B.R. Stateham's Blog, page 14

Drunk On The Moon Lives, Baby!

Roman Dalton.

Werewolf.  Ex-cop.  A really nice guy!

A few months back an English bloke I know by the name of Paul Brazill asked me if I'd be one of the original writers who would like to take a crack at writing a story about the good Mister Dalton.  His (Paul's) idea was to create and partially flesh out an interesting character (Roman) and then allow other writers to color in the rest of the man's personality.

As Spock would say on Star Trek; "Fascinating."

So I did.  Wrote a story called, 'Insatiable.'

A gruesome little story about one werewolf meeting another, and not so likable, werewolf.  Apparently a few people  actually liked it.

Roman Dalton still lives.  Paul has gone on to ask more authors to participate in this experiment.  I mean some really, truly, awesome writers who know their craft forwards and backwards.  It has become something of an international success.  American and European writers have pitched in their versions of R. Dalton--and every damn story has been, as the British say, 'spot on.' 

A new collection of stories is out.  So I thought I'd ask him to Paul make a serious pitch about the new anthology.

And by the way, if you don't know Paul Brazill the writer, you should really make an effort to discover him.  A good man and a very good writer.  A writer who doesn't write the usual generic blend of tiresome dregs found in genre writing.  It's dark, surprising, mean sometimes (in a good way), and fresh.  And the endings are never what you expect them to be.  Just the kind of stuff I like.

So here he is.  Talking about his creation, Roman Dalton.  Enjoy.


Guest Blog: Roman Dalton Howls Again by Paul D. Brazill.


Roman Dalton is a full time private eye and part time werewolf who prowls The City’s blood and neon soaked streets when the moon is full.


A few years ago, there was a buzz across the internet about Dark Valentine magazine, a cool and beautifully designed pulp mag that would feature horror, noir, fantasy — stories of all genres — as well as cross-genre stories. I knew of some of the people involved and thought that this would be a pretty classy joint indeed.


And I wanted in.


And this is where the confluence comes in.


For a while, I’d been thinking that the Tom Waits’ song “Drunk on the Moon” would make a great title for a werewolf story — Tom Waits was in the film Wolfen, and his gravelly voice could easily be that of a werewolf. Made sense to me …


And then I thought that, maybe I could raise the stakes even higher and write a werewolf noir…


Hmmmm.


And then, somewhere along the way, I wondered if some of my favourite dark fiction writers would like to dip a toe into Roman Dalton’s world.. Crime writers. Horror writers. Thriller writers.


B R Stateham, Richard Godwin, K A Laity, Katherine Tomlinson, Allan Leverone, Julia Madeleine, Frank Duffy, Jason Michel, John Donald Carlucci.


And the result was Drunk On The Moon – A Roman Dalton Anthology, published as an eBook and in paperback by Dark Valentine Press.


http://www.amazon.com/Drunk-on-the-Moon-ebook/dp/B007X45BUA


Here’s the book trailer, with music by Peter Ord.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75bOQjm6p-c





So what has Roman Dalton been up to lately?


Well, he has a Facebook fan page.


http://www.facebook.com/#!/RomanDaltonPI





A blog.


http://romandalton.wordpress.com/





A Twitter account.


https://twitter.com/RomanDalton1





And a Roman Dalton story- The Brain Salad Murders- recently appeared online at Jeanette Cheezum’s Cavalcade Of Stars.


http://cavalcadeofstars.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/paul-brazill/


And more.


K A Laity’s Weird Noir anthology has just been published and it includes a story called Black Moon Rising, which gives us a bit more of Roman’s cronies Duffy and Ivan Walker’s back story.


http://www.foxspirit.co.uk/?page_id=85


And up next?


Well, the first Drunk On The Moon short story has been translated into Polish and will be published soooon! And more translations are waiting in the wings.


And there’s a second anthology on the cards , too, with stories from Matt Hilton, Vincent Zandri, J J Toner and more…


So, Roman Dalton is still howling! Why not join The Pack?


Paul D. Brazill


http://pauldbrazill.wordpress.com/

Social Media Translating into Writing Success

Rough Draft for new Turner Hahn/Frank Morales book cover.Hmmmm . . . .

Been thinking about this lately.  Ever since this blog hit the 1,000 pages-per-month mark recently.

Been thinking about blogging/social media participation and its translation over in contributing any form of success to a writer's sales/familiarity to the reading public.

To be honest, I don't think there is any.  At least, not for me.

The reason I think this goes something like this;  for months now this blog has been in the 800-900 page views per month level.  About a month go it leapt up to the 1,200 per view mark.  Additionally, on various other social network sites I'm hitting the 1,000 mark in 'friends' categories.  Sure, I know; not really large numbers compared to a lot of other writers.  Not even close.  But . . .

In a way it IS a set of large numbers.  There's something like a ripple-effect when contemplating this concept.  Who you know ripples across those who have 'friended' with you.  Say you have accumulated 500 friends/fans on the various social network sites.  And each one of those know at least 500 hardy souls.  The original 500 you know keep an active interest in your comments and on the 'stuff' you write  They make comments on THEIR pages which is seen by THEIR FRIENDS (all 500 of them).  In turn . . . well, you get the picture.

I'm not a mathematician. And you sure as hell don't want to hire me as your tax preparer! 
But I'm thinking that, theoretically, the math should go 500 x 500 x 500 . . . . all the way to the 500th name!

Krikies!  That's a number with a bazillion, gazillion zeros behind it!

You would think . . . and I know that is a dangerous proposition for a lot of us, including me . . . that out of that large number maybe 1% would find your writing interesting.  Just 1%.  That's STILL is a huge number!  And if that 1% purchased  some of your works you'd be considered a very successful writer.

It doesn't work that way,  Don Corleone.  Why it doesn't I can only conjecture.

Now . . . for the doppelganger effect.  And there is one (I think).

Somehow, someway, you become a successful writer through the traditional channels.  You sell books and a lot of them.  Suddenly this social media network you've built up begins to pay off.  Your active on your social media networks.  Instantly people recognize your name and what you write.   MORE books are bought because you're ALREADY well know and you are OUT THERE in the social media!  Fans can actually TALK  to you!  Yowser!

 . . . admittedly this doppelganger effect is a theory of mine.  I have no tangible proof, amigo.  Just a working theory.  If you've got some other ideas . . . or evidence to prove or disprove my theory . . . I would be very eager to hear it.

For now, however,  I've got to figure out how to sell my damn stuff to a large enough audience.  That little pickle is also open for discussion.  Got any ideas?

A 'Bonus' Smitty today

Thought I'd share one more Smitty story today.  Maybe the last one to come for a while.  Hell!  I need to write some first!

If you're familiar with Smitty who know he wasn't always a killer.  So what got him started?  Wouldn't it be curious to read about his very first professional 'hit?'

I thought so.  So I wrote and entitled it, 'First Kill.'

And remember me talking, in the last post, about surprise endings?  Uh huh . . . well . . .

The story (you'll have to go over to the right and get both collections of Smitty stories to fill in the gaps) begins only hours after the incident which made a guy once called Johnny turn into a creature called Smitty.  You'll find that story--about Johnny turning into Smitty--in a story called, "There is No Johnny.  Just call me Smitty."  (you can find it in  Volume One of the series here)

So here's 'First Kill.'  Hope you like it.



First Kill
 
            He was the only customer in the bar.
            Just him and a kid for a bar tender.
            Sitting in a both in the far corner, back against the wall, a cold glass of beer sitting on the table in front of him.  As he sat staring at the glass huge beads of condensation slowly slid down the dirty glass in some kind of hypnotic trance.  Just him and the kid.  No jukebox playing.  No radio blaring.  The silence of this man-made tomb broken gently by the soft hiss of  city traffic moving back and fourth on the city street outside.
            The kid was humped over the bar resting his head on a propped elbow, working today's crossword puzzle in the New York Times.  He looked bored.  He looked too young to be working in a bar.  Especially this kind of bar.
            Reaching for his beer a thin snarl of a smile played across the lips of the dark eyed man.  The place was exactly the same as it was the first time he saw it.  Nothing had changed.  Even the three-tiered rack of booze behind the kid looked exactly the same.  To the right of the bar was a dark, urine stained hallway leading back to the restrooms.  From his booth he could see the same smashed in indention in the far wall where some drunk, ten years ago, got angry and threw a punch at him in a drunken stupor.
            Nothing had changed.
            Nothing.
            Except . . . maybe.  Him.
            Ten years ago today he began his current career. Contracted out his first kill.   Sitting in this very booth.  Ten years ago today . . .
****
            He was sitting in a bar. Some bar he stumbled into after dumping his wife off at the railroad tracks.  After . . . after.
            Grabbing the glass of beer sitting on the table in front of him he tossed the liquid down with one gulp and glanced at the black man standing behind the bar.  The man nodded and turned to reach for another glass.
            His guts rolled.  His hands shook.  He could hardly breathe.  He had almost done it.  Almost slapped a fresh clip into his .45.  Almost blew her brains out.  The bitch.  The whore.  All these years.  All these years!
            Playing him like a patsy.  Yet really in love with his twin brother.  The two of them.  Screwing behind his back.  Taking money out of their joint back account.    Laughing at him all this time.
            Just by chance he discovered their little game.  On the spur of the moment standing in front of bank teller and asking her to write down how much money was in the bank account.  When the girl slid the paper with the amount written on it with a clean, feminine hand, he almost blacked out.  Almost retched.
            Thirty thousand dollars!  Gone.
            Gone!
            Driving home in filled with a furious, black anger, he found them.  Found them on the living room divan.  Screwing each other.  Like rats.  Like hyenas.
Something happened to him.  Something died.  Snapped like a twig.  Disconnected.  He wasn't furious any more.  He wasn't angry.  Well . . . not the type of anger he was used to.  He was cold.  His mind was sharp.  Clear.  Like a  frigid, cloudless Artic morning.  Colors were bright.  Almost glowing in their brilliance.  His hearing somehow became more acute.  Standing on the lawn, watching the two rut like feral pigs on the living room divan, he could actually hear them.  Hear them giggling.  Hear them whispering to each other.  Hear the lovemaking.
            It was if he was standing on the lawn watching his brother and wife . . . yet . . . somehow . . . he was watching himself standing on the lawn watching the two making love. Feeling the sun on the back of his neck.  Idly aware that behind him his neighbor was standing on the drive with a lawn hose in his hand, puffing on a cigarette as he watered the green grass.
            But he it was him watching himself.  Yet . . . strangely . . . it was not him.  It was someone else.  Someone different.
            Someone who wanted to be called Smitty for the rest of his life.
He almost killed them.  Came within a fraction of an inch of killing his brother with a tire iron.  Dragged his wife into the car and drove out to some desolate, abandoned railroad track and put a gun to her head.  Pulled the trigger twice on the  .45 caliber Colt.
            Both time the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
            For some reason . . . some reason he couldn't fathom . . . he didn't slap in an ammo clip into the handle of the gun.  Made sure he didn't jack a round into the firing chamber.
            Why?  Why?
****
            Glancing up his eyes fell on the plate glass door of the bar's entrance.  She came in through the door like a sudden gust of wind.  Came in dressed in a blue summer dress with a red leather belt around her narrow waist.  Sandy blond hair wind blown.  A tanned goddess of stunning beauty.  Looking remarkably like his wife.
            Yet a woman with fear clearly written all over her.
            Yes.  He remembered.  His first contract.  His first kill.
            She hurried into the bar, glanced at him sitting in the very same booth he was sitting now, and then turned her attention toward the bar tender.  His was an older man back then.  Bald man.  Black as coal with startling white teeth.  Named Val.  Val Arthur.  Knew everyone in this town.  Or, at least, knew everyone who worked on the other side of the tracks.  Worked their trade in the night and hidden from the prying eyes of the cops.
            That's why she was here.  To talk to Val.  She wanted to hire someone.  Someone only Val would know.  Someone with a specialty.
            She hurried to the bar and leapt onto a barstool with one knee and leaned over close to Val's ear.  Val hadn't even looked up when she came hurrying into the place.  Standing at the bar drying shot glasses, towel in hand, he leaned an ear closer to the beautiful woman's lips but kept drying the shot glass in his hands.
            "Did you find him?  Did you find out how much he wants?"
            "I found'em," the bar tender nodded, his voice a soft Jamaican accent. "He not in'trested."
            "But . . . but he has to be!  I mean . . . I mean, if he doesn't help me who will?"
            "No can help you, missy.   He says he don't know you from Adam.  Won't touch your money."
            She looked devastated.  Crushed.  Her eyes tearing up and threatening to spill over.  Pale as a fresh wrappings of a newly entombed mummy.  She slumped down on the barstool and stared off into the distance.  Val, the bartender, glanced up once at her and then down at the towel he was using to dry the shot glasses.  And then glanced toward the small figure sitting alone in the booth.
            "Maybe he help you," he said the woman nodding his head toward the dark eyed man. "He got the look.   Bad man, missy.  Bad man."
            "You know him?" she whispered, leaning toward Val but unwilling to glance toward the man in the booth.
            "Nope.  Don't know'em.  But know his type.   He either a cop or a killer.  Can't say which.  But maybe he's your only chance.  Won't hurt to talk to'em.”
            She looked at Val for a moment, frowning, then turned to stare at the man sitting in the booth.  Not a large man.  Not a small man.  With high cheek bones.  A thin, straight nose.  Dark brown hair.  His hands were almost delicate looking.  But he didn't look delicate.  The way he sat in the booth . . . the way both hands wrapped around the tall glass of beer . . . and those black, black eyes.
            Biting her lower lips, worry written all over her face, she glanced at Val again and then slid off the barstool.  Hesitantly she took a step toward the silent man.  What was she going to say to him?  How was she going to say it?  Should she tell me her real name?         What if . . .
            That's when cold black eyes came off the table and looked straight at her.  Like the eyes of a King Cobra staring directly at his next meal.
            "Good evening, Mrs. Sloan.  Care to join me?"
            The man's voice . . . a faint, soft whisper . . . like Death itself . . . physically made her jump back.  Color drained from her face.  She felt faint.  Her heart seemed to be beating so fast she was afraid it was going to explode.
            "You . . . you know me?"
            A faint, cruel smile played across gray lips.  And the eyes . . . the eyes so black.   So bright.  So intent.
            "A famous actress marries the richest man in the city.   A man many believe owns most of everything in the state.  I doubt anyone in the city doesn't know you by now.  Please.  Come sit down.  Let me buy a drink.  Tell me what is bothering you."
            She hesitated.  Something in her told her to turn and run.  Run as far away from this strange man as she could.  Yet those eyes . . . those eyes . . . pulled her to the booth and compelled her to slide into the seat directly opposite of him.  Hands worked furiously on the table in front of her.  She found it difficult to breathe.  To speak.
            "You . . . you see, I . . . I think my husband is in trouble.  Terrible danger.  I . . . I think there is someone trying to kill him!"
            The dark eyed man remained silent.  Black eyes played across the woman's face in front of him.  Played across her soft, white hands.  She was nervous.  She was terrified.  Terrified at whatever it was which made her believe her husband was in danger.              Terrified at sitting in this booth with him.
            Terrified.
            "Take a deep breath, Mrs. Sloan.  Start from the beginning.  Tell me everything," the dark eyed man whispered softly.
            And she did.
            Told him an intricate, deadly story.
            Everything.
            Someone was blackmailing her husband.  Was threatening to harm her husband's two young daughters from his first marriage if he didn't pay the three hundred thousand promised to him.  Two years ago his first wife died of cancer.  Or so what was said in the papers.  For two years he was the only parent of two beautiful young daughters, ages eight and six.  Devoted to them.
            As the current Mrs. Sloan said she was.  Devoted to them.  To her husband.  To the children.  That's why she was so terrified.  The man blackmailing her husband was dangerous looking.  She overheard her husband and this man one night in her husband's study.  Heard his accusations.  Heard what he would do the children if the money wasn't paid.
            In the end, when she fell silent and stared down at her hands like a young, frightened gazelle, fear gripping her soul, he knew what to do.
            "I'll take care of it.  I promise.  Go home now.  Go back to your husband.  To the children.  Nothing is going to happen to them, Mrs. Sloan.  Nothing."
            His first kill.  His first hit.
            Turned out to be quite simple.  One night, sitting in an old pick up truck he had politely 'borrowed' from a kid, he sat underneath a large oak tree on the street leading down to the palatial estate of Barnabas Sloan.  A few questions.  A few inquiries and he found out who the blackmailer was.
            Mrs. Sloan was quite correct.  The man was a very bad man.  A killer in fact who killed both for the money and for the pleasure of it.  A man who didn't deserve to live.  So he planned the hit.  Waited patiently for the right moment.  Knew from the beginning it would be successful.  Even felt a growing sense of excitement as the time approached.
One night the killer visited Barnabas Sloan's home.  In the early morning hours when the neighbors and servants would be asleep.  It was payday for him.  Sloan had given into his demands.  Given in yet knowing in doing so he was trapped.  The man would be back.  Again and again.  Demanding money.
            When the dark eyed man saw the lights of the killer's automobile pull out of the gates of the Sloan estates he turned on the lights to the pickup and pulled out into the middle of the street and stopped.  Getting out of the truck, leaving the door open,  he walked to the front of the truck and lifted the hood just as the killer's big Ford SUV rolled to a halt behind the truck.
            "Hey, get that piece of shit out of the way! I'm in a hurry!"
            "Fuck you, old man!  I've got troubles of my own!" Smitty yelled back from underneath the hood of the truck and sounding exactly like a teenager who had been drinking too much.
            What happened next was precisely what Smitty anticipated.  The killer, whom his contacts informed him had a blazing hot temper, came out of his Ford SUV in a flash.  Slamming the door closed the big man strode toward the kid underneath the hood of the pickup, rolling hands into fists in the process.  He was going to teach the fucking loud mouth kid a lesson!  He was . . . . !
            The 'kid' stepped away from the grill of the pickup.  In the darkness of the early morning hour the killer thought he saw something big and bulky in the kid's hand.  He heard a 'Puffft!'  Felt a sharp stinging sensation in the thigh of his left leg.  Looking down he saw the bulky looking syringe of a tranquilizer jutting out of his leg as he took one more step.
            "Why you sonofa . . . . . "
            That was it.  That was the man's last words.
            With a hard thump the man fell first into the pavement of the street.  Dead before his face hit the asphalt.  Lowering the dart gun Smitty eyed the form lying on the street between the SUV and the pickup for a moment before removing the syringe from the dead man's leg.  Gently closing the hood of the old pickup, Smitty threw the dart gun into the front seat of the truck and then quietly walked back to the dead man's SUV.
            In the passenger side's wide bucket seat was a plain looking athletic canvas bag.  A heavy one.  Three hundred thousand dollars heavy.  Not touching anything in the SUV Smitty reached over and retrieved the bag and walked back to the pickup truck.  Climbing in he started the old engine up and drove away.
            The next day the papers had a huge headline proclaiming the death of a known criminal who apparently died of a massive coronary in the early hours of the morning.  Died in the street only a few hundred yards away from the gated estate of Barnabas Sloan.
            His first kill . . . .
****
            Years had come and gone since then.  Years and death.  How many bodies?  How many hits?  Too many.  Too many.  Reaching for the beer in front of him paused when the kid behind the bar shook his head, grunted, and stood up.
            "It's hard to believe, ain't it?  I mean . . . Barnabas Sloan dead.  First his wife dies.  Then he remarries that bitch of a new wife.  And then his two daughters die in that fire.  Now he's dead.  He's dead and that bitch inherits all those millions.  She fooled us all, fella.  Fooled us all. There ain't no justice in the world.  No justice!"
            The dark eyed man slid out of the booth, turned, rolled two twenty dollar bills onto the table, turned again, and started walking.  Moving past the young bartender he said nothing as he walked out and into the bright light of a late afternoon.  Glancing to his left and then to his right, black eyes surveying the street casually, he moves to the rear of his black CTS Cadillac.  Unlocking the rear lid of the car he lifts it up and looks down.
She stares up at him with terror filled eyes.  Gray duct tape covering her lips.  Her arms and feet secured tightly with layers of gray tape.  Her beautiful sandy blond hair in a rumpled mess.  For a moment or two he stares down at her silently.  And then, with a finality he should have done ten years ago,  he lowers the lid and closes it tightly.
            Yes, Mrs. Sloane.  You fooled us all.
            If he had been better at it, if he had taken the time to do a little more research,  the children of Barnabas Sloan and Sloan himself would still be alive today.  Too late to save them now, pilgrim.  Too late. 
            But Justice could be served today.  Belatedly . . .
 

The surprising endings, Edward

The surprising ending.  That 'kick' at the end of the story you as the reader may be kinda hoping comes along but maybe not fully expecting it to arrive.

But when it does . . . Oh, Mama!

To be honest I think these kind of endings are more important in the venue of short-story writing than in the longer venues.  Oh sure, we want our fill of surprises and discoveries when we're reading a novel.  But those come a few pages from the end of the novel---not at the very end where they seem to happen in a short-story.

And somehow (at least, for me)  when the come at the end of a short-story they are both far more surprising and far more satisfying.

So as a writer do you consciously plan for them?  Plot them out to the final period; the final sentence?  Or do you begin the story and somewhere in the middle of it suddenly have a spontaneous revelation on how the story is going to end.

(Raising my hand sheepishly and grinning like a rube)  That's me, brother.  No planning.  Just begin writing the damn thing and hope for the best.  You may have already guess, from reading perhaps some earlier posts of mine,  I'm not too big on outlining or forethought when it comes to writing a story.  My my motto is:  Just write the damn story.  It'll come to you!   So I start and fill in the blanks as I go along.

But you have to do what fits the bill for you.  The first rule (and the only one you really need to keep in mind) is this one. 

 (1).  Write the story which feels most comfortable for you and forget whatever the hell anyone else has said about it.

Just to show you what I mean I present to you an older Smitty story I wrote about a year and a half ago (I think.  Linear time is not all that important to me.  I know I wrote it after I turned 60 and before I turned 63.  So it's been one . . . two . . . years ago.  Maybe.  I think).  Anyway . . . read it and tell me if you think the end had enough of a surprise to it;  a surprise you were not necessarily expecting.


Competent Hands
 
             “Listen, that sonofabitch killed my father.  So I want you to kill him.”
            “You think Ellery killed your father.  Why?”
            “Why?  Why?  Because he wants to take over.  He wants to be the head of the family.  Three hundred million a year is a nice round figure.  More than enough reasons to want to be the capo de capo.”
            “But I thought your father died of natural causes.  A heart attack, wasn’t it?”
            “There was no damn heart attack,” Daniel Venelli growled, pulling the cigar from his mouth and shaking his head. “Dad’s ticker was strong.  He was as strong as an Ox.  Took care of himself.  Had regular check ups.  No, this was murder.  And Ellery was the one who ordered the hit.”
            Daniel Venelli was the oldest of the two Venelli brothers.  Ellery was the youngest.  Both men carbon copies of their father.  Small framed.  Smartly dressed. Athletic.  All three as hard as tempered steel and as ruthless as a Great White.
            Sitting in the stretched Daniel’s stretched limo, with the car parked at the curb of the only paved street which wound its way through a hilly, tree filled manicured cemetery, the man with the black eyes sitting alone in backward facing seat looked first at Daniel Venelli and then at the small man sitting beside Daniel.  There was, in the facial construction of the smaller man, a definite family resemblance to the Venelli clan.  The same jaw line.  The same compactness of the body frame.  The same structure in the eyes.
            Gilbert Venelli was the man’s name.  A cousin to Daniel and Ellery.  A very quiet, very shy man.  But he wasn’t either Daniel or Ellery when it came to being outright ruthless.  The brothers—like their father—could be ruthless.  They’d kill with a tire iron just as easily as they could with a gun.  And possibly enjoy it more with the tire iron.
Gilbert was different.  He was quite.  Contemplative.  Intelligent.
            And for years working as Daniel’s right hand man in the organization.  A loyal soldier through and through.
            “I want you to kill my brother.  Today, Smitty.  Half a million dollars is yours if you can get it down before sundown tonight.”
            Smitty’s black viper eyes looked directly into the face of Daniel Venelli for a moment and then he nodded.  Opening the door of the limo he rolled out of the car and walked away . . . walked toward the gathering dignitaries for the funeral of Tomas Venelli.  The father.
            It was a crisp autumn morning.  The trees filling the cemetery were ablaze in outrageously bright colors of Fall.  A sharp, cold light breeze, filled with the promise of a wet, snow packed winter, nipped at the ears of both men and women somberly dressed in black as the stood huddling in a pack and waiting for the funeral to begin.  He too was dressed in black.  A tailored black suit of silk covered a slim, hard frame of bone and muscle.
            And eyes as black as sin took.
            Turning, hearing the soft whisper of footsteps across the lawn, he watched the figure of Ellery Venelli, followed by his assorted goons and sycophants, approach.
            “What did my brother want, Smitty?”
            “Nothing.  Nothing important,” the dark eyed man said, smiling. “Said with your father’s death there was going to be a period of adjustment everyone had to endure.”
            Ellery Venelli, an exact replica of his brother, nodded and turned to glare at the limo setting at the curb.
            “Who you loyal to, Smitty?  Me or my brother?”
            “Loyalty? Why would you ask, Ellery.  You know what I am loyal to.”
            A vicious, hard grin stretched the thin gray lips of the younger brother as a grunt of humor came up out of the man’s diaphragm.
            “Money.  The only thing you’re loyal to.  Money.  I like that, Smitty.  I like that.  So I have a proposition for you.  A quarter of a million in cash—clean and untraceable—is yours if you’ll kill Daniel for me.  Today.  As soon as you can after the funeral.”
            “Kill Daniel?  Why would I want to do that?”
            “Because that sonofabitch killed Dad.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know the method he used.  I don’t know who he hired to do it.  But he killed him.  So I want you to kill Daniel and I’m willing to pay for it.”
            Smitty gazed into the eyes of the younger brother, then glanced toward the limo encasing Daniel Venelli, before returning his gaze back to Ellery.  With a quiet, gentle nod toward Ellery, Smitty turned and made his way toward the grave site of Tomas Venelli.
            The ceremony was a quiet affair of Catholic fanfare.  The attending mourners . . . a broad spectrum of the family’s henchmen, corrupt judges and politicians, sprinkled with a few dignitaries from the city’s police force . . . sat in compact rows underneath a green canopy.  Smitty, standing at the back of the canopy, watched and listened.  With hands folded in front of him he made no sign of recognition when he felt and heard the presence of Gilbert Venelli step up beside him.
            David and Ellery Venelli sat at the head of the gathering, heads bowed and respectful as the Priest worked his clerical magic on the crowd.  Diligently they marched past the casket.  Each laid a rose on the casket and then moved away.  Dutifully they shook hands with everyone who approached and offered them condolences. But neither brother said a word to each other through the ordeal.  And when the moment came they separated and moved away from each other quickly.
            Smitty watched.  Watched and waited. 
            Black eyes watched as Daniel Venelli and his entourage hurried toward their limos and piled in.  Stretched limos, two of them, pulled away from the curb and started moving down the winding lane and away from the mass of parked cars.
            And then a strange thing happened.
            The limo in front, the one carrying Daniel Venelli, suddenly shuttered, clipped a Ford Crown Victoria setting at a curb, jumped the cement curb and then plowed grill-first into a massive oak tree.  The limo’s horn began blaring and wouldn’t stop.  Several women screamed in terror and a number of men began running toward the limo in an effort to pull Daniel and his hoods from the damage vehicle.
            Ellery Venelli, watching incredulously as he stood beside his limo with a hand on the rear door, watched his brother’s car crash into the oak tree.  A frown played across his lips as he turned and looked for Smitty standing in the crowd.  But he did not stand around for long.  His bodyguards opened the door and shoved their man into the backseat unceremoniously and then leapt in themselves.  With a squealing of tires the black Caddy roared past the line of parked cars, past the smashed Mercedes of Daniel Venelli, and started screaming down the wide open cement ribbon of the road and for the cemetery’ main gate.
            It never made it.
            Almost to the cemetery’s big gate the car exploded.  Exploded in a thunderous roar of noise and flying debris, hurling the car ten feet into the air before crashing onto the thick manicured grass and onto its shredded roof in a bright funeral pyre of roaring flame.
            And through all of this, as people screamed and fled in panic in every direction, neither Smitty nor Gilbert Venelli moved a muscle.  But, eventually—when the immediate area around the two men was barren of any living soul, Smitty slipped a hand into his suit coat and walked down the aisle between the empty chairs underneath the canvas canopy and toward the open grave of the father.  From his coat he withdrew three black roses.  One at a time, solemnly, he tossed each one down onto the casket of the elderly Venelli.
            When finished with this quiet act of respect for the fallen, he turned and stared at Gilbert Venelli.  And nodded.
            The family business was in good hands.  Competent hands.  Intelligent hands.  The family feud was over.  The strongest Venelli had won.
 

Setting the Mood, Maude

Let's talk about setting the mood of a story through the use of descriptive detailing.

I have to admit (or maybe, I have to confess, I don't know which would be more accurate) the visual scene of a story's opening is what gets me writing.  I see an image first in my head.  And then I write the story around that image.

Verbal photographs, kiddo.  That's the key.

And I think it's a good technique--one that is becoming rare these days.  I find it rare, in my opinion, to find a writer who can make a Polaroid shot in words so clear, so vivid, it instantly comes into sharp clarity the moment one reads the passage to themselves. 

Yet isn't that one of the key ingredients needed to be perfected if a writer wants to be successful?

Words describing images,  or individual actions, sets the tone for the entire story.  In any genre I'm thinking.  But so especially true if you're writing noir/hard boiled detectives.  The mood of the story sets up the interaction between characters.  Ultimately sets up the motives for each of the characters involved in the story.  So important.  So critical for a story to succeed.

Take the photo above.  When I wrote this Turner Hahn/Frank Morales story you're about to read the image that exploded in my head was very much like the one above.  I saw it clearly.  Absolutely crystal clear:  Turner and Frank moving around in a dark basement filled with boxes and boxes stacked on top of each other, their flash lights throwing out long beams of white light cutting through the darkness.

Maybe I'm all wrong. (What?!  Me?  Wrong?  Oh Pissssshawww, Maude!)

Read the story below.  Tell me what you think.


We Found Beatrice Bonner
 
            The dark basement smelled of dreams long forgotten.
             Of memories unremembered.
            In the inky darkness the startling white beams of our flashlights cut through the cobwebs and layers of dust and decay and played across the clutter of a lifetime’s worth of hoarding in stark silence.  Carefully we made our way through the narrow corridors of the blackened basement,  the white beams of our  flashlights arcing across the canyon walls of dust covered boxes stacked clear to the floor jousts above our heads to the darkly moist cement floor.
            The place smelled.  Smelled old.  Ancient.  With a whiff of decay–a sharp sting of disease.
            Boxes.  Magazines.  Newspapers.  Books.  An assortment of bicycles.  Steamer trunks, one atop another, locked and sealed shut back when Nixon was president.  Clothes.  Boxes and boxes of clothes neatly folded, covered in a fine coating of dust; smelling dank and fungal infested.  A life time of someone never letting go.  Never discarding either the important or the frivolous.
            Our flashlights danced across the darkness to our left and right.  Seeking.  Looking for what we already knew was down here.  In silence we made our way deeper and deeper into the basement of the old house knowing that we were eventually going to find the grisly prize at the end of our search. 
            Behind me I heard my partner grunt and then heard a box slide to one side ominously.  Twisting around I played the beam of light across his face and then at the tall column of boxes towering over his head suddenly beginning to tilt dangerously toward him.  The red headed wannabe Mountain Gorilla braced the leaning stack with one outstretched hand with a look of growing frustration playing across his rugged looks.
            “This place is fraking nightmare, Turner.  One wrong move and we’re going to be buried in a mountain of shit.  It’ll take a month for the forensics boys to find us.”
            I turned back to face the front, a grin playing across my lips.  We were both big men.  But Frank was the proverbial Spanish bull in an English china shop.  He had shoulders that would make the prow of an aircraft carrier feel slighted.  Arms as thick as the main cables holding up the Golden Gate.  Finesse, my friend, is not his main forte.  Blunt trauma is more his shtick.
            The flashlight in my hand roamed across the curtain of darkness in front of me and there, just visibly at the far end of the flashlight beam, the image of a brick wall and an edge of a large, deep, wash basin.
            “Over here,” I said quietly.
            And we found what we knew we would find.  In the middle of the deep wash basin.  The bloody stump of a person’s leg.  Ripped from the victim from just below the knee cap.  Still wrapped in the tan cloth of a pant’s leg.  The foot encased in a black, worn old shoe with a bleached out, formless blue sock partially covering an exposed ankle.
            A heavy coat of coagulated blood covered the bottom of the wash basin. Lying flat in the sink beside the single shoe was a hack saw.  A bloody hack saw with a broken blade.  Playing the flashlight across the dust covered cement floor of the basement to my left and right I could find nothing else for a body.  But I did find a fifty-five gallon drum, black and dull, with white letters that said ‘Hydrochloric Acid’ stenciled across the middle of it.  The lid of the barrel was partially closed.  The stench of the acid . . .and some other smell I didn’t want to dwell on . . . overwhelming.
            I didn’t want to pull the lid to one side and look inside.  Fortunately I didn’t have to.  Frank’s voice behind me stopped me.
            “Turner, looky-here.  In the wall to the right and above the wash basin.  See it?”
            I saw it.  It was unmistakable.
            Two dark red bricks were missing from the wall.  Visibly in the light was the smooth round curve of a human skull partially filling the gaping hole.  Both powerful beams of our flashlights latched onto the wall and didn’t move for a long time.  Neither of us said anything.
            We found her.  Beatrice Bonner.  A thirteen year old girl missing for the last twenty years.  Found her stuffed into the basement wall of a dilapidated wreck of a house owned by a hermit named Charles Friedman.  But the missing person file would soon be replaced.  She was no longer missing.  From the large round hole in the top of her skull–a clean, sharp puncture wound made by something long and sharp–the Missing Person stamp would soon be changed to Murder.
            “Call the boys,” I said quietly as the flashlight turned back and illuminated the bloody stump standing upright in the sink.  “Tell’em we found the old man and the girl.  Tell’em to bring enough boys over.  This is a double-homicide case now.”
            Cautiously we trekked our way out of the basement and slowly moved up the rickety steps of the basement to the kitchen.  The house was empty.  Old and empty.  Forgotten and empty.  It sat in the middle of a corner lot almost hidden from prying eyes by weeds and rows of untrimmed bushes.  Visible from the west side windows of the kitchen was the sagging frame of a detached garage.  One garage door stood at a severe angle.  Held upright by a single hinge still attached to the garage.  Glancing out the window I could see the trunk lid and tail lights of an old car.  A car that hadn’t been moved in generations.  Hugging up against the car’s sides were boxes and boxes of newspapers.  Dried, faded, fungus-infested newspapers. 
            The kitchen itself was amazingly clean and tidy.  There were no dishes in the sink.  They was nothing on the flat surface of the kitchen counters that seemed out of place.  In the middle of the kitchen floor was a small white painted table with four matching chairs.  Chairs precisely aligned..  The table’s surface spotlessly clean.
            “What’s wrong with this picture?” Frank grunted, turning to look at me and lifting a questioning eyebrow.
            “Someone has a cleaning fetish,” I answered, frowning myself. “In a house that’s been turned into warehouse of discarded trash.”
            “Our suspect?”
            Our suspect was a forty year old recently released mental patient by the name of Jacob Friedman.  The son of the home owner, Charles Friedman.  Four hours earlier Jacob walked into South Side Precinct, took the ancient elevator up to the second floor which housed the homicide section, found Frank and I sitting at our desks doing paperwork, and confessed he had just murdered his father.
            Just like that.  A nervous little man with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking and watery blue eyes that could not look you straight in the face.  Confessed standing beside our desk in a soft voice of quiet resignation.  He said he had killed his father.  Said he knew where Beatrice Bonner’s remains were.  Said he wanted to go back to the hospital.  Wanted to go back to the lock up ward.  Back to safety. And never wanted to left alone again.
            Jacob Friedman had spent the last eighteen years in an insane asylum.  Ten of those eighteen years in a high-security section of the asylum.  Behind locked doors and barb wire fences.  In a padded cell.  With eyes observing him eighteen of the twenty-four hours of the day.  Twenty years ago the state accused him of kidnaping Beatrice Bonner and murdering her.  Circumstantial evidence, of course, since a body was never discovered. Jacob was already known by the neighbors as being a sick, twisted kid.  Several testified it was Jacob who had stolen their beloved pets and had abused and tortured them in the woods behind the Friedman’s house.  The same neighbors, and other witnesses, said this scared, frail and pale creature of a man and the girl had been seen together that day walking down to neighborhood convenience store.  They remembered him walking back from the store.  Alone.
            Beatrice Bonner was never seen again.
            Until now.
            I remember the drive out into the suburbs to find the Friedman’s house.  It was an overcast, sour, despicable day of random showers, high humidity, and sweltering heat.  It seemed that day the weather had every one in a bad, scurrilous mood.  As I drove the Shelby GT350 Mustang, my favorite car, with Frank sitting in the passenger side bucket seat to my right, I remember listening to music of Depeche Mode playing on the radio.  It was their Policy of Truth.  A rumble of bass guitars lamenting about a love gone bad.  A perfect cover tune for this case, I thought to myself, as I drove.
            Thinking about the case the music still plays darkly in my mind.
            Eerily, as we drove back to the precinct house hours later after the forensic boys went over the place minutely, the song played again over the radio. 
            A couple of days later Assistant District Attorney Anthony Scarborough beamed up at us and said we had did a find job in this investigation.  The case was opened and shut.  This time Jacob Friedman would get the gas chamber and no smart lawyer would get him off by copping an insanity plea.
            “Did he sign a confession?”
            “Hasn’t said a word or moved a muscle since the day he walked in and told us he did it,” I answered sourly.  “Been sitting in his cell like a statue.  Hardly eats.  Never says a word.  Doesn’t move a muscle.”
            “Well . . . that’s okay,” the DA growled and nodded.  But the furrows of lines creasing his forehead looked worrisome. “As long as you to testify he confessed to the crimes when he approached you.  That, and the evidence we have, should be enough for a conviction.”
            “What evidence, Jethro?” Frank grunted, frowning, and looking like a maleficent volcano about to explode.
            I fought hard  to hide the grin that wanted split my lips in two.  Jethro was a moniker my mountain-gorilla lookalike for a partner use to label people he thought were blithering idiots.  And he pegged Deputy DA Anthony Scarborough at the top of the list.
            “I am not Jethro, Sergeant Morales!  How many times do I have to tell you that?  And the evidence?  Try this out.  He’s a known sadist.  He’s father’s remains–what little there is of him–was found in a basement sink in a house he and his father occupied.  He was last seen with the girl as they walked to a local store.  And his fingerprints are all over the weapon used to chop his father up!  What more evidence do you need?”
            Open and shut.
            Even I felt the guy was probably guilty.  But . . .
            This nagging voice in the back of my head.  An insistent whisper that just wouldn’t shut up.  Couldn’t make out what it was trying to say.  But I could tell it sure as hell wasn’t happy in the way this case was playing out.
            Brother . . . if you’re a cop . . . you get these nagging little voices occasionally.  Listen to them.  More times than not they start yapping at you just below the surface of consciousness when something’s wrong in the investigation.  Not yelling loud enough to slap you up the side of the head with a brick and tell you what’s wrong.  But making noise; an irritating noise that tells you you’ve screwed up somewhere.  You missed something.  Or overlooked something.  Or something just doesn’t add up.
            Or maybe . . .just  maybe . . . it was just too damn easy.
            Frank and I rode in elevator in silence.  Just the two of us.  Both of us had our arms folded across our chests and frowns on our lips.  We eyed our sour mugs in the reflections coming off the stainless steel doors in front of us.  We both knew something was wrong.  Something didn’t fit.  Something was out of whack somewhere.
            “Do you think maybe . . . ?”
            “Damn right,” he nodded before I could finish.  “A guy keeps his kitchen spotless yet leaves the basement sink looking like a butcher’s table.  Doesn’t make sense.”
            “So he’s possibly not our . . . . ,” I started to say.
            “Hell no!  Some other freaking sicko did the murder of the old man!” Frank snapped angrily, nodding in head decisively.  “And I’d bet next month’s paycheck Beatrice Bonner’s murder was a frame-up as well!”
            “So maybe we should . . . ?”    
            “You took the words right out of my mouth, kiddo!  By god, we ought to go back to the house and go over it like a fine tooth.  Cover that fucker from antic to sub basement.  There’s gotta be something we missed over there.  Gotta be!”
            I grinned as the elevator doors opened and glanced at my pal.
            “Glad we talked,” I said, nodding, as we stepped out of the elevator.
            “Turner, sometimes you talk to much.”
            The grin widened as we made our way out to the parking lot and to the Shelby Mustang.         

            Hours.
            Hours of searching the basement.  The ground floor.  The upstairs.  Combing through everything.  Probing ever nook and cranny.  And finally, tackling the piles of newspapers that seemed to be tall, silent columns of deadly silence littering the basement floor.
            And . . . . epiphany.
            Something clicked.  Something slapped together in our collective heads.  Those little voices bothering both of us suddenly shutting up.  We looked up from the piles of newspapers almost burying us and just stared at each other.
            “I’ll be go to hell,” Frank snarled, shaking his head in disbelief and looking down at browned, brittle paper spread out across his lap.  “Gag me with a spoon, California Girl, and call me stupid!”
            “Stupid!”  I said, smirking,  as I ran a hand through my hair.  “But who the hell would have caught it fifteen years ago?”
            “Yeah.  But still . . .”
            Buried deep in one pile of newspapers were six papers which had blazing headlines across the front page in big letters saying,  Body of Dismembered Girl Found In Woods.
            Six of them.  Two in Kansas.  One in Missouri.  Two in Illinois.  And Beatrice Bonner.
All almost identical stories. Cases that stretched out across decades.  Girl snatched off a sidewalk in a quiet residential neighborhood.  Missing for weeks.  And then pedestrians, or hikers, or construction workers, stumble onto the scattered bones of the dead in a forest.  The girls were killed by two holes punctured into the back of the head.  And then dismembered.
            The murders went back eighteen years.  The first two happening when Jacob Friedman was only two years old.
            “Jacob Friedman didn’t murder Beatrice Bonner,” Frank growled, looking up at me and frowning.  “His father was the killer.  Apparently a serial killer.”
            “But I betcha our sicko killer didn’t try to hide his little secret from his son.”
            “You think Jacob helped the old man kill these girls?”
            “Don’t think so,” I said, shaking my head no.  “But the kid knew.  Knew for a long time.  And knowing what his father was doing made him go off the deep end.”
            “Say,” Frank said, lifting an eyebrow in surprise and half turning to look at the brick wall and the hole where we found Beatrice Bonner’s remains.  “You know, we haven’t found a thing that mentions Jacob’s mother.  No divorce papers.  No funeral notices.  Nothing.  You don’t think . . . ?”
            We both looked at the brick wall of the basement and narrowed our eyes thoughtfully.
            Yeah.  She was in there.  Behind a cement patch in the casement wall.  It took a team of forensic boys three hours to dig her out.  But she was, like the other victims, dismembered and with two holes punched into the back of her skull.
            We had solved seven old cases of murder.  But we still didn’t know who killed Jacob Friedman’s father.
            “Jacob could have,” Frank said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as we stood watching the lab boys insert bones into plastic baggies and label each one meticulously.  “Could have come back from the crazy house and just . . . snapped.  The old man must have said something and Jacob just lost it.  Went bat-shit crazy.”
            I was half listening to Frank’s musings.  But I was more interested in a newspaper I found which detailed the disappearance of Beatrice Bonner.  It was a concise, well written story.  So well written two things leapt out at me almost instantly.
            The first one was Beatrice Bonner’s family lived directly across the street from the Friedman’s house.  The second one was the dead girl’s father was a plumber.  When I read that I stopped, looked up and at the now gaping hole where Beatrice and Mrs. Friedman had been resting in for all these years. 
            Sure enough.  Water pipes snaked in through the casement wall and twisted their way down toward the washtub sink in front of us.
            “Come on,” I said, tossing the paper to one side and turning to leave.  “I think I know who killed Old Man Friedman.”
            He was an old man now.  Patrick Bonner.  White haired, bone thin.  Skin dark brown and rawhide tough.  Dressed in an old shirt long faded with time and baggy blue jeans. He was sitting on the front porch in a battered looking rocking chair, one leg thrown over the other, smoking a cigarette and eyeing the comings and goings of the police and lab boys with a dispassionate interest.  Didn’t blink an eye or move a muscle when he saw Frank and I come out of the Friedman house, walk down the sidewalk, cross the street, and start up the sidewalk leading to his house.
            “Did you figure it out, boys?” he finally said in a casual, almost friendly voice, as our feet slapped on the first step leading up to the porch.
            “Yes sir, most of it.”  I said, nodding.  “But you can fill in the details if you want.”
            One eye narrowed and watched us for a moment or two as the cigarette hung in his lips and blue smoke drifted up past his face.  Finally he shrugged, lifted a hand up and pulled the cigarette out and snapped it out into the lawn in front of him.
            “Sure.  Why not.  It’s all over now.  The waiting.  The unknowing.  The anger.  All of it.  Gone.  I hope that sonofabitch burns in hell.  Burns for eternity.”
            “What happened, Mr. Bonner?” Frank asked.
            “Charlie’s been in a wheel chair for the last three years.  In poor health.  Living off what little retirement and Social Security he could get.  When he found out Jacob was getting out of the hospital and was coming home he called me and asked me if I would be willing to fix a leak down in the basement.  I didn’t like the sonofabitch.  Never did.  Always thought he was an odd old coot.  Thought his son was nuts.  But I said okay.  I’d come over and see what I could do.
            That’s when I found her.  Beatrice.  I had to knock a hole in the brick wall and take a peek at the plumbing.  Just happened to pick the exact spot Charlie used to hide what he did to my daughter.  I went . . . . well, you know.  You know what happened next.”
            “And Jacob?”  I asked.  “Where does Jacob come in to all of this?”
            “I dunno,” sighed the old man, shaking his head and looking thoughtful.  “He must have found what I did to his father in the basement.  What little sanity he had left him decided to check out.  I saw him get into a taxi and disappear down the street.  Apparently the taxi took him straight to you guys.  Hell, I’ve been sitting on this porch and waiting for you guys to show up for the last three days.   Was beginning to wonder if I was going to get away with it.”
            We took him downtown.  Booked him for Murder One.  Then we went over to deputy District Attorney Anthony Scarborough and told him he was a fucking idiot.  Well . . . not so bluntly.  But when we left he had no doubt what we thought of him.  After that we drove Jacob Friedman back to the insane asylum.  We left him smiling at us dreamily as two male nurses gently took him by his arms and started walking him down the wide garden path of oblivion.
            Justice is a cruel bitch.

. . . while we're sharing old stories

 . . . while we're on the subject of sharing old ideas, today I thought I'd share another short story, and another character of mine I hold close to my heart.

Roland of the High Crags.

Roland is a warrior-monk of the Bretan Order.  He is also a skilled wizard.  Warrior, monk, and wizard; a monk sworn to fight Evil in all its manifestations.

Yes. He is a hero in the classic sense for the definition of 'hero' in the genre called 'Fantasy.'  Yet he's flawed.  He has weaknesses.  He has fears.  And he doesn't mind admitting them.

The idea for this character came to me, oddly enough, from watching my youngest daughter--then about four or five--playing around with her dolls in the library with me.  A thought struck me that made me start thinking.  Just what would a father do to protect his children?  How far would he go, and what odds would he face, in keeping harm away form his child?

Another idea struck me as well.  Just how deep, and how strong, is the power of love?  Any love.  The love of a father for his child--the love of a mother--the love (brotherly love) one feels for a friend.  The love and devotion for religion--for faith--for an idea?

That's how the Roland series was born.  The exploration of love, faith, treachery, hope and . . . ultimately . . . discovery.

The first book is the one above.  Roland of the High Crags: Evil Arises .  It begins the adventure.
But, sadly, the reading mass hasn't discovered it yet.  So (and admittedly in a desperate attempt to resuscitate the project) I thought I would share a Roland short story in the hopes it might regenerate some interest.

So here goes.  I hope you like it.

Lamenting Souls

Evil burns in colors sullen, Pilgrim.

Aye, Fellow Traveler. In the eyes of a wizard Evil smolders in colors dark and menacing. All life shimmers and glows. Trees. Flowers. The animals of the forest. The denizens of the watery deep. Dragons. Man. All life shimmers a color and a hue unique to its own. Even Magic, Pilgrim. Magic glows in colors unique to the brand of magic used.

I am the one called Roland. Roland of the High Crags. I am a warrior monk of the Bretan Way. My magic is Bretan. Here, in the snow capped peaks of the High Kanris, I have taken vows to protect the weak and the innocent from those which would feed upon their souls. Evil of any kind. My vows are unbending. I cannot flinch. I can not withdraw from the fight. I fight the noble fight. The fight that Evil must be confronted. Must be constantly sought out and defeated.

For the true believer knows, Pilgrim. Evil can never be destroyed. Only constrained in heavy chains if resolutely confronted.

So began this adventure on one bright moon lit night as I rode the warm updrafts rising into the night hair from forest floors below us. I and my good companion, a Huygens-bred Great Wing who called himself Cedric.

A Great Wing, friend, is a giant hawk. A powerful bird of prey found only among the snow capped peaks of the High Kanris. A bird, this Cedric, a hundred and eighty hands high. Roughly fifteen feet tall when wings folded and standing on clawed talons. A fierce warrior. Fearless and bold. With wings strong enough to carry me long distances over forest floor or mountain peak in this rugged land I call home. A great warrior in his own right–a partner who has agreed to stay at my side in my fight against both the Dragon and against Evil.

On this lonely night as we rode the moon beams over a nameless valley, the jagged black peaks of mountains towering over us and capped by snow gleaming bright and brilliant on moonlight, we both heard the eerie voice rising up from below calling for us.

Help, masters! Help this weary soul! Save me and my kinfolk from our tormentors!

Oh, please, oh great wizard. We beseech thee! The pleading voice of a ghost, Pilgrim.
Aye, the dead doth speak. The night filled with wandering souls. Lost souls. Tormented souls. Sad souls. For one reason or another souls who will not step into the Netherworld and swim in the warm waters of the River of Time. This voice rising up to us as we sailed silently over a valley floor of ancient forests was a tormented soul–a soul wishing to journey into the Netherworld. But one kept here in the Outer Worlds by supernatural forces stronger than it.

Cedric, old friend, did not hesitate. With me strapped firmly in the saddle it dipped one mighty wing and circled above the forest floor, one great eye of his peering into the moon light night to find the source of this pleading lament. Eyeing something human eyes are incapable of seeing the great beast folded its wings and dived downward toward a small forest clearing.

With a powerful whoosh! of wings Cedric settled into the high grass of the small clearing. Folding his wings hesitantly it eyed the black forest encircling the clearing expecting some kind of trap to be sprung. Leaping from the saddle, the curved bronze hued blade of my ancient Dragon scimitar in hand, I too expected trouble. Moving away from my winged companion, the tall grass waving in the moonlight in my wake, sword in hand, I waited for our lamenting ghost to make its appearance.

She came, soon enough, floating across the tall grass in a meandering cloud of a million fireflies.

  Master, oh! You heard me! You heard my pleas! Thanks be to the



Fireflies, millions of them, danced around us, rising and falling, in some kind of merry fugue. The Inner Eye within me, the third eye all wizards and those with magical powers possess and that gives them the power to see the auras of life, glowed with joy and relief. This Inner Eye of mine saw this ghostly entity was that of a child, a small child, a female long absent from the Outer Realms in physical form yet trapped in this world unable to move on.

"Calm yourself, child, and tell me why you speak of others and why you dwell in this valley still?"

I am called Rebecca, master. I and my kinfolk–parents, uncles, cousins, aunts and distant kin–settled in this valley many, many years hence. Far from others like us

we decided to build our homes here in peace, in solitude, in peace. But soon after my birth a great evil came to us. A great evil disguised as a human. One by one it began to take us. It stalked us all. Sank its bloody fangs into our souls and took our spirits from us. Even in death it holds us here, master. We cannot leave this valley. We cannot enter the Netherworld. We have been here

for a long, long time. So long some of us are beginning to fade into nothingness,master! Can you help us? Can you free us from our tormentor? Oh, please, master!

Please help us!



I felt the child’s pain. I felt the faint menace yet reaching out with its cold gripping and holding onto her soul. I knew what had to be done. Yet the perils I knew were great. Great for me. Even more so for the child’s soul and those of her kin.

"I can journey to your time, child. I can find this evil sorcery and I can challenge it. But it is powerful, this magic. I cannot guarantee I can defeat it. If it defeats me, child, it will grow far stronger. Perhaps strong enough to leave this valley which keeps it trapped within."

I will help you, master! I–we all–will help you find this dark magic and defeat

it! This we promise!

"Return to you kin, child. Tell them I travel into the past. Tell them to remain silent upon my appearance. The evil that holds you need not know of my coming until I am already arrived."

The fireflies, millions of them, reacted to my words. The swirled around us twice and then drifted away in a long weaving line in one direction of the dark forest pressing down upon us. Still gripping the ancient blade in my hand I turned and eyed my old friend.

"If we journey back to the child’s time and are caught forever there our souls will be consumed, old friend. We will never escape. You do not need to travel with me. Go you your way and I shall go mine."

For an answer the giant war bird bent its thick neck down and, using its long hooked beak gently, pushed me hard backward, making me stumble back through the high grass two or three steps. From his mind I felt a hot retort of anger for me for even suggestion such an idea.

Grinning, feeling Cedric’s anger in my mind, I nodded and reached up with a gloved hand and slapped the war bird’s great hook beaked fondly. True friend and warrior he was. Through thick and thin. We would ride together in this battle.

"Very well, Cedric. Prepare yourself. The journey will be swift but cold. Colder than the fiercest of any winter’s breath we ever endured together."

Stepping away from my feathered brother I lifted a gloved hand up over bowed head. Closing my eyes I began the process of focusing the Inner Eye. Into the Netherworld we had to enter together. Into that domain that was neither in the present nor in the past. Neither in the future nor in the minds of mortal man. But only after stepping into the Netherworld would Cedric and I be able to travel across the deep waters of the River of Time. Travel into the past. Into the far, far past.

First came the tingling, electrical charge of entering the Netherworld. A surge of wild exuberance–of overwhelming warmth and static electricity, sweeping across us. Stimulating very pore, ever nerve ending in our bodies with a sense of narcotic bliss. The smells–the sounds–the roar of the Netherworld almost overwhelmed our senses. But swiftly it swept past us–and then darkness engulfed us. Darkness yet the sensation of floating on calm waters of a wide river.

Indeed, the River of Time is a an endless river, Pilgrim. A deep, wide river that flows for eternity into the Past and for an eternity into the far Future. It never ends. It has no beginning. It goes on in both directions forever. Time limitless flows in this body of water. And it, like the Netherworld itself, is filled with souls passing across the dark waters, traveling in both directions at once.

But the calm waters began to get choppy. The smooth motion of riding in a boat changed to the hurling, undulating crash of a being tossed hither and yon in a ship riding the winds of a howling hurricane! Cold–cold far colder than the winds of the frigid northern glaciers–howled angrily in our ears. Buffeted and bruised we stood together enduring the journey. Winds howled. Screamed. Faintly carrying the voices of hundreds–thousands–millions of souls crying out to us we hurled past them.

And then . . . suddenly . . . . silence.

The smells of a high mountain valley. The soft touch of a mountain breeze playing across my cheeks. The smells of wild flowers and forests old in my nostrils. Opening my eyes I lifted my head and peered around me. Cedric stood exactly in the same place I saw him last. But, looking up at the stars I could see we had arrived. Arrived in this same valley as had recently being standing in. But in a far, far, more ancient time.

In the night wind I heard the faint echo of laughter and the sounds of a music. Sheathing the ancient blade I walked to my feathered friend and leapt into the saddle and strapped myself in. Cedric spread his wide, powerful wings and leapt high into the night sky. Wings strong and swift had us climbing swiftly into a starry, moon filled night. Banking sharply to the right it did not take us long to spy the small hamlet of simple log cabins setting beside a small river in a not too distant mountain clearing.

Life, Pilgrim. Remember I said Life glows with an aura all its own. Even ghosts have an aura. Life–in a different setting–yet living still. Unless, unless . . .

In the moonlight the cabins looked old and decrepit. The moon’s silver beams played across low roof lines and log walls. From chimneys columns of smoke lifted into the night sky while on the surface of the moving river, like glittering orbs of a thousand scintillating diamonds, moon beams played across its dark watery surface. Twice we circled the hamlet in silence, Cedric’s wings riding the night air like the master of the hunt he was. Pointing to a spot beside the river I said nothing. Nor had to. My old friend heard my thoughts. Twisting around quickly and folding his wings we dropped like a stone toward the river’s bank. Settling onto the river bank like avenging wraiths I leapt from my saddle and then patted the hardened yellow beak of the war bird gently.

"Stay alert, old friend. We hunt that which hunts us. Evil lurks in the night waiting to lunge at our throats."

One last slap on the Great Wing’s beak and I started walking down a well trodden path toward the one building in the hamlet which light filtered through windows and into the night. From this low slung, long building came the sounds of laughter and music. The laughter of adults mingled with the squeals of children. Aye, Pilgrim. On first blush the warmth of the light, the sound of music and much laughter emanating from within this old inn, should have warmed my heart. All seemed well. All seemed as it should. Yet the Inner Eye I possessed told me otherwise. I knew, Pilgrim. I knew Evil hoary and ancient nestled within. And it was waiting for me to step unsuspectingly into its elaborate trap.

Ducking my head to slip under the low roof line I opened the inn’s door and stepped into the brightly lit interior. Closing the rough wooden plank door behind me I gazed at those who gazed at me and nodded. Twenty souls sat around long tables on roughly hewn benches or stood leaning against a long bar which stretched the width of the building to my left. Farmers. Woodsmen. Children of all ages. Warriors wearing habiliments and weapons unfamiliar to me. Merchants in outrageously colorful apparel. All sat or stood silently and stared at me with frozen smiles pressed upon their lips.

Ghosts, Pilgrim.

Souls captured and consumed by the Evil which hid itself somewhere in this room. Captured long, long ago in a far away past and held in psychic servitude all these years in this valley of the damned. Ghosts who’s auras told me they screamed in silent agony yet danced at the whim of that which held them so tightly in his grip.

"Master, thank the gods!" Rebecca’s happy voice came to me as she ran with face smiling and eyes dancing in joy to me. "The terrible thing which had imprisoned us all these years has fled! Fled the moment he felt your presence about the hamlet as you and your giant bird circled in the night. Thank you, master! Thank you! We are free, finally free!"

Tiny little hands gripped my calloused, hardened hand and pressed it against her cheek for a moment and then turned and pulled me deeper into the room. Several of the ancient warriors from lands I knew not approached me with smiling faces and heartily pounded me on my back and expressed their gratitude. An old patriarch, with thick white beard and long white air falling to his wide shoulders, rose from one of the benches and walked to the bar. Pouring something black and strange into a large stone cut, smiling like the grateful head of a large family, he turned and offered me the cup.

"Drink, wizard. Drink! Tonight we will celebrate our release from hell’s grasp. Tomorrow we will journey into the Netherworld and swim in the warm waters of eternity. Drink, kind sir. Drink and let us hear you tell us how great of a wizard you are!"

Evil’s black heart pounded with rhythmic assuredness my ears. Encircling me were the smiling of the ghosts many–their auras twisting and squirming and screaming in silent horror as they knew what was to come next yet powerless to prevent it. Smiling sadly, staring down at the dark fluid that was neither wine nor water, I felt the pain of the many–and the arrogant confidence of the Evil One–and knew what I had to do.

With a flick of the wrist I tossed the black liquid from the cup. It arched away from me in a long graceful curve and eventually splashed onto the rough planked wooden floor of the inn. The moment it touched the flooring it began hissing its killing acid bite and burrowed deep into the ancient wood.

"Your tricks will not deceive me, Ancient One. I feel your presence here. I know you hold these souls in a grip of servitude. Enough with this subterfuge. Release those who have served you for so long and allow them to enter The Netherworld."

Like a black tidal wave of raw emotion I felt the presence of the Ancient One recoil from me, its ancient soul quivering with hot anger as it moved away. Most of the souls encircling me took a step back from me as well. But two–two warriors from ancient lands long forgotten–reacted differently. Rage and anger filled their faces as they unsheathed the straight blades of ancient weapons and leapt at me. Like magic Helshvingar was in my hand. Steel met flashing steel in deadly play and rang out like ancient chimes in a constant clang of a maleficent symphony.

Helshvingar.

The ancient Dragon scimitar I carried strapped to my side always. A curved blade of steel forged by the gods themselves. Steel. Yet not steel. Blue, like fine forged steel, it was not. No. This blade had a faint bronze hue to it that seemed to glow whenever released from its sheath. Down the length of the blade, on both sides, were some kind of old and forgotten script. No one knew what it said. But the blade’s name was of Dragon tongue. From an old, almost forgotten dialect.

Helshvingar.

The Killer of All Evil.

We fought, the three of us, in a fierce encounter of murderous intent. Our swords rain down in slashing blows met by counter strokes of equal fury. The din of battle, the dance of three warriors, moved across the floor of the ancient inn in a destructive soiree. Chairs were overturned. Tables were smashed and splintered. The two warriors of old–ancient yet not ancient–fought like madmen. In their eyes and on their faces were portraits of the rage and black murderous intent of the Ancient One himself. Deep, deep underneath the controlling grasp of the Ancient One I could feel the souls of the two men crying out in anguish. They were trapped. Helpless. They screamed in despair and pleaded for me to somehow release them from their bondage. Faintly–like voices heard in a breeze from far away–I heard their pleas.

Grimly I doubled my efforts to save them from their damned eternity.

Their swordplay was good for warriors ancient. I felt the Ancient One’s expertise in the way he forced his bonded slaves to fight. But they fought in a style of swordplay far more simple in structure than what a Bretan warrior-monk is taught. I noticed the rudimentary styles of both immediately and waited for the moment to strike. It came after the fifteenth stroke of the sword when one of the warriors lost his footing and stumbled to one side a half step. Like the strike of a viper’s bloody fangs Helshvingar slid in underneath the warrior’s blade and slashed across the warrior’s upper waist.

The moment Helshvingar’s magical blade touched the ghost’s torso a violent transformation took place. A cloud of black vapor blurred the image of the stricken warrior and hissed loudly up and away from the warrior. The clatter of the warrior’s ancient steel blade falling to the inn’s floor was masked as the scream of a thousand banshees filled our minds and souls with squeals of pain and anger. But the soul of the warrior–the soul of an honorable foe so long held in bondage– lifted above me glowing in the brilliance of bright white. As the newly released spirit lifted up and away from me, on the warrior’s face was the visage of a man suddenly freed from bondage and joyous in his new found freedom. The soul of the warrior rose rapidly, and just before it disappeared through the inn’s rough timbered ceiling above us, a hand waved at me–a gesture of gratitude from a soul who, for centuries, knew nothing but grief and torment and despair.

Waving farewell I smiled. And turned to face the entities who stood facing me in some lifeless facade of existence, lifting the curved, bronzed hued blade of Helshvingar up in the process.

"You cannot win this fight, Old One. This is the blade of the gods. Forged by the immortals to cut the bonds you hold over others. Forged to suck you into the blade itself and imprison you for the rest of eternity. As long as the blade and I act as one our combined magic will defeat you. Release those who you yet control, Old One. Release them and face the fate that is in store for you."

From the Ancient One I felt pain and disbelief. Never before in its long existence had something like this ever happened to him. For a moment or two I felt the black presence of the Evil One quivering in indecision. My Inner Eye saw the Ancient One’s black vapor filling the room recoiling, twisting, contracting. And then, in the blinking of an eye, it made a decision! Again the screams of a thousand banshees filled the inn with a noise that almost was beyond endurance. From the forms of the remaining souls yet in the inn clouds of black vapor lifted from them and congealed into the main vaporous body of the Ancient One.

With a thundering roar the Ancient One ripped open the inn’s roof and began ascending rapidly into the moonlit night. Fleeing from me and from the power of Helshvingar as rapidly as it could. Turning, throwing open the inn’s door, I ran for the black form of Cedric waiting for me at the river’s edge. The giant war bird had its beaked head lifted upward, screeching its war cry, as it watched the Ancient One flying away. With a bounding leap I hurled myself up into my old friend’s saddle. The moment I landed in the old leather Cedric spread its dark wings and bounded into to the air. So rapid was my old friend’s ascent into the night air I was almost hurled from the saddle itself. But somehow I strapped myself in still gripping Helshvingar in one hand.

The vaporous cloud of the Ancient One twisted and dove and climbed in its mindless haste to elude us. But riding the moonlit night’s air currents is the domain of a Great Wing. No entity–not even ancient horrors from the depth of The Netherworld itself–can dominate the skies like a Great Wing! For every move the Ancient One tried in his efforts to elude us Cedric had a counter. Through the night air we hurled recklessly!

But in the end–in the end–Cedric positioned himself over the long, snake-like vaporous body of the Ancient One. And I . . . I gripping with both hands the blade of Helshvingar . . leapt from saddle into the night air and into the depths of the vaporous cloud of this ancient evil itself.



A half hour later we returned to the long forgotten high mountain valley and settled gently into the tall grass on the spot where we first met the child Rebecca. Jumping from the saddle to stand beside my old friend we stood silently . . . expectantly . . .and waited.

She came again, the child Rebecca, in a cloud of a million beautifully bright fireflies. Drifting across the valley floor in a swarm of flickering light. As she approached we saw her take the ghostly form of a child. Each tiny firefly becoming an integral part of the child’s image as she approached and began to ascend into the night.

She said nothing to us. Yet as her ghostly image rose on the waves of moonbeams she lifted a hand up and waved goodbye. And in our souls we felt the wash of an overwhelming sense of freedom and longing drench us in tears of relief and gratitude.

　

Sharing an Oldie but Goodie

Thought I'd give you a treat today.  Thought I'd share a Turner Hahn and Frank Morales story.  An oldie but goodie.  I know, I know . . . you might have read this one earlier.  But here it is anyway. 
If you don't know (or haven't read a Turner Hahn/Frank Morales story) Turner and Frank are the first two permanent characters I created years ago.  Characters I want to share a lot of stories with to those who might like truly interesting, dynamic . . .  . . . uh . . . characters. I don't know if you'll agree with me or not but noir fiction is devoid of clearly memorable characters.  Oh I am sure each of us can knock of half a dozen or more names of steely eyed, cold blooded, damnably efficient killers.  I can too.   But characters . . . basically good men with their own set of eccentricities doing a job, either by choice or unwillingly, which throws them into life and death situations,  seems to be sorely missing. I'm talking about people you actually would like to get to know and hang around with.  People you could trust.  People who you could share a bawdy joke with.  Those kinds of people.  Turner Hahn and Frank Morales are two who do this for me.  Each unique.  Each a character. Turner looks like the spitting image of a well known movie star who worked the cinema back in the 30's and 40's.  A farm boy who hates the farm.  A guy who, by sheer accident, becomes filthy rich (honestly) yet chooses to remain a cop.  A guy with a wiry sense of humor. Frank Morales is a hulking monster with short cropped stringy red hair with a jaw made out of plate armor.  If Turner's humor is wiry . . . Frank's is morbidly dry.  And he's incredibly intelligent with an IQ that may be four-digits long.  Yes . . . I said four-digits long.  Frank is also a married man.  Happily married (rare to find such a character in the noir/hard-boiled world).  A beautiful wife, a house full of kids, dogs, cats, and parrots. Put the two of'em together and they make one hell of a homicide detective team.  Or at least, I think so.  So here's Coercion.  See if you like it.  Coercion                     “You know, this probably isn’t a good idea.”             I stood behind my partner, Frank Morales, with hands in slacks and watched the big gorilla hold the wiry form of Nick James in on one of his big, shovel sized hands like the kid was nothing but a discarded rag doll.  Frank had his other hand up and cocked back like a ram, his fist the size of a wrecking ball, about to jackhammer straight into the kid’s face             Frank turned, looked over his shoulder, and shook his head.             “Turn, we don’t have time for niceties. Shit is gonna explode pretty fucking soon if we don’t get some answers.  And I’m betting this little creep has some answers.”             I grinned.  Couldn’t argue with simple logic like that.             We were standing in the back room of a pool hall down on First Street.  A smoke filled, dimly lit dive with a back room that smelled of stale cigarettes and piss.  Out front two people were knocking around a cue ball–the click of the balls smacking into each other somehow oddly comforting to listen to.  Glancing at my watch I noted it was a quarter past one in the afternoon.  We had exactly forty-five minutes to find Tex Edwards.  Just forty-five minutes.             Or all kinds of hell were indeed going to be let loose.             “Nick, I can’t tell you how much this kind of interrogation hurts me.  Hurts me somewhat less than it’s gonna hurt you, I’ll admit.  But let’s not quibble over nuances.  A little cooperation would be helpful.  Tell us what we want to know and you won’t have to go to the emergency room.  Or spit out teeth.”             “But I haven’t a clue where the hell Tex is, Frank!  Shit. He doesn’t give me an itinerary of his coming and goings.  Why would he?”             Crack!  The sound of a fist smacking into hard bone was almost as sharp and clear as the pool playing behind us.  Nick, the idiot, flew back two or three feet, smashed into a stack of beer, rattling bottles and threatening to tip over, before sliding semi-unconscious to the floor.  Frank walked over Nick, reached down and yanked him to a standing upright position,  and rolled up his fist again.             “You know where Texis.  You know his little hideaway.  I know you do.  Now, we can do this one of two ways.  We can be civilized and you can answer my questions without any form of coercion.  Or I can beat you to a bloody pulp and throw your ass in jail for resisting arrest and accessory to a murder.  You’re choice.”             “Oooh, coercion.” I crowed, grinning as I looked at Frank.  “A big word for you, buddy,”             “Yeah, I know.  I don’t use’em often,” Frank nodded, almost smiling, but not taking his tiny little eyes off Nick.             True.  As smart as the block of cement was, he wasn’t usually a talker.  But when he took on the mantel of Lead Investigator of a crime it was remarkable to see the transformation sweep over him.  Like watching a rerun of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hide.             We’re cops.  Homicide division down at South Side Precinct.  Yeah . . . I know.  Cops are not supposed to act like goons and beat the shit out of potential witnesses.  We’re supposed to follow rules.  Department regulations.  And we do.  Most of the time.  But there comes a time . . . a place . . . where you have to bend the rules.  Take chances.  Even . . . become a goon.             Take this case.             Two hours earlier in the day the two of us were driving down Melrose in my rag top ‘71 Camaro heading toward a witness’ house to talk to her.  Different crime–different case.  My case.  But it was a beautiful day.  The sun was out.  The sky was a pale light blue.  The street filled with the traffic and noise I find very comforting to listen to.  Half way there my cell phone rings.  Pulling it out of my sport coat I handed it to Frank to answer.  He frowned, flipped it open, and grunted.  And then listened for the next three minutes before snapping it closed and looking at me grimly.             “That was the lieutenant.  Apparently we’re investigating a kidnapping.  Top priority.”             “Whose been nabbed?”             “A kid.  The son of–get this–Lewis Abernathy.”             I whistled softly in surprised.  Lewis Abernathy was maybe the richest guy in the city.  The state.  Damn close to being as richest guy in the country.  Abernathy Industries owned just about every kind of major manufacturing and high tech industry one could think of.  Rich wasn’t a word that came close to describing Lewis Abernathy’s wealth.  Frowning, looking at Frank, I raised an eyebrow expectantly.             “Five million dollars in old, and unlisted, bills.  Nothing bigger than a twenty.  That’s what the kidnappers want.  And they want it by two this afternoon.  Or they kill the kid.”             “What do you have for leads?”             “Me?  What do you mean . . . me?”             “It’s your case, buddy.  I’ve got mine.  Now you’ve got yours.”             Frank started to make a protest.  But he took one look at my kisser and decided to clam up.  And then he shook his head and sighed.             “Shit.  Okay, my case.”             “What do you have for a lead?”             “Need to get back to the precinct.  Supposed to have a video from a security cam from  the kid’s school showing how he was nabbed.  We’ll start with that.”             I made a sudden U-turn in front of a cabby . . . who hit his bakes and screeched to a stop as he proudly saluted me with his middle finger . . .and we hurried back to the precinct.  We watched the video.  The three of us.  Frank.  Me.  And Lieutenant Yankovich.             We call him Yank.  As tall and Frank and me.  Slightly stooped over.  The haggard, pale face of a corpse.  Yet for a boss the guy is okay.  And as a cop goes they don’t make them any smarter.             We watched the tape.   Saw the dad’s big limo pull up in front of the front of the private school.  Saw the dirty white van setting at the curb just in front of the limo.  A van with ‘Dino Plumbing’ written on its sides.  Saw the chauffeur get out of the car and open the back door for the kid to get out.  Saw the kid’s body guard slide out of the limo’s front passenger side.   Watched both chauffeur and body guard smile at the kid and say something nice.  Saw the four masked thugs jump out of the back of the van and take out both driver and body guard with two quick slugs into their backs.  Watched closely as one of the masked thugs nabbed the kid and picked him up roughly in one arm and hurried back to the van.  Saw the van driver limp quickly around to the driver side and jump in.  Saw the van squealing away in a cloud of blue smoke coming out of the van’s back end.             “That’s it,” Yank grunted in a rough whisper.  “ The chauffeur and body guard are wounded.  But they’ll make it.  Other than that,  that’s all we got.”             “It’s enough,” Frank grunted, frowning, and rewinding the tape.             “Enough?  You got something?”             We both nodded.             Hell.  When you work long enough with someone you like, the two of you start to think the same way.  See the same things.  Come to the same conclusions.             “Watch the driver,” Frank said as he stepped back to watch the tape again.  “See the limp?  Left leg.  About two inches shorter than his right.  Remind you of anyone?”             The three of us watched the tape again.  And then again.  And then again.             “Yeah, it does look familiar.  Been years since I’ve noticed him around.  Can’t think of his name just yet.  But it’ll come to me.”             “Tex Edwards,” Frank said, nodding.  “Been in the slammer for the last ten years on a robbery rap.  “Turn and I put him there.  Betcha five-to-one he got himself paroled.”             I pulled out my cell phone and make a quick call.  It didn’t take long to confirm Frank’s suspicions.             “Yep.  Been seen a couple of times down at Nick’s Pool Hall down on First Street,” I threw out.             “Our first stop,” Frank grunted, the corners of his lips twitching–his form of a grin.             Yank’s gray lips split back into a wide grin as he nodded.             “Good hunting, boys.  Find the kid and bring him back alive.  Don’t do anything too foolish.  But if you do, I know the name of a good lawyer.”             So here we were.  Having a nice, friendly, chat with Nick in the back room of his pool hall.  It didn’t take long to get a lead on Tex’s whereabouts.  And Nick got to keep his teeth.  Most of'em at least.             It was a house down on 112th Street South.  A house set back deep in the lot and surrounded by old elm trees.  To one side of the house was a detached garage.  In front of the house was a beat up, splinted picket fence screaming for a new paint job.  We drove by the house once to get a good look at the place.  Circling the block we parked about half a block down and then walked up to the house next to our target, hopped a fence, and now stood backs against the garage wall on the far side of the garage away from the house.             “Did you notice the windows?  No screens.”             “Flash Bangs,” I suggested, lifting one up in my hand and grinning.  “Yeah, thought you’d have that in mind.”             “Smart ass,” he grunted, the corners of his lips twitching as he pulled out his 9 mm Glock from its holster underneath his left armpit. “Toss it in the side window.  I go in the front.  You go in the back.  Take’em out if they show any resistance.  First one finds the kid grabs him and runs.  The other will cover.”             And that’s the way it went down.  The Flash Bang did its work.  Lots of noise.  The shock wave knocking everybody silly.  Only one gunman popped up as I went through the back door.  He was on his way out as I was on the way in.  But a knee to the groin and the butt of my Kimber on the back of his neck persuaded him to stick around.  Frank met Texin a bedroom just as the creep was lifting a gun up to shoot the kid.  But he didn’t make it.   Frank, as big as the ugly butt head is, can move when he has to.  And he did.  A swift kick to the side of Tex’s good leg–just to the side of the kneecap–snapped the leg in two like a twig.  The guy screamed, dropped his gun, fell to the floor and grabbed his broken leg with both hands.   Frank shut him up by using a number 14 shoe size of his into the man’s face.             The kid was safe.  We took him to his parents and watched father and mother grab their only kid and hug him for all their worth.  Yeah . . . no joke.  Even rich people love their kids just like everyone else does.   Go figure.

Re-inventing a Legend

All right.  A conundrum, kiddos.  A head-scratcher.

Along comes someone who wants a character written who acts like Sherlock Holmes but isn't Sherlock Holmes.  Yep . . .  acts like Holmes but isn't Holmes?

What exactly does that mean?

Sir Conan Dole , a small time country physician who, to supplement his income as a practicing doctor out in the rustic rural countryside of England, decided to invent a detective of unusual eccentricities.  So unusual in fact that the character threatened (and eventually did) become better known than his creator!

Sherlock Holmes has become a legend.  An intellectual circus of deduction, acute observation, and reason which overwhelms the reader in his application of solving violent crimes.

And the guy has his peculiarities.  He's apparently a gifted violinist.  He's a casual abuser of drugs. And someone who mistrusts women.  His photogenic mind is so voluminous it actually pushes people away from him.  And let's face it; the guy is a bit of a snob.  He knows he's smart and he doesn't hesitate to let everyone around him know he knows he's smart.

A fascinating creature for a reader to discover.  One hundreds of writers have tried to mimic in one fashion or another.  None of them, in my opinion, coming close to the luster of the original.

So now someone wants a new, historical, Holmes-wannabe to be created.  As a writer you have to ask yourself . . . . where the hell do you begin?  What traits of Holmes do you keep and which ones do you throw away?  Just who, and what, makes a Holmes character . . .  act Sherlock Holmes?

Is it just the intellect of the man?  His eccentricities?  His constant companionship with a Dr. Watson around to recount all his cases? 

Hmmm . . . .

The request was make him a 1st Century Roman.  Place him in a specific historical setting and work from there.  Okay.  That's no problem.  But . . . historically speaking . . . are there any examples of anyone in that time frame who thought like a Holmes?  And the answer is . . . possibly.  Greek philosophers and scientists (yes, there were Greek scientists), soon followed by Roman equivalents, were becoming more and more inquisitive on the intellectual plain, establishing by the 1st Century C.E., a long history of scientific reasoning and philosophical inquiry a gifted intellect might be aware of.

Good. 

Now, what kind of personality?  What's his familial background?  Where does he come from?   What are his eccentricities? (ever meet a genius who wasn't eccentric in some fashion?  Me neither)

So I have a character in mind.  Named him Decimus Octavius Virilis.  Ex-soldier.  Retired from the service with still all his limbs intact.  Distant cousin to Caesar Augustus.  Genius.  A character that is becoming more and more interesting the more I write about him.  Say . . . maybe I've got something here!

Read my previous blog.  Read the first chapter I've written.  See if you'll agree with me.

A little something I've been working on

Huh.

Got a request the other day from a lit agent asking me if I'd be interested in possibly developing a book/series featuring a Sherlock Holmes-type character hailing from Rome around the 1st Century C.E.

Uh . . . . yes.  I would be very interested. Of course the request automatically reminded me of Lindsey Davis' Falco series (a roman 'detective' set in the times of the Emperor Vespasian . . . roughly in the late 60's C.E)

No.  This character  had to be more Sherlock Holmsian than the smart-ass little bastard Falco (and I say this in all due respect since I happen to love this series).  Further, he had to be set in the 1st Century Rome . . . in the era of Augustus Caesar.  And he had to be  . . .  naturally . . . unique.

So . . . .

Meet Decimus Octavius Virilis.  Decimus, 'The Lucky.'  Retired centurion/tribune with 30 some years soldiering for the empire of Rome.  A distant kinsman to Caesar Augustus.  One smart, tough, sonofabitch.  Think of Sherlock Holmes with an attitude.

I thought I might share with you the opening chapter of the novel and see what you think of it.  Feel free to praise, rant, nitpick, or howl over it.  Feedback . . . any feedback . . . is good.

The title of the first novel might be While the Emperor Sleeps.  Or not.  I don't know yet.  Hope you find it worthwhile.


One
 
            With a shrug from a shoulder he slipped off the short toga he favored and then took the first tentative step into the hot bubbling waters of the bath.  Behind him his servant, a pepper haired old Roman soldier by the name of Gnaeus, eyed his master ruefully and then bent down and retrieved the short robe from the marbled floor.
            In the flickering light of a hundred oil lamps burning in brightly polished brass lanterns hanging from the marbled ceilings on long brass linked chains he eyed the black marble columns of the private bath, noted the rich drapes which hung from the marbled ceiling, felt the warmth of the marble floors he stood on and nodded to himself in pleasure.
            The Baths of Juno Primus, with its marbled columned porch and impressive water fountains at the base of its portico steps, was the newest public baths in Rome. It sat just three blocks away from the gigantic Balisca Juluis, the elegant and impressively enclosed public form and administrative building just completed in the heart of the city.  The baths, rumored to have been built with donations from the Imperator himself, were equally impressive.  It may have been true.  He knew Gaius Octavius.  An old man now known as Gaius, the Augustus, Caesar.  Knew the old man was that kind of person.  A trait this Caesar took after his great uncle and adoptive father Julius. Both had a passion for building.  Building large, grand structures out of the finest marble.  Converting in one life time a once dreary, almost rural, city called Romeinto a  world class megalopolis. 
            Smiling to himself Decimus Virilis stepped down into the warm clear waters and lowered himself onto a marble bench.  Closing his eyes in relief he stretched arms on either side of the bath and leaned back and heaved a sigh of relief.
            He sat in the water and allowed his senses to wonder.  Vaguely in other parts of the large bathhouse he heard the voices of men mumbling or the splashing of water.  Somewhere a woman's voice, probably that of a serving girl, was laughing merrily.  Somewhere else the tinkling of goblets clinking together told him men were enjoying their wine. The baths was a giant complex filled with senators, generals, politicians and the rich from all walks of life.  Cabals were being hatched.  Dark secrets were being revealed.  Roman politics in its darkest, most cynical forms being orchestrated by those who lusted for power.  Sighing, he gently pushed the cacophony of noise from his mind, and allowed the heat of the water to seep into aching muscles and a tired body with its soothing fingers of sensual delight.
            He was an average size man in height.  But the numerous scars which tattooed his flesh in a bizarre matrix of randomness, along with the amazing display of muscles he yet retained, would have indicated to any on looker this man was anything but remotely average. 
            Thirty years soldiering in one of the many legions loyal to Octavius Caesar had a way of hardening a man's body . . . a man's soul.  From Hispania to Egypt; from Illyrium to Gaul.  One legion after another.  Fighting.  Fighting Gauls.  Fighting Spaniards.  Fighting Romans.  Hundreds of skirmishes.  Several pitched battles.  Stepping over friends and foes alike lying on the ground dead, sword dripping with blood in one hand and shield in the other.  Battlefields littered with the dead, the dying, and the cowering for as far as the eye could see.
            Thirty years.
            Watching fool politicians appointed to command riding in on prancing horses, banners and Eagles rising in the sunshine, with men shouting and hammering their shields with the swords, only to, months later, see the legion either decimated and defeated.  Or decimated and barely clinging to victory.
            Thirty years.
            Rising up through the ranks.  First as a centurion in the tenth cohort---essentially the raw recruits of a legion.  Proving himself as both a leader and as a fighter.  Attaining on the battle field the promotion to tribune and assigned again to a tenth cohort to begin the rise again through the ranks.  But eventually . . . with a little luck at surviving defeats as will as victories . . . rising eventually to primus pilum, or First Spear; the top ranking centurion commanding the First Cohort in any Roman legion.  And finally, from there, to being promoted to a tribune and given the rank of profectus castorum.  The highest rank a professional soldier could attain.  Third in command of a Roman legion.  The soldier's soldier a legion's twenty or so tribunes and eighty or so centurions came to with their problems.  The soldier expected to maintain discipline in the army.  To feed the army.  To provide the arms. To mold thousands of disparate individual souls into one efficiently killing machine.
            But no more.  No more.
            Thirty years of soldiering was enough.  With what few years of good health remained to him he would enjoy as a free man.  He had accepted all the accolades, all the honors bestowed on him by noblemen and commoner, and retired from the army.  He no longer served anyone.  No longer took orders from anyone.  No longer felt obligated to anyone.  It was a strange feeling.  A dichotomy of emotions.  On one hand was the feeling of joy . . . immense joy of finally, finally being in command of his own fate.  On the other hand was this feeling of extreme loss. An odd emptiness hanging just below his consciousness.   As if there was something critical was missing.  An order given and yet to be obeyed. Frowning, he inhaled the hot humid air of the baths and opened his eyes.
            What was he going to do with himself?   The need to be gainfully employed was of no concern.  Retiring from the position of profectus castorum meant he left the service of the Imperator as a wealthy man.  Almost twenty five years of being a tribune meant, among other things, being involved in the handling of his men's savings.  Yes, most of the men he commanded spent their wages on women and drink as fast as they could.  But a number of men in any legion had learned to save some money back.  To throw it into the cohort's banking system in the hopes that, if the army was successful and cities or provinces were plundered, their meager savings would grow.
            The final three years of his army life had been a considerable financial boon.  As perfectus castorum  his staff had been in charge of the entire legion's savings.  Several thousand sesterces worth.  If an officer was astute in his men's investments a sizeable profit could be had by all.   And if a legion was fortunate to be favored by its commander, or legate, for exceptional service, the reward would be even greater.
            He was not called The Lucky for nothing.  Lucky in war.  Lucky in investing.  Lucky in being related to the richest man in the empire.  Gaius Octavius Caesar.  Money was of no concern to him.  He would live comfortably for the rest of his life.
            But what to do?  What exercise to entertain and stimulate his mind?  He needed a challenge.  A goal . . . a . . . puzzle . . . to keep his wits about him!  Without some challenge for the gray matter in his skull to dwell up life was nothing but a series of boring mannerisms to endure.
            Closing his eyes again he idly heard his servant Gnaeus pouring wine in a large goblet for him.  And then . . . a brief silence.  An odd silence.  And out of place silence.  Softly followed by just the lightest whisper of heavy cloth rubbing across the leather scabbard of a sheathed gladius.
            He didn't move or show any outward gesture he was aware of a new presence behind him.  Resting in the water of the bath he appeared to be asleep.  But ever nerve in his body was tingling with delight! He heard the soft tread of three distinct sets of sandals.  With one of the three, strangely, without question an old man. Opening eyes slowly he noticed the colors around him . . . the blue of the water, the black of the marble columns, the white of the marble bath walls . . . seemed to be a hundred times more intense!  For the first time in weeks he felt alive!  And when he heard that distinct shuffling of feet and the odd hissing of someone finding it difficult to breathe he almost laughed out loud.
            "Good evening, cousin," he said quietly, coming to a standing position and turning to face his unannounced guests.
            Three of them stood above him looking down at him as he stood in waters of the bath.  Two of them were big men dressed in the distinct cuirass and greaves of the Praetorian Guards.  Around their shoulders were short capes of the royal purple trimmed in silver thread.  Underneath their left arms were their brightly polished bronze helms.  At their waists lay the short blades of the Roman gladius. The double edged weapon that had carved out a vast empire for the City of Rome and its people.
            Between the two was an old man slightly stooped over and dressed in a dark wine red toga.  Around his shoulders and covering the curls of his white hair was a plain woolen cloak and hood.  But there was no mistaking this man.
            "Good evening, Decimus Virilis," Augustus Caesar said, an amused smile spreading across thin lips.  "I see you still retain all your limbs and most of your senses."
            "No thanks to you, Imperator!" Decimus laughed, making his way out of the bath completely unconcerned about his nakedness and men armed standing before him.  "You've tried to kill me at least a hundred times!"
            "One of my few failures, I'm sure," replied the old man, chuckling.
            "So tell me, cousin.  To what pleasure do I owe you receiving your company in a public bath house suddenly ordered vacated by a detachment of your Praetorian Guards?"
            The old man's eyes, bright and alive, looked upon his distant cousin with mirth and pleasure.  They had known each other for years.  Ever since Decimus, as a boy of fifteen, ran away from home and joined his first legion.  A legion he happened to be commanding in Greecefacing Mark Anthony so many years ago.  Nodding approvingly, the old man moved closer to the younger man, took him gently by one arm and squeezed it affectionately.
            "I am in need of your services, cousin.  A very delicate situation has come up that must be addressed swiftly and surely.  Swiftly and surely with . . . uh . . . only the talents you can bring to bear."

Richard Godwin has an Ebook Coming Out!

A friend of mine is about to have one of his books come out as an ebook.  A novel, I'm thinking, you need to scarf up as fast as you can.  It's called Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin.












I've talked about this novel and about Richard before.  The man is an exquisite writer who delves deep, deep, deep into the psychological novel and doesn't hold anything back.

What I like about the man and his writing is that juxtaposition of the urbane, erudite, sophisticated Englishman Richard naturally is with the dark and bloody rawness of his writing style. 'Raw' in the sense is writing strips away any pretensions;  forgoing any politically correctness and takes the reader down deep into the savagery of the human mind.

And, in reality, the thin veneer we call 'civilization' is easily peeled back when the Savage in all of us insists on getting out.

I highly recommend this book.  You'll find it a page-turner and won't be able to put it down.  When this little delectible little book is going to be available in eboon format is yet to be decided.  But soon, me hearties;  very soon!