by Otto Penzler
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Foreword
Introduction
TOM ANDES The Hit
PETER S. BEAGLE The Bridge Partner
K. L. COOK Filament
JASON DEYOUNG The Funeral Bill
JOE DONNELLY AND HARRY SHANNON Fifty Minutes
KATHLEEN FORD Man on the Run
MARY GAITSKILL The Other Place
JESSE GOOLSBY Safety
KATHERINE L. HESTER Trafficking
LOU MANFREDO Soul Anatomy
THOMAS MCGUANE The Good Samaritan
NATHAN OATES Looking for Service
GINA PAOLI Dog on a Cow
T. JEFFERSON PARKER Vic Primeval
THOMAS J. RICE Hard Truths
KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH Local Knowledge
LONES SEIBER Icarus
CHARLES TODD Trafalgar
TIM L. WILLIAMS Half-Lives
DANIEL WOODRELL Returning the River
Contributors’ Notes
Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2011
About the Editors
Copyright © 2012 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
Introduction copyright © 2012 by Robert Crais
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ISSN 1094-8384
ISBN 978-0-547-55398-6
eISBN 978-0-547-84055-0
v1.1012
These stories are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“The Hit” by Tom Andes. First published in Xavier Review, Vol. 31, No. 1. Copyright © 2011 by Thomas Andes. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Bridge Partner” by Peter S. Beagle. First published in Sleight of Hand, March 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Avicenna Development Corporation. Reprinted by permission of Avicenna Development Corporation.
“Filament” by K. L. Cook. First published in One Story, No. 147. Copyright © 2011 by K. L. Cook. Reprinted by permission of K. L. Cook.
“The Funeral Bill” by Jason DeYoung. First published in New Orleans Review, 37.1. Copyright © 2011 by Jason DeYoung. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Fifty Minutes” by Joe Donnelly and Harry Shannon. First published in Slake: Los Angeles, No.2: Crossing Over. Copyright © 2011 by Joe Donnelly and Harry Shannon. Reprinted by permission of Slake / Joe Donnelly and Harry Shannon.
“Man on the Run” by Kathleen Ford. First published in New England Review, Vol. 31, No. 4. Copyright © 2012 by Middlebury Publications. Reprinted by permission of New England Review.
“The Other Place” by Mary Gaitskill. First published in The New Yorker, February 14 & 21, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Mary Gaitskill. Reprinted by permission of Mary Gaitskill.
“Safety” by Jesse Goolsby. First published in The Greensboro Review, Fall 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Jesse Goolsby. Reprinted by permission of Jesse Goolsby.
“Trafficking” by Katherine L. Hester. First published in storySouth, No. 31. Copyright © 2011 by Katherine L. Hester. Reprinted by permission of Katherine L. Hester.
“Soul Anatomy” by Lou Manfredo. First published in New Jersey Noir, November 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Lou Manfredo. Reprinted by permission of Akashic Books.
“The Good Samaritan” by Thomas McGuane. First published in The New Yorker, April 25, 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Thomas McGuane. Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency, LLC.
“Looking for Service” by Nathan Oates. First published in The Antioch Review, Vol. 69, No. 2. Copyright © 2012 by Nathan Oates. Reprinted by permission of Nathan Oates.
“Dog on a Cow” by Gina Paoli. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, February 2011. Copyright © 2012 by Gina Paoli. Reprinted by permission of Gina Paoli.
“Vic Primeval” by T. Jefferson Parker. First published in San Diego Noir, May 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Akashic Books. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Hard Truths” by Thomas J. Rice. First published in The New Orphic Review, Vol. 14, No. 1. Copyright © 2011 by Thomas J. Rice. Reprinted by permission of Thomas J. Rice.
“Local Knowledge” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, November 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Reprinted by permission of Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
“Icarus” by Lones Seiber. First published in Indiana Review, Summer 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Lones Seiber. Reprinted by permission of Lones Seiber.
“Trafalgar” by Charles Todd. First published in The Mammoth Book of Historical Crime Fiction, September 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Charles Todd. Reprinted by permission of Charles Todd.
“Half-Lives” by Tim L. Williams. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March/April 2011. Copyright © 2011 by Tim L. Williams. Reprinted by permission of Tim L. Williams.
“Returning the River” by Daniel Woodrell. First published in the book The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell. Copyright © 2011 by Daniel Woodrell. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. All rights reserved.
Foreword
HAVING WRITTEN AND SPOKEN about mystery fiction frequently (some ungenerous soul might say ad nauseam) through the years, I have maintained that one of its appeals is that it is a literary presentation of a fundamental life force: a battle between those who value Good in opposition to the spear carriers of Evil.
Ruminating on it recently, however, I came to think this may be less true at this time than it was when I first became interested in crime fiction. As character and psychological elements of a story have transcended plots and clues, as the reason why a murder was committed has transcended the question of who committed it or how it was done, it seems to be that the two omnipresent factors in contemporary crime fiction are Death and Sin.
Death appears to provide the minds of readers with a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other single subject except love, but of course in crime fiction they are not mutually exclusive components of a novel or short story. Furthermore, when Death is accompanied by Sin in its most repugnant shapes, the fun increases exponentially. Some readers prefer the intellectual cheerfulness of a detective story while others have a taste that runs more to noir fiction, but in either case the story generally requires at least one dead body and at least one very wicked person for it to provide that frisson of pleasure that may be had while viewing horrible events from a safe distance.
Here, then, in the sixteenth volume in this distinguished series, is a collection of stories nearly
all of which are about Death and Sin, with plenty of dead bodies and an abundance of wicked people. They are designed, albeit unconsciously on the most part, to make you feel that it’s good to be alive and, while alive, on the whole, to be good.
It should be noted, in a parenthetical aside, that mystery writers are, with (truly) few exceptions, good. It is fundamental to their jobs to be aware of the fact that your sins will be discovered, no matter how clever you think you are. This is why, it should be further noted, mystery fiction is such a good influence in an increasingly degenerate world, and why it is so popular with academics, lawyers, politicians, and others who have reputations to protect; reading mysteries improves their morals and keeps them out of excessive mischief.
While it is redundant for me to write it again, since I have done it in each of the previous fifteen volumes of this series, I recognize the lamentable fact that not everyone has read every one of those books, nor memorized the introductory remarks, so it falls into the category of fair warning to state that many people regard a “mystery” only as a detective story. I regard the detective story as one subgenre of a much bigger genre, which I define as any work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or the plot. While I love good puzzles and tales of pure ratiocination, few of these are written today, as the mystery genre has evolved (or devolved, depending on your point of view) into a more character-driven form of literature, as noted previously. The line between mystery fiction and general fiction has become more and more blurred in recent years, producing fewer memorable detective stories but more significant literature. It has been my goal in this series to recognize that fact and to reflect it between these covers. The best writing makes it into the book. Fame, friendship, original venue, reputation, subject—none of it matters. It isn’t only the qualification of being the best writer that will earn a place in the table of contents; it also must be the best story.
As frequent readers of this series are aware, each annual volume would, I am convinced, require three years to compile were it not for the uncanny ability of my colleague, Michele Slung, to read, absorb, and evaluate thousands of pages in what appears to be a nanosecond. After culling the nonmysteries, as well as those crime stories perpetrated by writers who may want to consider careers in carpentry or knitting instead of wasting valuable trees for their efforts, I read stacks of them, finally settling on the fifty best—or at least my fifty favorites—which are then passed on to the guest editor, who this year is the creator of Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, Robert Crais. Coincidentally, but generously, he began writing the introduction to this volume on the same weekend that his most recent novel, Taken, hit the number-one spot on the New York Times bestseller list.
My sincere thanks go to this supernaturally gifted author, as well as to the previous guest editors, who helped make this series so successful: Robert B. Parker, who started it all in 1997, followed by Sue Grafton, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates, Scott Turow, Carl Hiaasen, George Pelecanos, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Harlan Coben.
While Michele and I engage in a relentless quest to locate and read every mystery/crime/suspense story published, I live in fear that we will miss a worthy one, so if you are an author, editor or publisher, or care about one, please feel free to send a book, magazine, or tearsheet to me c/o The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. If the story first appeared electronically, you must submit a hard copy. It is vital to include the author’s contact information. No unpublished material will be considered, for what should be obvious reasons. No material will be returned. If you distrust the postal service, enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard.
To be eligible, a story must have been written by an American or a Canadian and first issued in an American or Canadian publication in the calendar year 2012 with a 2012 publication date. The earlier in the year I receive the story, the more fondly I regard it. For reasons known only to the blockheads who wait until Christmas week to submit a story published the previous spring, holding eligible stories for months before submitting them occurs every year, which causes much gnashing of teeth while I read a stack of stories as my wife and friends are trimming the Christmas tree or otherwise celebrating the holiday season. It had better be a damned good story if you do this. Because of the very tight production schedule for this book, the absolute deadline is December 31. If the story arrives one day later, it will not be read. Sorry.
O. P.
Introduction
THE TIME: edging past midnight.
The place: a suburban neighborhood where a quarter moon casts pale light across sleepy trees, tailored lawns, and darkened houses; the camera that is our mind’s eye floats past these houses until it comes to rest on a window lit from within . . . which happens to be your window.
We now drift closer, where we find . . . me (aka Robert Crais, the coeditor of this book, along with the esteemed Otto Penzler) and author of this introduction), giggling like a goblin in the midnight shadows beneath the eaves of your roof, hanging in the darkness as I peer with cat-slit eyes into your bedroom. (Creepy, yeah, but not for deviant criminal purposes!)
I am watching you read this book.
I am giggling because you have plunked down hard cash for this book (maybe because my name is attached!), and I am having a blast and a half watching you enjoy this wonderful collection of short stories.
Because, good readers, this book is all about you enjoying yourselves and finding new authors to love, else my name would not be on it.
Short stories were my first love. Though I have published eighteen novels at this point in time, I began as a writer of short fiction and dearly love the form. For one, short stories are short. Poe famously defined a short story as a story one could read in a single sitting. I’m not sure that that is necessarily the case, but most of us can suck up a three-thousand-word short story in a sitting, and do, and that is part of the fun. You get the beginning, the middle, and the payoff all in a single gulp, and because of this, short stories are like peanuts—you probably won’t eat just one.
A good reader might be able to plow through a novel in three or four nights, relishing the immersion in the novel’s reality for a sustained period, but short stories allow the reader to sample many realities in that same period of time. I love checking out a contents page for the familiar names of writers I know I’ll enjoy, and also the exploratory adventure of discovering new writers whose names are unknown to me, which is the joy of an anthology such as this. Here you’ll get quick hits of superstars such as Peter Beagle and Thomas McGuane and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, as well as of writers whose work you might not yet have discovered.
With a collection like this, you get it all, and if you are like me, friends, you want it all!
Now that I’ve said this, make no mistake: short fiction should not be dismissed as a literary quickie, having no more importance than, say, stopping by McD’s for a burger to go. The best short stories can linger. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” and Chandler’s “Red Wind” all haunt me years after I first read them. In fact, the brevity of a short story often lends to its power.
Mr. Penzler and I have tried to provide something for everyone, from surprising amusements to complex character studies to noir pieces as desperate as a death row inmate’s heart. The key to a great short story collection is diversity. These stories do not all feature private investigators or college professors or retired FBI agents or criminals doing crime. They are not all grim noir etchings, not all laugh-out-loud giggles, and do not all have snappy twist endings. This is by design, but regardless of your personal preferences and tastes, these stories all have one thing in common—they are the best of their American kind yer ’umble editors could find, and personally, I am most excited for you to sample the type of story you ordinarily don’t read.
So explore. Taste ne
w flavors, smell new aromas, and run your fingers across the textures of authors you haven’t known before. Let Mr. Penzler and me be your guides.
The place: this book.
The time: now.
The mission: lose yourself in these dark dreams, and enjoy.
I am outside your window. Watching.
ROBERT CRAIS
TOM ANDES
The Hit
FROM Xavier Review
THE GUY LOOKED like an off-duty cop. Even Marsh could see that. For a terrible moment, when the door swung open as if torn from its hinges, when the lumbering shape waddled in, blotting out the sunlight from Irving, Marsh thought he’d been set up. He pictured himself hauled off in cuffs, his name splashed across the Examiner’s afternoon edition; he pictured Gina’s tears and the confused faces of their children, and something reared up inside him, an impulse toward self-destruction he didn’t know he possessed.
“You were supposed to be here by eleven o’clock,” he squawked, in the same petulant tone he reserved for his children, for the parolees they hired to scour pots at the hotel.
He didn’t know what he’d been expecting—someone more like Pacino in Scarface, with a little 007 thrown in for good measure; someone with at least a good head of hair. Mickey’s distended gut spilled out from under a dirty sweatshirt that said Property of the San Jose Sharks, and he was wearing shorts.
“All right, take it easy, will you?” the guy said finally, and Marsh knew what he was going to say before he said it—the parking, the traffic, stuck on the Bay Bridge for an hour and a half. “I’ve been driving circles around the block for half an hour looking for a place to park.”
His voice was soft, and it rose to a lilting crescendo that might have been funny, under different circumstances. He stood six feet, and Marsh would have said six across, too. He moved slowly, as if conserving his strength or impaired by his hulking physique, or as if he were in a great deal of pain. With the few pale wisps of blond hair standing up on the pink dome of his head, he looked like a toddler with a thyroid problem, but the threat of physical harm seemed to lurk just behind his every gesture, and Marsh recoiled in spite of himself, bumping into the empty barstool behind him.