Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 04/01/11

by Dell Magazines

What a nutty thought. Maybe he wasn’t Lance Armstrong, but he was strong, in his prime—or only a little past. His legs wouldn’t simply turn off as if powered by expired batteries. Still, a scary picture sprang to mind—of his having to get off and walk himself home, leaning against the bicycle like some old Pops crouched over a grocery cart for support.

  He raised his chin, looked up at the sky. The Maxfield Parrish pink that had edged the clouds was gone now. So were the clouds. A general dimness settled on the closely spaced houses. How long had he been lost in this strange neighborhood?

  “Lost.” He’d said it. The word took his breath away, made his knees feel even more creaky. He glanced at his sports watch. Had it been only seven minutes? Seemed like hours. Whichever, it only took a moment to get murdered.

  He wished that idea hadn’t drifted in.

  Lighten up, he chanted to himself. Little Travis was home, waiting. Jill. Dinner. That great showerhead, his shower stereo, and all of his things, his study; everything that made sense was waiting at home. He’d only made this one misstep, this one foolish lapse in judgment, banking on it that Azalea Gardens wasn’t the bogeyman, that no bogeymen could exist and thrive only five miles from his gated community.

  The darker blue of evening now cloaked the sky. First dark. He’d give anything if the sun would change its mind and pop up again, do something really outlandish for the first time since Old Testament days, if only to give him another fifteen minutes.

  He wouldn’t be surprised if his next assailant were an owl, swooping down to pluck out an eye. He wanted to go faster, but the road was a Swiss cheese of potholes. He squinted, tried to see as far ahead as he could. Were his eyes fooling him, or did it actually look brighter at the end of Pansy Lane? Could it be? He imagined the effect meant, possibly, that an open field lay just beyond Pansy Lane’s thick, canopying trees.

  Travis breathed easier. Yes, the street led not to more scary, potholed streets with deceptively sweet flower names, but to a broad grassy easement just before the open drainage canal, a much smoother roadway running along its entire length. Across the canal, about a football field away, blinked the lights of Grassmere Point. Grassmere was the nice, but decidedly less exquisite subdivision that shielded Sheridan Estates from the rest of this benighted region. Now he just had to find a way to cross over.

  Travis reared up off the seat, jogged his feet against the pedals with growing hope. Something was ahead, something bridgelike. Yes.

  A moment later his smile vanished. A huge dog was down by the footbridge. He trotted away from Travis, but then circled back, head up, as if on the lookout for a new victim to dismember. Rottweilers and pit bulls were the dogs of choice in these parts. This one looked more like a rogue German shepherd, only bigger. Hell, it looked like a wolf!

  The creature hadn’t seen him. It veered in the opposite direction again, like a prancing show horse with fangs. Travis hung back, traced lazy circles in the street, hoping the monster would move on down the canal and give him the chance to trundle his bike down there through the tall grass and cross the bridge. But the animal hauled around, guarding the bridge like a sentry.

  Travis set his feet on the ground and gazed back toward Pansy Lane. At least in the open where he now stood, straddling his bike, a half moon was rising to lend some light. But the canopy of oaks from which he’d recently emerged looked menacing, a black tunnel. Many of the streetlights in Azalea Gardens, he’d noticed earlier, were broken. No way was he going back in there.

  And this hellhound guarded the only exit. The aluminum pump hugging his bike’s frame now seemed a sorry weapon.

  He glanced back at the Pansy Lane tunnel. Who knew what waited for him along those curving, nameless streets? He wasn’t even sure how to get back to Wiser, his starting place.

  The dog pranced, wagging his nose in the air as if on the verge of picking up Travis’s scent, Travis’s fear. Well, sometimes fear was a smart reaction. Sure, he could zoom down there like some half-baked hero, confront that one-headed Cerberus, risking blood and guts, just to find the bridge caved in, useless.

  Between a rock and a hard place. Home was so close, but oh-so-far away. Clichés abounded. And now his teeth really were chattering.

  He lingered, glancing from the dog to the black maw of Pansy Lane. The lady or the tiger? In this case, both routes promised a tiger. He felt stuck, as if nothing could get him going either way. But something did.

  The crazy bass pulsing was back, the enraged muffler now vibrating to a new meter of complaint. The Oldsmobile bomb careened onto the canal road. It was way down, pretty far away, but speeding toward him. Even the dog took note, swung its devilish head around. It seemed to crouch, shrink, smart enough to know the threat was real also for animals. And Travis, breaths coming fast, fled into the gaping black hole he swore he’d never reenter.

  All was black on Pansy Lane, every bit as dark as Travis feared. He pedaled slowly, getting his eyes accustomed to the gloom. A car’s headlights raked across the shrubbery ahead and rounded the corner, coming toward him from the opposite direction. The lights were blinding. “Shit,” he said. But this car was without pulsing sound effects. It rolled into a gutter on the right. All four doors opened. People started getting out. A family. He felt eager to grant the emerging conglomeration of souls that heartening name.

  Yes, a family. Not necessarily a coven of crackheads. He was certain. Riding past, he hunched over the bars, shriveling into himself like a snail that’s received a heavy dose of salt. The family might be perfectly harmless, might even help with directions; still, he veered away, petrified. Then, behind him, punching the air, came the traveling rap show, the gray Olds. If never before in his life, Travis needed asylum now.

  Just ahead on his left he spied the porch with the yellow light, the large young man beneath it, still creaking back and forth in the swing. If Travis rode up to that porch, he might look as if he were visiting, might appear safely embedded in the community and thus not draw the Oldsmobile’s attention. He could pretend to belong while at the same time asking the guy on the swing for directions on how to get the hell out.

  The car wasn’t going fast now. It crept along, sniffing the air like one of those creatures in monster movies, unwilling to pass up a single juicy victim. Now or never, Travis said to himself. He angled his bike over the sloping curb and cruised sedately up the front walkway.

  The car throbbed several houses down, its chassis clanking as it explored the depths of every pothole.

  “Hello.” Travis produced the most feeble, fake smile of his life. The object of his discourse nodded and gazed off into space. He wore a Lion King T-shirt.

  Travis thought he might as well get down to business. “I need help,” he said, working to erase the panic from his voice. “I need to get to Wiser Boulevard. You know how to get to Wiser?”

  “My name’s Geronimo,” the young man said. His smile was gentle, happy. Under the yellow light, his close-cropped hair showed several buzz-cut channels that reminded Travis of Peruvian petroglyphs.

  “Nice to meet you, Geronimo.” Travis tipped a hand to his helmet and tried not to smirk at the crazy name. “But, about that street—Wiser. You know how I can get to Wiser, Geronimo?”

  The young man tilted his head. Instead of answering, he asked, “What your name?”

  “Uh—Joe,” said Travis. “I’m Joe. So, do you know how to get to Wiser, that big street with all the lights?”

  The young man pushed the floorboards with his feet. He suddenly flung out a hand—in the wrong direction, Travis was sure—and said, “Wiser!” as if he’d accomplished some great feat. “Wiser, Joe!”

  Travis knew he was talking to a child in a man’s body. That was okay, for now, since the Olds was still creeping up Pansy Lane, wilting every green thing within range of its killer bass speakers. Even if Geronimo had nothing to offer in the way of directions, it was a smart move to stay put, keep talking, as if he of the funny helmet and sleek racer togs had legitimate busine
ss in this ’hood.

  “Wish I had a map,” said Travis, not caring how stupid the idea sounded, considering his audience. “If I had a map, maybe I could get out of here.”

  Geronimo stopped pushing the floor with his feet. “Map?” His eyes showed a childlike interest.

  “Yeah. Like a map of the world, to show me where I am, how to get out of this freaking place the fastest.”

  Geronimo held up a finger. I got the thing for you, the gesture promised. He stood and disappeared inside the house, opening the screen door wide, letting it slam behind him. Glimpsing the interior, Travis noted this was indeed one of those houses without a foyer.

  Rap lyrics ricocheted off the trees. “Hey, Motha’! Motha’?” The same guy who’d called Travis a sweet biker babe was shrieking out his window like some fool hopped up on helium gas.

  Travis pretended deafness. He balanced on his seat, one foot on the step, his back to the street. He chose to maintain that pose, to resemble a marble statue. If a car door opened behind him, he’d be off that seat and inside Geronimo’s house so fast, the family’d swear it had another papoose.

  Just as Travis’s nerve was about to fail, Geronimo reappeared. Triumphantly before him, he carried a globe of the world.

  “I meant a street map.” Travis stretched his arms wide, as if opening a map of all the states in the union engraved with major highways and tributaries.

  Geronimo’s head bobbed good-naturedly. “The whirl,” he said. “I got the whole whirl.” He spun the globe before Travis’s blurring eyes. As it slowed, Travis noticed a big dent in West Africa.

  “I got the whole whirl.” Geronimo spun the globe again, then abruptly stopped it with his forefinger. “You are here!” he said with conviction. His finger landed on China. He spun again, slapped a finger against the world’s speeding belly once more. “You are here!” This time, his fingernail, perfectly crescented with a pale half moon, landed in the middle of the Pacific.

  “You are here!” Geronimo tilted his glistening, channeled scalp toward his guest as if Travis should be pleased to find himself in such good company.

  Meanwhile Travis was thinking: The sun’s moved clear to the other side of this orb. We’re on the dark side. Pitch. He gazed at a faded cloth that hung down from the top of the screen door on the inside, and thought: You were rich with color once. He sensed Geronimo’s mother or grandma might be standing behind that cloth, keeping an eye on her baby and the strange white man.

  “You here!” Geronimo braked the world, then spun again, happy with the game.

  Travis watched as slightly raised mountains rippled by. He nodded, mesmerized. The bass beat still bounced off the thick tree trunks behind him.

  “Hey Motha’. Gimme that fancy bike, Motha’.” The voice cackled, then cracked, as if incapable of maintaining a serious threat. “Gimme that bike for Chrissmus, Motha’!”

  Geronimo struck the globe another glancing blow. Continents flew by. Geronimo’s finger stopped the world again. “You are here. You here.”

  “Yeah, that’s where I am.” Travis felt his voice was sounding in a different kind of air, in uncharted territory a million miles away from his family or anything he knew.

  He rested his palm on the globe, touching Geronimo’s hand as he did. “This is where I am,” Travis said. “I guess I’m here.” Where that was, he didn’t know—a disquieting fact—but his legs had stopped shaking, and despite the growling engine behind him, his breaths were coming more evenly.

  Travis spun the globe himself and watched the colors blur. In front of him, Geronimo was smiling and bobbing his head, glad to be of help.

  Copyright © 2011 Elaine Menge

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  This month’s titles have a “ripped from the headlines” feel as they engage circumstances and issues that frequently dominate headlines. Andrew Klavan’s The Identity Man is set in an unnamed city that channels the destruction felt in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. T. Jefferson Parker’s The...

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  We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will be printed in a future issue. Reply to AHMM, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, New York, New York 10007-2352. Please label your entry “April Contest,” and be sure your name and address are written on the story you submit. If you would like your story returned, please include an SASE.

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  DEPARTMENTS

  BOOKED & PRINTED

  ROBERT C. HAHN

  This month’s titles have a “ripped from the headlines” feel as they engage circumstances and issues that frequently dominate headlines. Andrew Klavan’s The Identity Man is set in an unnamed city that channels the destruction felt in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. T. Jefferson Parker’s The Border Lords explores the porous borders between the United States and Mexico and the horrific carnage resulting from the drug trade. The all-too-familiar story of the felon released from prison on a technicality, legitimate or spurious, who then commits additional crimes is given a dark reading in John Lescroart’s Damage.

  All three authors are successful veterans and readers’ high expectations will not be disappointed by these new offerings.

  In THE IDENTITY MAN (Houghton Mifflin, $25), Andrew Klavan’s protagonist, John Shannon, is a thief, but a decent thief who’s already done two felony stints for burglary. When times are good he earns a living with his carpentry skills, but when work is slow and funds are low he reverts to crime and the thrill it provides. Until he makes the mistake of partnering with the wrong guy and finds himself framed on a murder charge.

  On the run and desperate, Shannon meets the Identity Man, and the transformation of Shannon into Henry Conor begins, with no explanation and no assent from the hapless thief. New name, new face, passport, driver’s license, work history, references are all provided gratis. He’s even given a car, a small stake, a set of carpentry tools, and a new city.

  Like New Orleans after Katrina, this new city is recovering from flood-—a perfect place for a carpenter, since the devastation has resulted in massive rebuilding efforts. This flood also covered over a number of crimes, and in the chaotic aftermath fraud and corruption found fertile soil. One crime that seems to get washed away by the flood is the murder of Peter Patterson by Police Lieutenant Brick Ramsey, whose career path has gradually twisted him from one side of the law to the other.

  Klavan maintains the mystery of the Identity Man’s purpose as Conor gradually rebuilds a new life as a carpenter and craftsman, even finding a surrogate family in Frederick Applebee, his widowed daughter, Teresa Grey, and her son, Michael.

  That the paths of Conor and Ramsey will cross seems inevitable, but how and with what results are elements that the inventive Klavan skillfully interweaves as Conor (and the reader) wait for the price of the Identity Man’s services to be extracted.

  THE BORDER LORDS (Dutton, $26.95), T. Jefferson Parker’s fourth entry in a planned six-volume Border book series—following 2010’s Iron River—moves at a white heat pace from start to finish, as Charlie Hood of the Los Angeles sheriff’s de
partment continues his overt and covert war against the drug and gun trade while on loan to the ATF Blowdown task force. The operation aims to cut off the flow of an extremely lethal silenced machine pistol called the Love 32.

  And while Hood is very much present, this volume belongs to his friend, ATF agent Sean Ozburn, who has gone “deep undercover” as a gun and drug dealer to penetrate gang operations on both sides of the California–Mexico border. Ozburn has excellent cover as a meth and gun specialist with Aryan Brotherhood connections and a putative friend of the North Baja Cartel.

  A year is normally a very long term “UC” assignment, but Ozburn has been undercover for fifteen months when he suddenly goes silent, with no contact for six days. His unusual silence is followed by something worse: He’s caught on tape dismantling a monitoring system just before three suspected assassins are slaughtered in a safe house.

  With orders to bring Ozburn in and arrest him, Charlie Hood contacts Sean’s wife, Seliah, who describes Sean’s recent mood swings as he became increasingly disenchanted with the United States’ war on drugs and the weakness of the Mexican government. But it appears that during a stolen week with Seliah in Costa Rica something else changed in Sean, and after going back undercover Sean continues to change in strange ways as he pursues his new mission with desperate intensity. Hood becomes increasingly convinced that the trip to Costa Rica and Sean and Seliah’s contact with a man calling himself “Father Joe Leftwich” is a key to understanding what is happening to Sean.

  Parker is a risk-taking author, and the descriptions of Sean’s behavior and symptoms at times make him seem like a supervillain or a superhero run amok in a way that strains credulity until Parker gradually reveals a credible explanation. Parker ratchets up both action and suspense while detailing the cost and carnage of the drug trafficking and its attendant violence. It is a considerable accomplishment, and even more impressive as Parker brings this latest Border novel to its shocking conclusion.