MICHAEL LISTER'S FIRST THREE SERIES NOVELS: POWER IN THE BLOOD, THE BIG GOODBYE, THUNDER BEACH

by Michael Lister

  Though not nearly as artistic or dynamic, perhaps these pictures, too, will help protect the endangered Florida black bear. These are just snapshots, but as Eudora Welty used to say, A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.

  Decision.

  Should he turn back now, begin making his way to the hidden ATV, to a cell phone signal, report the crime and call Heather, or continue onward, deeper into the swamp to check his camera trap? No question. He knows what he should do.

  He also knows what his father would do. In fact, the should voice inside his head belongs to his dad.

  What Cole James would do.

  He’s thinking a lot more about that these days. More than at any other time in his life.

  Why the gods make fathers and sons so different is an eternal mystery.

  Cole James had been a simple, hardworking, blue-collar, small-town man with only a high school diploma and a good name. Full of the kind of folksy wisdom associated with farmers, country folk, and old-timers, Cole was everybody’s buddy, beloved, respected, a good ol’ boy in the very best sense.

  Not quite sure what to do with his impractical, artistic son, Cole never missed an occasion to encourage Remington in the ways of conventional wisdom.

  — Take your pictures, son. I’m not sayin’ not to, but get an education. Have a career.

  — I want photography to be my career.

  — Sure. Give it a try, but have something to fall back on. Get a degree in something you can make a living at. You’d make a great lawyer, but, hell, you can get your teaching certificate. I don’t care. I just want you to be okay.

  — I will be. Photojournalists make a good living.

  — Not many, I bet.

  — Enough. One more when I start.

  — I ain’t sayin’ don’t follow your dream. Ain’t sayin’ it’s silly. Just have a plan in case things don’t work out the way you think they will — ’cause they nearly never do. I hate to see you put all your dogs trackin’ one deer.

  A commencement speech of sorts, the conversation had taken place during the week leading up to Remington’s high school graduation.

  Without realizing it until this moment, he had unwittingly followed his dad’s advice — God, the influence he exerted without my even knowing it — and that’s what the ad agency job had been about. Safety. Security. Practicality.

  His dad was happy for his success, impressed with his salary.

  I fell into what he wanted for me without ever knowing what I was doing or why.

  Remington smiles.

  But he’s also the reason I stopped doing what he wanted me to. Coming back here to pick up his life where he left it is the only thing that could have nudged me out of the nest of my comfortable, safe, existence of quiet desperation and into these woods armed with only a camera.

  Wonder what he thinks about me cashing in my 401k to buy all this new photography equipment. Wonder if he knows. Are you out there? Are you here, closer than I think? Will I see you on the other side? Is there an other side?

  — Anything ever happens to me I need to know you’ll take care of your mother.

  — Of course.

  — You won’t try to move her, you’ll come back here, you’ll let her stay home.

  — I will.

  As if having a premonition, this call from Cole — a rarity in itself — took place the week of his death.

  — It’s a lot to ask, he adds.

  — You didn’t even have to, Remington says.

  — You comin’ for a visit anytime soon?

  — Gonna try.

  — How’re things at work?

  — Good.

  — You sockin’ some of that money away?

  — Costs a lot to live down here, but I manage to put a little away.

  — Good.

  — You and Heather worked things out yet?

  — I’m not sure we will.

  — You will.

  — I don’t know.

  — You will.

  — Too early to tell.

  — I’m proud of you, son.

  Surprised by the unexpected words, he stammers in search of a reply.

  — Ah … well … thanks.

  The shocking admission was the first of its kind since childhood and the last words he’d ever hear his dad speak.

  Yeah, he knows what he should do, what Cole would do, but it’s time to start being true to himself. Cole’s gone. Life’s short. He’s continuing on. If he doesn’t start living differently, more deliberately, he’s going to regret it.

  Did Cole die with regrets? Unlike Remington, he seemed so settled, so content with his simple life. Had he been? Really? Or did he hide regret and disappointment from his son the way men do skin magazines in a bottom dresser drawer and a bottle of vodka in the work shed?

  Didn’t know you very well. Not well enough to say whether your short, unfinished life was as fulfilling to you as it seemed, or if you repressed an enmity at the hand you were dealt: the full house of three low cards — claustrophobic, small-town life, sick wife, alien only child — and a pair of bad body parts.

  Nocturnal noises.

  Crickets.

  Frogs.

  Chirps. Hums. Buzzes.

  Loud.

  Forging on, he ventures deeper and deeper into darkness and density. Black leaves crunching beneath boots as he follows a ridge line into a stand of hardwoods over five hundred years old.

  Chill.

  Stalking.

  Frightened.

  The feeling that he is being followed persists. Stopping, he listens carefully and shines his small penlight in all directions, but hears and sees only nature.

  This deep, this dark, the woods seem haunted, as if alive with an ancient menacing force predating humanity.

  Check out all of Michael Lister's books at

  www.MichaelLister.com

  The Big Goodbye

  Michael Lister

  Pulpwood Press

  Panama City, FL

  Books by Michael Lister

  Power in the Blood

  Blood of the Lamb

  Flesh and Blood

  North Florida Noir

  Double Exposure

  Thunder Beach

  Florida Heat Wave

  The Body and the Blood

  The Big Goodbye

  Blood Sacrifice

  Burnt Offerings

  Separation Anxiety

  The Meaning of Life in Movies

  Finding the Way Again

  Copyright © 2011 by Michael Lister

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to people or places, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Inquiries should be addressed to:

  Pulpwood Press

  P.O. Box 35038

  Panama City, FL 32412

  Lister, Michael.

  The Big Goodbye / Michael

  Lister.

  -----1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1888146-78-3 (hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-888146-79-0 (trade paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-888146-80-6 (ebook)

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  Book Design by Adam Ake

  Printed in the United States

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First Edition

  eBooks created by www.ebookconversion.com

  For Emily Balazs

  The Big Goodbye

  Michael Lister

  Chapter 1

  I had not yet recovered from shooting Stanley Somerset when I saw her.

  Part of me hoped I’d never see her again. Part of me was constantly looking for her, scanning every crowd, straining to see around every corner, peering into every slowly passing car.

  The fu
nny thing was, I only saw her on that rarest of occasions when I wasn’t looking for her—like when I was in the middle of a case, having just shot a man.

  Ray and I had been hired by a voice on the phone and a check in the mail to locate a sixteen-year-old runaway from Nag’s Head, North Carolina.

  It hadn’t been difficult. The man she had run away with—her forty-eight-year-old step-dad—who had a room in the Dixie Sherman Hotel downtown wasn’t capable of keeping a low profile.

  “It just don’t add up. You gonna run to Panama City, you stay at the beach, right?” July, our part-time secretary, said from the backseat of Ray’s big Packard. “Why bring her to the Dixie?”

  Like Ray, the car was squarish and conservative, a late-model black four-door sedan that made him feel like a cop.

  We were parked on Fifth Street beneath a warm October sun, the planted palms lining the sidewalks flapping in the wind, unable to provide any shade.

  “Dixie Sherman’s nice,” Ray said. “Besides, they got beaches where they ran away from.”

  Ray Parker, former Pinkerton agent, had seen the world—or so it seemed to me and July. The two of us had barely left Bay County. He was nearly twice as old as we were—wise, too. We never doubted a word he spoke—which was easier than you might imagine. Buttoned up Ray rarely spoke. He was obviously pleased by the possibility of pinching the kind of creep who’d run off with a little girl. We all were.

  “Jimmy, you know what I mean, don’t you?” July asked me. “Why bring her here at all?”

  She wore her hair in a short feather cut, pincurls around her ears and on top of her head. She did this, she had confided in me one time, to de-emphasize the roundness of her full face, which was just silly. She had a cute face and a long, thin neck. Girls can be so silly sometimes.

  “For what we don’t have,” I said. “The lady paying our bills.”

  “The wife,” July said.

  “The mother,” Ray said.

  Sitting at the corner of Jenks and Fifth Street, the Dixie Sherman, the only high-rise around, was built in 1925 by W. C. Sherman, and had one hundred and one rooms, each with a bathroom, a telephone, and elegant furniture—all starting at just three bucks.

  When it opened in 1926 many locals referred to it as the “white elephant” downtown and called it “too much hotel” for the area, and maybe it was—back then, but here in the fall of 1943 its rooms were always full and its dance floors were the place to be on a Saturday night.

  The couple in question pulled up in a new blue torpedo sport coupe Pontiac, parked, and walked into the lobby.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Thunk.

  Three slamming car doors later we were following behind them.

  July didn’t usually tag along, but Ray thought she might cozy up to the little sixteen-year-old dumb Dora while we put the cure on her daddy. Ray had saved July’s life on a case he worked before I joined the agency, and had been saving her ever since. She wasn’t much of a secretary, but then there wasn’t much we needed a secretary for. She was stuck on Ray, looked at him in that dreamy, wide-eyed I-owe-you-my-life way that’s worth shelling out the dough of a part-time salary for.

  Though Ray hadn’t been a cop for a long time, he still stood out like one, so while July and I hopped the elevator with Stanley and his stepdaughter, Ray took the stairs.

  As the elevator ascended, I pretended to be keen on July, which wasn’t hard to do. What was hard was groping her with one arm, but she was swell about it, and as I kissed her neck, she coyly fought off my advances. When the doors opened on their floor and they stepped out into the empty corridor, Stanley looked back and said, “Come on, mister, at least wait’ll you get to your room.”

  “Don’t get your pulleys all twisted up, you old fuddy-duddy,” July said, pretending to try to get at him as I held her back. “Ain’t like this is Fifth Avenue or somethin’.”

  I nodded toward my missing arm. “Just got back from the war and I’m a little overheated. Didn’t mean no harm. Sorry your little girl had to see it.”

  “That’s okay, soldier,” he said. “We all appreciate what you boys—”

  “That ain’t his little girl,” July said. “Look at her. She’s a doll for creeps like ’em young.”

  Just as he was supposed to, the man stepped toward us, preparing to protect the dignity of his daughter-bride.

  I snapped out a hard left jab—well, as hard as I could with my left—and the punch caught him square on his left cheek.

  He staggered back a bit, but didn’t go down.

  So I hit him again. This time, a left hook that connected with his right cheek and buckled his knees. He went down, the closing elevator doors bumping into his prostrate body as he did.

  Before I could grab him, little Lisa was on top of him, making sure he was okay between turning and yelling obscenities at me.

  “We’re here to take you home, Lisa,” I said.

  And that was my mistake.

  They both perked up when they heard me use her name.

  “Your mom hired us to find you and bring you home,” I continued, unaware a guy as sick as Stanley would be paranoid enough to suspect something like this.

  “I won’t go,” she said.

  “Oh yes you will,” I said, reaching down and grabbing her. “And your daddy’s going to jail.”

  When I pulled her off him, Stanley came up with a gun.

  That’s me, Jimmy Riley, boy genius.

  “Stupid son of a bitch,” I said.

  “On the contrary,” Stanley said. “I was ready for—”

  “He’s talking about himself,” Ray said as he walked up behind Stanley with a gun of his own. “He should’ve known you’d be packin’ a rod. Put down the heater, Stanley,” Ray said. “I’m a very good shot.”

  “Okay,” Stanley said, dropping his head and lowering his gun.

  Suddenly, he grabbed Lisa, spinning her around for a shield and sticking the gun to the side of her head.

  “Put your gun down.”

  Behind Stanley I withdrew mine as Ray placed his on the ground.

  “Just relax,” Ray was saying.

  Stanley spun around to face us, placing Lisa between us.

  “Get around there with him,” he yelled. “Drop your gun.”

  We did and I did, my little revolver clanking against Ray’s as it hit the floor.

  “We don’t want to live if we can’t be together,” Stanley said.

  “I’m not going back,” Lisa said. “I’d rather die.” She then cut her wide and wild eyes up toward Stanley. “I’m tired of running. Tired of her chasing us. Shoot me, baby. Let’s die together. Today. Right here. Right now. She’ll just keep sending ’em. She don’t understand. Nobody does.”

  Stanley nodded.

  “Kick the guns away from you,” he said.

  We did.

  “Kneel down.”

  We did.

  “Stanley,” July said, “she’s clearly an unstable and melodramatic little girl. What’s your excuse?”

  “She can’t understand,” Lisa said to him. “She’s never been in love.”

  As they talked, I felt back to the .22 in my ankle holster with my left hand. My movements were awkward and clumsy. I hadn’t gotten used to using my left yet.

  Coughing to cover the sound, I pulled it free.

  “Honey, this ain’t love,” July said. “It only feels like it. You’re the one who’s never been loved.”

  “Why you fuckin’ floozy,” Lisa said, then turning back to Stanley, “Bump her off, too, Daddy. Do it for me. Whatta you say?”

  Stanley thought about it for a minute, then nodded.

  At that, Lisa lit up. Bending over toward July and sticking her face out like a child much younger than she was, she said, “Guess who’s gonna take a powder with us, huh? Huh?”

  When Stanley let go of Lisa and raised his gun toward July, Ray lunged toward him as I brought up the small revolver and fired it.


  The bullet hit his right leg just before he squeezed off a round. He flinched and missed July, the bullet lodging in the elevator wall behind us. Before he could fire again, Ray had tackled him to the ground and taken away his weapon.

  Lisa dove for our guns, still on the floor about five feet away, but July kicked them out of reach. She then jumped up and began flailing at July, who easily blocked most of the kicks and hits, and, quickly growing weary, slugged her in the stomach. She doubled over, trying to take in air, but nothing happened. When she finally could take a breath, she began to cry.

  A couple of hours later, after Lisa had been picked up by a rotund police matron, and Stanley had been taken into custody and to Lisenby Hospital to have the bullet removed, and my old partner had taken our statements and let us go, the three of us were riding back down in the elevator.

  “She was right,” July said almost to herself.

  When Ray didn’t say anything, I said, “About what?”

  “I never have been in love.”

  “Neither has she,” I said.

  “Have you?” she asked me.

  I nodded, images of Lauren flashing in my mind like buoys bobbing in the bay on a stormy night, not daring to speak for fear of what might come out.

  “Was it anything like that?”

  I remembered how gladly I would have died for Lauren when we were together, how badly I had wanted to die when she left me. I recalled the passion and obsession that had so often bordered on madness, and the way in which nothing else in the world seemed to matter—no, that’s not exactly it, the way there didn’t seem to be anything else in the world when we were together.

  I shook my head. “No. Nothing like that.”

  And then the elevator doors opened and Lauren was standing there with a dandy I didn’t recognize—the poor grotty sap she had her hooks in now.

  The timing couldn’t have been worse. I still had the jeebies from shooting Stanley, still raw from the memories July’s questions had resurrected.