All Due Respect Issue #1

by Chris F. Holm

  ‘Things change, like you said, Tonto. Time’s change. Due to circumstances beyond my control, it behoves me to employ an apprentice.’

  ‘You and them ten-bob words. Mind you, I can’t blame you. Better to be safe than sorry, eh?’

  The passenger door opened and a behemoth in an orange anorak got out.

  ‘You remember my nephew Darren, don’t you?’

  Darren Greenwood smirked but then he’d always smirked, ever since he’d run in front of an ice cream van when he was a kid.

  ‘Once seen never forgotten,’ said Quigley.

  ‘Are we ready to get down to business, then?’ said Tonto. ‘This weather’s not good for my rheumatism.’

  ‘How much you got?’

  Tonto nodded towards the boot of the car.

  ‘What you asked for. You got the dosh?’

  ‘Got the lot.’

  Quigley and Tonto locked eyes for a moment and then Tonto made a whistling sound.

  Darren walked to the back of the car and opened up the boot.

  ‘Your turn,’ said Tonto.

  ‘Pay the man,’ Quigley said to Marta.

  Marta stepped forward, pulled out her gun and blasted Tonto in the face at the same time as Quigley blew Darren’s head off.

  The gun’s recoil started Quigley’s coughing fit and he leaned forward and spat blood onto the wet concrete. Marta put an arm around him until he stopped shaking.

  ‘Seems a shame to torch it,’ said Marta, looking down at the bags of cocaine that were stuffed in the limo’s boot. She licked her lips.

  ‘Best thing for all concerned,’ said Quigley, as he saw the lights in the pub go on.

  He headed back to the car and pulled out two cans of petrol.

  ‘Get moving,’ he said to Marta. The front door of the pub opened and sirens wailed in the distance.

  ‘Oh, fuck. It’s now, Dad.’

  ‘It’s now or never, kid.’

  They hugged and Quigley pushed her towards the car. Waited until she took a side road away from the motorway. Driving slowly, without any lights, so as not to attract attention.

  It’s now, for sure, he thought.

  Quigley covered the car, the bodies, and the drugs in petrol, and then soaked himself. Pushed a cigarette into his mouth. Thought about a Duran Duran song, of all things. Clicked the Zippo lighter that he’d last used when he gave up smoking in the ’90s, and let the flames enfold him.

  * * *

  Paul D. Brazill is the author of Gumshoe, Guns Of Brixton, and Roman Dalton—Werewolf PI. He was born in England and lives in Poland. He is an International Thriller Writers Inc. member whose writing has been translated into Italian, French, Polish, and Slovene. He has had writing published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8, 10, and 11, alongside the likes of Ian Rankin, Neil Gaiman, and Lee Child. He has also edited a few tasty anthologies, including the best-selling True Brit Grit with Luca Veste.

  PRIVATE PRACTICE

  TRAVIS RICHARDSON

  JOHN PARKS HIS COOPER with a screech and strips off his scrubs. They are speckled with drying blood. Underneath he wears a moisture-wicking tank top and skin tight athletic shorts. He checks his face in the rearview mirror. Dabbing his finger with his tongue, he removes brownish splatter from the tip of his nose. Nothing is easy with Razmig, that idiot sadist. Throwing his shoes in the backseat, he grabs his flip-flops, a water bottle, and a yoga mat.

  Crossing Glendale Boulevard to the studio, he’s already five minutes late. Inside, students sit on mats, their legs crossed and torsos twisted to the right as new-age music flows through the room. A few glare with accusative eyes, but a blonde named Vicky gives him a bright smile. John returns the grin and unrolls his mat behind her. He crosses his legs and mimics the students.

  “Left side,” the instructor announces from the front of the class.

  John turns, exhaling. He needs to relax. Release and clear his mind. He takes a deep breath into his belly and holds it until they are instructed to stand and touch their mat. Blood rushes to his head and he wonders why hadn’t he taken up yoga earlier…before all his trouble. He raises his torso, arms reaching for the ceiling and then lowers them, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. No, the younger him wouldn’t have gone to yoga. Not at all. He knew too much then, or at least thought he did.

  He exhales, dropping flat on the floor to do a Chataronga. He inhales, planting his hands like a push-up, but raises his glutes into the air, using his abs to pull up his body and create an upside down V, also known as a Downward Facing Dog. Go figure. Looking up, he admires Vicky’s body wrapped in spandex. She exudes fierce intelligence and inherent kindness, creating a trifecta of absolute perfection. Not that he’ll ever get to know her outside of the class. He can’t allow it. It’s too dangerous for both of them.

  They move into Runner’s Pose, feet spread apart, arms in the air, fingertips aiming at the heavens. Why had he done it? Being a top UCLA med student wasn’t enough. He had to gamble. Had to snort. Had to take idiot risks. He wishes he could tell his younger self to be satisfied with ordinary challenges, just love life and all its fragile moments. But that young, arrogant, devil-may-care man wouldn’t have listened. He was hell-bent on self-destruction. What an asshole.

  He switches legs. The instructor, a woman in her sixties, smiles at him as she evaluates her students’ posture. They do the Chataronga again. He feels tension leave his chest as he exhales into Downward Facing Dog. Then he goes into Warrior One position. A ridiculous name. Legs stretched like a runner’s crouch, but with the left back foot turned at a forty-five-degree angle. Holding his arms above his head, he knows that even if held a spear, he’d be vulnerable to an attack from the side or the rear.

  Ridiculous, that was how he felt when Green Bay lost and the Patriots didn’t make the point spread. Twice. He had been so famously consistent at predicting wins, until he didn’t. A losing streak with double or nothings that turned into an enormous, unpayable debt. The residency pay wasn’t enough to cover what he owed, so he brokered a deal to steal drugs to keep the interest down. He started popping some of them too. Why not? They were a valuable commodity and it kept him trucking full steam. When he was busted, a bag full of Oxycotin was discovered in his locker by the police. His blood test results revealed a cocktail of chemicals that nobody holding a scalpel should ever have in their system.

  The class switches to a left leg leading Warrior Stance. John exhales, arms high. Clear your mind. Breathe in and out. The instructor walks around evaluating the positions.

  “Looks like you cut yourself shaving, John.”

  She touches the side of his cheek and flirts a wink like she was in her twenties. Shit. He had tried to scrub it all away, but sometimes specks linger. Too many things linger. The idea of bringing any remnant of his work outside into the public is unnerving. The blood wasn’t his, but a fool’s who claimed to have misplaced a duffel bag. Not just any duffel bag, but one with hundreds of thousands of dollars of narcotics. Swore he lost it. John believed him. But not Razmig. He lived to torture people and other living things. Nobody would have endured that much pain unless they were telling the truth.

  John steps into the Warrior Two position. The Hippocratic Oath he’d taken, like his license, might as well be used as toilet paper. Sure he keeps people alive: those who are tortured and need to be sustained for longer sessions. He’s seen the inhumanity of humans and has been an active participant. He’s also preserved those who deserve to die. Men who committed heinous criminal acts. Men on his employer’s payroll. His employer, a powerhouse organization of vice and illicit deeds that owns him until he dies. Until then, John will be pulling out bullet fragments or pieces of glass and sewing up knife gouges so those men can heal and wreak more havoc.

  He switches to Warrior Two on the left side. The money is very good though. Almost the same as a specialist, but without taxes or malpractice insurance. Of course, it’s blood money. Evil mon
ey. By accepting the stacks of hundreds and twenties, which he must, a stain of wickedness spreads from his hands over his body and deep down into the bowels his soul. Impossible to wash away. Neither soap nor booze help. At least yoga reduces his stress, sometimes.

  “Lie on your backs in Shavasana,” the instructor says. She switches her iPod to a somber Tibetan chant.

  Shavasana, the corpse pose. How appropriate, John thinks. This position, lying on his back with his feet and arms spread apart, is his favorite. It allows him to let go and not be. Blankness achieved. There is nothing else, only breath and the chant. Nir-fucking-vana.

  Dread fills John when the instructor tells the class to take deep breaths and wiggle their toes. He is returning. Back to earth, back to obligations, back to aiding the crimemongers.

  “Would you be interested in some coffee?” Vicky asks as he steps outside to the sidewalk.

  She was waiting for him. He looks at her face, open and appealing. No trace of malice or abuse. Not like the strippers at Fantasy Factory he takes home from time to time. She is from a world he would love to reenter.

  “That sounds perf—”

  “Oh, honey. Hey, beautiful!”

  Across the street Razmig and Melik loiter around his Cooper, laughing. They both have gelled hair and wear tight T-shirts and gold chains. Melik lets out a predatory whistle.

  “Who are those guys? Friends of yours?” Vicky asks with a half-smile.

  “Um, co-workers,” John says, staring at his toes.

  “Really? I thought you were a doctor?”

  John holds her gaze for a second. Vicky’s eyebrows tighten as if she is trying to imagine what line of work would have hooligans like that on the payroll.

  “Hey, hotpants,” Razmig shouts with an accent. “You’re looking sexy.”

  The weight returns as John’s shoulders slump. Why did he even entertain the daydream that he could have coffee with someone like Vicky? Not ever in this life.

  “Private practice,” John says, tucking the rolled mat under his arm. “See you Thursday.”

  He turns toward the street without waiting for her response. Crossing, he wills himself not to look back.

  Melik and Razmig wait for him with moronic grins plastered across their faces. So proud of themselves, believing they are comic geniuses. Woe to the audience who doesn’t laugh at the great Armenian duo. They have another job for John. Another victim who needs to be preserved until they get whatever it is that they want. They wouldn’t be smiling if one of their own was fucked up.

  His chest begins to ache as his muscles and joints tighten. The last hour was in vain. Vicky, yoga, all of it, nothing more than feeble escapes from reality: a putrid swamp he wades through, chin deep, searching for an exit that doesn’t exist.

  * * *

  Travis Richardson was born in Germany, raised in Oklahoma, and currently lives in Los Angeles. He has worked over 20 jobs in fields ranging from secret bus rider to television postproduction to university fundraising. His novella Lost in Clover was listed in Spinetingler Magazine’s Best Crime Fiction of 2012. His stories have been published in online zines including All Due Respect, Shotgun Honey, and Powder Burn Flash as well as the anthologies Scoundrels: Tales of Greed, Murder and Financial Crimes and Malfeasance Occasional: Girl Trouble. He edits Ransom Notes, the Sisters In Crime Los Angeles newsletter and sometimes shoots a short movie. His latest novella, Keeping The Record, will be out in January 2014 through Stark Raving Group. The story concerns a disgraced ex-baseball player who dodges creditors while dealing with steroid side effects as he takes a cross-country journey to stop the man who is about to take the only thing he has left in this world, his all-time home run record. Find out more at tsrichardson.com

  THE CHURCH OF

  THE SAD SISTERS

  MIKE MINER

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE way to get there. A treacherous path through a rainforest infested by poisonous snakes. Built centuries ago by Jesuit missionaries trying to bring Christ to the natives, instead they brought disease and death. The convent remained abandoned for years until a group of nuns reclaimed it.

  It stood at the foot of the Santa Maria Mountains and took its name from them. Peaks the color of bone rose out of the jungle surrounding it. When visitors approached the front gate, the tall stone buildings loomed, the cliffs leaned as if trying to protect the property, shield it from the world. Gargoyles danced on the roof of the church, struck rakish poses. There was an old rumor that the creatures visited the chaste nuns in their dreams, performed devilish acts.

  There were a lot of old rumors about the Santa Maria Convent, known also as La Iglesia de las Hermanas Tristes. The Church of the Sad Sisters. Some wondered if it even existed.

  The sisters wore light blue robes that brushed the ground as they walked. Long sleeves covered hands always joined in prayer. Perfectly white coifs framed their faces and draped down their necks. Few people ever laid eyes on these women.

  A rickety, slippery rope bridge crossed the wide, roaring River of Saints’ Tears. Piranhas survived on whatever, whoever, fell in. As one crossed they might hear the angelic voices of the sisters singing or the sad lament of their prayers, messages from Heaven reaching the sinners’ ears. From the near bank of the river, the chapel’s tower could be seen. Perhaps they continued closer while the fat gong of the bell called for noon prayers.

  It was a land of echoes. The trees a metropolis of monkey shrieks and bird calls, mixed with women’s whispers and jaguar roars, sometimes the sound of children at play, and always, always, the electric hum of mosquitoes in the air.

  Children?

  An orphanage. A school. Not all of the women who braved the dangerous trail through the deadly jungle were alone. Many carried a baby in their swollen bellies. The children, even before they were born, knew the taste of terror.

  Castaways. Women sent to the sad sisters to avoid scandal, they trudged into the heart of the steamy forest, hidden by the thick canopy, kept company by the warning growls of unseen predators, the bites of mosquitoes, the memories of the men in their lives, the forbidden acts. In their dreams they heard again the slap of skin on skin, each slap of a mosquito a reminder. They spoke to their unborn children, promises of a life free of evil, free of sin, they begged God for forgiveness.

  The daughters of farmers, politicians, policemen, gangsters. By the time they reached the thick tall gates of the convent, they were just desperate, pregnant girls.

  Like Ernesta. All she knew when her fingers squeezed the rusty, moss-covered gate was that she was hungry. Like the others before and after, she thought she was safe.

  The sisters found her at dawn, shivering, mumbling, sobbing. They half pulled, half carried her to a vacant bed in the infirmary. Brought her food. Another sad sister.

  She gave birth to a boy. Gabriel. Her angel.

  Mother Superior was so old it was hard to picture her as a young woman, impossible to imagine her as a child. As if she was created just as she looked now, a wise old nun. She was strict, but kind. It was said she ruled with two fists, one steel, one silk, and her voice contained both elements. Her voice singing the Ave Maria could make one want to die, just to glimpse heaven. Her voice scolding was as cold and sharp as an axe blade.

  She visited Ernesta when Gabriel was born. Asked to hold the newborn.

  If Ernesta stayed, Mother Superior informed her, the child would be raised in the orphanage, once he stopped breast feeding. The boy would be well tended to, and Ernesta could keep a close eye on him. Ernesta would join the order. Take the vows, wear the robe, devote her life to Christ. To a simple life of prayer and work.

  Strict and kind. Eyes the blue of a winter sky scrubbed clean of clouds by a harsh wind. Eyes the same color as her son’s.

  She stayed. Of course. After six months she took her vows, joined the order of Our Ladies of Sorrow, became Sister Ernesta. A gold band on her wedding finger with a cross carved into it. She was married to Christ now.

  Gabriel slept in t
he orphanage. A loveable rascal, he quickly became a favorite of the sisters who tended the children. On Friday nights, Sister Ernesta would read to the children, perhaps something from the Brothers Grimm, Hansel and Gretel, and Gabriel would sit on her lap. She breathed in the smell of her little boy, brushed a hand through his too long hair, read slowly, savored the feel of his weight against her. Her voice cast a spell on the children, lulled them unconscious. Long after he was asleep, Ernesta lifted her son in her arms, and carried him, cheek to cheek, to his bed. A soft whisper in his dreams, “Good night, my son.”

  They were safe, he was happy. She consoled herself with these facts until she nodded off on her tear-stained pillow.

  Dreams. Not safe in her dreams. She wore no robes in her dreams. In the sultry tropical nights, most of the sisters wore nothing. Her hair shone dark, dark brown, like her eyes. Men pursued her through the jungle, braved the snakes, the jaguars, the deadly river. One man she wanted to pursue her. Men pawed her, mouths drooled, they left money on the nightstand, the room, her room, nasty with the reek of sex and sweat, loud with the sounds of girls sold to men for an hour, and another hour, and another.

  The Madame, her face too close—Ernesta didn’t want to look at her face, at the scar along her cheek, at the blind eye drained of color as if it could not bear to see any more. Be nice to this one, Ernesta. He might just take you away. His hands like hairy spiders crawled up and down her. His breath battled with his aftershave, smelling to her nose like a grease fire.

  Be nice to this one.

  She did not shiver.

  He liked to choke her.

  She let him.

  Liked to tie her up.

  She did not squirm.

  He took her away.

  Later, in the dark jungle, fat with Gabriel, thirsty and worried, she remembered the cruel man, Call me Papi, and she laughed at the snakes, at the jaguar’s yells, at the fish with razors for teeth.