll wire 9 million dollars into my account.”

Ryan laughed. “Spam. I got that one too.”

Conroy darkened. “Did you reply?”

“Of course not. Who would reply to those things?”

“Who indeed?” Conroy thought. Then he hunched over his keyboard.

Dear Dr. Reingold, I’m very interested in discussing this with you further…

The warehouse where Dr. Reingold had scheduled their meeting was located in Elk Grove Village, a forty minute drive from Conroy’s home in Elgin. The late hour troubled Conroy. Midnight. If Conroy hadn’t needed the money so badly, he never would have agreed to it. Insurance barely covered half of his mother’s nursing home costs, and since his layoff he’d only been able to find temp data entry work at nine dollars an hour—not even enough for one person to live on.

Conroy pulled his BMW into the warehouse driveway, his stomach fluttering. This was an industrial section of town, the area deserted after hours. Conroy wondered how often the police patrolled the area.

He switched on his interior light and reread the email he’d printed out.

Park in front and enter the red door on the side of the building.

Conroy stuffed the note into his jacket and peered at the warehouse. His headlights illuminated a sidewalk, which led to the building’s west side. A few seconds of fumbling through his jacket pocket produced a roll of antacids. He chewed four, the chalky taste clinging to the inside of his dry throat.

“I don’t like this at all,” he whispered to himself.

Then he killed the engine and got out of the car.

The sidewalk was invisible in the dark, but Conroy moved slowly toward the warehouse until he felt it underfoot. He followed the perimeter of the building around the side, and saw a dim light above a red doorway, a hundred feet ahead.

The walk seemed to take an eternity. When he finally put his hand on the cold knob, his knees were shaking.

The door opened with a creak.

“Hello?”

Conroy peeked his head inside, almost crying out when he felt the steel barrel touch his temple.

“Hello, Mr. Conroy.”

He dared not turn his head, instead peering sideways to see the thin, rat-faced man with the .38. His light complexion was pocked with acne scars, and he wore too much aftershave. Standing behind him was another, larger man, holding a baseball bat.

Conroy couldn’t keep the tremor out of his voice when he said, “Where’s Dr. Reingold?”

The man snickered, his laugh high-pitched and effeminate.

“Idiot. I’m Dr. Reingold.”

He didn’t look very much like a doctor at all.

“You bring your bank account number?”

“No, I—”

Dr. Reingold grabbed Conroy by the ear and tugged him into the room, a small office lit with a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling.

“I told you to bring that number! Can’t you follow instructions?”

Conroy didn’t see the blow coming. One moment he was on two feet, the next he was flat on his back, his head vibrating with pain, his world completely dark.

“I can’t find his wallet.”

A different voice. Probably the big guy.

“No wallet. No check book. What a loser.”

A jingle of keys.

“A Beemer. That’s worth a few grand. Wasn’t a total waste of time.”

“In his email, he said he was rich.”

“Could have been lying.” There was a cold laugh. “Internet is filled with liars.”

A gun cocking, close to Conroy’s head.

“So let’s waste him and—”

“I have money,” Conroy croaked.

He managed to open his eyes, unable to focus but sensing the two men staring down at him.

Dr. Reingold nudged him with his foot. “What did you say, buddy?”

“I have a coin collection. Worth over fifty thousand dollars.”

“Where is it?”

“At my house.”

“Where’s your house?”

“Please don’t kill me.”

Dr. Reingold leaned down, scowling at Conroy. “I’ll do worse than kill you if you don’t tell me where your house is.”

Conroy cursed his own stupidity. He doubted he’d live through this.

“In Elgin. It’s in a safe.”

“Marty, find a pencil on that desk.”

Conroy tried to touch his throbbing head, but Dr. Reingold kicked his hand away.

“The safe combination is tricky. Even if I gave it to you, you probably couldn’t open in.”

Dr. Reingold tapped the gun against his own cheek, apparently thinking.

“You live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Any dogs? Guns? Nasty surprises?”

Conroy’s eyes teared up. “No.”

Dr. Reingold grinned. “Well then, Mr. Conroy, let’s go see this coin collection of yours.”

Conroy sat wedged between the two thugs. The big one, Marty, drove. Dr. Reingold kept the .38 pressed into Conroy’s ribs, hard enough to bruise.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, Conroy thought. This should have ended in a bank account deposit, not in my death.

He pictured his poor mother, who would be sent to a State nursing home if the checks stopped coming. Filthy living conditions. Nurses who stole jewelry and medication. Sexual abuse.

Conroy pushed the images out of his mind, focusing on the problem at hand.

“This it?” Marty asked.

Dr. Reingold gave Conroy’s sore ribs a jab.

“Next house, on the end.”

“Nice neighborhood. Real quiet. Bet you can put the TV volume all the way up, neighbors don’t complain.”

Conroy didn’t answer.

Marty pulled the BMW into the driveway, parking next to the garage. Dr. Reingold tugged Conroy out of the car and shoved him up to the front door.

“Move it. We gotta another sucker to meet later tonight.”

Conroy’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely get his key into the lock. He took a deep breath before he turned the knob.

“I’d better go in first,” he said, quickly pulling the door open. His house was dark, quiet.

“Easy there, speedy.” Dr. Reingold had Conroy’s ear again. “You’re a little too eager to get inside. I think I’d better…”

The bear trap closed around Dr. Reingold’s leg with a sound that was part clang, part squish. He screamed falsetto, dropping the gun and prying at the trap with both hands.

Conroy reached for the pistol, swinging it around at Marty, who watched the whole scene slack-jawed. He shot the large man four times in the chest, then raised the gun and cracked it alongside Dr. Reingold’s head, silencing the screams.

Conroy was shoveling the last bit of dirt atop the grave when Dr. Reingold woke up.

“Good morning,” Conroy said, wiping a sleeve across his sweaty brow.

Dr. Reingold’s eyes were wide with terror, and he struggled against the chair he’d been bound to.

“You can’t get away, Dr. Reingold. The knots are too tight.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“You don’t remember? You and your associate lured me to a warehouse in Elk Grove, using a fake email story. Right now you’re in my basement.”

“Where’s Marty?” Dr. Reingold said, his voice creaking.

“He’s right here.” Conroy patted the fresh mound. “Next to him is Mr. Bekhi Kogan, a highly dubious Nigerian diplomat. One mound over is Sr. Domingo, who spoke no Spanish, though he was supposedly a Venezuelan auditor general. The third grave is Zakir Mehmood, who had a distinct Chicago accent, even though he claimed to be from Pakistan. Behind him is a lottery commissioner from Madrid, I forget his name. Began with an L, I think.”

Conroy set the shovel on the table, next to the pliers and the filet knife.

“Spammers. All of them. They all promised me riches. Just like you did, Dr. Reingold. All they wanted in return was my bank account number. Speaking of which…”

Conroy picked up the filet knife, and held it against the bound man’s ear.

“…why don’t you tell me your account number, Dr. Reingold?”

Dr. Reingold began to sob.

“Who…who are you?”

“I’m your most dreaded enemy, Dr. Reingold.” Conroy grinned, his eyes sparkling. “I’m a spam killer.”

Conroy pushed the knife forward and Dr. Reingold began to scream.

All in all, a pretty decent take. Dr. Reingold’s bank account contained over seventeen thousand dollars. He’d had a little trouble remembering his routing number, but Conroy was good at helping people remember things.

Next time, he’d do things differently. He hadn’t expected an Internet swindler to have a partner. Or a weapon. The ones he’d dealt with previously had been con artists, not hardened criminals.

Well, live and learn. In the future, he’d be more prepared.

After a quick shower, Conroy visited his favorite all night diner for some meatloaf and a slice of cherry pie. Late night grave digging made a man hungry.

“How are you, Mr. Conroy?”

The regular waitress, Dora, was in mid coffee pour when she sneezed, spilling some onto the table.

“Sorry about that.”

Conroy grimaced.

“Sounds like you have a cold.”

Dora sniffled. “Yeah. Bad one too.”

“Shouldn’t you be home, resting?”

“Can’t. Need the money.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

Dora sneezed again, not even bothering to cover her mouth. “You want the usual?”

Conroy thought it over, then made his decision.

“Not today. I just remembered something I have to do.”

Conroy left the restaurant. Instead of climbing into his car, he walked around back and waited in the alley for Dora’s shift to end. His hunger had been replaced by a hunger of a different kind.

He fingered the .38 in his pocket, pleased with his newfound sense of purpose.

I’m giving myself an upgrade, he mused.

From now on, he would be Conroy Version 2.0—Spam Killer and Virus Eliminator.

Before I owned a computer, I had WebTV, which was an Internet browser that hooked up to the television. I found some online writing groups, and would regularly type stories to post for critiques. This was the first story I ever put on the world wide web.

They shoot cheaters at The Nile.

Blaine lost his mentor that way, a counter named Roarke. Didn’t even have a chance to get ahead before the eye in the sky locked on, videotaping skills that took years to master. Then it was burly men and a room without windows. One between the eyes, tossed out with the trash.

Poor bastard deserved better.

Blaine pushed back the worry. He was dressed like a tourist, from his sandals to his Nile Casino T-shirt. Made sure to spill some beer from the paper cup down his chin when he took a sip. Sat by a loud slot machine called Pyramids and plunked in quarters, trying to look angry when he lost. Ugly American. Probably had a job in the auto industry.

When the coins ran out, he frowned, scratched himself, and made a show of looking around. He’d had an eye on a particular Blackjack dealer for the last two hours. Surfer guy, looked like a tan version of the Hulk, too young to have been in the business long.

Blaine wandered over to the table, pretended to think it over, then sat down and fished some cash out of his shorts. Three hundred to start.

He took it slow. Six deck shoe, sixteen tens per deck. Too many to keep track of mentally. But no need to. Every counter had his tally method.

Roarke had been one of the best. Subtle. See a ten, adjust the elbow. Ace, move the foot. Depending on his body position, Roarke knew if the shoe was heavy or light with face cards.

But the silver globes in the ceiling caught him just an hour into his game. Roarke was found a few days later in an alley, the offending foot and elbow smashed. Back of his head was missing, and no one bothered to look for it.

Blaine was a counter as well, but his tally couldn’t be seen by the cameras. No tapping feet or odd posture. Pit boss could be taking a dump on his shoulder, wouldn’t notice a thing.

He bet small, safe. Won a few, lost a few. Turned more cash into chips and bided time until he got a nice, fat shoe. Then it was payday.

Thirty minutes. Twelve thousand dollars.

He lost a grand, on purpose, before tipping the Hulk a hundred bucks and calling it quits for the night.

Blaine walked out of the casino happy, not needing to fake that particular emotion. He’d be off this tropic isle tomorrow. Back to his wife, laden with money. A memorable and profitable trip.

The goons grabbed him in the parking lot. Nile Security. Guys with scars who were paid to give them.

“What the hell’s going on?”

No answer. They dragged Blaine back inside. Past the crowd. Down a hall. To a room without windows.

Panic stitched through his veins. He fought to stay in character. Hackles and indignation.

“I’m calling the police! I’m an American!”

The door slammed. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting harsh shadows. The pit boss forced Blaine to his knees. Big guy, a walrus in Armani, breath like rotten meat.

“We shoot card counters here.”

“What are you talking about? I won the money fair!”

The blow knocked Blaine off his feet. Concrete was sticky under his palms. Old stains.

“Camera caught it. Under the table.”

The blood in Blaine’s mouth contrasted sharply with his blanched face. The pit boss reached down, pulled at Blaine’s shorts, his underwear.

Blaine stared down between his naked legs. The abacus was along his thigh, taped to the right of his testicles.

The pit boss ripped it off, a thousand curly hairs screaming.

“This belong in your shorts?”

“How did that get there?” Blaine tried for confused. “I swear, I borrowed this underwear. I have no idea how that got on me.”

His explanation was met with a kick in the head. Blaine kissed the mottled floor, his vision a carousel. He flashed back to Roarke’s funeral, closed casket, the promise he made. “I’ll beat the Nile for you, old buddy.”

Should have stuck with Vegas.

The pit boss dug a hand inside his sport coat. “Never saw a guy count cards with his dick before. Man with your talent, should have gone into porno.”

The gun was cool against Blaine’s temple.

“No one cheats the Nile.”

Blaine’s wife cried for seven weeks straight when she learned of his death.

The title, and much of the plot, is a nod to my friend Barry Eisler and his John Rain series. But this is also a satire of the entire hitman sub-genre, where tough guy assassins with exotic pasts follow strict codes and kill in bizarre ways with common, everyday objects to get the job done.

The mark knelt next to a garbage can, two hands unsuccessfully trying to plug nine holes in his face, neck, and upper body. A gambler, late in his payments, with one second-chance too many. I didn’t have all of the details.

Rule #1: Don’t make it personal.

Knowing too much made it personal.

He dropped onto his face and spent a minute imitating a lawn sprinkler—a lawn sprinkler that sprayed blood and cried for his mama. I kept my distance.

Rule #8: Don’t get all icky with the victim’s fluids.

When all movement ceased, I moved in and planted the killing corkscrew in his left hand. In his right, I placed a bottle of 1997 Claude Chonion Merlot. His death would look like an unfortunate uncorking accident.

Rule #2: Make it look natural.

I ditched the latex gloves in the Dumpster and spun on my heels, practically bumping into the bum entering the mouth of the alley. Ragged clothes. A strong smell of urine. Wide eyes.

I reached into the inner pocket of his trench coat, tugged out another pair of latex gloves.

Rule #3: No witnesses.

“Who’re you?” the bum asked.

“I’m John,” I lied.

Rule #19: Never give your real name.

My real name was Bob. Bob Drizzle. I’m half Japanese. The other half is also Japanese. I also have a bit of Irish in me, which accounts for my red hair. Plus some Serbo-Croatian, a touch of Samoan, a dab of Nordic, a sprinkling of Cheyenne, and some Masi from my mother’s side.

But I blend invisibly into all cultures, where I ply my unique trade. I’m a paid assassin. A paid assassin who kills people for money.

I gave the bum a sad frown and said, “Sorry, buddy.”

The gloves didn’t go on easy—the previous pair had left my hands sweaty, and my palms fought with the rubber. The bum watched the struggle, his stance unsteady. I considered going back to the dead gambler and retrieving the corkscrew, to make the scene look like a fight for Merlot gone deadly.

Instead, I pulled out a pocketful of skinny balloons.

“I’m unemployed,” the bum said.

I shoved the multicolored mélange of latex into his filthy mouth, and while he sputtered and choked I blew up a pink one and expertly twisted it into a horsey. I dropped it by his twitching corpse. Street person dies making balloon animals. We’ve all seen it on the news many times.

I tugged off the gloves, balled them up inside out, and shot the three pointer at the open can.

Missed.

“What’s going on?”

A man. Joe Busybody, sticking his nose in other people’s business, watching from the sidewalk. Linebacker body, gone soft with age.

I reached for another pair of gloves. “Sir, this is police business. Would you like to give a statement?”

The guy backpedaled.

“You’re no cop.”

I didn’t bother with the second glove. I removed the aluminum mallet from my holster. That, along with a little seasoning salt and the pork chop I kept in my shoe, would make his death mimic a meat tenderizing gone wrong.

But before I had a chance to tartare his ass, he took off.

I keep in shape.

Rule #13: Stay fit.

Any self-respecting hitman worth his contract fee has to workout these days. Marks were becoming more and more health conscious. Sometimes they ran. Sometimes they refused to die. Sometimes they even had the gall to fight back.

I do Pilates, and have one of those abdominal exercisers they sell on late night television. I bought it at a thrift store, with cash.

Rule #22: Don’t leave a paper trail.

The witness had a head start, but I quickly closed the distance. When the guy glanced, wide-eyed, over his shoulder, I was able to smash the mallet on his forehead.

See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya.

The mark stumbled, and I had to leap over the falling body. I skidded to a stop on thick rubber soles.

Rule #26: Shoes should be silent and have good traction, and good arch support.

I took a moment to scan the street. No one seemed to be watching.

I played Emeril on the mark’s face, then put the mallet in his right hand and the pork chop in his left.

I was sprinkling on the Mrs. Dash when I heard something behind me.

My head snapped up at the sound, and I peered over my shoulder. The number 332 commuter bus had stopped at my curb. Right next to the big sign that said BUS STOP.

I cursed under my breath for breaking Rule #86: Don’t kill anyone where people are likely to congregate, like bus stops.

I stared. A handful of riders, noses pressed to window glass, stared back.

The bus driver, a heavy-set woman wearing a White Sox hat, scrambled to close the bus door.

But I was fast. In three steps I’d mounted the stairs and withdrawn a can of oven cleaner from my holster. Nasty stuff, oven cleaner. The label is crammed full of warnings. The bus driver stared at the can and got wide-eyed.

“Drive,” I told her.

She drove.

I faced the terrified group of riders. Two were children. Three were elderly. One was a nun with an eye patch.

Rule #7: No sympathy.

I snapped on another latex glove.

After counting them twice, I came up with nine people total. Just enough for a soccer team.

Perfect.

I removed the uninflated ball and the bicycle pump from my holster. Soccer games got rowdy. Casualties were common.

After screwing some cleats into the bottoms of my thick, rubber soled shoes, I spent a good ten minutes stomping on the group. The nun was especially tough. But I had training. I was a fuscia belt in Jin Dog Doo, the ancient Japanese art of killing a man using only your hands and feet and edged weapons and blunt weapons and common household appliances and guns.

Eventually, even the nun succumbed. Some torn goal netting and a discarded ref’s whistle completed the illusion. Only one last thing left to do.

“Stop the bus!” I yelled at the driver.

The driver didn’t stop. She accelerated.

Rule #89: Don’t attract attention.

This bus was attracting more than its share. Besides speeding, the driver had just run a red light, prompting honks and screeching brakes from cross-town traffic.

This simple hit had become a bit more complicated than I’d anticipated.

“Slow down!” I ordered the driver.

My command went unheeded. I took a Chilean Sea Bass out of my holster. It used to be called the Pantagonian Toothfish, but some savvy marketers changed its name and it’s currently the hottest fish on the five star menus of the world. So hot, that overfishing has brought the Chilean Sea Bass/Pantagonian Toothfish to the brink of extinction.

Beating the driver to death with the fish would look somewhat…well…fishy. At first. But when I planted a deboning knife and a few slices of lemon in her pockets, the cops would get the picture. Just another endangered species taking revenge.

I walked up to the front of the bus and tried to recall if “The Complete Amateur’s Guide to Contract Killing” had a rule about whacking a driver while you were a passenger. Nothing sprang to mind.

Still, it didn’t seem like a wise idea. I tried another tactic.

“Stop the bus, and I’ll let you go.”

That was Rule #17: Lie to the mark to put her at ease.

Or was that Rule #18?

I reached for the cheat card that came with the book, folded up in my pants pocket.

Rule #18: Lie to the mark. Rule #17: Get in and out as quickly as possible.

I’d sure blown that rule to hell.

I shook the thought out of my head, recalling Rule #25: Stay focused.

I put the crib sheet back in my pocket and poked the driver in the hat with the bass.

“Stop the bus, and you’ll live. I give you my word.”

I grinned.

Rule #241: Disarm them with a smile.

The driver hit the brakes, catapulting me forward. I bounced off the front window and into her back. The Sea Bass—my weapon—went flying, which broke Rule #98 and Rule #104 and possibly Rule #206.

Dazed, I sat up, watching as the driver shoved open the door and ran off, screaming.

I did a quick search for the Toothfish, but couldn’t find it amid the soccer massacre. I’d have to leave it behind, a blatant disregard for Rule #47. Luckily, the fish had been wiped clean of prints (Rule #11) and was unregistered (Rule #12) so it wouldn’t lead back to me.

Now for the driver.

I sprang from the bus and saw her beelining for Comiskey Park, where the White Sox played baseball. There was the usual activity around the stadium; fans, hotdog vendors, people selling programs, and no one seemed to pay any attention to me or the screaming fat lady.

The South Side of Chicago; where screaming fat ladies are commonplace.

Doubling my efforts, I managed to catch up with her just as she reached the ticket counter. I took a 1/10,000th scale replica of the Washington Monument out of my holster and pressed the pointy end to her back. She was about to become another sightseeing souvenir victim. But before I got ram the monolith home, the ticket attendant caught my eye from behind the thick bullet proof glass.

I had a hunch the glass was also souvenir proof, and I couldn’t kill the bus driver with someone staring straight into my eyes, practically salivating to be a witness for the prosecution.

So I did the only thing I could in that situation. I whispered to the woman to keep quiet, and then smiled at the attendant.

“Two for the cheap seats,” I said.

I paid, then walked arm in arm with the driver through the bustling crowd. The picture presented to me was disheartening. People were everywhere.

There was no private corner to drag the woman into. No secluded nooks. The bathrooms had lines out the door. Every square foot of space was crammed to capacity.

How do you kill a person in a crowded space without anyone seeing you?

I closed my eyes, trying to remember if this situation ever came up in the book. Rule #90? No, that had to do with airplanes. Rule #312? No, that was for killing a mark in a rain forest.

At times like this, I really wished I’d kept my job at the grocery store. Or bought that other book, “The Complete Amateur’s Guide to Kidnapping and Extortion.”

“Let me go or I’ll scream,” the bus driver said over the pipe organ music.

“If you scream, I’ll kill you,” I answered.

A classic stalemate. It happened to me once before, in the Har Dong peninsula, on the isle of Meenee Peepee, in the city of Tini Dik. I was at a hotel (I recall it being the Itsee Wang), and came upon a gorgeous Mossad agent named Desdemona, who I managed to manipulate by engaging in massive quantities of athletic sex with her. Later, when I sobered up, I realized I’d been duped. Rather than a beautiful double agent from Israel, Desdemona had actually been just a large pile of dirty towels.

I had no idea what that had to do with anything, or how it could help me now.

No other options open, the bus driver and I made our way to the seats. They were in Section 542, way up in the nosebleed part of the stadium.

Even that section was full, fans packed shoulder to shoulder. We stepped on several toes and spilled a few beers wading through the crowd.

“These seats suck,” said the bus driver.

I told her to shut up.

To keep her quiet, I decided to appeal to her inner overeater, and bought two red hots from a hawking vendor.

She took both of them.

Then we settled in to watch the game.

It was the bottom of the fifth, Sox down two runs.

I chose to make my move at the seventh inning stretch. By then, all of the drunken fans around us would get up to relieve their bladders, and I’d be able to off the bus driver and slip into the stream of moving bodies. Then I could…

The next thing I knew, the bus driver was shoving a hot dog with the works into my face, trying to blind me.

“Help!” she screamed, at the same time trying to get her big ass out of the stadium seat.

First one cheek popped free, then the other, and then her big butt was out and shaking in my face.

I wiped ketchup out of my eyes and looked around.

No one paid any attention to the bus driver. Someone behind us even yelled “Down in front!”

I stood and wrapped an arm around her fat shoulders, under the pretense of helping her back to her seat.

Then I jammed the souvenir monument into her throat. Hard. Six or seven times.

An eerie silence settled over the crowd. Then the stadium exploded in screams.

I looked onto the field, wondering if there had just been a spectacular play.

The game had stopped. Instead of baseball players, I saw myself on the Jumbotron monitor, forty feet high, the bloody Washington Monument in my hand.

Oops.

I did a quick scan of the ball park. Thirty, maybe thirty-five thousand people.

This was going to be tough.

I reached into my holster for the roll of fabric softener and the Perry Como LP, and got started.

Written for the essay collection James Bond in the 21st Century. I had a lot of fun with this, being a Bond fan for practically my whole life. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to simply string jokes together, rather than deal with a plot or characters.

If your first exposure to James Bond happened before the age of nine, you probably fell in love with the series for one reason: The Gadgets.

The women were hot, but you wouldn’t care about that for a few more years. James Bond was tough and could fight, but so could those short guys on UHF’s Samurai Saturday, and they had the added appeal of speaking without their lips matching their words. Global politics, espionage, and undercover infiltrations still aren’t interesting, years later.

No, the thing that made your pre-pubescent brain scream with unrestrained joy was all the cool stuff Bond picked up in Q Section. You wanted the grappling hook pistol, and the pen filled with acid, and the laser watch, and the hand-held suction cups for climbing walls, and the wrist dart gun, and the rappelling cummerbund—even though you had no idea what a cummerbund was.

But now that you’re all grown up, do the gadgets still have the same appeal? Do you still wish you could run to the nearest Wal-Mart and buy an electric razor that can deliver a close shave plus sweep your room for electronic listening devices?

This practical guide will look at some of best of Bond’s gadgets, and offer valuable buying advice to those interested in plunking down their hard earned dollars for spy gear.

GADGET

False bottom briefcase which holds a magnetic mine, used by Bond in Octopussy.

USES

Protecting and transporting papers, blowing things up.

COOLNESS

Hidden compartments are always cool. So are mines.

REALITY

These already exist, in a wide variety of colors and payloads.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Yes you do. Think about how memorable your next corporate meeting will be if you’re carrying one of these.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t try to bring it through airport security.

GADGET

Snorkel that looks like a seagull, used by Bond in Goldfinger.

USES

Fool your friends at the pool, see other seagulls up close, collect change from the bottom of public fountains.

COOLNESS

Uncool. The crocodile submarine in Octopussy has many more applications. In fact, so does simple SCUBA gear. Q Section was apparently hitting the NyQuil when they thought this up.

REALITY

Possible to manufacture, but tough to market, depending on where you put your lips.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Not really, except to amuse yourself while drinking too much.

SAFETY TIP

Boil the bird after every use.

GADGET

Ski pole that fires a rocket, used in Octopussy.

USES

Improve your slalom time, blow up your friends, roast a chicken really fast.

COOLNESS

Very cool.

REALITY

Single use wouldn’t be practical, it would be too heavy, and it might go off too soon (many men have this problem, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.)

DO YOU WANT IT?

Yes, but you should be careful—tucking high explosives under your arm while speeding 70mph downhill isn’t for anyone under the age of 14.

SAFETY TIP

Practice on the bunny slope before you take it down that black diamond run.

GADGET

Aston Martin DB5 sports car, used by Bond in Goldfinger and Thunderball.

USES

The ultimate road rage machine/babe magnet. Oil slick sprayer, smoke screens, tire slashing blades, machine guns, and an ejector seat for when your blind date turns out to be a bore.

COOLNESS

This is one pimped out ride.

REALITY

You could probably pay to have this car custom made, but it would cost a lot of money, and you wouldn’t be allowed to drive it anywhere, except maybe in Texas.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Hell, yeah. Rush hour would never be the same.

SAFETY TIP

At the dealer, don’t be afraid to haggle. And don’t get suckered into buying the undercarriage rust protection.

GADGET

Stick-on third nipple, used by Bond in The Man With The Golden Gun.

USES

For those many times in life when you just need a third nipple.

COOLNESS

At first glance, not very cool. But once you consider the possibilities, the coolness factor rises, much more so than the fake fingerprints Bond used in Diamonds Are Forever.

REALITY

Hollywood SPFX guys make these all the time, and you can too with some plaster for an impression cast, and some foam latex. HINT: Shave your chest first.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Yes. Put them on sofas, on jewelry, on windows, on fruit, and all over yourself before that visit to the public pool.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t use super glue.

GADGET

Little Nellie portable gyrocopter with rocket launchers, machine guns, flamethrower, and heat seeking-missiles. Used by Bond in You Only Live Twice.

USES

Fly around, impress the ladies, drop stuff on people.

COOLNESS

Über-cool. Smaller than a helicopter. Not nearly as expensive to use as the Bell-Trexton rocket pack Bond used in Thunderball, but with a lot more firepower.

REALITY

Available on Ebay for under 20k, but without the weaponry. (Weaponry is available separately on Ebay.)

DO YOU WANT IT?

Of course you want it. Just think about all the stuff you could drop on people.

SAFETY TIP

From three hundred feet, a small honeydew melon can cripple a man.

GADGET

Wrist watch with plastic explosive and detonator, used by Bond in Moonraker.

USES

Blow stuff up, threaten to blow stuff up.

COOLNESS

Cool. Blowing stuff up never gets old.

REALITY

Possible, and cheap to make. But you’d have to buy refills all the time. They always get you on the refills.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Yes. Excuse me, what time is it? It’s time to blow stuff up! Let’s start with that stupid seagull snorkel.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t play with all the dials until you’ve read the instructions.

GADGET

Keys that open 90% of the world’s locks, used by Bond in The Living Daylights.

USES

Unlimited. Steal cars. Rob banks. Take the change from parking meters. Shop after hours. And never pay for a vending machine again.

COOLNESS

Opening stuff up: Cool. Walking around like a janitor with a big key ring: Uncool.

REALITY

Master keys exist, and can be found on the Internet. So can lock picks. So can lawyers, which you’ll need after you get caught opening up other people’s locks.

DO YOU WANT IT?

No. You’d probably just lose them.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t keep these in your back pocket while ice skating. Or your front pocket.

GADGET

Surfboard with concealed explosives, combat knife, and mini computer, used by Bond in Die Another Day.

USES

Hang ten, then kill seven.

COOLNESS

Super cool. You can shred that gnarly barrel, and at the same time Google what the hell that means.

REALITY

It’s possible to produce, but be careful you don’t wax your mini-computer.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Of course. But instead of weapons and electronics, you can fill your board with soda and snacks (that you got for free at the vending machine.)

SAFETY TIP

Make sure the combat knife is properly secured before you hit the waves, or you’ll be hanging nine.

GADGET

X-Ray eyeglasses, used by Bond in The World Is Not Enough.

USES

Seeing though things like playing cards, safes, walls, doors, and clothing (to look for concealed weapons and stick-on third nipples.)

COOLNESS

Perhaps Bond’s coolest gadget. It would sure make everyday life a lot more interesting.

REALITY

If you ever sent away for a pair of these in the back of a comic book, you know they don’t work, but what did you expect for $2.95? Your mother told you they wouldn’t work, didn’t she? Real versions may exist, but they probably cost big bucks. And cause cancer.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Sure you do. Just don’t take them to family reunions. Or retirement homes.

SAFETY TIP

Wear baggy pants.

GADGET

Underwater manta ray cloak, used by Bond in License To Kill.

USES

Pretend you’re a manta ray, get close to other manta rays, get sexually assaulted by a manta ray.

COOLNESS

Not cool, unless you have a secret thing for manta rays.

REALITY

Can be made in real life, but for God’s sake why?

DO YOU WANT IT?

Only if you’re really lonely. You might also consider getting the seagull snorkel as well, and you can pretend you’re a ray chasing a seagull. You can play that one for hours and hours.

SAFETY TIP

If you spend more than $30 for this, you’re a real moron.

GADGET

Lotus Esprit sports car that turns into a submarine, complete with mines, missiles, underwater ink jets, and self-destruct mechanism, that Bond used in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

USES

Never take the ferry again, drive into swimming pool to fetch the quarters Grandpa throws in there.

COOLNESS

A hot car, and a hot submersible, all in one. Plus rockets.

REALITY

Boat cars do exist in real life, but they’re actually dorky looking, and driven by people who can’t get dates.

DO YOU WANT IT?

You know you do. But when purchasing options, go for an Alpine stereo and Bose speakers instead of a self-destruct button—it’s more practical.

UNDERWATER TIP

If you drive over a starfish and cut it in half, it will grow into two new starfishes, both of them very pissed off at you.

GADGET

Dinner jacket which turns into a black sniper’s outfit, used by Bond in The Living Daylights.

USES

When black tie events become boring.

COOLNESS

Cooler than the light blue tux with the ruffle shirt which turns into an adult diaper, but not by much.

REALITY

They already have these for rent at Gingiss. You’ll need two forms of ID, and there’s a mandatory 14 day waiting period.

DO YOU WANT IT?

You don’t want to admit it, but yes you do. But then, you never had much taste in clothing.

FASHION TIP

Belts are okay, but the trendy sniper prefers suspenders.

GADGET

Cigarette lighter grenade, used by Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies.

USES

No smoking means no smoking.

COOLNESS

Anything that blows up is cool (see plastic explosive watch.)

REALITY

You can put explosives into anything; lighters, bottles, cans, small animals, etc.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Absolutely. Think about taking it to a heavy metal concert when the power ballad is playing.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t get it confused with your real lighter because you might accidentally throw your real lighter at the bad guys and they’ll say, “Why’d you throw a lighter at us, stupid? Are we supposed to be scared?” Also, you might blow your face off.

GADGET

Piton gun with retractable wire, used by Bond in Diamonds Are Forever and Goldeneye.

USES

Climb up buildings and rock faces, retrieve the remote control without getting up from the couch.

COOLNESS

Climbing, swinging, and shooting things are all cool.

REALITY

Wouldn’t actually be strong enough to hold a man’s weight, but you could have fun letting your buddies try it out.

DO YOU WANT IT?

Yes. It’s like being Spiderman, but without the webby discharge.

SAFETY TIP

Don’t point it at your own face, or at family members, unless you’re trying to climb them.

GADGET

Exploding talcum powder tear gas, used by Bond in From Russia With Love.

USES

Personal hygiene, making enemies cry.

COOLNESS

Talc isn’t very cool. Neither is tear gas. But it does explode, which counts for something.

REALITY

It might already exist. It might not. Who cares?

DO YOU WANT IT?

No. You make your significant other cry all the time without gas, and no one uses talc anymore.

SAFETY TIP

Wear a gas mask before applying to your underarms.

GADGET

Magnetic watch with circular saw, used by Bond in Live And Let Die.

USES

Cutting through rope tied around your wrists, finding screws you dropped on the carpeting.

COOLNESS

Having your watch face spin around really fast is cool. Cutting off your own hand at the wrist is uncool.

REALITY

Buy a chainsaw that tells time instead. It’s cheaper and more effective.

DO YOU WANT IT?

No. If you want a cool Bond timepiece, get the plastic explosive watch. Or the laser bean watch from Tomorrow Never Dies. Or the grappling hook watch from The World Is Not Enough. Or the ticker tape message watch from The Spy Who Loved Me. Or the digital radio watch from For Your Eyes Only. Or even the Geiger counter watch from Thunderball—you can’t have too many Geiger counters around the house.

SAFETY TIP

Careful you don’t lose any fingers when you reset for different time zones.

Remember: You’re never too old to play with toys. Especially explosive, potentially deadly, extremely expensive toys. Just think about how envious your friends and family will be when they see you driving around in your sporty new BMW 750 iL with the electrified door handles, bulletproof glass, re-inflating tires, and rear nail ejectors.

Go ahead. Think about it. Because that’s as close as you’ll ever get to owning one, spy-boy.

Now go boil your seagull snorkel—that thing is riddled with germs.

A story about being a writer. It’s humorous, but there is a lot of truth behind the jokes.

“What do you think?”

I was a cup, waiting to be filled with praise. Instead I got silence. She sat there, my pages in her hands, staring at a point over my shoulder.

“How about that ending?” I prodded. “Weren’t your surprised?”

Miranda clucked her tongue. “I guessed the ending.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. And I really don’t think you need the first few paragraphs.”

“Hold on a sec.” I motioned time-out with my hands. “The first paragraphs set the scene.”

“Sorry—I didn’t think you needed them.”

I looked away, then back at her. My friend, wife, companion for eight years.

“Did you like anything?”

“Joe, you’re a wonderful writer. But this story—I think you were just trying too hard.” She brightened. “I thought the middle part was funny.”

My eyes narrowed. “When the character died?”

“Yeah. It was cute how you did that.”

“That wasn’t supposed to be funny.”

“Oh.”

There was a ticking sound. The hands of my watch. Miranda tried on a smile.

“I like the title.”

Great. I remembered how much I loved her, and somehow found the strength to thank her for her opinion. Just because we were man and wife didn’t mean we had to agree on everything.

This particular piece didn’t speak to her, but that was probably a matter of taste. I was certain that others would view it differently.

“It stinks.”

“Excuse me?”

Gerald pinched his nostrils closed. “The story stinks, Joe. Sorry, but it isn’t your best.”

“What about the surprise ending?”

“Saw it coming.”

“You did?”

“It was obvious.”

I took the story from my brother’s hands and paid too much attention to lining up the sheets of paper.

“You probably guessed it because you know me too well.”

“I guessed it because it was cliché. The middle part was kind of funny, though. What did Miranda think of it?”

“She loved it.”

“Well, there you go. My opinion probably means nothing, then. I liked that other story you did. The one about the otters.”

“I wrote that in second grade.”

“Yeah, that was a good one.”

I looked at my bare wrist. “Damn, I gotta run, Gerald. Thanks for the input.”

“It’s a good title, Joe. Maybe you can write a different story using the same title.”

“Wow. Great story.”

“You liked it?”

“Loved it.”

The relief was better than a foot massage.

“How about the ending?”

“Terrific.”

“What was your favorite part?”

My mother’s smile faltered for a split second. “Oh—there were so many.”

Mr. Dubious took over my body. “Mom…?”

“The middle part. I have to say that was my favorite. Very funny.”

So much for my relief.

“You thought the death scene was funny?”

Caught in the lie, her demeanor cracked.

“No, not that. But there were some other funny parts.”

“What parts were funny, Mom?”

“Well…you had some pretty funny typos.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Did you like anything?”

“Joe, I’m your mother. Everything you do is precious to me.”

“How about the title?”

Mom shook her head sadly.

“Not even the title?”

“Joe, I’m not a good judge of fiction. You should ask your wife or your brother. I’m sure they’ll love it.

“Poopy.”

I stared at my four-year-old, a child who is captivated by his own toes.

“Why is it poopy?”

“You should have Spider Man in it.”

“I don’t want Spider Man in it.”

My son looked at me, serious. “Spider Man can climb walls.”

“I know he can. But let’s talk about Daddy’s story. Did you think it was sad when the character died?”

“Does Spider Man tie people up and suck their blood?”

“What?”

“Spiders tie up bugs and suck their blood.”

I sighed and looked at Fluffy, the family cat.

Why the hell not?

“Fluffy, dammit, get back in this house!”

But the feline had beat a retreat only two pages into the narrative. Gone to tree, sitting ten feet out of reach in the crook of an elm branch.

“I’m serious, Fluffy.”

He stared back down at me with indifferent eyes and then began to groom.

“Fine. Count the days until you get tuna again, cat.”

I smoothed out the wrinkled edges of the manuscript and went back to my desk.

A few clicks of the mouse later and I was online. Surely Usenet had fiction forums. Without too much difficulty, I located an amateur fiction newsgroup and posted my tome proudly. Let the compliments commence…

“Joe? What is that sticking out of out computer monitor? Is that a hammer?”

“It slipped.”

“You attacked the computer with a hammer? What were you thinking?”

I gave Miranda malice wrapped in a fake grin. “I don’t want to talk about it, honey. It’s still under warranty.”

“I don’t think a hammer in the screen is covered by the warranty.”

“Miranda…”

“What’s wrong with you? Does this have anything to do with that stupid story?”

I stood up, deaf. The story was clenched in my left hand. “I’m going out. I’ll be back later.”

“So, what did you think?”

The wino held out a filthy hand. “Do I get my five dollars now?”

“First you have to tell me if you liked it.”

He brought the paper bag to his lips, took a pull off the unseen bottle.

“It was…”

“Yes?”

“It was wonderful.”

His eyes went dreamy, beatific.

I beamed. “Wonderful?”

He hic-cupped. “The loveliest thing I ever heard.”

Who would have thought it? I didn’t normally endow people who smelled like urine with good taste, but here was an obvious exception.

“What was your favorite part?”

“The chicken.”

I stared at my pages, confused.

“Chicken? There’s no chicken in this story.”

“I ate chicken in Cleveland. Cooked so tender, it fell off the bone. You gonna give me my five bucks?”

Great—he was a lunatic. You can’t get an honest opinion from a lunatic. I turned to walk away.

He grabbed my arm. “Man, you owe me five bucks! I stood here listening to that garbage, I want my money!”

I decided, right then, that I’d rather be disemboweled than give this guy five bucks.

I pulled free and hit the street in a sprint. Shouldn’t take long to lose him. He was drunk and disheveled and—

“Gimme my damn money!”

—right behind me. For a guy wearing at least four layers of clothing, he could run like the wind. I cut through an alley and hurdled a cluster of garbage cans.

“I listened to that whole crappy story!”

The bum was closing in. I could hear his mismatched shoes slapping the pavement only a few steps back. Just my luck—I’d given a reading to an Olympic sprinter fallen on hard times.

Another turn, between two apartments, into the back parking lot. Dead end.

“Gotcha.” The bum grinned, gray teeth winking through a scraggly beard. He gestured with his hand—give it to me.

I sucked in air and nodded submission, my hand producing my wallet.

He shook his head. “All of it.”

“You said five bucks.”

“I’m gonna need a month’s worth of booze, to get that lousy story out of my head.”

I left the parking lot forty bucks lighter.

I stared at the page. My story. My child. Why couldn’t anyone else see the symbolism? The imagery? This story was perfect! From first word to last, a marvel of narrative genius! What the hell was wrong with the world, was it—

Hmm. Actually, I could probably change this part, here, to make it stronger. And this sentence could be tightened. And perhaps that paragraph is a bit wordy. Where’s my pencil?

“Wow, Joe. It doesn’t even seem like the same story.”

I grinned at my wife. “I took everyone’s suggestions into account, and did a little self-editing.”

“A little? You practically changed every line. Even the characters are different.”

“I kept the title, though.”

Miranda nodded, handing back the papers. I could see her searching her thoughts for the right compliment.

I gave her some help. “So it’s tighter?”

“Oh, yes. Much tighter.”

“Is the death still funny?”

“Not funny at all. Very somber.”

I sighed, letting out the tension. “So it’s a lot better.”

Miranda winced. “Actually, I thought the other version was better.”

“See that?” I held my painting in front of my son, keeping it out of reach because the acrylic hadn’t dried it. “Daddy made a picture of Spider Man.”

My son squinted at my artwork. “It’s poopy.”

“Joe, you’ve been staring inside the fridge for ten minutes.”

“I want to make a sandwich,” I told my wife.

“What are you waiting for?”

“I doubt my ability.”

“Joe—it’s a slice of ham and two pieces of bread.”

I frowned. “I’m having some competency issues.”

“Didn’t Darren like your cow painting?”

“That wasn’t a cow. It was Spider Man.”

Miranda rubbed my back. “Go sit down, honey. I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“Miranda! Come here! What is this?”

She stared at the kitchen table.

“It looks like you’ve made a big letter A out of pretzel sticks.”

“Damn right!”

“Joe—are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Want to see me make a B?”

“I’m calling Dr. Hubbard.”

“Many people have feelings of inadequacy. It’s natural.”

The shrink was old, bespeckled. His gray goatee pointed at me when he talked.

“This is more than inadequacy, Doc. I’m questioning every move I make. I feel totally incompetent.”

“All because of one little story?”

“That’s how it started.”

“May I see it?”

Without getting up off the couch I pulled the crumpled story out of my pants pocket and handed it over. As he read, I could feel body go numb. Ice cold, unfeeling. One more heartless comment couldn’t hurt me. I was immune to criticism.

“This is pretty good.”

I sat up and spun towards him. “Excuse me?”

He held up a finger, still reading. When he finished the last page, he handed back the story and smiled.

“I liked it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“You aren’t just saying that because I’m paying you three hundred dollars an hour?”

“Really, Joe. I thought it was a nice, touching story. Good structure. Well-defined characters. Interesting subtext. I’d actually like to have a copy to pass around the office.”

I sprang to my feet, my blood replaced by helium. “Well, sure, no problem, you can have this copy, absolutely, it’s all yours.”

“Would you sign it for me?”

Were there clouds above nine?

“Of course. Here, I’ll borrow your pen.”

“You know,” Doc Hubbard said as I scrawled my name on the top margin, “I’m a bit of a writer myself.”

“Really?” I added ‘To Doc’ above my name, and then underlined it.

“Perhaps you’d like to read one of my stories?”

“Sure,” I told him, drawing a large circle around my signature. “Be happy to help you with it.”

Doc grinned, then opened up his desk drawer. He held out some paper. “Go ahead. Off the clock.”

I smiled and accepted his story, pleased to be valued for my opinion.

It was bad. Real bad.

“So? What did you think?”

“Well, Doc, it’s interesting.”

“Yes. Yes. Go on.”

“Um, very few typos.”

His grin lost some wattage.

“How about the ending?”

“Actually, I, uh, saw it coming.”

The grin was gone now.

“Should have figured,” he mumbled.

“What was that?”

“How can you recognize talent, when you have none yourself?”

“But you said…”

“I lied. I said it for three hundos and hour. I’ve read aspirin bottles with more entertainment value than your stupid story.”

“How can you…”

“I’m sorry,” Doc Hubbard offered a placid smile. “Our time is up.”

“Joe?”

“Hmm?”

“Were you ever planning on going back to work?”

I glanced at Miranda and scratched at my stubble. “I haven’t given it much thought.”

“You’ve been lying in bed for three weeks.”

“Hmm.”

“Work called. I told them you were still sick. They want a doctor’s note, or you’re going to be fired.”

“Bummer.”

Miranda’s eyes went teary, and she walked off.

“We’re leaving.”

I stared at my wife and son over the pile of cellophane wrappers cluttering my bed.

“Leaving where?”

“Leaving you, Joe. You’re not the man I married. I’ve been talking to a lawyer.”

She handed me a sheaf of papers. The word DIVORCE was on the header. I gave them a token look-through.

“This is terrible,” I concluded. “Poor sentence structure, too much legalese, look at this typo…”

But they were already gone.

My story was in front of me, on the table, next to a picture of my family.

I was done dwelling. I’d had enough.

The gun went into my mouth and I pulled the trigger, my last sensation a tremendous BOOM coupled with a sense of perfect relief.

The pitchfork jabbed me in the ass.

“Hey!”

“Keep moving.”

I stared out across the inferno, Satan’s minions tormenting the damned as they slaved away.

“This room is for rapists. Any rapists in the group?”

Two guys in line with me raised their hands. The devil opened the door for them, and they were seized by a huge goat-like creature and thrust into a cauldron of boiling oil.

“Next room, adulterers.”

Four more of my group went in. I winced when the whips began to swing.

“Bad writers. This room here, bad writers.”

No one moved.

“That’s you, Joe.”

I was prodded in, my bowels jelly. But rather than hideous tortures, I found myself in a large classroom, stretching back as far as I could see. People of all races, creeds, and dress sat at undersized desks, rows and rows going off into infinity.

“Hello, Joe.” The teacher had a pig snout and tusks, her hair done up in a bun and her pointy tail raised behind her like a question mark.

“What is all this?”

“This is eternity, Joe. Who would like to critique Joe’s story first?”

Three million hands went up.

“Who are these people?” I asked.

“Murderers. As punishment for their sins, they were forced to listen to your story. Several times, in fact.”

“My story is their torture?”

“Well, I have read it aloud several times. There used to be twice as many people in the room, but a few million elected to go to the boiling oil chamber rather than hear it again.”

I shut my eyes. When I opened them, I was still there.

“And I have to listen to their opinions for eternity?”

“Every thirty years you get a one week vacation in the piranha pool.”

The teacher made me stand in front of the classroom, and the critiques began.

I counted the days until the piranha pool.

Written for a special edition of the magazine Crimespree, which was given away for free at the first Thrillerfest convention. A variation on this essay also appeared in a special Love Is Murder issue for that conference, using different names and tweaking some of the jokes.

Every year there are dozens of writing conferences. If you’re a fan of mysteries and thrillers, 2006 brings you Love is Murder in Chicago, Sleuthfest in Ft. Lauderdale, Bouchercon in Madison, Left Coast Crime in Bristol, Men of Mystery in Los Angeles, Magna Cum Murder in Muncie, and a slew of others, many of which suck.

The best conference of them all is undoubtedly Thrillerfest, presented by the International Thriller Writers. In one short year, the upstart ITW has grown to become the writing organization with the longest website URL: www.internationalthrillerwriters.org.

What can you expect when you attend Thrillerfest? How can you make sure you get your money’s worth? Will you have a chance to corner ITW Co-President David Morrell and ask him to blurb your new manuscript, The Speech Impediment Murdererererer? (Answer: Yes. Uncle Davy loves this. The best time to approach him is while he’s eating, or in the bathroom.)

Reading and memorizing this carefully compiled article will fully prepare you for anything this conference has to offer. It might even save your life.

REGISTRATION – If possible, buy your conference pass in advance. Bring proof of your registration to the event (a Paypal receipt, a copy of the letter saying you’ve been confirmed, your hard drive) because there’s a 90% chance your registration was lost, and the people running the conference will have no idea who you are. A much easier, and cheaper, tactic is to simply buy a nametag and a black marker. Stick it on your chest when no one is looking, and you’re in.

THE HOTEL – If possible, stay at the hotel. After the days’ events are through, there are always exclusive parties where you can get free food and drink and meet cool people. You won’t get invited to these parties, but you can hang out in the hallway with your ear to the door, and listen to JA Konrath make a fool of himself. Actually, you probably won’t need to put your ear to the door to hear that. JA’s pretty loud.

WHAT TO WEAR – The fashionable conference-goer wears business casual. Comfortable shoes are a must, because you’ll be walking a lot. A book bag is a great accessory. Not only can it hold books, but also an emergency fifth of vodka (do you really want to pay $9 for a martini at the hotel bar?)

AUTHOR SIGHTING – Imagine it: You’re in the lobby, putting the cap back on your vodka, and suddenly James Rollins appears out of nowhere. Do you just run up to him, squealing like a schoolgirl, and beg him to sign your paperback copy of Map of Bones that you’ve read 36 times, the last time aloud to your pet parakeet that you named Sigma?

The answer: NO! Jim is a bigshot author, and they all hate signing paperbacks. Go to the bookroom and buy a hardcover first edition. When you approach him, make sure it’s on your hands and knees, because you are not worthy. Address him as “Mr. Rollins” or “Sir” or “Your Highness.” And NEVER make direct eye contact. He’s far too important to look at you.

In contrast, if you spot James O. Born, feel free to bring him your paperback ex-library copy of Shock Wave. Born will be thrilled to sign that. He’ll also sign other authors’ books, cocktail napkins, food products, and basically anything but the check.

PANELS – If you’re an author, you need to speak on a panel. But it’s too late to sign up for one now, bonehead. They’ve already printed the programs. If you are on a panel, there’s only one important rule to follow: Make sure you’re on a panel with Barry Eisler. Barry is the one with the gaggle of drooling women following him around, hoping he’ll suddenly keel over so they’ll get to administer CPR. Don’t expect anyone to remember a single thing you’ve said when you’re on a panel with Barry, but at least you’ll be speaking to a packed room.

FOOD – Conference food is usually barely edible, but it’s expensive to compensate. That’s why all of the popular authors usually go out to eat at the trendiest restaurant in the area. It’s very easy to get invited to one of these exciting outings, where industry gossips flows fast and loose, and Barry often takes his shirt off and dances the lambada—the dance of love. If you want to go along, all you have to do is write a NYT Bestseller. If you haven’t done that, then you’re stuck with the hotel food. Be sure to try the potato salad. Is that potato salad? It might be rice pudding. Or lamb. Or a big dish of pus.

ITINERARY – There are many things to see at a conference, and often you’ll be tortured by the dilemma of two good panels happening at the same time, with no clue which to attend. The answer is easy. Attend both of them. Authors love seeing scores of people leave the room while they are talking—they believe they’re being so effective, the crowd is rushing out to buy their book. Try to do this five or six times per hour, and make sure you open and close the doors loudly. Also, take that extra time between panels to talk on your cell phone. If your conversation carries on into the panel room—it’s okay. His Majesty Rollins will forgive you.

WHERE ARE THE AUTHORS? – You’ve been trying desperately to get F. Paul Wilson’s autograph, but he’s been missing in action for two days. Where is he? He’s in the hotel bar. In fact, all of the authors are in the hotel bar. If you want to chat in depth with your favorite thriller writer, arrive early while they’re still coherent. In Paul’s case, I challenge you to figure out when that it.

THE BOOKROOM – This is the most important room in the whole conference. Here, you’ll find all of the books by all of the authors in attendance, expect for the one book you truly want to buy. They’ll be out of that one. But don’t worry, there will be plenty of pristine, unsold, unread copies of Bloody Mary by JA Konrath. Plenty of them.

BARGAIN HUNTER TIP – All the paperbacks in the bookroom are free if you simply rip off the cover beforehand! Don’t be bashful—the booksellers love it!

ETIQUETTE – It’s during one of the delicious buffet-style meals. You’ve got your plate piled high with something that might be meat in gravy, or it might be a cobbler, and you’re searching for a place to eat. While walking around the room, you see an empty chair between Tess Gerritsen and ITW Co-President Gayle Lynds. Do you dare ask to sit there? In a word, NO! They are huge mega bestsellers and that seat belongs to someone a lot more important than you are. Go sit by Jon and Ruth Jordan, who publish this magazine. Always plenty of chairs around them. The surrounding tables are usually free too.

PAID ADVERTISEMENT – Buy the anthology Thriller — Stories To Keep You Up All Night, an ITW collection featuring stories by superstar mega-bestselling authors such as JA Konrath, and others.

ATTENDEES – Conferences are a great place to meet new people who share common interests. They’re also a great place to get abducted by some weirdo and killed with a blowtorch. Wise convention goers avoid talking to anyone else, at all times. Try to keep some kind of weapon on you. They sell $59 letter openers in the hotel gift shop, right next to the $42 tee shirts and the $12 bottled water. If you’re an author, save the receipt—it’s deductible.

Or try carrying around a plate piled high with that stuff they served at lunch—the stuff in the gravy. That way, if someone tries to assault you, you can say, “Stop it! I’m eating!”

AWARDS – At most conferences, the writers like to congratulate themselves by giving each other awards. They usually do this over a nine course meal that takes eleven hours, and a cash bar that charges so much for a Budweiser you’ll need to put it on lay-away. In an effort to distinguish itself from the many other conventions and organizations that do this sort of thing, the ITW decided to do this as well.

The star-studded gala begins at 7 P.M. on Saturday, and ends sometime on Thursday morning. When the event has concluded, be sure to congratulate the lucky winners. It’s also a lot of fun to go up to the losers and congratulate them for winning, and then pretend to be confused when they tell you they’ve actually lost. Do this two or three times to the same loser. They’ll start to find it funny, eventually.

SIGNINGS – There will be many scheduled signing times, where dozens of authors all sit in the same room and greet the hundreds of fans waiting in line for Lee Child. If you’re in Lee’s very long line, remember that to keep things moving quickly you aren’t allowed to say more than two words to him, and he’ll only have time to sign an “L.” A lower case “L.” Lee’s a very busy man.

Lee Goldberg, on the other hand, will have plenty of time to sign his full name. Plenty of time. If you so desire, he’ll even sign it using the time-intensive, hand-lettered art of calligraphy. Don’t be afraid to ask. He has plenty of time.

SUNDAY – This is the day where everyone sleeps in and/or catches their flight home, and panel attendance is traditionally low. By some dramatic conference oversight, 9 A.M. on Sunday is when JA Konrath has his scheduled panel. He’s not sure how this happened. Perhaps he pissed someone off somehow, unlikely as that may sound. But he urges you to attend this panel, on the super-exciting topic of writing for female characters. Never saw that hot-button topic at a convention before, have you? There will be some other high caliber authors on this panel, probably, and JA is bringing some butterscotch schnapps to put in the audience’s coffee. Get your lazy butt out of bed and be there. He’ll be entertaining. Promise.

CONCLUSION – Remember, if you want to have a memorable conference, responsibility rests squarely on one person’s shoulders—the person running the conference. Be sure to complain about every little thing, at any given time, even if it’s something they can’t fix such as, “The carpet is too soft” or “F. Paul Wilson touched me inappropriately” or “I hear voices in my head.” Demand a refund. Threaten to contact an attorney. And above all, remember to have fun.

A humorous take on the many detectives in crime fiction who are able to glance at a crime scene and brilliantly deduce everything that happened. I wrote this for an anthology, but they rejected it. Too Monty Python-ish, they said.

Special Investigations Inspector J. Gerald Oxnard arrives on the scene moments after the crime has been committed. The usual entourage of detectives from the SI Division of New Bastwick’s Police Department accompanies him.

I’m the newly appointed member of this crack investigating team, a reward for my exemplary grades at the Police Academy. It’s just my luck that my first case is a murder.

The portly Inspector kneels beside the cooling body of a man in his late twenties. After several minutes of intense scrutiny, he nods and clears his throat, prompting one of the nearby detectives to help him to his feet.

“He was killed by a lion,” Inspector Oxnard says. “I’m thoroughly convinced.”

The room absorbs the declaration, mulling and silent.

“But…Inspector,” I say, “How did a lion get up to Room 715 of the Vandenburg Hotel without anyone seeing it?”

Inspector Oxnard puts a thin and elegantly manicured hand up to his mustache and rolls the waxy end.

“A disguise,” he says.

“A disguise?” I ask.

“Of course. Perhaps a long overcoat and some dark glasses. Haven’t you ever seen a lion walk on his hind legs at the circus?”

Several of the detectives standing around sound their approval. One writes it down in his note pad.

“But what about the knife?” I ask.

“The knife?” Inspector Oxnard shoots back, eyes sharp and accusing.

“In the deceased’s back.” I say.

There’s a moment of chin-scratching silence.

“Don’t lions have an opposable thumb?” Detective Jenkins asks.

“No, you’re thinking of monkeys,” Detective Coursey says.

“But isn’t a lion kind of like a big orange monkey with sharp teeth?” Detective Rumstead asks.

There are several nods of agreement. Inspector Oxnard runs a hand through his gray hair, which is slicked back with mint-smelling gel, and wipes his palm on Detective Coursey’s blazer.

“It had to be a lion with a knife,” the Inspector says, “wearing an overcoat and dark glasses. Put out an All Points Bulletin, and check to see if a circus is in town.”

“But Inspector,” I say, “there’s no sign of forced entry. How did the lion get into the room?”

“Simple. He had a key.”

“Why would he have a key?” I ask.

The silence that follows is steeped in apprehension. After a full minute, Inspector Oxnard makes a self-satisfied yelping sound and thrusts his finger skyward in apparent revelation, poking Detective Graves in the eye.

“The deceased was having an affair with the lion! Thus, the lion had a duplicate key!”

Excited applause sweeps through the group. Inspector Oxnard draws on his pipe, but it does little good because the bowl is upside down, the tobacco speckling his shoes.

“Did the lion prefer the company of men?” Detective Struber says.

“Perhaps,” Inspector Oxnard says. “Or perhaps it was…a lioness!”

Several ‘ahs’ are heard. Someone pipes in, “Of course! The lioness is the one that does the hunting!”

“But what about motive?” I ask, my Police Academy training coming out. “What was the motive?”

“Hunger,” the Inspector says. He nods smartly to himself.

“But the body is intact.”

“Excuse me?”

“None of it has been eaten!” I say.

“That makes no difference. Maybe the lioness was scared away before she could finish, or perhaps she simply lost her appetite.”

“I sometimes have terrible gas, and can’t eat at all,” Detective Gilbert says.

Nods of acquiescence all around, and several discussions of gas pains ensue.

“But where are the paw prints?” someone shrieks. “Where is the fur? Where is the spoor? Where is the damn reason that this was done by a lion and not a human being?”

Everyone stares at me, and I realize I’ve been the one shrieking.

Inspector Oxnard frowns and gives me a patronizing pat on the head.

“I know you’re only a novice, so I can understand why you cannot grasp all of the subtle intricacies of a murder investigation. But in time, Detective Cornhead, you’ll begin to catch on.”

“My name is Richards, Inspector. Detective Richards.”

“Nothing to be ashamed of.” Inspector Oxnard slaps my shoulder. “We were all young once.”

Detective Oldendorff runs through the door and trips over the body. He picks himself up, urgency overriding embarrassment.

“There’s been another robbery!” he says. “The First New Bastwick Bank!”

Inspector Oxnard thrusts out his lower lip and nods.

“It sounds like that blind panda has struck again. Come, gentlemen!”

Inspector Oxnard gracefully exits the room, his entourage filing behind him like ducklings. I stare at the body for a moment, and then follow.

This police work is a lot harder than I thought.

A farce, very much in James Thurber territory. I’ve always want to write a straight humor novel, but there isn’t any market for it.

Frank stood beneath the mismatched letters on the marquee and frowned.

ONE NIgHT ONLy, it proclaimed.

That was still one night too many.

Ahead of him in line, another poor dope with an equally unhappy face was being tugged towards the ticket booth by his significant other.

“He’s supposed to be brilliant. Like Marcel Marceau, only he talks,” the wife/girlfriend was saying.

The man was having none of it, and neither was Frank. He stared at his own pack leader, his wife Wendy, mushing him forward on the Forced Culture Iditarod. She noted his frown and hugged his arm.

“Stop moping. It’ll be fun.”

“It’s the playoffs.”

“It’s our anniversary.”

“We have another one next year.”

Wendy gave him The Look, and he backed down. He glanced at his Seiko, wishing he had a watch like Elroy on The Jetsons, with a mini TV screen. It was ten after nine. Halftime would be almost over, and it was the pivotal fifth game in the Eastern Conference Finals, the score tied 48-48.

Frank had managed to catch the other four pivotal games, but this one was really pivotal. If the Bulls won, it meant there would only be seven more pivotal games left in the playoffs.

They reached the ticket counter, and Frank noted several divots in the thick glass. Probably made by some other poor bastard forced here by his wife. Tried to shoot his way out, Frank guessed.

He could relate.

His mind wrapped around the fantasy of pulling out an M-16 and taking hostages to avoid seeing the show, but he lost the image when he noted how many twenty dollar bills his wife was setting in the money tray.

“This costs how much?!?”

“It’s an exclusive engagement,” the cashier said. “Alexandro Mulchahey is only in town for one night.”

“And what does he do for this kind of money? Take the whole audience out for dinner in his Rolls Royce?”

Wendy gave him The Elbow. But Frank wasn’t finished yet.

“Maybe you folks will finally be able to afford some more capital letters for the marquee.”

Now Frank received The Love Handle Pinch; Wendy’s fingernails dug into his flab and twisted. He yelped and his wife tugged him aside.

“You’re embarrassing me,” she said through a forced smile.

“I’m having chest pains. Do you know how many Bulls tickets we could have bought with all that money?”

“If you don’t start pretending to have a good time, I’m going to invite GrandMama over for the weekend.”

He clammed up. Wendy’s grandmother was 160 years old and mean as spit. Her mind had made its grand exit sometime during the Reagan years, and she labored under the delusion that Frank was Rudolph Hess. The last time she visited, GrandMama called the police seven times and demanded they arrest Frank for crimes against humanity.

Plus, she smelled like pee.

Wendy led him into the lobby, and began to point out architecture.

“Ooo, look at the columns.”

“Ooo, look at the vaulted ceiling.”

“Ooo, look at the mosaic tile. Have you ever seen anything so intricate?”

“Yeah, yeah. Beautiful.”

The theater was nice, but it was no Circus Circus. While his wife gaped at the carved railing on the grand staircase, Frank’s attention was captivated by a little boy sitting alone near the coat check.

The boy had a Sony Watchman.

“Did you want a drink, dear?”

Wendy smiled at him. “A glass of wine would be wonderful.”

Frank got in line—a line that would take him right past the little boy and his portable TV. He made sure Wendy was preoccupied staring at a poster before he made his move.

“Hey, kid! Nice TV. Can you turn on the Bulls Game real fast? Channel 9.”

The kid looked up at him, squinting through thick glasses.

“I don’t like the Bulls.”

“Come on, I just want to check the score.” Frank winked, then fished five bucks out of his pocket. “I’ll give you five bucks.”

“Mom!” The child’s voice cut through the lobby like a siren. “An old fat man wants to steal my TV!”

Frank turned away, shielding his face. The bartender gave him the evil eye.

“Merlot,” Frank said, throwing down the five.

The bartender raised an eyebrow and told him the price of the wine.

“It’s how much?!?”

“Frank, dear…” Wendy was tugging at him as he pulled out more money.

“Hold on, hon. I think I just bought you the last Merlot on earth.” Frank watched the bartender pour. “And it’s in a plastic cup.”

“I want to get a program.”

Frank’s wife led him past the little boy, who held up his Watchman and stuck out his tongue. The little snot was watching the Bulls. Frank squinted but couldn’t make out the score.

They got in line for the programs and Frank momentarily forgot about basketball when he saw the prices.

“For a program?!? Don’t they come free with the show?”

“That’s a Playbill, Frank.”

“What’s the difference?”

The difference, apparently, was forty bucks.

“Do they have a layaway?”

“They have sweatshirts, too, Frank. Would you like one?”

“I don’t want to have to get a second job.”

“Your birthday is coming up.”

Wendy grinned at him. Frank couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. He forked over the money for a program, and then they walked to the mezzanine and an usher took their tickets.

“Row A, seats 14 and 15.”

“Front row center,” his wife beamed. “Happy Anniversary, Frank.”

She kissed his cheek. Then she began pointing out more architecture.

“Look at the balconies.”

“Look at the stage.”

“Look at the plasterwork. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”

“Yeah, yeah. Beautiful.”

The usher showed them their seats and Frank frowned.

“I thought we were front row.”

“This is the front row, sir.”

“How about all those guys in front of us?”

“That’s the orchestra pit, sir.”

They took their seats, which were actually pretty nice. Plush red velvet, roomy and comfortable. Too bad they didn’t have seats like this at the United Center, where the Bulls played.

Wendy handed him a Playbill, and Frank squinted at the cover. A man in period clothing stared back at him.

“Who is this guy, anyway? Alexandro Mulchahey?”

“He’s the famous Irish soliloquist.”

“One of those guys who talks with a dummy on his lap?”

“He’s a dramatic actor, Frank. He does Shakespearean sonnets.”

Frank slumped in his chair. This was worse than he’d thought. When Wendy nagged him about this night, during a pivotal regular season game a few months back, he hadn’t heard her mention Shakespeare.

“And this guy’s famous?”

“He’s the hottest thing in Europe right now. He’s in all the papers.”

Frank folded his arms. “If he was in all the papers, I would have heard about him.”

“He wasn’t in the sports section.”

Frank frowned. The most pivotal basketball game of the century was playing right now, and Frank was stuck here watching some fruit in tights talk fancy for three hours.

Maybe he could fake a heart attack. Those ambulance guys have radios. They could tune into the game…

Some people needed to get to their seats, and Frank and Wendy had to stand up to let them by.

It was the kid with the Watchman! He stuck his tongue out at Frank as he passed, and then sat three seats away from them, his TV still tuned to the Bulls game.

Frank glanced at Wendy. She was absorbed in her program, gaping at big, color photos of Alexandro, who appeared to be in the throes of agony or ecstasy or a massive bowel movement.

“Look at how passionate he is,” Wendy beamed.

“Or constipated,” Frank muttered. He turned to look at the kid. The little boy held up the Watchman so Frank could see the game. The screen was tiny, but there was a score in the corner that Frank could almost make out. He leaned closer, straining his eyes.

The little snot switched the channel to Tom and Jerry.

“Goddamn little…”

There was a moaning sound in front of them.

“Orchestra is warming up.” Wendy bounced in her seat like an anxious schoolgirl. “It’s going to start soon.”

The little boy whispered something to his father, and they both got up. Once again Frank and Wendy had to stand. Frank fought the urge to strangle the little monkey as he sashayed past.

The father took the kid by the hand up the aisle.

“Wendy, I have to go to the bathroom.”

“The show’s about to start.”

“It’s an emergency.” Frank made his Emergency face.

“Hurry back.”

Frank stood up and followed the boy into the lobby. As he guessed, his father led him into the bathroom.

The kid’s father was standing by the sink, checking out his hair from three different angles.

“I just joined Hair Club for Men,” he told Frank.

“Looks good,” Frank told him. It looked like a beaver had died on the man’s head.

“Can you see the weave?”

“Hmm? No. Seamless.”

Frank eyed the stalls. Only one door was closed. Had to be the kid.

He walked into the nearby stall and closed the door. Removing twenty dollars from his wallet, he slipped the bill under the partition

“Psst. Kid. Twenty bucks if you can give it to me for an hour.”

There was no answer. Frank added another bill to the offer.

“How about forty?”

The voice that came from the stall was far to low to belong to a child.

“I normally don’t swing that way, man. But for sixty, I’ll rock your world.”

Frank hurried out of the bathroom and into the lobby. The kid and his dad were going back into the theater.

“Hey! Buddy!”

Several people in the crowd turned to stare at him. He pushed through and caught up with Hair Weave and his kid.

“You think I could check out the game on your son’s TV?”

“The game?” Hair Weave scratched his roots.

“Bulls game. Playoffs.”

“Clarence, let this man see your TV for a second.”

“Batteries are dead.”

Clarence switched on the Watchman and nothing happened. He smiled. Malicious little bastard.

“Did you see the score?”

“Yeah—fifty-four to sixty-eight.”

“Who was winning?”

“Sixty-eight.”

“Come on Clarence, Mommy’s waiting.”

Clarence stuck out his tongue and followed his father down the aisle.

Frank felt as if his head were about to blow apart. He almost began crying.

“Are you okay, sir?”

An usher, red vest and bow tie, no more than eighteen. Frank grabbed his arms.

“Is there a TV anywhere in this place?”

The boy scrunched his eyebrows. “TV? No. I don’t think so.”

“How about a radio? It’s the Eastern Conference Finals. I have to know the score.”

“Sorry. There’s a TV in the dressing room, but…”

Frank lit up. “There’s one in Evander Mulrooney’s room?”

“You mean Alexandro Mulchahey?”

“I went to school with Evander, in Italy.”

“Mr. Mulchahey is Irish.”

Frank clapped the usher on the shoulder, grinning broadly.

“I should stop in, say hello to the old hound dog. Where’s his dressing room?”

“I don’t think…”

Frank held the forty dollars under the kid’s nose.

“Just tell me where it is.”

The usher sniffed the money, then nodded. He led Frank through an unmarked door and down a winding hallway that had none of the frill and pizzazz of the lobby. It barely had ample light.

The hall finally ended at a door to the backstage. Frank half expected to see a jungle of sandbags and painted backdrops, but instead it was very orderly. There were several people milling about, but none of them paid Frank any attention.

“He’s the third room on the right. Don’t tell him I let you in. I’ll lose my job.”

Frank didn’t bother thanking him. He ran to the door, flinging it open, seeing Evander Fitzrooney sitting in a make-up chair.

The soliloquist turned to him, venom in his eyes.

“I don’t allow visitors before a performance! Get out!”

Frank ignored the actor, scanning the room, searching frantically for the…

“Television!”

Frank ran to it, arms outstretched, and Evander stood up and punched Frank square in the nose.

“How many times can I say I’m sorry?”

Wendy stared at Frank through the bars. She didn’t seem sympathetic.

“I’ve decided to let you spend the night in jail, Frank. Maybe it will help you prioritize your life.”

“Wendy…please. I need you to bail me out. The game has to be almost over, and I gave my last forty bucks to that pimply usher.”

Wendy darkened, then turned on her heels and walked out.

“Wendy! Will you at least find out the score for me? Please!”

After Wendy left, Frank slumped down on the metal bench, alone. Every second seemed to last an hour. Every minute was an eternity. Are the Bulls winning? Will they move on to the finals? What was the score?

Never a religious man, Frank silently begged the Lord to please send someone to give Frank the score.

When Frank finished the prayer and opened his eyes, he was confronted with a wondrous sight.

The cops were bringing in a man—a large, burly man—wearing a Bulls jersey.

“Is the game over?”

The man squinted at Frank. “Yeah, it’s over. Most amazing ending I’ve ever seen. It’ll be talked about for decades to come.”

“Who won? Who won?”

The door closed, and the cops went away. The burly man looked Frank over, top to bottom.

“You a Bulls fan?”

Frank began to jump up and down.

“Yes, dammit! Who won the game?”

The man smiled. It was an ugly thing.

“How much is it worth to you to know?”

“Name your price. I don’t have any money on me, but I’ll get it to you. My word is good.”

Burly Guy licked his lips. “Don’t want no money.”

“What is it you want, then?”

Fifteen minutes later, Frank learned a valuable lesson: If you dedicate your life to sports, you’ll only get hurt in the end.

Written for a college anthropology course, as a final project. The Woody Allen influence is obvious. I’ve always liked this story, but no one ever expressed any interest in publishing it, even though it made the rounds.

DAY 1 — 2:47 P.M.

The funding has come through! As I write this, I am in a plane heading to the Bahamas, on a grant from the University of Sheboygan. With me are my colleagues Dr. Myra Bird and Dr. Jerome Sloan.

I’m thrilled, though my excitement was somewhat dampened when I had some trouble getting my excavation tools through airport security. Jerome’s sly joke that I wasn’t really an archaeologist, but rather a homicidal maniac, prompted them to conduct an embarrassing and somewhat uncomfortable body-cavity search.

I’m grateful the airport security gentlemen had small hands.

As for the site, none of us knows what to expect. Sure, there have been stories of fossilized Homo erectus skulls just lying on the beach, waiting to be picked up, but archaeological rumors are plentiful. I still remember traveling to the Antarctic six years ago, because of the discovery of what seemed to be an Australopithecus boise tooth, but instead turned out to be just a small white rock. I sorely miss those three toes I lost to frostbite.

But this site seems like the real thing. The authenticated femur of a Homo habilus was found by a vacationing family in a small cave. Evidently, the children were acting up, and the father had grabbed something lying next to him to beat them with. It turned out to be the fossil in question. Luckily, it remained intact, even though the father used it.

I also believe the children have gotten out of intensive care.

Myra, Jerome and I have been waiting a week now for the go ahead to investigate. My bag was long ago packed and waiting for the word, leaving me pretty much without anything to wear for the last week.

But now we were finally on our way.

Jerome just tapped me on the shoulder, smiling. He is also obviously thrilled about this trip. No, he just wants my martini. I give it to him. I am so high right now I do not need alcohol. This package of peanuts is fine.

DAY 1 — 9:35 P.M.

What a horrible flight! Jerome threw up on the stewardess, who then refused to acknowledge us for the rest of the trip. We didn’t even get served our dinner, which as far as I could make out was some kind of meat in brown sauce. When we got to the airport, Customs confiscated Jerome’s suitcase, which was filled with liquor. Both Myra and I are appalled at the lack of professionalism on our colleague’s part, and we attempted to confront him and express our disappointment.

Unfortunately, he was unconscious.

We managed to get him to the hotel by strapping him to the hood of our taxi, but they charged us fare for three just the same.

The hotel we are staying at is very cheap, and we all must share a room due to budgetary constraints. Myra and I propped Jerome up on the sink, then discussed where we would sleep, there being only one bed. I was willing to be adult about it and share the bed with her, half and half. She agreed, and now I must sleep on the underside of the mattress.

Myra is very sharp, so sharp in fact that I once cut myself shaking her hand. But she has really sexy bone structure, and her teeth are exquisite. I long to run my hands over her illium and ischium, but realize such thoughts are dangerous, as I must work closely with her. Nothing must jeopardize our excavation.

I can barely wait to start work tomorrow.

DAY 2 — 5:43 A.M.

I am awakened in the morning by Jerome retching. The sound was disturbing enough, but the fact that he was retching on me made it impossible to sleep any longer. After a shower, I dressed and went down to the lobby and waited for my colleagues to join me. Myra arrived a few minutes later, without Jerome. When I inquired about him, she told me he was sick and going to stay in bed for the day. I wanted to protest, but realized he probably wouldn’t be much help to us anyway, and would only throw up on anything we might find.

We called a cab and took it to the sight. My mind was giddy with anticipation. I could tell Myra was nervous too, because she bit off all her nails and spit them in my face (a cute habit she has.)

When we arrived, it was exactly as I had expected; a clearing in the tropical forest of about eighty square yards. On the edge of it was a rock formation that held a small cave. Myra had brought her camera, and she began to take pictures of the area. Then she gave the camera to me, and asked me to take some pictures of her posing on the rocks.

After shooting three rolls of film, we broke out our equipment and began our excavation. Armed with a flashlight, a horse hair brush, and a small pick, we entered the cave. Myra clutched my arm, afraid of being attacked by vampire bats. Every so often I would flash my light at the ceiling and yell “A bat!” just for fun.

I soon quit, as Myra would slap me repeatedly in the face when she discovered there was no real danger.

A quick inspection of the cave showed no real evidence of primitive man. Though we were unduly excited about seeing something on the wall, which just turned out to be a spray painted picture of a man’s genitalia, with “Eat me Jonny” written beside it. Primitive as it may be, it wasn’t what we were looking for.

After examining the cave, we went to inspect the area where the femur was found, twenty feet east of the opening. The ground was hard clay, and we discovered the impression of where the discovered femur bone had been lying. Using our picks, we dug roughly six inches down for a square yard of the area encompassing the impression, but got nothing for our efforts except a large pile of clay.

By then it was late afternoon, and we chose to break for lunch. Unfortunately, neither of us had brought anything to eat. But this was a tropical jungle, and there were many edible roots and tubers growing around us. I also noted that several of the rocks were slate, and if need be we could knock off a Mousterian point using the Levallois technique and go hunting for rodents.

Myra, however, wanted a burger and fries, so we had to go back to the hotel.

DAY 2 — 1:46 P.M.

Upon finishing lunch, it was our intention to report our progress to Jerome, then return to the sight. But to our surprise Jerome was not in the room. We begin searching the hotel, and I find him sitting by the pool in a chaise lounge, sipping a Mai-Tai.

I am shocked at his conduct, and threaten to tell our superiors of his insubordination. He flips me the bird.

I find Myra peeking in the Men’s room, and tell her of Jerome’s attitude. She agrees we should file a report recommending he be dismissed, or at least have his suave safari hat taken away. Then we take a cab back to the sight.

While I continued to excavate the area where the fossil was found, Myra decided to start in another area, closer to the mouth of the cave. It is hard, laborious work, but it is made more bearable by Myra, who sings operettas while she digs.

Four hours into it, I discover something. Rather than get Myra excited over what may be just a rock, I bit off a small portion of my lower lip to keep from yelling with joy. As I dig around it I realize it was smart that I waited, for my discovery was nothing but a long, thin stone. Or perhaps a petrified snake. Either way, it wasn’t important.

The sun begins to set, and we know we must go. We aren’t discouraged, as neither of us expected to find anything on the first day, but we are a little disappointed. When we get back to the hotel, Jerome is watching “Emmanuelle in Egypt” on pay-per-view, eating what appears to be his third room service filet mignon. He apologizes profusely about earlier, and promises to accompany us tomorrow. We reluctantly forgive him, and Myra lets him sleep next to her that night.

I must sleep on a small wooden chair.

It doesn’t bother me, for I have slept in far worse places. Like Detroit. Or that time I was in Cairo, and slept on a bed of camel dung. To this day, I still attract more than the average amount of flies.

DAY 3 — 7:30 A.M.

I awake to the sound of gagging. I then realize that it was me, as Jerome stuffed a small gourd into my mouth as a joke.

He is really beginning to irritate me.

Jerome and Myra had gotten up earlier, so there is no time to change or take a shower, as they are on their way to the sight. I am already in the cab when I realize I am still wearing my Snoopy pajamas.

Myra reassures me not to worry, as the sight is secluded, and they are pretty nice pajamas. Then she takes several pictures, while she and Jerome laugh hysterically. I haven’t been so embarrassed since I interned with Leakey, and mislabeled a gracile Australopithecine skull fragment for robust, completely forgetting to take into account the sagittal crest.

I smile politely, and jokingly tell them both to go to hell. We do not talk until we reach the sight. When we get there, Jerome is impressed with our progress. He agrees we should keep at what we are doing, and he’ll start work further in the cave. I like this idea, as it keeps Jerome away from me.

Several hours later, I again come upon what appears to be fossil material. But this time it is more definite. I call Myra over, and we begin to dig it out together. It turns out to be a parietal bone, intact! I am so excited I kiss Myra. She surprises me by passionately responding. She then goes into the cave to give the news to Jerome, whom she finds is sleeping. He becomes very excited, and clutches the bone tightly, yelling, “Mine! All mine!”

In the meantime, I excavate the area further, and soon uncover an occipital bone. It begins to get dark, but the prospect of finding a complete skull prompts me to go on. Then I realize my colleagues have already left, and I must walk the seven miles back to the hotel, as I have no cab fare in my pajamas.

DAY 3 — 11:22 P.M.

I make it to the hotel, my feet raw and bloody, and my occipital bone clutched firmly in hand. To my disgust, Myra and Jerome are in bed. Naked. Also in bed with them are several gourds. This sickens me, and I go to the bathroom to clean my feet. I will never eat gourds again.

DAY 4 — 6:45 A.M.

A loud banging on the bathroom door wakes me up. I had fallen asleep on the sink. I open the door and it is Myra, who holds out the parietal bone and demands I examine it. I tell her it is an average Homo erectus parietal. Then she tells me the curvature is too extreme for erectus, yet too round for habilus. I examine my occipital, and then agree. It is possible we may have found the link between the two! It is possible we have found a new species!

In her excitement, Myra kisses me again. I resist at first, after what she did with Jerome, but soon respond to her advances and begin pressing against her body. She falls over backwards, and pulls me down with her. It is then, when we are on the floor, fornicating like animals, that Jerome walks in with the camera. He takes several pictures before I realize what is happening. All the time Myra is laughing and smiling. I finally pull away and hide in the bathroom, humiliated.

Jerome knocks an undetermined time later, and tells me I must give credit for the find to him, or he is sending the pictures to “National Geographic.” I am shocked, and cannot speak. He rants on and on, about how he’ll call the new species Homo jerome, and how it will make him rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams. I begin to cry.

Myra busts in and takes a picture of this.

DAY 4 — 12:54 pm

I am now convinced, after sitting in the bathroom and thinking about it all morning, that Jerome must die. Myra too. I cannot be humiliated in front of the scientific world. Nor can I let the credit for such an important discovery go to someone else. The answer is murder.

I go to Hertz and rent a large SUV. My plan is simple. I will run them over. Then back over them five or six times to make sure they are dead. I park the car behind a palm tree in front of the hotel, then wait for them to come back from the sight. Thoughts of being featured on The Discovery Channel fuel my thirst for vengeance.

The second they step out of the cab, they’re pancakes.

DAY 4 — 8:45 P.M.

Myra and Jerome finally return to the hotel. My fingers sweat as I turn the ignition key, and the engine roars to life like a prehistoric beast—perhaps an Indricotherium transsouralicum, or a Doedicurus with a slight cold.

Myra wraps her arms around Jerome and kisses him lovingly, as they both stand innocently on the curb, waiting to be flattened.

I put the car into gear, and slam the accelerator to the floor. My mind is racing, but I foresee everything in slow motion: the look of shock on Jerome’s face when he sees me coming at him, the scream Myra will barely have a chance to let out, the crushed, bleeding mess of bone and sinew that was once my colleagues.

I drive past them and keep on going. I cannot bring myself to do it.

I am not a killer. I am an archaeologist.

Who cares if I don’t get credit for this find? There will be other excavations. I will find other fossils. There is a big wide world out there, covered in dirt. Somewhere there is bound to be other extraordinary discoveries, and I will be there to make them. I and I alone will go down in history as the man who revolutionized archaeology, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I will bounce back!

Nah…too much work.

I turn the car around and level Jerome and Myra in mid-kiss.

Homo jerome my ass.

After they were flattened, I hit Reverse and backed up over their bodies. Twice.

If only Leakey could see me now.

I have a dirty little secret. Even though my books are compared to Janet Evanovich’s, I’d never read her until after writing Rusty Nail. I was invited into an essay collection about Evanovich’s character, called Perfectly Plum, so I read all the books back-to-back, then contributed this piece.

By my count, Stephanie Plum has been involved in the loss or destruction of twelve vehicles at the time of this writing, which is 8:55 A.M., Eastern Time. But, in all fairness, I’m not very good at counting. Plus, I listened to two of the books on abridged audio, which is known for cutting incidental bits from novels, such as characterization and plot.

Since I had nothing better to do today, other than to donate my kidney to that sick guy who paid me fifty thousand dollars, I decided to find out if, in the real world, could Ms. Plum get insured?

Let’s take a moment to look at the phrase “in the real world.”

Have you taken a moment? Good. Let’s move on.

Since Stephanie Plum is a fictitious character, who lives in a fictitious place called Trenton, New Jersey, she isn’t expected to completely conform to all aspects of reality, such as car insurance, or gravity. Since I knew that this task before me would involve a great deal of painstaking research and determination, I immediately went to work. After work, I went to a movie. Then, a nap.

Discouraged by my lack of progress, I called my neighbor Shelby, who knows a lot of stuff, such as why bottled water costs the same as bottled iced tea, even though it doesn’t have all the stuff in it that tea has. Such as tea. Quote Shelby:

“Stephanie who?”

The story would end there, except that I have a lot more to tell.

My next course of action was to take my phone off the hook, because I kept getting obnoxious messages along the lines of, “Where’s that kidney?” and “You have to get to the hospital immediately!” and “He’s dead.”

Then I went to the Pleasant Happy Valley Assisted Living Facility (Now with 14% Less Elderly Abuse) to meet with renowned Stephanie Plum Scholar Murray Christmas. That’s his real name, and though it may seem odd, it isn’t nearly as odd as is sister’s name, Groundhog Day. Murray attempted to be cooperative, but being a hundred and three years old, he’d forgotten much of the minutiae, such as his own name. After much patience, and some help from his nurse to understand his drooling wheezes, I got nowhere. So I have no idea why I’m telling you this.

But when the nurse left, I looked through his personal effects, and got a real nice gold watch.

This opens up a large topic for serious discussion, which I am merely going to skip.

After pawning the watch, I pulled out my trusty phone book and began calling insurance companies. After eight calls that went nowhere, I decided I needed a better plan than giggling and making fart sounds when someone answered. So I decided to try talking.

Here are some of the conversations I had. My name has been changed to protect me.

CALL NUMBER ONE

ME: Do you sell car insurance?

INSURANCE MAN #1: Yes.

ME: My name is Julie Pear, and I’m not a fictitious character. I played a hand in destroying twelve cars in my last thirteen books. Will you insure me?

INSURANCE MAN #1: I need more information.

ME: I like the color red, and dogs.

INSURANCE MAN #1: I meant about your driving background.

ME: I also like Rob Schneider movies.

INSURANCE MAN #1: I’m sorry, we can’t insure you.

CALL NUMBER TWO

ME: Hello?

INSURANCE MAN #2: Can I help you?

ME: My last four cars have exploded, but it wasn’t my fault. Can you insure me?

INSURANCE MAN #2: How did these cars explode?

ME: definition of explosion

INSURANCE MAN #2: Well, you’re welcome to come in and we can give you a quote.

ME: How about I give you a quote instead? How about, “This was no boating accident!”

INSURANCE MAN #2: Excuse me?

ME: That was from Jaws. I loved that movie. I still get scared taking baths.

INSURANCE MAN #2: You’re an idiot.

CALL NUMBER THREE

INSURANCE MAN #3: Making rude noises like that is very immature. (Pause) I know you’re still there. I can here you giggling.

CALL NUMBER FOUR

ME: I want a large thin crust, sausage and extra cheese.

PIZZA GUY: That will be fourteen ninety five.

After all of this hard work, I only knew one thing for certain: if Stephanie Plum were a pound of bacon, she’d sure be a clever one. I’d pay a lot of money to see a talking pound of bacon in high heels. A lot of money.

The next thing on my to do list, after a good scratch, was attend an insurance convention. The convention brought many to tears, due to a chemical leak that gave most attendees second degree burns.

Quote Harold Barnicky, one of the attendees: “Those little crackers they had, the ones with the spinach and cheese—mmmm-mmmmmmmm!”

Personally, I preferred the three bean casserole, which was inappropriately named because I counted at least a dozen beans, and counting isn’t my strong suit.

But none of this effort brought me any closer to the end of this essay.

Undaunted, superfluous, and proselytical, I decided to try a more direct approach, because even though I’m a writer, I’ve always wanted to direct.

So I wrote an impassioned, persuasive letter to the largest auto insurer next to my house. The letter brilliantly detailed the whole sordid tale, and was perhaps the greatest thing I’ve ever written on a cocktail napkin. Without permission, here is the company’s reply:

We CARE Auto Insurance
WE INSURE EVERYONE!™
8866 Haknort Lane
CHICAGO, IL 60610
(847) 555 - AUTO

To: Margaret Apples
Re: Recent Insurance Inquiry

Ms. Apples—

When my father began We Care Auto Insurance 64 years ago, he had a grand dream: To supply auto insurance to everyone who needed it, regardless of their driving record or accident history. He wanted to be the insurance company for the common man—-the senior citizens with senility issues, the veterans missing important limbs, the narcoleptics, the mentally retarded, the unrepentant alcoholics.

Father believed everyone—-even those with heroin habits and cataracts the size of dinner plates—-deserved to be insured. For more than six decades, We Care Auto Insurance carried on this proud tradition.

We have insured drivers with organic brain damage of such severity they couldn’t count past four. We have insured drivers with quadriplegia, who drove using a suck-and-blow straw. We have insured the legally blind, the morbidly obese, the legally dead, and Mr. Chimpo the Driving Baboon. We’ve even insured several Kennedys.

Now, for the first time in our history, We Care Auto Insurance must turn down an application.

Yours.

While the law doesn’t require us to provide an explanation for the reason you aren’t being allowed into the We Care Auto Insurance family, I’ve chosen to write this letter to make something perfectly clear: We are not to blame, Ms. Apples. You are.

While reviewing insurance applications, we compile statistics from several sources, which allows us to come up with monthly rates and deductible figures. When feeding your information into our computer database, our network promptly froze.

We haven’t been able to reboot it.

According to our information, you’ve been responsible for destroying more cars than any single driver in North America, and possibly South America as well.

You’ve destroyed more cars than Carzilla, the giant robotic crane that tours with monster truck shows and eats cars.

In layperson’s terms; you’ve destroyed a huge fucking butt-load of cars.

There have been so many, I’m guessing you’ve lost track of them all. Allow me to refresh your memory.

After your Miata was repossessed (which seems to be the only nice car you’ve ever owned) you played a hand in the explosion of a Jeep owned by a Detective Gepetto of the Trenton Police Department. This, unfortunately, was not the last automobile casualty Detective Gepetto suffered at your hands.

Your next vehicle, a Jeep, was stolen. You’ll be pleased to know that a VIN search has recently located it, in a scrap yard in Muncie, Indiana. The odometer reading was well over 220,000 miles. Having escaped you, this Jeep led a full and possibly interesting life, without explosions, though your insurance company still had to foot the bill for it nonetheless.

The blue Nissan truck you acquired shortly thereafter soon went to the big parking lot in the sky after being blown up with a rocket launcher. I must admit, I had to read the claim report three times before the phrase rocket launcher sunk in. I’ve insured several CIA operatives, a movie stuntman named Jimmy Rocket who specialized in pyrotechnics, and a scientist who actually worked for a rocket company (I believe they called him a rocket scientist) but none of them ever lost a vehicle to a rocket, missile, or any comparable exploding projectile.

Your replacement car, a Honda CRX, was soaked in gasoline and burned. My record search was unable to turn up the name of the perpetrator, but might I suggest it was one of your previous insurance agents? That wouldn’t surprise me.

Your name came up in several claims made by a company cryptically called Sexy Cuban Man. The claims included an exploded Porsche and a stolen BWM. Not content with that, you somehow also managed to burn down a funeral home. Did you get confused in the dark and mistake it for a car somehow?

A Honda Civic, registered to you, was torched, and a Honda CRV registered to you was totaled, and then set ablaze. Why you bought another Honda is beyond my mental capacity, but you did, and it was promptly burned, along with another Sexy Cuban Man vehicle, by—and this is in your own words—a giant rabbit. Was Jimmy Stewart anywhere in the vicinity, pray tell? Or did this rabbit happen to have a basket of brightly colored eggs?

Your next vehicle, a Ford Escape, didn’t escape at all. Again it was burned. Perhaps car insurance isn’t what you need. Perhaps you simply need a car made of asbestos. Or a Sherman Tank.

Your next victim, a Saturn, was bombed. So was an SUV belonging to the unfortunate Joe Morelli. You also had a hand in the recent explosion of a Ford Escalade.

Records show you just purchased a Mini Cooper. Such an adorable car. I’ve included it in my nightly prayers.

While the first few explosions might be written off as coincidence, or even bad luck, somewhere around the tenth destroyed vehicle a little light came on inside my head. I finally understood that no one could be this unlucky. There was only one possible explanation.

You’re sick in the head.

The psychiatric community calls your specific mental illness Munchausen’s by Proxy. A parent, usually the mother, purposely makes her children sick so she can bask in the attention and sympathy of others.

I’ve decided that this is what you’re doing, only with vehicles. Rather than feeding little Molly peanut butter and bleach sandwiches, you’ve been deliberately destroying your own cars. All because you crave attention.

But your warped scheme to put the spotlight upon yourself isn’t without casualties. I’m not speaking of your helpless automotive victims. I’m speaking of my wonderful company.

Writing this letter fills me with sadness, Ms. Apples, for you have destroyed my father’s dream. For the first time in our history, we are rejecting an applicant. This comes at a great moral cost, and a great financial cost as well.

Because of you, we have been forced to change our trademarked slogan, We Insure Everyone! Do you have any idea how much letterhead we have with that slogan on it? A warehouse full. And unless we hire someone (perhaps an immigrant, or a homeless person) to cross out the slogan on each individual sheet of paper, it is now land-fill bound.

Ditto our business cards. Our refrigerator magnets. Our full color calendars we give to our loyal customers every holiday season. The large and numerous interstate billboards. And our catchy TV commercials, which feature the jingle written by none other than Mr. Paul Williams, naturally called, “We Insure Everyone.”

What will out new slogan be? I’m not sure. There are several in the running. They include: “We Insure Practically Everyone,” “We Really Want to Insure Everyone,” and “We Insure Everyone But Margaret Apples.” I also like the slogan, “Why Can’t You Be in the Next Car You Blow Up or At the Very Least Get a Job at the Button Factory,” but that has too many words to fit on a business card.

You have crippled us, Ms. Apples. Crippled us worse than many of the people we insure, including the guy with the prosthetic pelvis and the woman born without arms who must steer with her face.

I hope you’re happy.

As a public service to the world, I’m sending copies of this letter to every insurance agent in the United States. Hopefully, this will end your reign of terror.

If it takes every cent of my money, every single one of my vast resources, I’ll see to it that you never insure another vehicle again. When I get done with you, you won’t be able to put on roller skates without the Feds breathing down your neck.

Whew. There. I feel a lot better now.

And though we aren’t able to insure you, Ms. Apples, I do hope you pass our name along to any friends or relatives of yours who are seeking auto insurance.

Sincerely,
Milton McGlade

So there you have it. Based on the minutes of hard work I’ve devoted to this topic, Stephanie Plum would not be able to get car insurance.

In conclusion, if I had only ten words to end this essay, I’d have a really hard time thinking of them. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a kidney to sell on eBay.

A fluff piece for Crimespree magazine. I got a big kick out of writing this.

Mystery is a broad genre, encompassing thrillers, crime novels, whodunnits, capers, historicals, and police procedurals. Two of its most bi-polar brethren are the tea-cozy, as typified by Agatha Christie, and hardboiled noir, best portrayed by Mickey Spillaine.

But with the constant re-catagorizing and re-inventing of sub-genres, how can you, the reader, tell the difference?

Fear no more! Here is a definitive set of criteria to determine if that potential bookstore purchase The Winnipeg Watersports Caper is about a gentleman boat thief, or a serial killer with an overactive bladder.

If the book has an elderly character that solves crimes in her spare time, it is a cozy.

If the book has an elderly character that gets shot seven times in the face and then raped, it is hardboiled.

If the protagonist drinks herbal tea, and eats scones, it is a cozy.

If the protagonist drinks whiskey, and makes other people eat their teeth, it is hardboiled.

If a cat, dog, or other cute domestic animal helps solve the crime, it is a cozy.

If a cat, dog, or other cute domestic animal is set on fire, it is hardboiled.

If the book has a character named Agnes, Dorothy, or Smythe, it is a cozy.

If the book has a character named Hammer, Crotch, or Dickface, it is hardboiled.

If the murder scene involves antiques, it is cozy.

If the murder scene involves entrails, it is hardboiled.

If the hero does any sort of knitting, crafting, or pet-sitting, it is a cozy.

If the hero does any sort of maiming, beating, or humping, it is hardboiled.

If the sidekick is a good natured curmudgeon who collects stamps, it is a cozy.

If the sidekick is a good natured psychopath who collects ears, it is hardboiled.

If the book contains recipes, crossword puzzles, or cross-stitching patterns, it is a cozy.

If the book contains ass-fucking, it is hardboiled.

If cookie crumbs on a Persian rug lead to the villain, it is a cozy.

If semen stains on a stab wound lead to the villain, it is hardboiled.

If any characters say, “Oh my!” it is a cozy.

If any characters say, “Jesus Goddamn Fucking Christ!” it is hardboiled.

If the murder weapon is a fast-acting poison, it is a cozy.

If the murder weapon is a slow-acting blowtorch, it is hardboiled.

If the main character has a colorful hat that is filled with fruit and flowers, it is a cozy.

If the main character has a colorful vocabulary that is filled with racial slurs and invectives, it is hardboiled.

And finally, if the author picture looks like your grandmother—beware…it could be either.

Another humor story about what it’s like to be a writer. Like Piranha Pool, this is semi-autobiographical, and pretty much anyone who has ever tried to write for a living can relate to the narrator.

The first time I ever saw it was at a party.

College. Dorm. Walls constructed of Budweiser cases. Every door open, the hallways and rooms crammed with people, six different rock tunes competing for dominance.

Rituals of the young and innocent—and the not so innocent, I found out that night.

I had to give back the beer I’d rented, popped into the first empty room I could find.

He was sitting in the corner, hunched over, oblivious to me.

Curiosity made me forget about my bladder. What was he doing, huddled in the dim light? What unpleasant drug would keep him here, alone and oblivious, when a floor thumping party was kicking outside his door?

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

A quick turn, guilty face, covering something up with his hands.

“Nothing. Go away.”

“What are you hiding there?”

His eyes were wide, full of secret shame. The shame of masturbation, of cooking heroin needles, of snatching money from Mom’s purse.

Then I saw it all—the computer, the notebook full of scrawls, the outline…

“You’re writing fiction!”

The guilt melted off his face, leaving it shopworn and heavy.

“Leave me alone. I have to finish this chapter.”

“How can you be writing with a party going on?”

He smiled, so subtle that it might have been my beer goggles.

“Have you ever done it?”

“Me?” I tried to laugh, but it sounded fake. “I mean, when I was a kid, you know, drawing pictures and stuff, I used to make up stories…”

“How about lately?”

“Naw. Nothing stronger than an occasional essay.”

“You want to try it?”

I took a step back. All of the sudden my bladder became an emergency again.

“No, man…”

The guy stood up. His eyes were as bright as his computer screen.

“You should try it. You’ll like it.”

“I’m cool. Really.”

He smiled, for sure this time, all crooked teeth and condescension.

“You’ll be back.”

I hurried out of the room.

The clock blinked 3:07 A.M.. I couldn’t sleep.

To the left of my bed, my computer.

My mind wouldn’t shut off. I kept thinking of the party. Of that guy.

Not me. I wasn’t going to go down that path. Sitting alone in my room when everyone else was partying. I wasn’t like that.

My computer waited. Patient.

Maybe I should turn it on, make sure it was running okay. Test a few applications.

I crept out of bed.

Everything seemed fine. I should check MS Word, though. Sometimes there are problems.

A look to the side. My roommate was asleep.

What’s the big deal, anyway? I could write just one little short short short story. It wouldn’t hurt anyone.

I could write it in the dark.

No one would ever know.

One little story.

“Party over at Keenan Hall. You coming?”

“Hmm? Uh, no. Busy.”

“Homework?”

“Uh, yeah. Homework.”

“That sucks. I’ll drink a few for you.”

“Sure.”

I got back to plotting.

I raised a fist to knock, dropped it, raised it again.

What’s the big deal? He probably wasn’t in anyway.

One tiny tap, the middle knuckle, barely even audible.

“It’s open.”

The room was dark, warm. It smelled of old sweat and desperation.

He was at his desk, as I guessed he’d be. Hunched over his computer. The clackety clack of his fingers on the keyboard was comforting.

“I need…I need to borrow a Thesaurus.”

His eyes darted over to me, focusing. Then came the condescending smile.

“I knew you’d be back. What are you working on?”

“It, uh, takes place in the future, after we’ve colonized Jupiter.”

“It’s impossible to colonize Jupiter. The entire planet is made out of gas.”

“In 2572 we discover a solid core beneath the gas…”

I spit out the rest of my concept, so fast my lips kept tripping over one another.

“Sounds interesting. You bring a sample to read?”

How did he know? I dug the disk out of my back pocket.

I knew it was coming. Short stories weren’t enough anymore. The novella seemed hefty at the time, but now those twenty thousand words are sparse and amateurish.

I was ready. I knew I was. I had a great idea, bursting with conflict, and the two main characters were already living in my head, jawing off at each other with dialog that begged to be on paper.

All I lacked was time.

“Hi, Mom. How’s Dad? I’m dropping out of college.”

I couldn’t make much sense of her reply; it was mostly screaming. When my father came on the phone, he demanded to know the reason. Was I in trouble? Was it a girl? Drugs?

“I need the time off to write my novel.”

I hadn’t ever heard my father cry before.

I don’t need understanding. Certainly not sympathy. The orgiastic delight that comes from constructing a perfect paragraph makes up for my crummy apartment and low-paying job at the Food Mart. They let me use the register tape for my notes, and I get a twenty percent discount on instant coffee.

Reality is tenuous, but that’s a good sign. It means I’m focused on the book. I’m not really talking to myself. I’m talking to my characters. You see the difference?

Sometimes I need to take days off, like for that problem I had with Chapter 26. But I worked through it. The book is more important than food, anyway. Who needs to eat?

The tears were magic, and the sob was more beautiful than any emotion ever felt by anyone who ever lived.

Helium had replaced the blood in my veins. My hands trembled.

I typed The End and swore I heard the Voice of God.

The alley is cold. I stuff my sweatshirt with newspaper and hunch down by a dumpster, my CD-ROM clutched in a filthy hand that I can barely recognize as my own.

It is my third week on the street. I’ve made some friends, like Squeaky, who is sitting next to me.

“They locked me out. Sold my stuff to pay the back rent. Even my computer.”

Squeaky squeaks. I offer him an empty Dorito bag, and he scurries inside, looking for crumbs. I don’t mind him being distracted. He’s heard the story before.

“I’ve still got my novel, though.” The CD isn’t very shiny anymore, and it has a crack that I pray hasn’t hurt the data.

“Best thing I’ve ever done in my life, Squeaky old pal. Wouldn’t change a damn thing about the path I chose.”

It starts to rain. I stare at the CD, at my reflection in it. My beard is coming in nicely. It gives me sort of a Hemingway look.

“Did I tell you about the Intervention, Squeaky? Right before I got kicked out. My parents, my brother, the chaplain, and some guy from WA. Tried to get me to quit writing. Follow some stupid 12 step program.”

I still feel a twang of guilt, remembering my mother’s pleas.

“They wanted me to admit I had a problem. But they don’t understand. Writing isn’t an addiction. It’s a way of life. Like being a rat. Could you stop being a rat, just because your family wanted you to?”

Squeaky didn’t answer. The rain was really coming down now.

“I have to write. I don’t have a choice. It’s who I am.”

The CD in my hand got warm to the touch, glowing with an inner spirit that I knew for sure isn’t just my imagination. It’s worth something. Even if it never sells. Even if I’m the only one who ever reads it.

It validates me.

“I’m no one trick pony, either. I won’t rest on my laurels. I’ve got more books in me.”

I pull out my collection of gum wrappers and sort them out, chapter by chapter.

After reading what I wrote that morning, I take my stubby pencil from my shirt pocket and start where I left off.

After all—writer’s have to write.

It’s what we do.

Once upon a time I wanted to write a humor column like Dave Barry. I quickly learned that only Dave Barry was allowed to write humor columns, and newspapers weren’t looking for anyone else. This was penned during college, and then tweaked to put on my website.

I was watching “The 20 Minute Workout,” sitting back in my easy chair and eating a box of Twinkies. The blonde aerobics instructor (at least I think she was blonde, for I was having trouble seeing over my stomach) was chirping away about how eating healthy and exercising were the keys to a better you, while doing thigh lifts that made me exhausted just looking at her.

Among other health conscious things, she said that if you are truly satisfied with your body, you should be able to stand naked in front of a mirror and like what you see. I accepted the challenge, and after finishing the Twinkies and two bowls of Frosted Sugar-O’s Cereal (now with 30% more corn syrup), I disrobed and went straight to the full length mirror.

Much to my dismay, I looked like a giant sack of potatoes with a penis. This did nothing for my self-esteem, and I dove into a Piggo Size Jay’s Potato Chips and didn’t stop until I hit cellophane.

It was not until later that I realized most of my problems, such as not understanding my income tax return, were directly linked to my overweightedness. I decided at that moment to start a strict regimen of diet and exercise, but soon just limited it to exercise, not wanting to give up my favorite meal, beer and Snickers Bars.

The thing I had to do, as told to me by countless celebrities on TV who can’t get work elsewhere, was join a health club. I went to a popular one nearby, housed in a building the size of Rhode Island. Inside was like stepping into The Jetsons: chrome…mirrors…flashing lights…techno music…a running track lined with spongy foam…rows and rows of exercise machines, as far as the eye could see…Elroy, walking Astro…

I was greeted at the door by a very muscular guy who’d been packed into a Spandex outfit so tightly I could see individual corpuscles pumping through his veins. His name was G.

“How do you spell that?” I asked.

“With a G.”

“Do you have a last name?”

“It’s just G.”

“So on your birth certificate…”

“Enough about me.” G grinned big, making his neck muscles ping out. “Let’s talk about you.”

G herded me through a throng of beautiful people, telling each in turn that he was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed even if Madonna called with a Pilates emergency. We went into his office, which was decorated with pictures of G with his shirt off and smiling, G with his shirt off and scowling, and G with his shirt off and looking apprehensive, probably wondering where he’d left his shirt.

G handed me a bottled water from his personal mini-refrigerator and sat me at his desk. He remained standing.

“It’s a good thing you came today, Mr. Konrath, because you’re about five beats away from a major myocardial infarction. If you don’t join our club right now, I’ll ask you to sign this waiver to absolve us of responsibility when you walk out this door and your ventricles explode.”

“I actually just had my heart checked, and…”

“Plus, you’re so disgustingly fat, no one will ever love you.”

“My wife says…”

“Hey, Joanie and Brenda, come in here and meet my new best friend, Mr. Konrath.” G motioned for two attractive young women standing in the hall to come in and smile at me. “Don’t you think he’d benefit from our programs?”

“I’d love to get him in one of my Prancercize classes,” Brenda said, licking her lips. “I’ll help you take off that disgusting, icky fat.”

Joanie put her head to my chest. “I hear his pulmonary artery crying out like a sick kitty.”

“You truly are a disgusting man, Mr. Konrath,” G said. “I suggest the Super-Duper Extra Special Presidential Package. That will give you access to all of the club’s facilities.”

He handed me a color brochure filled with pictures of smiling, healthy people. The Super-Duper Extra Special Presidential Package monthly dues were slightly more than what I earned in a month, but I would have full access to everything, including unlimited use of their one racquetball court, should I ever decide to take up racquetball.

“Sign it and we’ll be your friends forever,” Joanie said.

“Sign it or you’ll get sick and die alone,” Brenda said.

G put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. Hard. “I don’t want to sugar coat this—”

“If you did, I’d probably eat it.”

“—but if you don’t sign this contract you’ll be the biggest wuss-boy I’ve ever met.”

I stared at G and had a momentary delusion that I, too, might be able to look like someone stuck a tube up my ass and inflated me. Sure, his shoulders were so broad that he probably needed help wiping his own ass, but he looked damn good without a shirt.

“Sign,” they chanted. “Sign. Sign. Sign…”

I signed, and left the club feeling cheerful about my new commitment to get in shape. The pounds would soon begin to drop off, I was sure. They had to, because I no longer had any money for food.

When I shared the good news with my wife, she was equally excited.

“It cost how much?!?”

“Don’t think of it in terms of costs,” I said, repeating what G had told me, “think of it in terms of benefits.”

“You tell the kids they can’t go to college because their father spent all of our savings.”

“College is overrated. You don’t really learn anything useful. Trade schools—that’s where it’s at these days. You see that one on TV, teaches you how to repair air conditioners?”

My wife shook her head. “You’ve got issues, Joe. In fact, you’ve got a whole damn subscription.”

“Why don’t you come down to the club, check it out? G said there’s a discount for spouses.”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

“I’m saying that your support hose isn’t hiding your little pouch like it used to when we were dating.”

My wife smiled. She was obviously coming around.

“How long is this stupid contract for?” she asked.

“Three years.”

“That’s how long you’re going without sex. Enjoy the couch.”

The couch was close to the refrigerator, so it wasn’t too bad.

During my fourth week as an Extra Super Special Guy Member, G called me up.

“Mr. Konrath, you joined a month ago. When are you going to come down and start working out?”

“I can’t now, G. I’m waiting for a pizza.”

“Come on, Mr. Konrath. Joining was just the first step. Now you’ve got to start coming in. I’ll blend you a fifteen dollar kelp smoothie, personally train you on the equipment for sixty dollars an hour, and give you a nice thirty dollar rub down afterwards.”

“I thought all of that was included in my Jumbo Deluxo Mega Membership.”

“Did you read the fine print?”

“It was in a different language.”

“Don’t let money keep you from being the best Mr. Konrath that you can be, Mr. Konrath. Come in today and you can take my Jazz Kwon Do class for half price.”

“What do you drive, G?”

“A Mercedes. And my payment is due.”

G was right. I’d made the commitment to get in shape. It was time to put up or shut up. Even my wife, after having our lawyer try unsuccessfully to break the heath club contract, had begun encouraging me to go.

“You wasted all that money!” she’d say, encouragingly. “Put down the cheese wheel, get off your lazy ass, and go work out!”

But, truth be told, I was scared. I knew if I went to the club I’d be surrounded by beautiful people, and I would be alienated and my self-esteem would sink even lower.

My plan was to get in shape before I went to the club. It could happen. I lost four pounds just last week, though I found it later, in my upper thighs.

“G, I feel too uncomfortable to come in. Can we do this over the phone?”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Konrath. There are plenty of fat, ugly people who come here every day. You’ll fit right in.”

“If they come there every day why are they still fat and ugly?”

“You’re disappointing me, Mr. Konrath.”

“Sorry, G. I’ll drop by later today.”

“Great! See you then.”

“Are you mad at me, G?”

“No. Not this time.”

“Thanks. Bye.”

I hung up the phone, happy about recommitting myself to getting into shape. Twenty minutes later I was in the health club parking lot, finishing the last of my pizza. G greeted me warmly, pumping my hand like I was a lat machine. He was bigger than I remembered. I bet he had more definition than Webster’s Unabridged.

Well, come on, all the jokes can’t be good.

“How’s my bestest buddy, Mr. Konrath?”

“Hungry. How about that smoothie?”

“Sure thing. You bring your Visa?”

“My wife took it. But I found some change in the couch.”

G led me to the juice bar, and spent five minutes measuring out assorted powders into a stainless steel blender.

“The base is macrobiotic organic yogurt,” he told me. “Low fat and sugar free.”

“What flavor?”

“Plain.”

“Sounds good. Can you add a few scoops of those chocolate chips?”

After the smoothie, G and I hit the equipment. Almost immediately I knew we were going to have problems. First of all, he wanted me to start a program he called “weight training.” From what I gathered, this involved picking up weights, and lifting them up and down. G gave me a preview, grabbing a barbell the size of a Cadillac (when they still made them big), and curling it up to his chest several times. I very politely told G that he was out of his freaking mind if he thought I was going to do that. You couldn’t pay me to do that. I certainly wasn’t go to pay them to let me.

G let out a friendly laugh and then threw me a weight belt and told me to get started while he went to the juice bar for a creatine shake. “For a boost of energy,” he said.

“Put in some of those mini marshmallows,” I told him. “And some ham.”

While I waited for my energy boost, I sat on an exercise bike, content with watching a girl in a string bikini do leg presses. She had a body that could make a priest give up choir boys. When G came back I was sweating like a pig.

“How are we doing, Mr. Konrath?”

“Great, G. I’m glad I signed up.”

“Let’s not overdo it your first day. Time for your rubdown.”

While G rubbed my achy muscles for three dollars a minute, I had to admit that this health club thing was a good idea after all. Sure, I had to take out a second mortgage to pay for it, but seeing that girl do those leg presses gave my heart a workout it hadn’t had in years.

And later that night, I actually got in a few minutes of strenuous exercise. With my wife, while thinking of the leg-press girl.

I was so quiet I didn’t even wake her up.

JA Konrath’s Works Available on Nook

Whiskey Sour

Bloody Mary

Rusty Nail

Fuzzy Navel

Cherry Bomb

Click here for more J.A. Konrath ebooks on Nook

Prologue

“I'm going to kill somebody. Soon.”

David leaned back on the mattress, fingers laced behind his blond head. His overdeveloped biceps strained the fabric of his T-shirt sleeves. He flexed his pecs, and his chest trembled like a bull shaking off horseflies.

Manny muted the television, sighing loudly enough for David to hear him. This was a familiar dialog.

“No, you won’t. You don’t want to get in trouble again.”

David grunted. He stared at the ceiling, imagining that this was a real apartment with people living above and below. But it wasn’t real; it was a cage, pure and simple. The fake scenery outside the window and the phone that only dialed out to one number made it even more ludicrous.

“I’d rather go back to prison than stay here.”

“You know that isn’t true. This is better for us, David. We can get through this. Look at all we’ve been through together.”

Manny was right. They’d been through hell. But the future only promised extra helpings, with no end in sight.

“I can’t take it.”

“You have to.”

David clenched his teeth. The hate buzzed around in his head like a hornet’s nest, desperately trying to get out. He made his decision.

“I want you to kill me.”

Manny turned away, shaking his head.

“No. That’s not an option.”

“Anyone can take a life, Manny. All you need is the proper motivation. What if I took that fire ax in the hallway and chopped up your little girlfriend? Does it have to come to that?”

“I hate it when you talk like this.” Manny stood up and went to the kitchenette. He got a glass of water, staring at David’s reflection in the framed Dali poster hanging above the sink. His stomach fluttered. David was older, bigger, and had a vein of mean running through him. A rich vein, that seemed to be growing. “I’m sure they’re listening.”

David laughed, a sound like a large dog growling.

“Of course they’re listening. We signed our privacy away. It’s lost, just like our freedom. Our minds are next.”

Manny finished the water and sat on the edge of the bed. He tried to sound soothing. “We’re a team, David. We have to see it though. That was the deal.”

“To hell with the deal.”

“David…”

“How can you handle it, Manny? How can you handle the dreams?”

Manny thought about the question. He suppressed a chill.

“I handle them.”

“Well, I can’t. I have to get out. And if I leave, you know that a lot of people are going to die. I can’t control myself, Manny. It’s like a thirst.”

“It’ll get easier. You’ll see.”

David pressed his hands to his face, as if he were trying to keep his skull from exploding.

“At least you’re the prize show dog. I’m the big mistake, kept in the shadows. Science gone wrong. Kill me.”

“No.”

David reached out and grabbed Manny by the hand, imploring.

“Just do it. Stick a knife in my ribs.”

“I can’t.”

David’s grip tightened. Manny tried to pull away, but couldn’t. A shadow settled behind David’s face.

“I can hurt you. I can hurt you real bad.”

“Please… David…”

With a quick snap, David bent Manny’s pinkie backwards. The pain was instant and nauseating.

Manny yanked his hand free. His little finger jutted out at an odd angle. The blood leeched from his head, leaving his face ghost-white. He tried to stand, but his knees were spaghetti.

David’s eyes got big. He put a hand on Manny’s shoulder.

“Manny, Jesus, I’m sorry.”

Manny pulled back.

“Get away from me.”

“I didn’t mean it. I swear. You see how I get? I can’t control it.”

Manny managed to get to the bathroom. He ran cold water over his hand, but it didn’t numb the pain.

“Did I break it again?”

“Go to hell.”

“I think it’s just dislocated. I can pop it back.”

He gently tugged Manny’s wrist away from the sink. Manny began to shake.

“Please, go away.”

“This’ll just take a second.”

David got a good grip on the dislocated finger. Manny felt the bile rise.

“No, please…”

For the longest moment, Manny was convinced that David wanted to twist it backwards even farther, wrench the finger until it came off. But David simply gave it a quick tug and the pinkie snapped back into place. He stared at Manny, eyebrows knitted.

“I’ll stick with it, Manny. For you. But promise me that if I hurt anyone else, you end it for me. I know you could do it. You’re not as squeaky clean as they think.”

The pain was subsiding, and Manny’s stomach began to settle.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Sure. You do that. We have plenty of time.” David grinned. “And plenty of fingers.”

David left, and Manny locked the bathroom door. The situation was getting worse, and the mandatory shrink visits didn’t help at all. He thought about telling one of the research team, but that would ruin everything they’d worked so hard for.

Manny stared into the mirror, searching himself for an answer.

Maybe murder was the only alternative.

But could he actually kill him? Could he actually kill his own brother?

Manny looked down at his swollen finger and wondered if he could.

Chapter 1

“What would you give for an extra thirty years of life?”

The big man was no longer at the podium. He circulated among the tables, his grandiose voice having no need for a microphone. A neatly trimmed beard, the color of a black bear, extended along his jaw line and connected with a shock of matching wiry hair. Except for some busboys hustling empty plates, all the eyes in the banquet room, over a hundred sets, were on him.

“Think of it. More time to spend with your family. More time to get all the things done that need to get done. More time to enjoy life to the fullest. Time is money. Time is precious. But most of all, time is a resource, like oil or natural gas. How much is it worth to you?”

He paused, eyes twinkling. Dr. William May had seen this speech once before, but was no less impressed. Unlike other scientists Bill had met in his career, Dr. Nikos Stefanopolous had magnetism to match his brilliance. The barrel chested Greek could have hawked cooking utensils on late night TV with equal aplomb.

“We sleep one third of our lives. Thirty years. We don’t have any say in the matter. But what if we did? What if we could take a simple pill that could replace a full night’s sleep? Think of it.”

The audience did think of it, Bill included. An impressive feat, if possible.

“You would feel just as refreshed, just as fit, just as rested, as if you’d spent eight hours in bed. But instead of eight hours, this pill would do the same amount of work in just twenty minutes. Senator, I’m sure a pill like this would do wonders for your filibusters.”

The room laughed, and Senator Donner acknowledged with a nod and a grin.

“Such a pill is the culmination of twenty years of research into sleep. My daughter, Dr. Theena Boone, and myself have dedicated a good portion of our lives to the study of sleep, and its effects on the body. What does sleep actually do? What is its purpose? What chemical changes occur in the body during sleep? And most of all—can it be synthesized? At this point I’d like to introduce Mr. Emmanuel Tibbets.”

Dr. Nikos rallied some applause. Bill sat up, craning his neck to see over the table in front of him. This was new.

A large man got up from the head table and walked to the empty podium. Like Dr. Nikos, he was in a tuxedo. But his fit better, every cut and pleat hinting at the chiseled physique underneath. He had dirty blonde hair, cut in a military style, and his features were hard and angular, like a child’s action figure.

“Thank you, Dr. Nikos. I would like everyone in the audience to think about the last time you’ve been up all night. We’ve all experienced the symptoms; being lethargic, grumpy, unable to concentrate or focus. We look, and feel, terrible, and that’s from missing only one night’s sleep. How many of you have been awake for more than twenty-four hours?”

There was a show of hands, over half of the audience.

“How about forty-eight hours?”

Most of the hands dropped.

“And seventy-two hours?”

Only a few remained raised.

“After seventy-two hours, your judgment becomes extremely impaired. You drive with the same skill as someone with a blood alcohol level of zero point two. You’d be constantly falling asleep, taking micro-naps for minutes at a time, without being aware of it—even if staying awake was a matter of life and death.”

Bill could relate. He’d had his share of sleepless nights. Especially in the last year.

“After seventy-two hours without sleep, you begin to hallucinate. You become paranoid, delusional, unable to function. Isn’t it true, Dr. Nikos, that an EEG done on a person without three days of sleep is identical to someone suffering from acute schizophrenia?”

“True, Manny.”

“How was my last EEG?”

“Perfectly normal.”

“I ask the audience, do I seem to be experiencing any symptoms of sleep deprivation? Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been without sleep for seventy-two hours? How about ninety-six hours? A hundred and twenty? Dr. Nikos, do you have the time?”

The doctor made a show of rolling up his sleeve and looking at his watch.

“It just turned nine o’clock.”

“Nine o’clock. Which means I’ve been awake now for nine hundred and eleven straight hours.”

The audience was stunned to silence. After a moment, a single person began to applaud. It snowballed into a roaring ovation. Bill joined in.

Dr. Nikos joined Manny on the stage, eyes twinkling. He patted the larger man on the shoulder, then held out his palm to quell the clapping.

“Manny is part of the final phase of our project, the clinical test subject. Our drug, Nonsomnambulox—N-Som for short, has already passed the Chemistry and Pharmacological reviews of the Food and Drug Administration. Manny has taken one pill every day for the last thirty-eight days, which was the last time he’s had a conventional night of sleep.”

The applause began to build again. Dr. Nikos talked above it.

“The R & D is nearing an end, and pending Medical approval, we’re ready to go into production. Needless to say, what this drug could do for the economy, for the efficiency of the human race, for the quality of life of every person on this planet—it staggers the imagination. We can take some questions.”

Hands went up throughout the room, lawyers and politicians and businessmen; a who’s who of status and influence in the Midwest.

“Is the pill expensive?”

“We plan on introducing N-Som to the market at fifteen dollars a dose. Are eight hours of your life worth fifteen dollars?”

“What about side effects?”

“I’ll let Manny field that one.”

Manny grinned, showing perfect teeth.

“Since taking N-Som, I’ve lost fifteen pounds in fat and gained eight pounds in muscle mass. My immune system and healing abilities have increased dramatically. I also don’t get tired. In fact, three days ago I was on a treadmill for eighteen hours.”

The audience murmured its disbelief. Dr. Nikos beamed.

“We were even more amazed by this than you folks are, but we’ve found a reasonable scientific explanation. N-Som stimulates the pituitary gland, increasing production of human growth hormone. Manny may be the most fit human being on the face of the earth.”

A woman at a far table spoke.

“What about dreams? I, for one, wouldn’t give up my dreams for anything.”

Someone else chimed in. “I love my dreams, too.”

There were many nods of agreement, Bill one of them. On most days his dream life was better than his real one.

“The dreams.” Manny’s eyes got a faraway look, and his smile was beatific. “They’re the most vivid dreams you’ll ever have. Even though they only last a few minutes, they seem to go on for hours. And you remember them, every detail, from beginning to end.”

“And when does the stock go public?”

General laughter. Dr. Nikos joined in.

“That depends on the FDA. And actually, the CDER agent responsible for N-Som’s approval is sitting among us. Bill, please come up here.”

Bill shook off the momentary surprise and was beckoned up to the podium. This was unexpected. Though getting in front of groups was part of his job, he liked to be prepared first.

He walked to the stage and Dr. Nikos shook his hand warmly. Manny offered his hand next; his grip was like slamming your fingers in a car door. Bill disengaged himself and Dr. Nikos put an arm around his shoulders.

“May I introduce Dr. William May, from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. We shall continue to extend our fullest cooperation to the Food and Drug Administration, and I’m sure once our data is examined, N-Som will be judged even safer than aspirin.”

More applause. Bill felt a tad queasy; he wasn’t sure if his stomach was balking at the crème brulee, or if he was afraid he’d be asked to say a few words. Thankfully, Dr. Nikos wrapped up his speech and escorted Bill back to the head table amid a standing ovation.

“Dr. May, let me introduce my daughter, Dr. Theena Boone.”

Dr. Boone was around Bill’s age, in her mid-thirties, dark and shapely. She had a smaller version of her father’s Greek nose and enough hair on her head for several women. The soft black curls rested on her bare shoulders, and the neckline of her dress made eye-contact an effort.

“A pleasure, Dr. May.”

Bill took her hand and responded in kind.

“Please sit, Dr. May.” Dr. Nikos pulled out a chair for Bill. “I have to be social for a little bit.”

Dr. Nikos and Manny blended into the gathering crowd. Bill sat and faced the woman. He’d neatly slid from one uncomfortable situation into another. Small talk wasn’t one of his strengths.

“Your father is an excellent speaker.”

To Theena’s credit, she seemed completely at ease. As if suddenly being forced into conversation with a complete stranger was normal for her.

“He believes all Greeks should be outspoken; the result of seeing Zorba too many times.”

Unlike her father, Theena didn’t have the slightest trace of an accent. Her voice was low, but soft in an undeniably feminine way.

“He does remind me a bit of Anthony Quinn.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that; he’d be insufferable. I’m to understand that you’ll begin your investigation tomorrow?”

Bill nodded. “It’s not an investigation, really. All I do is review your testing and give a preliminary report to the committee.”

“But you have the power to stop the process before it gets to that, correct?”

“Yes.”

She took a sip of wine, leaving the tiniest trace of red lipstick on the glass. The rim had a complete circle of half moons around it, like a deliberate design. Bill thought of his own wine, back at the other table. A nice Merlot would take off the edge.

“I’ve seen Dr. Nikos lecture before, but this was the first time he introduced Manny. It’s incredible.”

“Yes, we’re all terribly excited. Manny especially. This drug has done wonders for him.”

“Was he the first human test subject?”

Theena’s demure expression flickered.

“Actually, no. There was someone else who began the program at the same time as Manny. But there were… complications.”

“Something to do with the drug?”

“No, nothing like that. It was a personal matter. The N-Som worked fine.” Theena smiled. “I hope you aren’t ignoring Mrs. May to be sitting here with me.”

Bill automatically looked at his wedding band.

“She… died last year.”

“I’m so sorry. Was it sudden?”

Bill almost blurted out a yes. He caught himself in time.

“She was sick for a long time.” The image of Kristen, lying in the hospital bed, filled his mind. “And you? Is Mr. Boone off mingling?”

Theena wiggled her large diamond ring. It caught the light and winked.

“Last I heard he was in Texas. I kept the name because anything is preferable to Stefanopolous. So, how does one get a job at the FDA?”

Bill thought about the long, boring version. After completing his studies at the University of Chicago and his internship at Rush-Presbyterian, Bill was undecided between a residency or private practice. He’d known from a young age that he’d be an M.D., but when the day finally came he realized that he enjoyed learning about medicine more than actually practicing it.

Congress made the decision for him. The year was 1992, and they’d just passed PDUFA—the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which authorized the FDA to charge drug sponsors for their services, expediting the approval process. Suddenly CDER, which had been impossible to break into, had hundreds of openings for reviewers. Bill had leapt at the chance.

“I was just in the right place at the right time. How about you? You’re a chemist, right?”

“Actually, I’m a pathologist, like my father. Specializing in neuropathology, of course.”

Bill’s confidence slipped another notch. Beautiful, and a brain surgeon.

“Exciting work?”

Theena laughed, a rich, warm sound.

“I think I’ve developed a permanent squint from looking in the microscope so often. No, it’s not what I would call exciting. But it’s not without rewards, either. What time shall we expect you at DruTech tomorrow?”

“Whenever is convenient.”

“Anytime is fine. Research continues around the clock. Your predecessor preferred to work during the night shift.”

Bill raised an eyebrow. “My predecessor?”

“The prior CDER agent. Did you ever find out what happened to him?” Theena studied Bill’s face. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? He was sent by the FDA last month to review some preliminary research, worked with us for a week, and then left without a word. A Dr. Bitner?”

Bill knew Michael Bitner. They’d golfed on several occasions. He’d have to give him a call, find out what had happened.

“Someone call the police!”

The cry came from the other side of the banquet room, followed by shouts for a doctor. Bill hurried through the crowd, Theena on his heels. The activity was centered around the Men’s Room. Bill had to shove gawkers out of his way to get in.

“I’m a doctor! Give me some room!”

At first, all Bill saw was blood. It took his brain a second to register that under all that blood was Dr. Nikos.

Theena screamed.

Bill knelt down, soaking his pants leg. He automatically reached for the carotid artery, then stopped his hand when he saw the gash in the doctor’s throat, deep enough to expose the esophagus. Dr. Nikos was gone, long beyond anyone’s help.

“Over here! There’s another!”

Bill was ushered over to a second pool of blood. In the center of it was Manny. His tuxedo shirt was shredded, over half a dozen wounds covering his abdomen and chest. A scalpel handle protruded from his sternum.

“Tried… tried to save… da…”

Manny coughed, spitting red. Bill tilted Manny’s face to the side so the blood didn’t run down his throat. His pulse was strong, but when Bill tore off Manny’s shirt he didn’t hold out much hope. The guy looked like a lasagna.

Bill left the scalpel embedded, concerned that removal would cause more bleeding. He enlisted four guys with cloth napkins to keep pressure on Manny’s many wounds. He also put Manny’s feet up on a chair to stave off shock.

The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter, intubing Manny and carting him away.

Bill looked around the room, trying to spot Theena. He went back into the banquet hall, the crowd parting for him when they noticed his bloody clothing. He checked her table, the hotel lobby, and finally the parking lot.

She was gone.

Chapter 1

There were four black and whites already at the 7-11 when I arrived. Several people had gathered in the parking lot behind the yellow police tape, huddling close for protection against the freezing Chicago rain.

They weren’t there for Slurpees.

I parked my 1986 Nova on the street and hung my star around my neck on a cord. The radio was full of chatter about “the lasagna on Monroe and Dearborn” so I knew this was going to be an ugly one. I got out of the car.

It was cold, too cold for October. I wore a three-quarter length London Fog trenchcoat over my blue Armani blazer and a gray skirt. The coat was the only one I had that fit over the blazer’s oversized shoulders, which left my legs exposed to the elements.

Freezing was the curse of the fashion savvy.

Detective First Class Herb Benedict hunched over a plastic tarpaulin, lifting up the side against the wind. His coat was unbuttoned, and his expansive stomach poured over the sides of his belt as he bent down. His hound dog jowls were pink with cold rain, and he scratched at his salt and pepper mustache as I approached.

“Kind of cold for a jacket like that, Jack.”

“But don’t I look good?”

“Sure. Shivering suits you.”

I walked to his side and squatted, peering down at the form under the tarp.

Female. Caucasian. Blonde. Twenties. Naked. Multiple stab wounds, running from her thighs to her shoulders, many of them yawning open like hungry, bloody mouths. The several around her abdomen were deep enough to see inside.

I felt my stomach becoming unhappy and turned my attention to her head. A red lesion ran around her neck, roughly the width of a pencil. Her lips were frozen in a snarl, the bloody rictus stretched wide like one of her stab wounds.

“This was stapled to her chest.” Benedict handed me a plastic evidence baggie. In it was a 3”x5” piece of paper, crinkled edges on one end indicating it had been ripped from a spiral pad. It was spotty with blood and rain, but the writing on it was clear:

#1 YOU CAN’T CATCH ME I’M THE GINGERBREAD MAN

I let the tarp fall and righted myself. Benedict, the mind reader, handed me a cup of coffee that had been sitting on the curb.

“Who found the body?” I asked.

“Customer. Kid named Mike Donovan.”

I took a sip of coffee. It was so hot it hurt. I took another.

“Who took the statement?”

“Robertson.”

Benedict pointed at the store front window to the thin, uniformed figure of Robertson, talking with a teenager.

“Witnesses?”

“Not yet.”

“Who was behind the counter?”

“Owner. Being depoed as we speak. Didn’t see anything.”

I wiped some rain off my face and unbunched my shoulders as I entered the store, trying to look like the authority figure my title suggested.

The heat inside was both welcome and revolting. It warmed me considerably, but went hand in hand with the nauseating smell of hot dogs cooked way too long.

“Robertson.” I nodded at the uniform. “Sorry to hear about your Dad.”

He shrugged. “He was seventy, and we always told him fast food would kill him.”

“Heart attack?”

“He was hit by a Pizza Express truck.”

I searched Robertson’s face for the faintest trace of a smirk, and didn’t find one. Then I turned my attention to Mike Donovan. He was no more than seventeen, brown hair long on top and shaved around the sides, wearing some baggy jeans that would have been big on Herb. Men got all the comfortable clothing trends.

“Mr. Donovan? I’m Lieutenant Daniels. Call me Jack.”

Donovan cocked his head to the side, the way dogs do when they don’t understand a command. Under his left armpit was a magazine with cars on the cover.

“Is your name really Jack Daniels? You’re a woman.”

“Thank you for noticing. I can show you my ID, if you want.”

He wanted, and I slipped the badge case off my neck and opened it up, letting him see my name in official police lettering. Lt. Jack Daniels, CPD. It was short for Jacqueline, but only my mother called me that.

He grinned. “Name like that, I bet you really score.”

I gave him a conspiratorial smirk, even though I hadn’t “scored” in ages.

“Run through it,” I said to Robertson.

“Mr. Donovan entered this establishment at approximately 8:50 PM, where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine…”

Mr. Donovan held out the magazine in question. “It’s their annual leotard issue.” He opened it to a page where two surgically enhanced women in spandex straddled a Corvette.

I gave it a token look-over to keep the kid cooperative. I cared for hot rods about as much as I cared for spandex.

“Where he proceeded to buy the latest copy of Racing Power Magazine.” Robertson eyed Donovan, annoyed at the interruption. “He also bought a Mounds candy bar. At approximately 8:55, Mr. Donovan left the establishment, and proceeded to throw out the candy wrapper in the garbage can in front of the store. In the can was the victim, face down, half covered in garbage.”

I glanced out the storefront window and looked for the garbage can. The crowd was getting larger and the rain was falling faster, but the can was nowhere to be found.

“It went to the lab before you got here, Jack.”

I glanced at Benedict, who’d sneaked up behind me.

“We didn’t want things to get any wetter than they already were. But we’ve got the pictures and the vids.”

My focus swiveled back to the scene outside. The cop with the video camera was now taping the faces in the crowd. Sometimes a nut will return to the scene and watch the action. Or so I’ve read in countless Ed McBain books. I gave the kid my attention again.

“Mr. Donovan, how did you notice the body if it was buried in garbage?”

“I… er, Mounds was having a contest. I forgot to check my wrapper to see if I’d won. So I reached back into the garbage to find it…”

“Did the can have a lid?”

“Yeah. One of those push lids that says THANK YOU on it.”

“So you reached into the push slot…”

“Uh-huh, but I couldn’t find it. So I lifted the whole lid up, and there part of her was.”

“What part?”

“Her, uh, ass was sticking up.”

He gave me a nervous giggle.

“Then what did you do?”

“I couldn’t believe it. It was like, it wasn’t real. So I went back into the 7-11 and told the guy. He called the police.”

“Mr. Donovan, Officer Robertson is going to have to take you into the station to fill out a deposition. Do you need to call your parents?”

“My dad works nights.”

“Mom?”

He shook his head.

“Do you live in the neighborhood?”

“Yeah. A few blocks down on Monroe.”

“Officer Robertson will give you a ride home when you’re done.”

“Do you think I’ll be on the news?”

On cue, a network remote truck pulled into the lot, faster than the crappy weather warranted. The rear doors opened and the obligatory female reporter, perfectly made up and steely with resolve, led her crew towards the store. Benedict walked out to meet them, halting their advancement at the police barricade, giving them the closed crime scene speech.

The Medical Examiner pulled up behind the truck in his familiar Plymouth minivan. Two uniforms waved him through the barricade and I nodded a goodbye to Robertson and went to meet the ME.

The cold was a shock, my calves instant goose flesh. Maxwell Hughes knelt down next to the tarp as I approached. His expression was all business when I caught his eye, drizzle dotting his glasses and dripping down his gray goatee.

“Daniels.”

“Hughes. What do you have?”

“I’d put her death at roughly three to five hours ago. Suffocation. Her windpipe is broken.”

“The stab wounds?”

“Post-mortem. No defense cuts on her hands or arms, and not enough blood lost to have been inflicted while she was alive. See how one edge is rough, the other smooth?” He used a latex-gloved hand to stretch one of the wounds open. “The blade had a serrated edge. Maybe a hunting knife.”

“Raped?”

“Not from what I can tell. No signs of semen. No visible trauma to the vagina or anus. But this isn’t an autopsy.” Max was fond of adding that final caveat, though I’d yet to see an instance when the coroner didn’t corroborate every one of his observations.

“The mouth?”

“No apparent damage. Tongue intact, protruding slightly. Consistent with strangulation. No bite marks. The blood in the mouth seeped up through her throat after she died. That coincides with the pooling of blood in her face. She was stored upside down.”

“She was found face-first in a garbage can.”

Hughes made his mouth into a tight thin line, and then reached into his pocket for a clean handkerchief to wipe the rain from his glasses. By the time he tucked it away, the glasses were wet again.

“Looks like you’ve got a real psycho here.”

“We’ll need the report on this one right away, Max.”

He opened up the yellow plastic tackle box that housed the tools of his trade and began bagging the corpse’s hands. I left him to his work.

More cops and newsies and gawkers arrived, and the carnival atmosphere of an important murder got into full swing. It would offend me if I hadn’t seen it so many times.

Benedict finished his impromptu statement for the media and began selecting uniforms for the door-to-door witness search. I went to pitch in. It boosted morale for the men to see their Lieut pounding pavement with them, especially since it was probably futile in this instance.

The killer had dumped a body in a public place, where it was sure to be found. But he’d done it without attracting any attention.

I had a feeling this was only the beginning.

Chapter 2

Morning. The stale sweat that clung to me and the sour taste of old coffee grounds were constant reminders that I hadn’t slept yet.

As if I needed reminders. I have chronic insomnia. My last sound sleep was sometime during the Reagan Administration, and it shows. At forty-six my auburn hair is streaked with gray that grows faster than I can dye it, the lines on my face shout age rather than character, and even two bottles of Visine a month couldn’t get all the red out.

But the lack of sleep has made me pretty damn productive.

Spread out before me on my cluttered desk, a dead woman’s life had been reduced to a collection of files and reports. I was combining all the information into a report of my own. It read like a test, with none of the blanks filled in.

Twelve hours had passed and we still didn’t know the victim’s name.

No prints or hairs or fibers on the body. No skin under the fingernails. Nothing solid in the door-to-door reports. But this lack of evidence was evidence in itself. The perp had been extremely careful.

The victim wasn’t sexually assaulted, and death had resulted from suffocation induced by a broken windpipe, as Max had guessed. The lesion around her neck was six millimeters thick. It didn’t leave fibers, which would indicate rope, and didn’t bite into the skin, which would imply a thin wire. The coroner suggested an electrical cord as a possible weapon.

Ligature marks around her wrists and ankles bore traces of twine. Staking out every store in Illinois that sold twine wasn’t too clever an idea, though it was mentioned.

The stab wounds were post-mortem and made by a thick bladed knife with a serrated back. There were twenty-seven wounds in all, of varying depth and size.

We were unable to pull any fingerprints from the garbage can Jane Doe was found in. Even Mike Donovan’s prints had been washed away by the rain. The contents of the can were an average assortment of convenience store garbage, except for one major item.

Mixed in with the wrappers and cups was a five-inch gingerbread man cookie. It was heavily varnished, like an old loaf of lacquered French bread that gourmet restaurants use for decoration. An elite task force of two people was assigned to Chicago’s hundred-plus bakeries to try and get a match. If they failed, there were an equal number of supermarkets that sold baked goods. Double that figure to include the neighboring suburbs. A huge job, all for nothing if it was homemade.

If this wasn’t such a somber situation, the image of two detectives flashing around the picture of gingerbread man and asking, “Have you seen him?” would be a pretty funny image.

I took another sip of some coffee that the Gestapo could have used for difficult interrogations and felt it bleed into my stomach, which didn’t approve. The caffeine surging through my veins left me nauseous and jittery. I gave my temples ten seconds of intense finger massage, and then went back to my report.

She was killed roughly three hours before Donovan discovered her body at 8:55. Depending on how much time the perp spent with her corpse, he could have killed her anywhere within a hundred mile-radius. That narrowed it down to about four million people. Take out women, children, the elderly, everyone with a solid alibi, and the twenty percent of the population who were left- handed, and I figured we had only about seven hundred thousand suspects left.

So we were making progress.

Pressure from the Mayor’s Office forced us to involve the Feebies. They were sending up two agents from Quantico, special operatives in the Behavioral Science Unit. Captain Bains played up the technical end, extolling the virtues of their nationwide crime web, which would be able to match this murder up with similar ones from around the country. But in reality he disliked the Feds as much as I did.

Cops were fiercely territorial about their jurisdictions, and hated to have them trampled on. Especially by bureaucratic robots who were more concerned with procedure than results.

I went for another sip of coffee, but it was mercifully empty.

Maybe one of the leads would pan out. Maybe someone would identify the Jane Doe. Maybe the Feds and their super crime- busting computer would solve the case moments after they arrived.

But a feeling in my gut that wasn’t entirely coffee-related told me that before we made any real progress, the Gingerbread Man would kill again.

He’d done too much planning to make this a one-time-only event.

Herb walked into my office, carrying an aromatic cup of hot Dunkin' Donuts coffee, a dark roast by the smell of it. But the way he poured it greedily down his throat made it apparent he hadn’t brought it for me.

“Got the serum tests.” He dropped a report on my desk. “Traces of sodium secobarbital found in her urine.”

“Seconal?”

“You’ve heard of it?”

I nodded. I’d researched every insomnia remedy going back to Moses. “I’ve read about it. Went out of vogue when Valium came around, which went out of vogue with Halcion and Dalmane.”

I hadn’t ever tried Seconal, but had given the others a shot. The depression they caused was worse than the sleepless nights. My doctor had offered to prescribe Prozac to combat the depression, but I didn’t want to go down that slippery slope.

“Needle puncture on the upper arm was the entry point. Coroner said two ccs would put a hundred-and-fifty pound person under in just a few seconds.”

“Is Seconal prescribed anymore?”

“Not much. But we caught a break. Only hospital pharmacies carry injectionals. Because it’s a Control 3 class drug, every order has to be sent to the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. I got a list of all recent orders. Only a dozen or so.”

“Also check for thefts from hospitals and manufacturers.”

Benedict nodded, finishing his coffee. “You look like a bowl of crap, Jack.”

“That’s the poet in you, fighting to get out.”

“You keep pulling all-nighters and Don is going to hit the bricks.”

Don. I’d forgotten to call him and tell him I was staying late. Hopefully he’d forgive me. Again.

“Why don’t you go home, get some rest.”

“Not a bad plan, if I could.”

My partner frowned. “Then go spend some time with your gentleman friend. Bernice is constantly on me about working too much, and you’re here twenty hours a week more than I am. I don’t see how Don puts up with it.”

I met Don in a YMCA kickboxing class about a year ago. The instructor paired us up for sparring. I knocked him down with a snap-punch, and he asked me out. After six months of dating, Don’s apartment lease ran out, and I invited him to move in-- a bold move for a commitaphobe like me.

Don was the polar-opposite of me in the looks department; blonde, tan, with deep blue eyes and thick lips that I would kill for. I took after my mother. Not only were we both five feet, six inches tall, with dark brown eyes, dark hair, and high cheekbones, but she was a retired Chicago cop.

When I was twelve, my mother taught me the two skills essential to my adult life; how to use a liner pencil to make my thin lips look fuller, and how group my shots from forty-feet away with a .38.

Unfortunately, Mom relayed very little information when it came to the care and feeding of a boyfriend.

“Don goes out a lot,” I admitted. “I haven’t seen him in a couple of days.”

I closed my eyes, fatigue working slender fingers through my hair and down my back. Maybe going home would be a good idea.

I could pick up some wine, take Don out to a nice lunch. We could try to openly communicate and work out the problems we’d been avoiding. Maybe I’d even score, as Mike Donovan had put it.

“Fine.” My eyes snapped open, and I felt a surge of enthusiasm. “I’m going. You’ll call if anything shakes loose?”

“Of course. When do the Feebies show?”

“Tomorrow, noonish. I’ll be here.”

We nodded our good-byes, and I stretched my cramped body out of my chair and went to go make a sincere effort with the man I was living with.

After all, the day could only get better.

Or so I thought.

Copyright © 2010 Joe Konrath

Cover copyright © Carl Graves

Photo copyright © 2009 Mike Konrath

The cover model is Lara of St. Petersburg

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Joe Konrath.

Edition: March 2010