by J. L. Abramo
—J. L. Abramo
Denver, Colorado
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. L. ABRAMO was born in the seaside paradise of Brooklyn, New York on Raymond Chandler’s fifty-ninth birthday. A long-time educator, journalist, theatre and film actor and director, he received a BA in Sociology at the City College of New York and an MA in Social Psychology at the University of Cincinnati.
Abramo is the author of the Jake Diamond mystery series including Catching Water in a Net (recipient of the MWA/PWA Award for Best First Private Eye Novel), Clutching at Straws, Counting to Infinity, and the prequel Chasing Charlie Chan—as well as the stand-alone crime thriller, Gravesend.
Abramo is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Private Eye Writers of America and Screen Actors Guild.
The author lives in Denver, Colorado. For more information, please visit:
http://www.jlabramo.com/
and LIKE the Author Page at
https://www.facebook.com/jlabramo
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ALSO BY J. L. ABRAMO
Jake Diamond Mystery Series
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Jimmy Pigeon Mystery
Chasing Charlie Chan
Stand Alone Novels
Gravesend
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Other Titles from Down and Out Books
See www.DownAndOutBooks.com for complete list
By Anonymous-9
Bite Harder (TP only)
By J.L. Abramo
Catching Water in a Net
Clutching at Straws
Counting to Infinity
Gravesend
Chasing Charlie Chan
Circling the Runway
By Trey R. Barker
2,000 Miles to Open Road
Road Gig: A Novella
Exit Blood
Death is Not Forever
By Richard Barre
The Innocents
Bearing Secrets
Christmas Stories
The Ghosts of Morning
Blackheart Highway
Burning Moon
Echo Bay
Lost
By Eric Beetner and JB Kohl
Over Their Heads (*)
By Eric Beetner and Frank Scalise
The Backlist (*)
By Rob Brunet
Stinking Rich
By Milton T. Burton
Texas Noir
By Dana Cameron (editor)
Murder at the Beach: Bouchercon Anthology 2014
By Eric Campbell (editor)
Down, Out and Dead
By Stacey Cochran
Eddie & Sunny (TP only)
By Mark Coggins
No Hard Feelings (*)
By Tom Crowley
Viper’s Tail
Murder in the Slaughterhouse
By Frank De Blase
Pine Box for a Pin-Up
Busted Valentines and Other Dark Delights
A Cougar’s Kiss (*)
By Les Edgerton
The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping
By A.C. Frieden
Tranquility Denied
The Serpent’s Game
The Pyongyang Option (*)
By Jack Getze
Big Numbers
Big Money
Big Mojo
Big Shoes (*)
By Keith Gilman
Bad Habits
By Richard Godwin
Wrong Crowd (*)
By William Hastings (editor)
Stray Dogs: Writing from the Other America
By Matt Hilton
No Going Back
Rules of Honor (*)
The Lawless Kind (*)
By Terry Holland
An Ice Cold Paradise
Chicago Shiver
By Darrel James, Linda O. Johsonton & Tammy Kaehler (editors)
Last Exit to Murder
By David Housewright & Renée Valois
The Devil and the Diva
By David Housewright
Finders Keepers
Full House
By Jon Jordan
Interrogations
By Jon & Ruth Jordan (editors)
Murder and Mayhem in Muskego
Cooking with Crimespree
By Andrew McAleer & Paul D. Marks (editors)
Coast to Coast (*)
By Bill Moody
Czechmate: The Spy Who Played Jazz
The Man in Red Square
Solo Hand
The Death of a Tenor Man
The Sound of the Trumpet
Bird Lives!
By Gary Phillips
The Perpetrators
Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes (editor)
Treacherous: Griffters, Ruffians and Killers
By Gary Phillips, Tony Chavira, Manoel Magalhaes
Beat L.A. (Graphic Novel)
By Robert J. Randisi
Upon My Soul
Souls of the Dead
Envy the Dead (*)
By Rob Riley
Thin Blue Line (*)
By Ryan Sayles
The Subtle Art of Brutality (*)
Warpath (*)
By Anthony Neil Smith
Worm (TP only)
By Liam Sweeny
Welcome Back, Jack (*)
By Lono Waiwaiole
Wiley's Lament
Wiley's Shuffle
Wiley's Refrain
Dark Paradise
By Vincent Zandri
Moonlight Weeps
(*) Coming soon
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Here’s a sample from Les Edgerton’s The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping.
2003
A STREETCAR NOT NAMED DESIRE
The first glitch came up right away. In fine-tuning the kidnap plan, in which Tommy explained we’d go in dressed in three-piece suits like insurance salesmen in case any neighbors were up and about and noticed two guys dressed like shrimpers at this guy’s house early in the morning. Well, I didn’t have a three-piece suit and not even a two-piece suit, and upon further researching my memory, didn’t even have a sports coat and after quizzing Tommy, discovered he didn’t have one either. I figured we’d just go in like we were dressed, but Tommy wouldn’t have none’a that.
“Jeez Louise, Pete. We can’t do that. This is a big-money community where this guy lives. In-ground swimming pools, that gives you any idea. We show up looking like we usually dress, there’s gonna be some dame across the street calling the cops for the two guys look like a home-invasion team.”
Turns out he had a plan to get us a few bucks to get suits with. It was a strange-enough idea I thought it could work. I guess you had to be there when he was laying it down. Sounded righteous enough then... I mean, the guy was an Indian...
An hour later, Tommy and me are sitting on the St. Charles streetcar, at the stop by the zoo down by Club 4141, watching people get on in the front. The last two on are a young tourist couple in matching yellow Bermuda shorts.
“Cool,” Tommy said. “Tourists. They’ll have cash.” He took a drag from his cigarette. He was sitting directly under the “No Smoking” sign, but held it outside the window.
I didn’t disagree. There were maybe fifteen people on board, not counting us and the motorman. This was looking better and better. Might get as much as a couple of thousand out of this crew. Get us suits somewhere else than the bargain bins of the Men’s Wearhouse.
“See that?” Tommy said. I followed his eyes which were locked on the buxom female member of the tourist couple. She was a looker.
“Yeah? So?”
“So this.” He brought his forearm up, pretending to take a bite out of it.
“You wish,” I said, grinning.
“Yeah, well I got something her boyfriend ain’t.”
I laughed o
ut loud. “Right, Tommy. Ugliness. But I think she’s maybe one of those weirdos goes for brains and looks. At least one of those.”
Tommy turned and gave me a look. “I’m talking technique here,” he said. “I got this technique.”
“Technique?”
“Technique.”
“What... you got a cute way of gettin’ on and off?”
“Naw, man,” he said, shaking his head like he can’t believe how dumb I am. “That’s like a big dick. Everybody’s got that.”
I snickered. “I don’t recall you was so blessed in the big wang department, Tommy.”
“Yeah, well I was cold that time. We just got out of the lake, for crissake. See, Pete, being a champion at sex is like being good at basketball. You got to be able to go strong to the hole.”
There was a young gal behind us who I could see was trying to ignore what Tommy was saying. She squirmed in her seat and studied the scenery out the window, them mansions sliding by.
I was dying to know Tommy’s “technique,” and asked him.
“I piss in ’em,” he said.
The gal behind us grabbed her purse and sniffed, loud, got up and moved three rows back to the last seat.
“Fuck you, lady,” Tommy muttered. “You don’t like the conversation, relocate.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “She did. What’s this pissing thing?”
I saw the street sign flash by. Coming up was where we planned to do our thing. The corner where St. Charles turned onto Carrollton, by the Camellia Grill. Three blocks from where we’d stashed Tommy’s Nova to make our getaway.
“Never mind,” I said. “Here it comes. You ready?”
“I was born ready,” Tommy said. He stood up and reached his hand into his waistband.
The gal who had relocated screamed out, “This man has a gun!”
Shit.
The streetcar went nuts. Pandemonium erupted—passengers screaming, brakes screeching as the conductor slammed the car to a half. Tommy lost his balance and recovered. The tourist woman in the front screamed one long banshee scream—Ayyyyeeeeeeeaaahhhh! She’s just one long scream, punctuated only by the times she has to draw breath.
Eeeeeeeeeaaaaaayaaaaah! Ayaayaaya! Aaaaaayaeeee!
“Shut up!” Tommy screamed. “Shut the fuck up!”
He looked down at me where I was just kind of sitting, pretty much in shock.
“You on a break here, Pete?”
I just gawked at him. This wasn’t what I’d envisioned. His eyes left mine and I followed his stare to the gal who’d blown the whistle on us in the rear seat. She had a gun out, trained on him with both hands, just like they do on TV. I couldn’t move. My entire life didn’t flash before my eyes, but about twenty-six years and three months of it did.
“I’m throwing up in my mouth, is what I’m doing,” I said. What had I got into?
“You’ll wanna brush your teeth before you kiss any girls, then,” he said.
Tommy brought his own gun up to bear on the woman in back, same two-handed grip she had. Mexican standoff.
He turned his head slightly down to me, still keeping his gaze on the woman. “Shoot her!” he said. This was just completely fucked.
“You got the gun, Captain Marvel,” I said, finally. “You shoot her.”
Instead of answering or shooting her, he began to back up toward the front door, his piece still trained on the woman. I got up to follow him. It got worse. Four people in the back pulled out weapons and pointed them our way.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” It was all Tommy could say. My sentiments exactly.
I had to hand it to him, though. He didn’t lose it.
“Look, folks,” he said. “We’re gonna just get off now, leave all you good people be. Everybody just stay calm.”
One of the male armed passengers near the back door stood up. He said, “Like hell. I’m taking you out, cowboy.”
I felt like I was going to pass out.
The conductor opened the back door with his control and stood up. “Let ’em go,” he said. “I don’t want no blood in my car.”
The guy with the gun didn’t like what he was hearing. “Aw, man,” he said in a whiney voice. “You can’t just let criminals roam around. We got to take a stand. This is New Orleans, not Fucking-Pansy-Ass-New-York-City. We don’t take no prisoners in this town.”
“Listen, Dirty Harry,” the conductor said. “This is my streetcar. I make the rules. Siddown and shut up and let these folks pass.”
Tommy ran for the door and I was closer than his shadow behind him, leaping off a nanosecond after he did, scrambling as fast as we could across the street.
The mouthy man and the woman in back opened up with their pistolas. I didn’t turn back to look, just kept running as hard as I could, but I heard glass shattering, people screaming, and the pop-pop-pop of handguns. Something whizzed just past my ear and I was pretty sure it wasn’t a mosquito unless insects came in calibers. I ran smack into a braking car, bounced off the hood, got up and kept on running. My side was on fire. Any second now, I imagined a hot piece of lead finding my skull or some other tender part. The regrets were coming as fast as the bullets and I kept wondering like you do in such times of stress when it was exactly that God had dropped my case and went off to take a nap or something.
I knew when. Like all of my wrong turns, it had started with my gambling jones.
1998
Ten years before we had to jump off that streetcar, I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona at the Giants’ park and sitting in the bullpen enjoying the crap out of the last game of spring training before we headed north. On my way to the Show. Better, I am about to win a shitload of money for the game we was currently engaged in against the fucking Dodgers. Well, at least get even with my bookie and that was a boatload. Plus, there was a hottie in the stands who kept showing me she’d forgot to wear her panties that day. Shining me two smiles: one horizontal and one vertical.
Two outs down and one more inning after this one and we’d would nail down the win over those assholes and I was feeling it. Only one man—catcher Mike Piazza—had reached base on a walk. Piazza had just stolen second and then third and that pissed all of us off. Catchers weren’t supposed to steal.
The bullpen phone rang and it was Dusty. I could see him where he stood on the dugout steps and he was tapping his right arm. Dick Pole, our bullpen coach picked up the phone.
“Halliday!” he said. “Pete! Get warm.”
Shit. I’d been nipping on a half-pint of Southern Comfort since the top of the second, knowing I wasn’t going to play today. Why the fuck did Piazza have to steal third?
I knew why Baker wanted me.
See, I have a unique talent. As a relief pitcher, I’m so-so. I mean, I’m good enough to make a major league club. Got enough arm I can mop up, burn an inning or two with my junk, but what I really was was a one-out specialist.
My pick-off move. With variations. At one time, I had probably the best pick-off move in baseball. Well, in the National League. Well, to be more precise, in our division. Well, one of the best, anyway. On our club, for sure. Possibly.
I knew what Dusty wanted me to do. Get Piazza, get us out of the inning. He didn’t even want me to pitch to the Dodger’s second baseman Jody Reed who was standing there waiting on me. Just get Piazza. You gotta remember, nobody knew who Piazza was then. It was his rookie year, 1993. Nobody knew he’d end up being kind of good and winning the Rookie of the Year Award that year. He was just a dumb-fuck catcher then, and Dusty was pissed he’d stole a base. Two bases.
And, yeah, that was the plan. Instead of the pitching coach coming out to hand me the ball, it was Dusty.
“You been drinking, Halliday?” he said, sniffing the air and leaning in close to me when he handed me the ball.
Before I could lie, he said, “Ne’mind. Get Piazza. You got one pitch. I don’t want you to throw to Reed. You throw even one pitch to Reed you’ll be picking splinters out of your butt in Valdosta.”
“Sure, Skip,” I said, all teeth and outright joy. “Appreciate your confidence in me.”
Kirk Manwaring, our catcher who hadn’t said anything, just shook his head in disgust, spit a goober on the mound about where I usually set up and went back to the plate.
Reed stepped in, waggled his bat like he thought he was Henry Aaron, and Manwaring give me the sign. He showed the middle finger, which wasn’t in our usual repertoire and I nodded. I went into the stretch—even though I didn’t have to with nobody on first, except the stretch gave me a better line on what I intended to do than a full windup—whirled, and caught Piazza off the bag. He was only six-seven feet off—nobody in the park thought he’d even try to steal home. It was the perfect lead for what I wanted. He started to turn lazily to step back to the bag... and crumpled in the dirt.
I’d hit him in the nuts, a second before he’d turned.
Yelled, “Bam, sucka!” at the same instant I threw.
Plan A.
Never meant to throw to our third-sacker. Hit my target just like I’d drawn it up in my mind and like Dusty knew I would. Just another diamond accident.
Down he went on the ground, writhing like he’d been suddenly struck by the Holy Spirit and screeching in what mighta passed for those tongues which some churches favor. Our third baseman Matt Williams reached down, picked up the ball and tagged Piazza.
“Yer out!” screamed Blue, and then at me he yelled, “Watch your mouth, pitcher,” and we all headed for the dugout, streaming around Tommy Lasorda who’d come out to argue the call, which got the same result as it usually does, allowing Tommy to get back to their hotel pool early, start working on his tan.