Queens Noir

by Robert Knightly

  When the door of Deliverance closed behind me and I stepped onto the cracked sidewalk beyond its front stairway, I decided to phone Janette one final time. I watched a group of middle school girls skip double-dutch further down the street. The clothesline they were using for a jump rope slapped the pavement fiercely and their chants rippled down the block: `All, all, all in together, any kind of weather ..."

  The father answered, said Janette was out. "Mr. Stuckey, this is Douglass, the reporter," I began.

  "Yes?" His voice rose to an expectant pitch. `Any progress?"

  "See the teacher looking out the window. Dong, dong, the firebell ..." The girls picked up their volume, feet racing the rope.

  On the line I let out a sigh, and I heard Mr. Stuckey deflating in the silence. "Unfortunately, sir, I am no longer able to pursue this story." Across the street, a dude carrying a basketball tinder one arm shouted after a car rolling past on a wave of bass line.

  "That boy who did that to himself was not my son, he was someone else. Somebody did something, or said something that-" Stuckey cleared his throat. "Someone should be held responsible."

  I hesitated, then snapped my phone shut.

  "How many ringers can you take? One, two, three, four ..." The girls ticked off their chant behind me.

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  JILLIAN ABBOTT'S short stories have won awards in the United States and Australia. She is a reporter at the Queens Chronicle and her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the Writer Magazine, and many other publications. She's currently at work on a new mystery series as well as her second Morgan Blake thriller. She lives in Queens.

  MEGAN ABBOTT is the Edgar Award-nominated author of Queenpin, The Song Is You, and Die a Little, as well as the nonfiction study, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir. She lives in Forest Hills, Queens.

  SHAILLYAGNIHOTRI was born in India, grew up in Baton Rouge, and now lives in New York City. She is a filmmaker and recently completed a documentary entitled Three Soldiers. Her other projects include a feature film, Sangrita (in preproduction), and a novel, East River. She likes to consult Vedic astrologers, buy silver jewelry, and eat spicy chat in Jackson Heights.

  MARY BYRNE was born in Ireland and now divides her time between teaching, translating, and writing. She collaborated with Lawrence Durrell on his final book of essays, and her short fiction has been published in Ireland, England, France, Canada, and the United States. Byrne won the 1986 Hennessy Literary Award and currently lives in France.

  TORI CARRINGTON (a.k.a., Lori and Tony Karayianni) has published nearly forty tides, including those in the Sofie Metropolis, P.I. series, which are set in Astoria, Queens.

  JILL EISENSTADT is the author of two novels set in Queens, From Rockaway and Kiss Out. She is an occasional contributor to the New York Times, among other publications, and is a part-time writing professor at the New School's Eugene Lang College. Her Queens Noir story, "The Golden Venture," is based on a real event in the borough's history.

  VICTORIA ENG was born and raised in Chinatown and Queens. She is a graduate of Hunter College and holds an MFA in Writing from Columbia University. Her work has been published in 7be NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings about New York City. She lived in New Mexico and Costa Rica for seven years, and is currently back in New York working on a historical novel set in Chinatown.

  MAGGIE ESTEP has published six books and is working on her seventh, Alice Fantastic, which came to be when Robert Knightly asked her to write something for Queens Noir. Her favorite parts of Queens are the Kissena Velodrome, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Fort Tilden in Rockaway.

  BELINDA FARLEY resides in Harlem, not Queens, and is currently at work on a novel.

  ALAN GORDON is the author of the Fools' Guild Mysteries, including the forthcoming novel 7be Moneylender of Toulouse and, most recently, 7be Lark's Lament. He has been a resident of Queens'second oldest co-op since 1987, and is a defender of the borough's alleged miscreants as a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society. Gordon is the father of one genuine Queensian, and has been a Little League coach for six years, which has taught him all he needs to know about hard-boiled types.

  JOSEPH GUGLIELMELLI grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens. He cultivated his love of mysteries by reading golden age classics found while browsing in tiny bookstores in the shadow of the elevated tracks of the 7 train. For the past thirteen years, Joe has been coowner of the Black Orchid Bookshop, which was the 2006 recipient of the Raven Award given by Mystery Writers ofAmerica.

  DENIS HAMILL writes a column about Queens for the New York Daily News and has written ten novels, including, Fork in the Road, recently purchased by Alexander Payne's company for a feature film from Fox Searchlight. He lives in Queens.

  PATRICIA KING is the author of four books on business subjects, including Never Work for a, jerk. Her forthcoming book- 7he Monster in the Corner Ofice-will be published in 2008.

  ROBERT KNIGHTLY moved to Jackson Heights in 1995 and works as a Legal Aid criminal defense lawyer in the Queens courts. As a teenager, he dug graves one summer in First Calvary Cemetery in Blissville, where he set his story for this volume. His short story "Take the Man's Pay," from Akashic's Manhattan Noir, was selected for inclusion in The BestAmeri- can Mystery Stories 2007. As an NYPD officer and sergeant he patrolled Brooklyn and Manhattan for twenty years.

  GLENVILLE LOVELL has published four novels: Fire in the Canes, Song ofNight, Too Beautiful to Die, and Love and Death in Brooklyn. His stories haved appeared in Conjunctions, Shades ofBlack, Wanderlust.- Erotic Travel Tales, and Hardboiled Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.glenvillelovell.com

  LIZ MARTINEZ has lived in Woodside, Queens, for the past fifteen years. She is currently collaborating on a mystery anthology with fellow award-winning Mexican-American writer Sarah Cortez. "Lights Out for Frankie" was inspired by an organized retail crime case solved by legendary police detectives Eric Hernando and Sergeant Louie Torres of the Holmdel, New Jersey police department.

  STEPHEN SOLOMITA is the author of sixteen novels. He was born and raised in Bayside, Queens, not far from College Point, the setting for "CrazyJill Saves the Slinky."

  KIM SYKES is an actress and writer who lives in New York City. She frequently works at Silvercup Studios.

  K.J.A. WISHNIA'S first novel featuring Ecuadorian-American P.I. Filomena Buscarsela, 23 Shades of Black, was a finalist for both Edgar and Anthony Awards, and was followed by four other novels, including Soft Money and Red House. He lived in Ecuador for several years, and taught English at Queens College, CUNY. Wishnia gives special thanks to his students at Suffolk Community College, especially Victor Nieves, for providing him with the authentic ghetto phraseology.

  Table of Contents

  QUEENS NOIR

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  QUEENS HAS ATTITUDE

  QUEENS ON THE FLY: BY SEA, HORSE, TRAIN, PLANE, AND SILVER SCREEN

  INTRODUCTION

  PART I

  ALICE FANTASTIC

  BY MAGGIE ESTEP

  Aqueduct Racetrack

  UNDER THE THROGS NECK BRIDGE

  BY DENTS HAMILL

  Bayside

  GOLDEN VENTURE

  BY JILL EISENSTADT

  The Rockaways

  BUCKNER'S ERROR

  BY JOSEPH GUGLIELMELLI

  Shea Stadium

  BAGGAGE CLAIM

  BY PATRICIA KING

  JFK Airport

  ARRIVEDERCI, ALDO

  BY KIM SYKES

  Long Island City

  OLD QUEENS

  HOLLYWOOD LANES

  BY MEGAN ABBOTT

  Forest Hills

  ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE

  BY MARY BYRNE

  Astoria

  FIRST CALVARY

  BY ROBERT KNIGHTLY

  Blissville

  BOTTOM OF THE SIXTH

  BY ALAN GORDON

  Rego Park

  THE FLOWER OF FL
USHING

  BY VICTORIA ENG

  Flushing

  CRAZY JILL SAVES THE SLINKY

  BY STEPHEN SOLOMITA

  College Point

  LAST STOP, DITMARS

  BY Torn CARRINGTON

  Ditmars

  FOREIGN SHORES

  PART III

  AVOID AGONY

  BY SHAILLY AGNIHOTRI

  Jackson Heights

  VIERNES LOCO

  BY K.J.A. WISHNIA

  Corona

  OUT OF BODY

  BY GLENVILLE LOVELL

  South Jamaica

  LIGHTS OUT FOR FRANKIE

  BY Liz MARTINEZ

  Woodside

  JIHAD SUCKS; OR, THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS

  BY JILLIAN ABBOTT

  Richmond Hill

  THE INVESTIGATION

  BY BELINDA FARLEY

  Jamaica

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS