EQMM, November 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "We're going to talk to everybody,” Andrews promised. “Go straight to your hotel tonight. Don't make it tough for us if we need to find you."

  "Right on, Scooby,” I said. Then, leaning closer, I asked in a low voice, “Uh ... can we keep this thing with me and Tammy, you know, between us? People might get the wrong idea."

  The cops exchanged a glance that made my stomach roll. Andrews assured me, “I don't think anybody's going to get the wrong idea, Mr. Culligan."

  * * * *

  The “hotel” was a two-story drive-up out near Franklin Park. The two skate teams and the support staff headed there on the Roller Rumble tour bus, which was weighted down with about three tons of suspicion. Everybody knew that Tammy's killer was probably on that bus. Nobody spoke. At least nobody spoke to me. We saw the new Hancock Tower, which had begun spitting its windows to the sidewalk on windy days. The locals had taken to calling it the Plywood Palace. At the moment, I was ready to forgive the building for a few imperfections.

  The motel bartender who served me nine whiskeys understood my need to watch Bruce Lee's Fists of Fury on the television. I couldn't believe they were both gone. Tammy and Bruce. Bruce and Tammy. Flush with the deep insight liquor provides after midnight, I wondered if their deaths were somehow connected. Hmmm ... Jealousy boiled up from my gut. That kung fu S.O.B. better not have been sleeping with her...

  I was not of the law and justice orientation, so I didn't care what the detectives did in their investigation, so long as they kept my name out of it. I was the type who sighed and moved on whenever life swung the elbow of destiny in my eye. And that was what I had to do...

  "What's crackin', Rat?” came a voice from behind.

  I slowly spun on the barstool.

  There stood Charlie Hyre, looking awful. Unshaven, ungroomed. Eyes red from tears and drink. Denim bell-bottoms two inches too short. White shoes, black socks. Mercy!

  The silent pause that followed felt like that dreadful moment at a large wake, when you finally make it to the front of the line, and you instantly forget that profound thing you had been planning to say. My brain offered up something stupid. “I got two bucks in quarters,” I blurted. “Wanna play some Pong?"

  He belted me in the mouth. I flew off the stool and crumpled to the floor.

  "I'm looking forward to skating against you tomorrow,” he said, almost cheerfully. “Peace out, Rat!” Then he stomped away.

  My face was numb. I tasted blood. Guess he'd found out about Tammy and me. That was when I realized those cops couldn't keep a secret.

  And that wasn't even the worst part of my night.

  The bartender gave me ice in a rag for my lip, and then shoved me outdoors before anyone else kicked my can in his establishment. I leaned on a wall and followed it toward my room. I recalled it was Room 11, on the first floor, with a lovely view of the parking lot. The ground looked smooth and level, but in my drunkenness I stumbled over invisible things in my path. Then the keyhole wouldn't hold still and I had a hell of a time. I don't remember how long I fiddled with the key, but I remember hearing roller skates across the asphalt.

  I turned to see a silhouette glide through the darkness. Much too small to be Charlie Hyre, thank God. I shaded my eyes from the light above the door and squinted into the night.

  Bang! A spurt of flame. The light fixture over my head shattered. Shards of glass fell on my skin. I mistakenly thought I was shot. I moaned and grabbed my heart and fell. Because that's what shot people do. The sound of the skates rolled on and vanished into the city's nocturnal growl.

  * * * *

  The next morning was even worse. Those cops really couldn't keep a secret.

  From the front page of the Boston Herald-American:

  * * * *

  ROLLER DEATH SHOCKER!

  Strangler Slays Sultry Skating Starlet

  Robbie Culligan Admits Sex Triangle, Denies Murder

  Is Robbie the “Killer Rat"?

  * * * *

  Sex triangle? Yech. Was that supposed to imply Tammy, Charlie, and me at the same time?

  I sat at the back of the bus on the ride back to the Garden. Nobody would sit within ten seats. People avoided me like a garden of radioactive poison ivy.

  A would-be lynch mob had gathered outside the arena. They curled their lips, bared teeth at the bus, and screamed:

  "We loved her, you MURDERER!"

  "You WON'T get away with it, Robbie!"

  "POISON the Rat!"

  A beer bottle exploded against the bus just above my window. I sank in my seat.

  The line for Roller Rumble tickets ran down Causeway Street and wrapped around the building.

  The crowd inside the Garden was equally blood-parched. They jeered me mercilessly, threatened my life, roared with primitive pleasure whenever somebody put me down. My own blockers were complicit. They allowed Charlie Hyre's thugs clear shots at me throughout the jam. Near the end of the period, Charlie personally forearmed me in the turn, and drove me up and over the rail. I flew into a trio of wooden folding chairs, which clattered and snapped shut around me like giant mousetraps.

  Lying on my back, I stared up at the solution—what I should have figured out after the murder. Spectators had stuffed the Garden to the beams. The overflow stood in the aisles just to cheer for my injuries.

  I still had some nettlesome questions about Bruce Lee.

  But I knew who killed Tammy.

  * * * *

  Marty Papadakis sat alone in a dimly lit conference room beneath the Garden. He chain-smoked Camels while a rattling 8mm film machine projected silent images of Crashin’ Tammy Glassen's greatest hits.

  I stood in the doorway for a few minutes and watched Tammy smash people on the screen. She would wait until an opponent had come up just behind her, and then unleash her Whammer Jammer elbow. Devastating.

  I missed her. And I would have done anything to save her life.... But that was in the past and ashes cannot be unsmoked.

  I said, “She was something else, wasn't she?"

  Marty whirled around and dropped his cigarette in his lap. “Cripes, Robbie, you startled me. Jeepers creepers, I burned my crotch. This is new polyester, Mr. Culligan."

  I took a seat beside him. “Mind if I watch with you?"

  "Yes, I do mind."

  "My blockers tried to get me killed today."

  "What did you expect? They were all in love with Tammy. Uh, the door is over there, by the way. Use it."

  "Just because I was sleeping with her doesn't mean I killed her."

  He snorted with bitter laughter. “You don't know anything. Tammy was sleeping with half the team. You're the only jelly-brain who admitted it to the police. Hell, she was even shagging Lil’ Baby."

  I was dumbfounded. Tammy and Lil’ Baby Barbara Fleet? I thought back to the small-framed skater who had taken a shot at me. “That explains a lot,” I said, more to myself than to Marty.

  "Now do you mind, Mr. Culligan?” he said with impatience. “I'm trying to say goodbye to Tammy in my own way."

  I changed the subject. “Quite a crowd in the Garden tonight."

  The corners of his lips turned up and he brightened. “Biggest gate of the year."

  "Tammy's murder has been good for your business."

  The eyes narrowed. “What are you implying? You're the chief suspect...."

  Oh, that burned me....

  I jumped up and swatted his ribcage with the palm of my hand. Just a slap. Not hard enough to injure him. But Marty gasped and twisted in pain.

  I yanked up his shirt. The huge bruise on his ribcage was the color of a cold plum. It looked about a day old.

  Grabbing his collar, I snarled in his face: “You sneaked up behind Tammy yesterday, and you choked her dead!"

  "Not me,” he pleaded, weakly.

  "The proof is on your ribs, Marty. At her last breath, Tammy hit you with the Whammer Jammer. Hurts, don't it?” I pressed my fingers on the wound to make him squirm. “Tammy wasn't jetting o
ff to Austin just to get away from her husband. She was running away from you. She was leaving Roller Rumble to join Texas RollerGlam."

  He gaped at me in fear and wonder.

  "Losing your most popular skater to a rival league would have finished you. So you stopped her. And I'm getting the rap."

  His eyes were huge and round. I cocked my fist to strike his ribs, and he surrendered. “Enough, Robbie!” he begged. “I couldn't have known the police would blame you in the press. Nobody else was supposed to be involved. Just an unsolved crime to create an atmosphere of danger, a hint of the unspeakable to revive a fading business.” He looked me square in the eye and said, with no irony, “It wasn't a murder, it was a sales promotion."

  I let him go and sat back down. Neither of us said anything for a minute. The movie ended and the loose film flapped around the projector.

  "The police leaked the story because they don't have enough evidence to charge me,” I said. “Though I'll always be a murderer in the eyes of the public."

  "I'm sorry, Robbie."

  "Did you see that crowd, Marty? They bought up every ticket to cheer against Robbie the Killer Rat.” I sighed for innocence lost, and then moved on. “I'm gonna be bigger than Bruce Lee, and from now on, Scooby, you'll be working for me."

  © 2009 by Mark Arsenault. Black Mask Magazine title, logo and mask device copyright 2009 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission

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  Novelette: REARRANGEMENTS by Marjorie Eccles

  Marjorie Eccles began her writing career with short stories for magazines in the U.K., and the short story continues to be her first love. She has had a number of them in EQMM over the years and is a winner of a short story Agatha Award. In 1988, her first crime novel appeared in the U.S. The book featured her series character Superintendent Gil Mayo. More than a dozen books in the Mayo series have followed, and the author also writes non-series novels, such as 2009's Broken Music, which was released in the U.K. in August.

  She was still in good nick; she didn't need anyone to tell her that, and it wasn't just luck, either. She'd always looked after herself—she kept to a strict diet, had regular workouts at the gym, and went swimming twice a week. She had her hair expensively styled and the new two-tone highlights Carl had given her last week had given it a youthful bounce and shine. Regular facials and manicures were part of her routine. She was high-maintenance, but she was worth it. All her friends told her she didn't look her age, and she agreed with them.

  All the same...

  On her fortieth birthday—or maybe her forty-fourth, or even -fifth—two things happened to Lynda Morrison that were to change her life.

  The first was the arrival of a letter. (No cards, because she'd never told anyone the date of her birthday, much less admitted to how many she'd already had, even to those who might have their suspicions.) The letter was from her estranged husband, with not so much as a mention that it was her birthday but, arriving as it had on The Day, was a nastily calculated reminder that he, at least, knew that it was another milestone.

  Ivan Morrison was a doctor, rich over and above the salary he earned as a consultant with the NHS and the fees he also collected in his private practice. So that the separation allowance Lynda received from him was sufficient to keep her in comparative luxury, enabling her to dress in the softest cashmere, silk, and fine linen, to devote attention to herself, and even to invest in some good jewellery from time to time. Not to mention having tenure of this spacious serviced apartment he allowed her, in such a highly prestigious block of London flats, just around the corner from Harrods. Over the matter of their separation she had, if one were truthful, taken him to the cleaners, against which he'd had no redress, knowing what she knew about certain indiscretions he got up to on the side. It had forced him to be very generous, over the years, in the matter of the monetary increases she had demanded, due to the rising cost of living, of course. She had no compunction about this; for what he had done, she deserved everything she could wring out of him. In actual fact, separation had so far suited both of them. It had been managed in a discreet and civilised manner, without the messy publicity of a divorce, which he certainly did not need. For several years, Lynda had lived in pampered ease and comfort, and had seen no reason why this state of affairs shouldn't continue.

  But what Ivan said in this letter—and especially coming as it did on this significant birthday—completely threw her. She read it with increasing disbelief and fury. He spoke of his approaching retirement (he was older than she was—of course) and Tamsin's wish to move to Marbella, or Majorca. In view of this, and of the rising maintenance costs, her flat was an encumbrance he could do without. In short, he intended to sell it. Fighting off the panic, Lynda scrunched up the letter and threw it across the room in a rage. How couldshe possibly move? What would she do without her bridge cronies, her nearness to Harrods and Harvey Nicks, the little restaurants, the flower shops—all the amenities of Knightsbridge that made up her pleasant life here?

  He would of course, Ivan had gone on to say smoothly, provide her with other accommodation. Having once worked in an estate agent's office, Tamsin knew someone who could help in that direction. I'll bet she does, Lynda thought savagely. She could just imagine the sort of cheap flat that would be found for her, in some dismal corner of Earl's Court, no doubt—or even worse, a semidetached out in the sticks! Why, she raged, should this—this Tamsin—this floozy, nothing more than a common tart, young enough to be his daughter—why should she dictate the course of the life of a woman whom she had never even met? She would see them both in hell, first.

  * * * *

  The second momentous happening of the day, not, perhaps, entirely unconnected with the first, and the hateful name of Tamsin which had haunted her like ear-music all day, was that as she prepared for bed that night, Lynda steeled herself to take a good, long, honest, and overdue look at herself in the full-length mirror. Fortieth—or perhaps forty-fifth—birthdays were said to be a time for reassessment and she wanted to be prepared for the battle which was to come, for battle there would be. This Tamsin might be nothing more than a common little office scrubber, but she had youth on her side.

  Lynda's lifestyle guru was right: honesty was a girl's best friend. Ruthless honesty. Taking a deep breath as she critically examined herself from top to toe, she began to wonder, for the first time, if that multi-layered hairstyle wasn't perhaps a little too long, too youthful. Maybe she should aim for sophisticated maturity. Looking even closer, she acknowledged that she had—oh horrors!—the faint beginnings of a double chin, that the “laughter lines” at her eye corners were—well, crow's-feet. Plunging even deeper into the dark well of truth, it had to be admitted that the interesting shadows under her eyes were fast becoming, let's face it, bags. That terrifying piece she'd read in the paper a few weeks ago, about the possibility of face transplants, didn't seem quite such a horror story now as it had then. She would willingly consider the possibility, given the chance.

  There was more. Even with the help of the beautifully cut designer clothes which she spent a fortune on, she couldn't completely hide the love handles on her thighs. (Love-handles, that was a laugh! she thought bitterly.) Her breasts were firm no longer, and it required a determined effort and magic knickers to keep those tummy muscles pulled in.

  Knowing she wouldn't sleep that night anyway, she thought, what the hell, and made herself a pot of black coffee. She needed to think. Where was that magazine she'd bought after seeing it when she was having her hair done at Carl's? Finding it at last, she flicked through until she came to the article she remembered reading.

  * * * *

  Mr. Harvey-Pilbeam, FRCS (Plast), was middle-aged and wore a pink shirt under his impeccably tailored charcoal-grey suit. He was plump and fair-haired, though balding, a man with light eyelashes and soft white hands with a sprinkling of freckles on the back of them, like mouldy cheese. These cool hands with their beautifully manicured nails
slightly repelled her when they lifted her chin to the light, turned her face this way and that, scrutinised her hairline, but his immediate understanding of her position enabled her to repress a shudder. He could indeed sympathise with why she wanted these slight adjustments made, he assured her, a beautiful woman was right to wish to keep her looks as long as she could; indeed, in some cases, a little help was a necessity. Was Mrs. Parker, perhaps, an actress, a film star? No? He had thought at first her face was familiar. She saw his eyes flicker, and for a moment, she could have sworn ... But she must have been mistaken. He shrugged, and merely added that she was entitled to keep her self-respect, her pride in her pretty face, whatever her reasons. A face which would be even more beautiful when he had finished with it. Perhaps just a tuck here and there to begin with?

  No, Lynda (Mrs. Parker for the time being) had thought it all through and wanted more than a nip and tuck. She wanted the works. The sky was the limit. Her face first, and then she'd turn her attention to a remake of her body, she told him. Very well. He murmured about facial peels, dermal fillers, brow lifts, watching for adverse reactions. There were none. She was not afraid, not even apprehensive, being no stranger to Botox injections and having had all her teeth capped. What he proposed would involve a little more discomfort than that, perhaps, but afterwards ... Ivan and his Tamsin, look out! With newfound confidence, she would show them who could strike the best bargain.

  She arranged to go away for a month. She would see Ivan, she wrote to him, when she returned. It would do him no harm to wait.

  * * * *

  She lay on the trolley in the operating theatre, warm and relaxed, drowsy from her pre-med injection. She could hear the murmur of the nurses’ conversation around her and tried to understand what they were talking about, but their voices seemed to come from a long way off and she soon lost the thread ... something about Mr. Harvey-Pilbeam and a sudden, unfortunate attack of flu...