Murder by Candlelight

by John Stockmyer

  Bud said nothing, his multiple grin fading to slit-thin lips.

  "How?" Z continued, not letting Bud wiggle off the hook. "By pinching his nose shut until he died. After that, stuffing hot wax up his nostrils to make it look like he suffocated from the wax."

  Though a guess, Z's speculation drew blood, Bud's face as pale as a new-made snowman, sweat slicking out of every pore. A snowman, melting.

  "When I came to tell you I'd run Kunkle off," Z continued, "you already knew. 'Cause you'd been there. 'Cause you'd killed him." No sense reminding Bud of his illiteracy. Or that he hadn't heard about the killing on TV either, because he didn't watch TV. (The odds he'd learned about Kunkle's death from Brainbridge or from one of Bud's brain-dead barflies was so remote it wasn't worth considering.) "It was never about the hooker. You owed Kunkle a gambling debt and he wanted his money. He knew somebody who owed him a favor, someone who he was going to sic on you."

  "How you know that?" the fat man asked quietly, unable to meet Z's eyes, Bud staring down at invisible beer rings on the bar.

  Resisting the urge to say "Elementary, my dear Watson," Z said, "No gun."

  "No ... gun?"

  "Without a gun, Kunkle had to have somebody do the threatening. Kunkle wasn't big enough."

  "A giant. I seen him in here with Howie, once. One of them chains-and-leather types. A mean, black son-of-a-bitch."

  Z nodded. When Bud Izard thought a tough was big, he must have been -- "chains and leather" making clear another thing.

  "The spade queen Kunkle gave you was to remind you of Mr. Chains and Leather -- Kunkle's queen."

  Bud got it. Nodded soberly.

  "Kunkle was a card cheat."

  "Yeah?" Bud looked up, surprised enough not to have known.

  "Brought this trouble on himself. Also, I figure the money you stole from his desk drawer was yours to steal."

  The look of amazement on Bud's face said it all.

  "You didn't have money one day," Z explained, "you had several hundred the next. Looking at the business in here, I had to figure a week's take to be less than that."

  Bud shook his head to say he'd been playing out of his league. "What ... you going to do?" His voice almost rusted shut, Bud sagged down on the counter again, this time on one elbow, the other hand slipped behind the bar.

  "Nothing."

  "Nothing?"

  "I'm only happy I didn't kill the little bastard. He was guilty. He sicked his thug on you." Self-defense was part of the Zaposka Code.

  "Listen, Z," Bud said, his alto bright once more, a smile hinting at the corners of his mouth. "I never had no margin. Over the years, I lost what I had to Howie. This time, I was desperate. I couldn't pay Howie off and still make the rent. I was going to lose this place. And you're right. He tried to kill me."

  "Yeah." Z's exit line.

  Z saying what he'd come to say; hearing what he'd come to hear, Z turned to leave.

  And yet .....

  Z's memory scratching like a chuckle-headed chicken, his brain had clawed up a fragment of something Bud said the last time Z was here. A scrap of conversation about a gambling game, Bud inviting Z to sit in. What had Bud said? That Z would make a third? Bud had then corrected himself, saying that, without Kunkle in the game, there'd be just the two of them.

  This was in reference to the three player gambling game in which Howard Kunkle cheated Bud -- regularly.

  Normally, a three-man game.

  Subtract one man -- Kunkle -- and that left a two-man game. A three-man game again, if Z joined. Except ... that Bud had corrected himself, by saying, with Z joining, it would be a two man game.

  Leaving ... a mystery man. Another regular player, the usual game featuring Bud Izard, Howard Kunkle, and ....

  Lee Dotson.

  The obvious meaning of Lee Dotson's name and number appearing in Howard Kunkle's book was that Dotson was the third man of Bud's regular gambling game. Poker, probably, given the decks of marked cards in Kunkle's secret drawer.

  Dotson. A man who, like Howard Kunkle, had been murdered.

  Z turned. Looked across the bar at the thick witted fat man. "Sorry," Z said softly.

  "Sorry for what, Z-man?" Bud was all smiles again. "Don't be sorry. I love you like a brother. Always remember that. You was my hero in high school. And you're more of my hero now. A man couldn't have a better friend in all the world."

  Z didn't know what to say.

  "Who else would have done for me what you done. And then clam up when I ... made a mistake."

  "Some men need killing."

  "Right."

  "Some men ... but not others."

  Caught in mid-smile, all Bud could croak was, "What?"

  "But not Lee Dotson."

  Again, the hangdog look. "Well," Bud started slowly, "I got to thinkin'. With Howie being dead and all, and Lee in the game, and knowin' I owed Howie and that he was puttin' pressure on me, I had to be rid of Lee, too. There was no other way I could be safe. There was no other way I could protect my property, here."

  "I see that. But it isn't ... right."

  "Right? What you mean, right? Is it right that I got to make my living in a hell hole like this?" Bud was waving his ham-handed arms, his voice climbing toward falsetto. Again, was gushing sweat. "Is it right I had that disease and couldn't learn to read?"

  "No. But that doesn't change things."

  "You're goin' to tell after all, ain't you?!"

  "Yes."

  "Not if I got anything to say about it!"

  Suddenly, from under the bar, a large automatic appeared in Bud's fat hand.

  "I gone too far to stop now, Z." In addition to sweating, Bud was trembling. A rare sight in a man that large. "I got to save my property."

  So, it had come down to this. All Z's adult life he'd known how it would end. Face down in an alley. And there'd been times -- more of them recently -- when Z had looked forward to his struggles ending.

  Funny, when it came right down to it, how much he wanted to live!

  Z was shaking. His legs -- numb.

  Staring into the black barrel, it was all Z could do to keep his teeth from rattling out of his mouth.

  Still, an important difference between a man and a woman was that a man could not show fear.

  Z swallowed hard so he could speak.

  "Right here? In your own place?" Z's rasp was stronger than he thought it would be.

  "I'll say you come in to rob me. I had to protect my property." Bud's eyes had gone wide. And dead.

  "Got a spare gun?"

  "What you talking about?"

  "A spare, no one can trace. Like some cops carry. A gun to plant on the poor dumb fuck they just shot dead. So they can claim they shot in self defense."

  "What ...?"

  "'Cause I don't have a gun on me."

  Bud just stared, his eyes seeing emptiness. Sweat dripping off his jowls.

  "You going to say I pointed my finger at you, so you blew me away in self defense?"

  "I ... love you, Z. Like a brother. Please, don't ..."

  "I can't get you out of this one, Bud. Nobody can. You got to get out of this fix by yourself."

  With an effort that took what was left of Z's fast-draining reserves, he turned again.

  Took a shaky step toward the door.

  Took another, all the while waiting for the report of the big gun and the slug to tear into his back.

  Grasping at any hope, Z called to mind the first time he'd been shot; how it hadn't been that bad ... honesty making him admit he'd been brave because he hadn't seen the bullet coming. All he could recall of being shot was waking in the hospital, and the long recovery he'd had.

  This time, it would be different.

  First, he'd hear the blast of the gun and feel the shock.

  Then the searing pain.

  Then ... nothing. Forever.

  Meanwhile, he still shuffled toward the door. His legs rubbery.

  A roar! -- the ear-shattering explos
ion rocketing in the hard-walled tavern, a paralyzing sound that jerked every muscle in Z's body, the shot fired by the large bore automatic followed by the tinkling sound of smashing glass and a secondary thud that shook the room.

  All while Z was falling. Falling. Falling.

  To hit the hardwood floor like the scattered limbs of a stringless puppet!

  The breath knocked out of him, it was an agonizing minute before Z could breathe. An eternity of wondering if he could breathe.

  Followed by a hiss of sucked-in air; after, sickening pain ....

  But only in his knee. ..........

  Had Bud shot him in his bum ...? No. The dagger-pain in his left knee was familiar.

  Testing arms, legs, body, Z found he wasn't hit.

  What had happened? ......

  Slowly, as the bright agony in his left knee dulled, Z was able to scramble his good leg under him. Enough to crawl on hands and knee to a table.

  Reaching up, he pried himself to a standing position -- immediately leaning heavily on the solid table.

  Turning, Z glanced behind him, certain he would see Bud behind the bar, the fat man taking greater care to aim ....

  Instead, saw ....

  Nothing.

  But chaos.

  Two rows of shelving back of the bar had been knocked down, their polished glassware shattered to the floor. The mirror behind the bar was also broken.

  But ... that was all.

  Turning again to limp forward, handing himself from table to table, an eon took him to the tavern door.

  Gathering himself, Z opened the door to flounder through to the outside, the Cavalier, like the loyal mongrel that it was, wagging its tail beyond the sloping walk.

  Needing another moment before putting his full weight on his bad leg, Z leaned against the abused brick wall, sagging back to look up at the wonders of the night! So black. So cold. Z seeing nothing but the misty lights of Kansas City beyond the cloud-wrapped river, fog clawing up the river bank, its white tendrils groping for the street.

  A marvelous night to be alive!

  Like Scrooge in the old Christmas story, Big Bob Zapolska felt himself ... reborn.

  The first thing tomorrow, he'd call Susan. For reasons he no longer had the faintest idea about, he'd been short-changing Susan, lately, bad-mouthing her to himself. But that was over. Once more, he'd come to see how lucky he was to have classy Susan for his girl, a rough cob like Z possessing a beautiful, much-too-good-for-him lady like that. He'd stopped a bullet for her once. He'd do it again -- any day. Every day.

  After calling Susan, he'd phone Jamie Stewart. He'd been too hard on her, as well. He'd tell her the truth about the pictures; that she had the only copies; that he wasn't holding them over her.

  He also have to thank John Dosso.

  And a call to Harry Grimes would now be proper.

  Pulled together at last, less shaky, Z crippled across the sidewalk; clumsily stepped off the curbing into the street.

  Hobbling around the back of the Cavalier, Z opened the stamped steel door to wedge himself into the thinly padded driver's seat, using both hands to drag in his bad leg.

  Fishing out the key, he cranked up the still-warm engine.

  Easing the transmission off park, he drifted off, making an immediate U-turn for home.

  As for what had just happened, Z was no longer interested. Let one of Bud's late-night drunks stagger in, totter to the counter, after getting no service, lean across to find Bud bleeding out behind the bar.

  But not a suicide, to be found and reported by Bob Zapolska. Z's horror dreams made out of phantoms ... the last thing he wanted, was to see the real thing.

  ###

  Author's Note

  While Murder by Candlelight is set in Kansas City, Missouri (largely in Kansas City North), the book is a work of fiction -- all the way. Fiction in this book also means that, in addition to the characters being fictitious, so are many aspects of the city. While major roads, shopping centers, theaters, restaurants, etc., appear in the books, the reader will find that little is "as it should be." The roads don't go where they should; buildings that don't exist have been "created"; actual buildings sometimes changed and/or relocated. (One of the joys of fiction-writing is that you're not bound by the truth.) Besides "manufacturing" locales where I needed them, I also "rearranged" the city to keep readers with nothing better to do from trying to find the detective's home or his office, or the homes and businesses of friends. (People are still writing to Sherlock Holmes at Number 221 B Baker Street -- because it is an actual address!) What this means is that no one will be annoying you by showing up at your house or place of business to ask stupid questions about your connection to Big Bob Zapolska.

  * * * * *

  About the Author

  John G. Stockmyer is an individual whose irrepressible creativity has manifested itself in many ways: as a poet, teacher, produced playwright, author, co-owner of an educational materials business, creator of a time-machine simulator, and, more recently, as a podcaster and producer of eBooks. During his career he has received awards for scholarship, numerous teaching awards and, as a writer, was a Thorpe Menn finalist.

  He is the co-author of three non-fiction books: Unleashing the Right Side of the Brain - The Stephen Greene Press, Life Trek: The Odyssey of Adult Development - Humanics, and Right Brain Romance - Ginn Press. He is also the author of over 20 works of fiction, including the Crime/Hard-Boiled "Z-Detective" Series, and the Science-Fiction/Fantasy "Under The Stairs" Series. He has also written a quirky vampire novel titled, The Gentleman Vampire.

  John G. Stockmyer is now semi-retired from a 40+ year career as an Ancient/European History Professor at Maple Woods Community College, but still teaches and writes part-time. He currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri with his wife Connie.

  For more information about the author, and to download or purchase Print Books, eBooks and Audio-Books from the "collection," please visit the John G. Stockmyer "Books" Web site at: www.johnstockmyer.com/books

  If you enjoyed Murder by Candlelight, you'll probably also like Book #4 in the Z Series: Where Angels Fear to Tread. Book #4 (ebook version) is currently $5.00, at the author's web site.

  To send questions or comments to the author, send an e-mail to: mail@johnstockmyer.com (all e-mails are screened/forwarded by the author's son: John L. Stockmyer)

  Table of Contents

  Murder by Candlelight