by Curt Colbert
This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Akashic Books
© 2009 Akashic Books
Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Seattle map by Sohrab Habibion
ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07045-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-80-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008937353
All rights reserved
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
[email protected]
www.akashicbooks.com
ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES:
Baltimore Noir, edited by Laura Lippman
Bronx Noir, edited by S.J. Rozan
Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Tim McLoughlin
Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth
edited by Tim McLoughlin & Thomas Adcock
Chicago Noir, edited by Neal Pollack
D.C. Noir, edited by George Pelecanos
D.C. Noir 2: The Classics, edited by George Pelecanos
Delhi Noir (India), edited by Hirsh Sawhney
Detroit Noir, edited by E.J. Olsen & John C. Hocking
Dublin Noir (Ireland), edited by Ken Bruen
Havana Noir (Cuba), edited by Achy Obejas
Istanbul Noir (Turkey), edited by Mustafa Ziyalan & Amy Spangler
Las Vegas Noir, edited by Jarret Keene & Todd James Pierce
London Noir (England), edited by Cathi Unsworth
Los Angeles Noir, edited by Denise Hamilton
Manhattan Noir, edited by Lawrence Block
Manhattan Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Lawrence Block
Miami Noir, edited by Les Standiford
New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith
Paris Noir (France), edited by Aurélien Masson
Portland Noir, edited by Kevin Sampsell
Queens Noir, edited by Robert Knightly
Rome Noir (Italy), edited by Chiara Stangalino & Maxim Jakubowski
San Francisco Noir, edited by Peter Maravelis
San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Peter Maravelis
Toronto Noir (Canada), edited by Janine Armin & Nathaniel G. Moore
Trinidad Noir, Lisa Allen-Agostini & Jeanne Mason
Twin Cities Noir, edited by Julie Schaper & Steven Horwitz
Wall Street Noir, edited by Peter Spiegelman
FORTHCOMING:
Barcelona Noir (Spain), edited by Adriana Lopez & Carmen Ospina
Boston Noir, edited by Dennis Lehane
Copenhagen Noir (Denmark), edited by Bo Tao Michaelis
Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat
Indian Country Noir, edited by Liz Martínez & Sarah Cortez
Lagos Noir (Nigeria), edited by Chris Abani
Lone Star Noir, edited by Bobby Byrd & John Byrd
Los Angeles Noir 2: The Classics, edited by Denise Hamilton
Mexico City Noir (Mexico), edited by Paco I. Taibo II
Moscow Noir (Russia), edited by Natalia Smirnova & Julia Goumen
Mumbai Noir (India), edited by Altaf Tyrewala
Orange County Noir, edited by Gary Phillips
Phoenix Noir, edited by Patrick Millikin
Richmond Noir, edited by Andrew Blossom,
Brian Castleberry & Tom De Haven
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
PART I: GONE SOUTH
THOMAS P. HOPP Duwamish
Blood Tide
BHARTI KIRCHNER Wallingford
Promised Tulips
STEPHAN MAGCOSTA Ballard
Golden Gardens
ROBERT LOPRESTI Fremont
The Center of the Universe
PART II: WHAT COMES AROUND
KATHLEEN ALCALÁ Central District
Blue Sunday
SIMON WOOD Downtown
The Taskmasters
PATRICIA HARRINGTON Capitol Hill
What Price Retribution?
PART III: LOVE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD
CURT COLBERT Belltown
Till Death Do Us …
PAUL S. PIPER Leschi
The Best View in Town
R. BARRI FLOWERS South Lake Union
The Wrong End of a Gun
PART IV: TO THE LIMITS
BRIAN THORNTON Chinatown
Paper Son
SKYE MOODY Magnolia
The Magnolia Bluff
LOU KEMP Waterfront
Sherlock’s Opera
G.M. FORD Pioneer Square
Food for Thought
About the Contributors
INTRODUCTION
THE EMERALD CITY: UNPOLISHED AND UNCUT
Early Seattle was a hardscrabble seaport filled with merchant sailors, longshoremen, lumberjacks, rowdy saloons, and a rough-and-tumble police force not immune to corruption and graft.
Among the more notorious crimes in the city’s early history was the case of Seattle Mayor Corliss P. Stone. A businessman and former member of the city council, Mayor Stone’s term was cut short in 1873 when he got caught embezzling $15,000 from his firm, Stone & Burnett. He promptly fled to San Francisco with another man’s wife.
In 1909, members of the Chamber of Commerce decided that a totem pole would be the perfect finishing touch to the downtown business core known as Pioneer Square. They saw nothing wrong with taking a steamer up the coast to Fort Ton-gass, Alaska, and stealing one from a Tlingit Indian village. Apparently, neither did the citizenry of Seattle, who gathered in great numbers for the totem pole’s unveiling, cheering and celebrating not only the grand new symbol, but also the initiative taken in securing it for the city.
Prostitution flourished in early Seattle, the first brothel opening in 1861. By the time of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, it was a thriving trade. The city leaders felt they should be getting a cut of the action. But how could this be done? Taxation and license fees came to mind, but what would they call this new source of revenue? They couldn’t very well call it a whore tax or prostitute levy. Then somebody came up with a brilliant plan: henceforth, the city would officially designate all prostitutes as “seamstresses” and license and tax them as such. (Outsiders would have been amazed to find that Seattle had more “seamstresses” per capita than any other city in the nation.)
Seattle was also one of the rum-running capitals of America during Prohibition. There were many bootleggers, but the most famous and prolific was a former Seattle police lieutenant named Roy Olmstead. Olmstead was fired from the police department after being busted while unloading a hundred cases of smuggled Canadian whiskey from a boat in Edmonds, Washington, just north of Seattle. After paying a fine, he devoted himself full time to building the largest bootlegging operation in the area and became known in Seattle newspapers as “The King of the Puget Sound Bootleggers.” He bought a mansion and lived high on the hog until he was finally taken down in 1924 through the use of federal wiretaps.
By the ’50s, Seattle had added Boeing to its claim to fame, but was still a mostly blue-collar burg that was once described as an “aesthetic dustbin” by Sir Thomas Beecham, a short-term conductor of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Present-day Seattle has become a pricey, cosmopolitan center, home to Microsoft and legions of Starbucks latte lovers. The city is now famous as the birthplace of grunge music, and possesses a flourishing art, theater, and club scene that many would have thought improbable just a few decades ago. Yet some things never change—crime being one of them.
> Seattle’s evolution to high finance and high tech has provided even greater opportunity and reward to those who might be ethically, morally, or economically challenged (crooks, in other words). Seattle Noir explores the seamy underbelly of this gleaming, modern metropolis known as “The Emerald City.”
The stories in the first section of the book, “Gone South,” delve into the sinister direction that some people’s lives can take. Thomas P. Hopp’s “Blood Tide” follows a Native American shaman caught in a web of secrets and tribal allegiances. An East Indian woman’s assumptions about friendship and loss, death and rebirth, are reflected by how her garden grows in Bharti Kirchner’s “Promised Tulips.” Stephan Magcosta’s cautionary tale, “Golden Gardens,” focuses on the wages of prejudice and the cost of hate. Next, Robert Lopresti’s “The Center of the Universe” is set in the city’s Fremont neighborhood, the self-proclaimed “center of the universe,” where the resolution of the story’s violence and strange happenings is, itself, exceedingly strange.
The anthology’s second section, “What Comes Around,” might best be illuminated by a quote from the greatest pitcher in the old Negro Leagues, and maybe in the history of baseball, Satchel Paige: “And don’t look back—something might be gaining on you.” “Blue Sunday” by Kathleen Alcalá takes a Latino soldier on leave from the Iraq War and throws him to the mercies of a not-so-friendly cop—a cop who later finds out exactly what comes around. Simon Wood’s story, “The Taskmasters,” actually takes exception to the rule: that what comes around, in rare instances, can actually be redeeming. Patricia Harrington’s “What Price Retribution?” answers its own question with an example of doing what’s right, even when it’s wrong.
The book’s third section, “Love Is a Four-Letter Word,” explores some of the alternative four-letter words that love can conjure up. My own historical story, “Till Death Do Us . . .” features a husband and wife whose marriage has gone south, while they’ve gone east and west. Paul S. Piper’s “The Best View in Town” relates the problems faced by a guy who thinks his view is the best around . . . until another person’s views collide with his own. In R. Barri Flowers’s “The Wrong End of a Gun,” a divorced African American father meets a gorgeous woman who takes him on as many twists and turns as the Senegalese twists in her hair.
The authors in the final section of the book take their characters, and the reader, “To the Limits.” In Brian Thorn-ton’s historical tale, “Paper Son,” a newly minted Treasury agent working in Chinatown finds inscrutability to be an unavoidable fact of life. And in Skye Moody’s story, “The Magnolia Bluff,” a famous dwarf actor finds that his roles begin to shrink as he mysteriously starts growing taller. One of the Moriarity brothers lures Sherlock Holmes to Seattle in Lou Kemp’s historical “Sherlock’s Opera”—but the trap he’s laid with musical precision unexpectedly plays a few sour notes. Concluding the volume, G.M. Ford’s “Food for Thought” stars a private eye who finds the case of a delicatessen owner to be less than kosher.
This is Seattle Noir. Cozy up in your favorite easy chair and crack the book open. And be sure to turn up the lights—you’ll need them for when it gets dark.
Curt Colbert
Seattle, Washington
March 2009
PART I
GONE SOUTH
BLOOD TIDE
BY THOMAS P. HOPP
Duwamish
When we arrived at Herring’s House Park, the police were clearing off the yellow warning tape and packing their forensics bags and boxes, closing their case of an odd death in a parking lot and moving on. Kay Erwin, epidemiologist at Seattle Public Health Hospital, had declared it shellfish poisoning, and the cops had quickly lost interest. But Peyton McKean was of a different mind. He was getting the lay of what had happened two days before by interrogating a young cop, rapid fire, as the officer rolled up the crime scene tape.
“The body lay here?” McKean asked, drawing an imaginary oblong line around a spot in the middle of the damp gravel.
“Uh huh,” answered the officer, stashing tape in a black garbage bag.
“And the victim’s pickup, parked here?” said McKean, sawing a transect line from the parking bumpers out into the lot with his long-fingered hands.
“’At’s right,” said the officer, cinching the bag and pausing to gaze amusedly at McKean, who moved animatedly around the rain-drizzled lot quickly on long legs, marching off distances with his hands tucked behind his back like some intense, gangly schoolteacher. McKean was, I could tell, worried that he’d lack some detail of the circumstances surrounding Erik Torvald’s death, when the last cop who had actually seen Torvald lying facedown in the parking lot was gone and done with the case.
As the officer got in his squad car and prepared to close the door, McKean called somewhat desperately, “Anything else I should know?”
“Nuttin’,” said the cop, slamming his door and backing away, making a half-friendly wave at McKean as he left us alone in the lot.
“There’s more here than meets the eye, Fin Morton,” muttered McKean, lifting his olive-green canvas fedora and scratching in the dark hair of one temple.
“There’s nothing here that meets my eye,” I replied, zipping up my windbreaker against the drizzle that had begun as soon as we got out of my Mustang. I looked around the otherwise empty quadrangle of gravel, the alder woods that stretched down to the bank of the Duwamish River below the lot, and the mud-puddled gravel footpaths, without much hope of spotting a clue. The park was devoid of people on a wet Thursday afternoon. “Maybe the cops are right. Maybe he just had shellfish poisoning. Don’t you think that’s possible?”
“Answer: no,” said McKean in his pedagogical way. “The levels of red tide poison in him were without precedent, off the scale by any measure. To get the dose Kay Erwin found in his blood, he’d have to have eaten ten buckets of steamers, or a dozen geoducks”—he pronounced the word properly: gooey ducks. “And yet,” he continued, “my immunoassay tests for shellfish residues in his guts came up strictly negative. He hadn’t eaten a bit of shellfish. The police may be satisfied that he poisoned himself, but neither Kay nor I believe it. Foul play is at work here, Fin. Somebody killed him, and I’d like to know who.”
“Right now,” I said, moving to the door of my midnight-blue Ford Mustang, “I’d like to get out of this drizzle.”
McKean took one last look around the park as if wishing there were more to see than bare alder trees against a gloomy gray Seattle sky. Then he acquiesced, lapsing into thoughtful silence as I drove us out onto West Marginal Way and headed north past the Duwamish Tribal Office, an old gray house beside a construction site with a sign that read: Future Site of the Duwamish Longhouse.
“Muckleshoot Casino cash finally having an impact,” mumbled McKean absentmindedly as I headed for his labs on the downtown waterfront, where I had picked him up earlier. McKean suddenly cried, “Turn right, right here!”
I pulled the wheel hard and we bounded across some railroad tracks and onto a gravel drive that took us to another riverside parking lot, this one with a sign reading, Terminal 105 Salmon Habitat Restoration Site and Public Access Park.
“What’s here?” I asked, pulling up at a dismal postage stamp of greenery wedged between a scrap yard downriver and a defunct container terminal pier upriver, irked at how easily McKean had yanked my chain.
“It’s not what’s here,” he said, opening his door with a cerebral glow in his eyes, “but who’s here.”
At the end of a graveled path an observation platform overlooked the Duwamish River. McKean leaned his lanky frame on the rail and pointed a thin finger out across the expanse of muddy water to where several strings of Day-Glo–red plastic gillnet floats drifted on a slow upstream tide, overshadowed in the distance by the container cranes and skyscrapers of Seattle. A fisherman in a small dingy was at the nets, pulling a big sockeye salmon into his boat. He quickly disengaged the netting from its gills and returned the net to the water. A fine
drizzle dappled the brown water and lent a sheen to the fisherman’s dark green raincoat and hood. It put a damp chill on the back of my neck.
“Unless I miss my guess,” said McKean, “that’s my old high school chum, Frank Squalco.”
“How can you be sure that’s him?”
“I recall Franky Squalco from art class at West Seattle High School,” said McKean. “Based on that fisherman’s humble stature and his rather square form, I guessed it might be Frank when I saw him as you drove. Furthermore, as you see, he’s gillnetting salmon, and only tribal people can use gillnets, so the odds improve. I’d like to get his take on this shellfish poisoning business.”
“Why would he know anything about it?”
“Because Erik Torvald was a geoduck fisherman, and Natives hold half the rights to geoduck licenses in this state, by law.”
As the fisherman drew in another salmon, our view of him was cut off when an outbound tug came down the shipping channel pulling an immense black barge piled with rusty cargo containers, so stupendously huge and near that it seemed for a dizzy moment that our viewing platform was moving past its black metallic hulk, rather than the other way around. When the barge passed downriver under the gray concrete rainbow of the West Seattle Freeway Bridge, the fisherman was already steering his dingy toward our shore. McKean waited, unaffected by the clammy air or the cold droplets that beaded his olive-green canvas field coat and were getting down the neck of my jogging shell. I knit my arms around myself for warmth and wondered why I never dressed sufficiently for the weather I inevitably encountered when I tagged along on these adventures.