Off The Record

by Luca Veste

  Wrapped in a similar duct tape cocoon Johnnie had gone under about three minutes ago, but her sense of time was all screwed up. Your husband trying to kill you will do that to a gal.

  So she fucked him. Big deal. It sure as shit wasn’t worth all this. But, her husband apparently disagreed. Went to a lot of trouble. She wondered if he had even thought ahead to what a pain the ass it would be to fish out both bodies from the bottom of the swimming pool.

  Doubt it. Thinking ahead – not his strong suit.

  ‘I want you to look,’ he said as he bent down beside the lounge chair. He lifted her head by a tuft of hair, caveman style, and turned her to face the deep end. Caveman. That’s what he’d been all along.

  The diving board still vibrated from when Johnnie was sent to walk the plank. Her husband had stood there watching him sink for the first minute, the board slowly nodding its head. He stared down at the flurry of bubbles as he sweat through his shirt in the hot sun. Deep circled stains ringed his pits, his hair product had lost the war and his thin, nothing-colored hair wilted on his head.

  She looked. Saw only flat blue. Not a ripple. Not a sound.

  The deep end called to her. You’re next, my dear.

  How to get out of this? How to fight back when she was mummified in silver tape? She could scream if her mouth wasn’t taped. But it was. Would the neighbors even notice? This view came with privacy. Okay, so it was Valley side, not Hollywood side of the hill. Still, a hell of house. A hell of a place to die.

  ‘I gotta ask you, doll,’ he said, dripping sweat onto her forehead. ‘Was it worth it?’

  Her eyes screamed insults at him. The tears had loosened the tape around her mouth, her running nose lubricating the area so she could almost make words. But what to say? All the fuck you’s in the world wouldn’t change his mind. No going back now. The deep end waits.

  Her body ran rivers of sweat. No doubt some rich asshole in Beverly Hills was offering duct tape wraps to middle aged housewives as part of a weight loss cleanse guaranteed to drop ten pounds in a week. It’d work too.

  Throw in the scent of imminent death and the pounds just fall off.

  What a waste. Her body – so toned, so perfect. Her tits – real. Her abs – hard work. Her ass – Greek sculptors never got it so right. So she fucked Johnnie. Wasn’t it her husband who told her once that someone should be fucking her every Goddamn day or else it was a Goddamn tragedy to let it go to waste?

  And where had he been lately? You don’t see his side pieces of ass at the bottom of any pool.

  ‘I really thought I’d enjoy this more,’ he said, sitting down on the lounger. He sat on a long patch of her hair. She grunted, but he ignored her. ‘It’s a lot of Goddamn work.’ He wiped sweat with the palm of his hand, then wiped his hand on his pants.

  A final bubble broke the surface of the water. A last gasp? Some trapped stomach gas? She didn’t know. Wasn’t any of Johnnie’s clothes trapping air because he went in as naked as she was.

  Her husband had been kind enough to leave Johnnie’s cock out through a small gap in the tape. One last look for her, he said. At first she thought he might cut it off, and from Johnnie’s dilated pupils, so did he.

  Fuck, the heat. Was this his plan? Make her sweat it out until she begged him to dunk her under just so she could get some relief?

  He took a knee. Hadn’t done that since he proposed.

  His smell preceded his words. ‘I wish it hadn’t come to this. Honest.’ He licked more sweat off his lip. Her own tongue tasted the salt, the fierce power of suggestion playing tricks with her mind. Maybe if she went a little nuts it could be a good thing. She wouldn’t be able to rationally understand what was happening to her when she went under.

  ‘You had to know what would happen if I found out.’

  She did. Life is full of risks, though. Right?

  ‘God, you were gorgeous.’ He ran his eyes up and down the hourglass shape outlined in silver duct tape. Some guys would pay big bucks for photos of this little scenario. They’d never gone in for the S&M thing. A few medium to light slaps on the ass if they’d both been drinking was about it.

  ‘I’m thinkin’. . .’ He paused, as if to illustrate his thought process. ‘I’m thinkin’ it might be nice to carve off one last slice of pie before this is all over.’

  It all got to be too much for her. She pulled her neck back, powerful muscles built up over years of giving award-winning head, and smashed her forehead into his nose.

  Her husband fell back from his crouch and landed hard on the flat stones. She heard a small snap and then he yelped. Figured his tailbone had cracked. Got his nose good too. Blood flowed so freely it made her thirsty.

  She rolled off the lounger, steamrolling into him. Now it was her turn to take action with no plan for what comes next. Like a silver-wrapped rolling pin she bowled him closer to the pool. He tried to push himself up with a hand, but it slipped in a pool of blood mixed with sweat. His already sweat-slicked palm skated over the stones and sent his shoulder and head slamming to the ground. Another crack, deeper this time. More hollow. His eyes went glassy.

  She gyrated her body again and pushed him to the edge of the water. He put out another hand to steady himself but found air instead of stone. His hand plunged into the pool and his body followed.

  Her brain spun forward to how she might free herself from her duct tape binding until there was a sharp tug on her hair.

  Her body rotated, her head swinging out over the lip of the pool, face down. His fist knotted around her natural blonde. He started to sink. She did some math. Him at 220 lbs., her at 121. The tape slid across the stones, slicked on by the smear of blood. Her head dipped to touch the water.

  The cool shock. Refreshing. Welcome. Then too much, too deep. Her face going under, hands helpless to stop her slide. The grip on her hair loosened. Strands slid through the slackening fist.

  Her shoulders hung over the edge, face under the chilled refuge of the water.

  She saw Johnnie. A shape moving along the bottom, pushed over the filter grate by the sudden roiling of the water above.

  She saw her husband falling away from her. Eyes open but unfocused. Blood clouding out from his nose and ears.

  She bucked, wiggled. A fish on dry land. Her head would not come high enough.

  Her face bathed in cool chlorinated water as her back baked in the hot sun. Sweat gathered under the tape, ran between her ass cheeks. Baking, baking in the Los Angeles oven.

  Her two men floated away from her, slowly, as if it was all a dream.

  BIO: Eric Beetner is the author of Dig Two Graves and Split Decision as well as co-author (with JB Kohl) of the novels One Too Many Blows To The Head and the sequel, Borrowed Trouble. His award-winning short stories have appeared in the anthologies D*cked, Discount Noir, Pulp Ink, Grimm Tales, and Murder In The Wind and the upcoming Million Writers Award: Best of the Web collection. For more info and links to free stories visit ericbeetner.blogspot.com.

  A DAY IN THE LIFE

  ‘How Many Holes’

  By

  Steve Weddle

  The light was fading away as we pulled into town for gas. ‘Need anything?’ I asked Loriella as I climbed out of the truck.

  She shook her head.

  I reached into my pocket, counted out some singles. A Camaro squealed in on the other side of the pumps.

  I put eleven dollars in the tank, walked in to pay. Saw a newspaper on the rack by the beef jerky. Picture of cops standing around a car, looking in the windows, red splatters from the inside. The story said the man had been laid off from some factory that morning. Father of three young boys. He drove around all day instead of going home. When five o’clock came, he pulled a pistol from the glove box, put a hole through his head. Above the car, the light had changed to green.

  When I got back, the guy from the Camaro was leaning against a post, trying to talk to my girlfriend through my truck window. He was a big guy, skin tight like a child’s balloon
twisted into the shape of a man.

  I coughed, walked up behind him.

  He turned around, sneered. ‘You got a problem?’

  I shrugged, took a step back. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, maybe you oughta just keep moving along, peckerwood. The lady and I were having a little chat.’

  ‘Looks like maybe she doesn’t want to chat. Window rolled up and all.’

  ‘Looks like you maybe should mind your own goddamn business.’

  Behind me, a minivan had pulled up, slowed, rattled around a pothole, kept going. I took a breath, counted the potholes in the parking lot. One at the van. Thought about what Loriella was going through, same as I’d been through. Two more near the road. Same as we all go through. A couple along the back. Thought about how all you get are the little things to keep you going. A lottery ticket. A good dinner. And me with barely enough cash for dessert. Forget about dinner.

  I took a good look at the guy. His car. That fat, chunky gold necklace. ‘Changed my mind,’ I said.

  He took a step along his car toward me. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Turns out I do have a problem.’

  ‘That right, tough guy?’

  ‘Yeah. But I gotta take a leak. Then I’m going to get back in my truck and my girlfriend and I are going to talk about this fatheaded idiot we saw at the gas station. Then we’re going to have a good laugh about it. Then, in the morning, we’re going to laugh about it again.’ I turned, walked around to dark side of the gas station where the restrooms were.

  He was a few steps behind me when I heard the metallic spring of his switchblade.

  ***

  When we pulled back onto the highway, I slid some cash over to Loriella. ‘You up for some dinner?’

  ‘Well, aren’t you Mr. Moneybags.’ she said.

  ‘Forgot about that, I guess.’

  She handed the money back to me. ‘Forget you’re a Cowboys fan?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The money clip. Must be a serious fan to have a Dallas Cowboys money clip.’

  ‘It was a gift,’ I said, scanning the signs for a decent restaurant.

  ‘That right?’

  ‘Yeah. Hey, you know where there’s a good place to eat? All I know of is cheap hamburger places.’

  ‘There’s that Chinese place over other side of the courthouse,’ she said.

  ‘It nice?’

  ‘Don’t know. Never been.’

  ‘How about seafood?’

  ‘Sure. Whatever’s cool.’

  ***

  She was putting another catfish bone into her napkin when the waitress came back.

  ‘Would you care for any dessert?’ she asked us.

  ‘What you got?’ Loriella asked, chomping each word as though she were chewing gum.

  ‘Chocolate pie, lemon meringue. I think that’s it.’

  Loriella smiled, raised her eyebrows at me.

  ‘Go ahead, you want,’ I said. ‘I’m done.’

  ‘Oh. That’s OK,’ Loriella said. ‘No, thanks.’ Then she looked at the paintings on the wall. Mostly landscapes. A couple headshots.

  When the waitress started to move away, I told her to bring a piece of everything.

  Loriella reached her hand across to the table to mine. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she mouthed to me.

  The waitress looked down to write on her notepad. ‘Oh, lord,’ she said. ‘What happened to your leg?’

  I looked down at the outside of my pants leg, a splotch of blood the size of a hand. ‘Hunh,’ I said. ‘Dog got caught in some barbed wire this morning. Tore up a little.’

  ‘Oh, no. Is he OK?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Better than my pants.’

  She smiled. ‘Oh, good. I’ll get your pie.’

  ***

  We were finishing the pie when the waitress came back with the check.

  ‘That man over there, the picture,’ I said. ‘That’s the guy from Apocalypse Now, right? The boat captain took Martin Sheen up the river?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Probably. He’s in that TV show now with that guy who hopped in other people’s bodies and that comedian with the bitchy wife.’

  I said all right.

  ‘I think he used to live around here, maybe. It’s Shelia’s Uncle Albert. Want me to ask was he the fella in that movie? What did you say the name was?’

  ‘Nevermind. Doesn’t matter.’

  ***

  I put my arm across the back of the seat, turned to pull out of the parking lot. Watched her light a cigarette, run a comb through her hair.

  ‘I still turn you on?’ she asked.

  I rubbed her shoulder. Told her she did. Told her everything would be all right. Told her I was sorry.

  ‘You know the human body has three trillion pores?’

  I sent the back of the truck over a curb, pulled into traffic. ‘What?’

  ‘Pores. The little holes where sweat comes out. I saw it on the news. There’s like three trillion on the human body.’

  ‘That seems like a lot.’

  ‘That’s what I said. I was telling Darlene at work and I said that was a lot and she said she wondered who counted them and I said that’s silly. Don’t nobody count all those pores, they just look at part of you and multiply.’

  ‘Yeah. I bet that’s what they do.’

  ‘Still, awful lot of holes. It’s a wonder we’re able to hold anything inside us, all these holes.’

  ***

  We walked across the dirt to her mom’s house, sky mostly black, poked open here and there with stars.

  ‘I can do this, you want to wait in the truck,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t look like it’ll take long.’

  ‘No. I know where it is. Wait here.’ She walked to the back of the house, came out with a little box.

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘Yeah. It’ll be OK now,’ she said, climbing into the truck, easing the door closed.

  ‘It will,’ I said. ‘It will be fine.’

  ‘You sure?’

  I said I was. I told her how sometimes you just have to wait these things out. How maybe faith was all you had left sometimes, but you just had to wait. I told her the story of when I fell down into that well when I was a kid. How I knew I was OK when I pressed up against the wall, how I knew then the emptiness didn’t go on forever. All holes have sides.

  Then I told her about the man in the car. How he gave up just before the light turned to green.

  ‘That movie you were talking about. Apocalypse Now. I remember that boat captain. He wants to turn around and get this girl to shore and the guy won’t let him. The Martin Sheen guy shoots the girl and says keep moving.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’ I’d turned onto the highway, heading to the hospital.

  ‘So how do you know whether to shoot the girl and keep moving or just sit in the car and wait for the light to change?’

  I didn’t have an answer for that.

  ‘When my dad died,’ she said, then stopped. Opened the box. Looked inside.

  ‘You never said what was in the box.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK what?’

  ‘OK. I’ll tell you. See, my dad never died. That’s just what my mom said. He left. This is the box that my momma kept her momma’s wedding ring in. My grandma’s. In this box.’

  ‘So your mom wants the ring.’

  ‘I’d imagine.’ Then she held the box in front of me, shook it so I could hear it was empty. ‘No ring.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘When my daddy left, he took all our shit. Sold it, my momma said. Even my grandma’s wedding ring.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I wanted to pull over, get a hold of her and pull her close. I wanted to get her to her mom’s room before it was too late. I just kept driving.

  ‘All she had was this box. Not even an antique or nothing. Just a box. She’d pull it down and look at it. Keep it around. For a while I thought it was just to remind herse
lf of her mother, you know? Like a keepsake. Like where the ring used to be or whatever.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I asked her one time. She said it was where she’d put all her hopes. All her memories. In this box.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘I asked her another time. She said she just wanted to remember what she’d lost. Then she said she’d just wanted to keep an eye on all the shit she’d gone through. It’s just an empty box, you know? You can put anything you want in it, I guess.’

  She opened the truck door and stepping down into the hospital parking lot.

  ***

  The lights at the hospital flickered, settled into a hum. She held the box in her hands as she walked down the hall ahead of me, a little quicker with each step. A little further away.

  BIO: Steve Weddle is the editor of Needle:A Magazine of Noir and a writer

  at DoSomeDamage.com. His website is www.steveweddle.com.

  KARMA POLICE

  By

  Darren Sant

  It is the year 2059 and in an overcrowded starving world, with dwindling natural resources, every action must be tightly controlled. There can be no waste. Every sin must be paid for. No criminal act will go unnoticed or unpunished. Balance will be restored as each action must have an equal and opposite reaction.

  1. A Deadly Contest

  Snuff virtual reality…the latest craze. How the hell did I get involved? The answer was simple: gambling. Well that and the fact that I could never say no to a challenge. How did it work? A worldwide syndicate placed bets on who would be the winner. Tens of millions of credits exchanged hands virtually. Smart holding accounts in tax havens auto distributed the cash to those that bet on the winner. The contest was a virtual reality 3D holographic duel broadcast on illegal servers run by criminal overlords. The setting for my duel was a ruined city, but it could have been anywhere. A computer randomly decided who got to choose. I won and chose this setting because I knew it from another game. I know every hidey hole, every virtual alley and every weapons cache. The loser of the duel would die both in reality and in the virtual world. That's why it was so popular. That's why the stakes were so high. Each of the contestants was injected with nano bots prior to the battle. For the loser the bots would attack every major organ the moment they lost and this painful agonising death would be broadcast worldwide. For the winner, a new identity and life in the opulence of the ultra-wealthy. The nano bots would always remain and would guarantee a long life as they warded off infection and disease. They even cured cancer. They ensured a long illness free life. However, they were also a silent threat. If you spoke about your old life or the contest they would terminate you, immediately.