MOSTLY MURDER: Till Death: a mystery anthology

by Lawrence Block

  By the time we were in Madrid, with Andrew and Sue trekking through the Prado while Harry and I ate garlicky shrimp and sipped a sweetish white wine in a little café on the Plaza Mayor, it was clear what was going to happen. We were almost ready to talk about it.

  “I hope they’re having a good time,” I told Harry. “I just couldn’t manage another museum.”

  “I’m glad we’re out here instead,” he said, with a wave at the plaza. “But I would have gone to the Prado if you went.” And he reached out and covered my hand with his.

  “Sue and Andy seem to be getting along pretty good,” he said.

  Andy! Had anyone else ever called my husband Andy?

  “And you and me, we get along all right, don’t we?”

  “Yes,” I said, giving his hand a little squeeze. “Yes, we do.”

  Andrew and I were up late that night, talking and talking. The next day we flew to Rome. We were all tired our first night there and ate at the restaurant in our hotel rather than venture forth. The food was good, but I wonder if any of us really tasted it.

  Andrew insisted that we all drink grappa with our coffee. It turned out to be a rather nasty brandy, clear in color and quite powerful. The men had a second round of it. Sue and I had enough work finishing our first.

  Harry held his glass aloft and proposed a toast. “To good friends,” he said. “To close friendship with good people.” And after everyone had taken a sip he said, “You know, in a couple of days we all go back to the lives we used to lead. Sue and I go back to Oklahoma, you two go back to Boston, Mass. Andy, you go back to your investments business and I’ll be doin’ what I do. And we got each other’s addresses and phone, and we say we’ll keep in touch, and maybe we will. But if we do or we don’t, either way one thing’s sure. The minute we get off that plane at JFK, that’s when the carriage turns into a pumpkin and the horses go back to bein’ mice. You know what I mean?”

  Everyone did.

  “Anyway,” he said, “what me an’ Sue were thinkin’, we thought there’s a whole lot of Rome, a mess of good restaurants, and things to see and places to go. We thought it’s silly to have four people all do the same things and go the same places and miss out on all the rest. We thought, you know, after breakfast tomorrow, we’d split up and spend the day separate.” He took a breath. “Like Sue and Andy’d team up for the day and, Elaine, you an’ me’d be together.”

  “The way we did in Madrid,” somebody said.

  “Except I mean for the whole day,” Harry said. A light film of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. I looked at his jacket and tried to decide if he was wearing his gun. I’d seen it on our afternoon in Madrid. His jacket had come open and I’d seen the gun, snug in his shoulder holster. “The whole day and then the evening, too. Dinner—and after.”

  There was a silence which I don’t suppose could have lasted nearly as long as it seemed to. Then Andrew said he thought it was a good idea, and Sue agreed, and so did I.

  Later, in our hotel room, Andrew assured me that we could back out. “I don’t think they have any more experience with this than we do. You saw how nervous Harry was during his little speech. He’d probably be relieved to a certain degree if we did back out.”

  “Is that what you want to do?”

  He thought for a moment. “For my part,” he said, “I’d as soon go through with it.”

  “So would I. My only concern is if it made some difference between us afterward.”

  “I don’t think it will. This is fantasy, you know. It’s not the real world. We’re not in Boston or Oklahoma. We’re in Rome, and you know what they say. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

  “And is this what the Romans do?”

  “It’s probably what they do when they go to Stockholm,” Andrew said.

  * * *

  In the morning, we joined the Dattners for breakfast. Afterward, without anything being said, we paired off as Harry had suggested the night before. He and I walked through a sun-drenched morning to the Spanish Steps, where bought a bag of crumbs and fed the pigeons. After that—

  Oh, what does it matter what came next, what particular tourist things we found to do that day? Suffice it to say that we went to interesting places and saw rapturous sights, and everything we did and saw was heightened by anticipation of the evening ahead.

  We ate lightly that night, and drank freely but not to excess. The trattoria where we dined wasn’t far from our hotel and the night was clear and mild, so we walked back. Harry slipped an arm around my waist. I leaned a little against his shoulder. After walking a ways in silence, he said very softly, “Elaine, only if you want to.”

  “But I do,” I heard myself say.

  Then he took me in his arms and kissed me.

  * * *

  I ought to recall the night better than I do. We felt love and lust for each other, and sated both appetites. He was gentler than I might have guessed he’d be, and I more abandoned. I could probably remember precisely what happened if I put my mind to it, but I don’t think I could make the memory seem real. Because it’s as if it happened to someone else. It was vivid at the time, because at the time I truly was the person sharing her bed with Harry. But that person had no existence before or after that European vacation.

  There was a moment when I looked up and saw one of Andrew’s neckties hanging on the knob of the closet door. It struck me that I should have put the tie away, that it was out of place there. Then I told myself that the tie was where it ought to be, that it was Harry who didn’t belong here. And finally I decided that both belonged, my husband’s tie and my inappropriate Oklahoma lover. Now both belonged, but in the morning the necktie would remain and Harry would be gone.

  As indeed he was. I awakened a little before dawn and was alone in the room. I went back to sleep, and when I next opened my eyes Andrew was in bed beside me. Had they met in the hallway? I wondered. Had they worked out the logistics of this passage in advance? I never asked. I still don’t know.

  * * *

  Our last day in Rome, the Dattners went their way and we went ours. Andrew and I got to the Vatican, saw the Colosseum, and wandered here and there, stopping at sidewalk cafés for espresso. We hardly talked about the previous evening, beyond assuring each other that we had enjoyed it, that we were glad it had happened, and that our feelings for one another remained unchanged—deepened, if anything, by virtue of having shared this experience, if it could be said to have been shared.

  We joined Harry and Sue for dinner. And in the morning we all rode out to the airport and boarded our flight to New York. I remember looking at the other passengers on the plane, few of whom I’d exchanged more than a couple of sentences with in the course of the past three weeks. There were almost certainly couples there with whom we had more in common than we had with the Dattners. Had any of them had comparable flings in the course of the trip?

  At JFK we all collected our luggage and went through customs and passport control. Then we were off to catch our connecting flight to Boston while Harry and Sue had a four-hour wait for their flight to Tulsa. We said good-bye. The men shook hands while Sue and I embraced. Then Harry and I kissed, and Sue and Andrew kissed. That woman slept with my husband, I thought. And that man—I slept with him. I had the thought that, were I to continue thinking about it, I would start laughing.

  Two hours later we were on the ground at Logan, and less than an hour after that we were in our own house.

  That weekend Paul and Marilyn Welles came over for dinner and heard a play-by-play account of our three-week vacation—with the exception, of course, of that second-to-last night in Rome. Paul is a business associate of Andrew’s and Marilyn is a woman not unlike me, and I wondered to myself what would happen if we four traded partners for an evening.

  But it wouldn’t happen and I certainly didn’t want it to happen. I found Paul attractive and I know Andrew had always found Marilyn attractive. But such an incident among us wouldn’t be appropriate, as it had some
how been appropriate with the Dattners.

  I know Andrew was having much the same thoughts. We didn’t discuss it afterward, but one knows…

  I thought of all of this just last week. Andrew was in a bank in Skokie, Illinois, along with Paul Welles and two other men. One of the tellers managed to hit the silent alarm and the police arrived as they were on their way out. There was some shooting. Paul was wounded superficially, as was one of the policemen. Another of the policemen was killed.

  Andrew is quite certain he didn’t hit anybody. He fired his gun a couple of times, but he’s sure he didn’t kill the police officer. But when he got home we both kept thinking the same thing. It could have been Harry Dattner.

  Not literally, because what would an Oklahoma state trooper be doing in Skokie, Illinois? But it might as easily have been the Skokie cop in Europe with us. And it might have been Andrew who shot him—or who’d been shot by him, for that matter.

  I don’t know that I’m explaining this properly. It’s all so incredible. That I should have slept with a policeman while my husband was with a policeman’s wife. That we had ever become friendly with them in the first place. I have to remind myself, and keep reminding myself, that it all happened overseas. It happened in Europe, and it happened to four other people. We were not ourselves, and Sue and Harry were not themselves. It happened, you see, in another universe altogether, and so, really, it’s as if it never happened at all.

  Q&A with Lawrence Block

  You’ve written hundreds of stories, and are widely recognized as a master of the genre. After a lifetime of writing mysteries, what is it that triggers that itch to write for you?

  Very little these days, I’m afraid. The ideas still show up, but there’s less urge to do anything with them.

  What’s the story that got away—that you wish you had written, or had difficulty completing?

  There have been more than a handful of books and stories abandoned over the years. I can’t say I spend much time thinking about them, or regretting them. All part of the process.

  What are your current projects?

  As I write these lines, Subterranean Press has two novellas of mine in the pipeline, Resume Speed and Keller’s Fedora. And Pegasus is about to publish In Sunlight or in Shadow, an anthology I’ve edited of stories inspired by paintings of Edward Hopper. A beautiful book, and the stories are outstanding.

  If readers want to be in touch, how can they find you and find out about your books?

  I’m hiding in plain sight. The website is lawrenceblock.com. And an email to lawbloc@gmail.com, headed NEWSLETTER, gets you on my mailing list.

  * * *

  Lawrence Block is the recipient of a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America and an internationally renowned bestselling author. His prolific career spans over one hundred books, including four bestselling series as well as dozens of short stories, articles, and books on writing. He has won four Edgar and Shamus Awards, two Falcon Awards from the Maltese Falcon Society of Japan, the Nero and Philip Marlowe Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers Association of the United Kingdom. In France, he has been awarded the title Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice received the Société 813 trophy.

  Thank you for reading Mostly Murder: Till Death. We hope you enjoyed it! The plan is to publish a second volume with the theme of Revenge.

  The authors would so appreciate it if you would take the time to leave a brief review—and tell your friends. Word of mouth sells books.

  Join us on Facebook at The Mystery Collective to hear about upcoming releases:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/872038472905473/

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, I want to thank all the amazing writers who contributed to this anthology. What a joy to be able to offer the tremendous stories in this book.

  Thanks are also due to the individuals who collaborated in putting this volume together:

  Ernie Lindsey, who had the original idea for this mystery anthology series, and was kind enough to let me take the helm when his own successful writing career required all of his attention.

  Adam Hall, our wonderful artist, who managed to get just the right amount of creepy onto the cover.

  Therin Knite, who expertly formatted the digital and print editions of this anthology.

  Lawrence Block, who lent his famous author heft to a fledgeling mystery series.

  I am also grateful to the supportive indie author community, and to all those fans on Facebook who have encouraged us to create this new series.

  And I thank my alpha beta, Richard Leslie.

  Patrice Fitzgerald, Editor

  Mostly Murder mystery anthologies

  Copyright

  MOSTLY MURDER: Till Death

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the proper written permission of the appropriate copyright holder listed below, unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal and international copyright law. Permission must be obtained from the individual copyright owners as identified herein.

  The contents of this book are fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, place, or event is purely coincidental. Any opinions expressed by the authors are their own and do not reflect those of the editor or publisher.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  MOSTLY MURDER: Till Death, copyright © 2016 Patrice Fitzgerald and eFitzgerald Publishing, LLC.

  Foreword, copyright © 2016 Patrice Fitzgerald. Used by permission of the author.

  “Nice Guys Finish Last” by JC Andrijeski, copyright © 2016 JC Andrijeski. Used by permission of the author.

  “Forsaking All Others” by Chris Patchell, copyright © 2016 Chris Patchell. Used by permission of the author.

  “Starter” by Samuel Peralta, copyright © 2016 Samuel Peralta. Used by permission of the author.

  “Pride” by Eric J. Gates, copyright © 2016 Eric J. Gates. Used by permission of the author.

  “Two Faces” by H.B. Moore, copyright © 2016 H.B. Moore. Used by permission of the author.

  “Loving Frankie” by Patrice Fitzgerald, copyright © 2016 Patrice Fitzgerald. Used by permission of the author.

  “In Sickness and in Murder” by B.A. Spangler, copyright © 2016 B.A. Spangler. Used by permission of the author.

  “Nun of Your Business” by Jerilyn Dufresne, copyright © 2016 Jerilyn Dufresne. Used by permission of the author.

  “The Long Haul” by Josh Hayes, copyright © 2016 Josh Hayes. Used by permission of the author.

  “All Secrets Lead to Lies” by Anne Kelleher, copyright © 2016 Anne Kelleher. Used by permission of the author.

  “As Good as a Rest” by Lawrence Block, copyright © 1986 Lawrence Block. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, August, 1986. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Acknowledgments and all other text, copyright © 2016 Patrice Fitzgerald.

  MOSTLY MURDER: Till Death is part of the Mostly Murder series produced by Patrice Fitzgerald.

  Produced and edited by Patrice Fitzgerald (eFitzgeraldPublishing@gmail.com)

  Cover art by Adam Hall (www.aroundthepages.com)

  Formatted by Therin Knite (http://www.knitedaydesign.com)