Copyright Information
Smith’s Monthly Issue #15
All Contents copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and interior design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © by Mskorpion/Dreamstime.com and Evaners/Dreamstime.com
“Introduction: The New Year” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith
“Daddy is an Undertaker” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Nejron/Dreamstime.com
“Cutting Down Fred” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Mark Plumly/Dreamstime.com
They’re Back copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Polygraphus/Dreamstime.com
“Gus” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Kts/Dreamstime.com
“The Last Burp of a Very Good Woman” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Christopher Elwell/Dreamstime.com
Cold Call: A Cold Poker Gang novel copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, cover art by Mskorpion/Dreamstime.com and Evaners/Dreamstime.com
Poems: “Gutter,” and “Being Young” copyright © 2015 Dean Wesley Smith, header design copyright © 2015 WMG Publishing, header illustration by Mariagrazia Orlandini/Dreamstime.com
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in the fiction in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
CONTENTS
Start Reading
Daddy is an Undertaker
Cutting Down Fred
They’re Back
Gus
The Last Burp of a Very Good Woman
Poem: Gutter
Cold Call: A Cold Poker Gang Novel
Poem: Being Young
About the Author
Subscribe
Copyright Information
Introduction
THE NEW YEAR
Even though this is the December issue, it’s going to arrive in most places in January. And being January, that means some new stuff and some changes coming. Nothing major.
But still some changes.
When I started this magazine, I had a series of nonfiction golf articles in it. Humor articles about my days as a golf professional. And those chapters were turned into a book last year that has sold some copies, much to my surprise.
So in the upcoming 2015 issues, I’ll be bringing back some more nonfiction humor that will eventually be books.
Also, I decided to still keep doing poems, just not all the time. I did them in every issue for the first thirteen issues. That’s enough poetry from anyone. But there will still be poems, just not all the time.
I will keep doing a full new novel per month. That will be the focus of every issue.
Plus there will be numbers of short stories every month as well. As I have been doing, the stories will be a mix of new stories, stories that were never published, and some stories that were published that I would like to bring to the present.
And the short stories will cover almost all major genres. This is a fiction magazine, not a genre magazine.
The serial stories will be here at times as well, but again not all the time. This issue has the second of four installments of the Poker Boy short novel They’re Back.
Also, about the time the Poker Boy serial is done in these pages, WMG Publishing will be rebranding all the Poker Boy stories. And I’ll write a new Poker Boy novel at that point. But until then, I’ll try to have at least one Poker Boy story in every issue, plus the serial.
In this issue I have the second stand-alone novel in the Cold Poker Gang series called Cold Call. This series of novels are mystery novels where retired Las Vegas detectives solve cold cases. I hope you enjoy the novel.
As many of you have noticed, I’m writing novels inside a number of different series. I’ve put in these issues so far four of the time travel series novels called the Thunder Mountain series. The fifth novel will be next month.
I have also written two novels in a brand new series called Ghost of a Chance series. The ghost agents in those books are like a second superhero team in the Poker Boy universe. And, of course, they work with Poker Boy and his team to help save the world at times.
This coming year expect some novels that are not set in one of the main series. That’s the advantage I have of having a novel every month in these pages. I can do a lot of varied things.
So the focus of these pages will continue to be the novel of the issue and numbers of short stories. But there will be other features as well.
Thank you again, everyone, for the support.
And a huge thank-you to Allyson and the wonderful people at WMG Publishing Inc. who support this crazy magazine project. I couldn’t be having this much fun without them.
Dean Wesley Smith
November 23, 2014
Lincoln City, Oregon
What’s a girl to do when Daddy wants her dead?
Mortuary Dan, otherwise known as Death himself, just happens to be her father.
Poker Boy and his team must help the only daughter of Death understand that she might not really die as she turns twenty-one.
Even though she will.
Sort of....
DADDY IS AN UNDERTAKER
A Poker Boy Story
ONE
I usually find the people I’m going to help by accident. Most of us superheroes do, or we are told to help someone by one of our bosses.
But this time, my sidekick and girlfriend, Patty Ledgerwood, aka Front Desk Girl brought me a person who really needed help.
And I do mean a lot of help if she planned on staying alive more than another few hours.
Actually, Patty sent my boss, Stan, the God of Poker, to get me.
It was a dark and rainy Oregon Saturday night in March. I was dressed and watching a rerun of an old Star Trek show starring the bald actor whose name I can never remember. In an hour or so, I planned on heading over to the casino near the doublewide trailer I called home. I never went near the casino too early on a weekend night, because the players were new and fresh and hadn’t had enough drinks.
I always gave the Saturday players a few hours, and then went over to take the money that they were willing to give to me across the poker table. Even though I was a superhero, I still had to make a living, and playing poker was my way of doing it.
“Knock, knock. Poker Boy, need to talk,” the voice-without-a-body said from the middle of the air in my living room, interrupting a scene with an alien with a forehead problem and some sort of sticky paste-like substance.
I knew the voice. Stan had only been to my home once before for only a second. It wasn’t like him to be polite and actually knock.
“I’m decent,” I said, standing and heading for my superhero costume on the hook by the door. I had on tennis shoes, jeans, and a white Polo shirt, but my costume was my black leather coat and black Fedora-like hat that I never took off in a casino. It helped funnel the power of the casino to me. If Stan was coming to talk to me, I knew I was going to need the costume very quickly.
Stan appeared in the middle of my living room and glanced first at the old television, then the remains of my T.V. dinner on the scarred coffee table, then around at the old 1970s furniture and green shag carpet that had come with the doublewide when it was new.<
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“We clearly don’t pay you enough,” Stan said, disgusted at what he saw.
“You don’t pay me anything,” I said as I slipped on my coat and hat.
“Oh, yeah, there’s that,” Stan said. “But I know for a fact you have enough in your bank accounts to buy a dozen mansions in every state in the country, with enough left over for a castle in Britain.”
I shrugged. He was right. In about fifty accounts in fifty different banks, I had a vast amount of money. And a ton of investments that seemed to be doing real well when I bothered to check on them. I had won a lot of tournaments and just didn’t spend much money after taxes every year.
“I like it here,” I said. “Keeps me humble.”
“Oh, yeah, Poker Boy humble,” Stan said, laughing. “I bet Patty doesn’t come over often,”
With that he had a point. We always stayed at her wonderful place in Vegas. She had only seen my home once and never come back. Maybe Stan was right, it might be time to upgrade some. When I had the time.
And besides, Patty thought I was a broke gambler. Maybe at some point I should get around to telling her about my money. Not a conversation I was looking forward to.
“To what do I owe this visit?” I asked the God of Poker.
“Just doing a favor for your girlfriend,” Stan said. “She needs your help on a case and she asked me to come get you. Guess there isn’t enough time for you to fly commercial.” Stan just shook his head at my old doublewide. “You know, you could afford a few private jets as well.”
“Or you could teach me the jumping-around-in-space skill,” I said. “Or is that only for gods?”
He shrugged. “Maybe when you’re done helping Patty.”
I was actually surprised at that. I didn’t know I might be able to actually teleport around the world. Of course, I still didn’t know what half my powers were. I was still pretty new at this superhero stuff.
The next moment I was in the crowded lobby of the MGM Grand.
The noise of the casino and the hundreds of guests in the lobby slammed into me. But at the same time I could feel the energy coming from the casino through my coat and hat, making me feel extra alive.
Patty was standing in front of the desk, talking to a woman with longish blonde hair. Patty glanced over, saw me, and smiled.
Like normal, her smile melted a part of me and got other parts all agitated in a very good way. She had the ability to do that to me with just a look. Her long brown hair was pulled back and she was dressed in the standard MGM front desk uniform of white shirt and black slacks and MGM vest. She made it look great.
She was a stunningly attractive woman. What she saw in me was anyone’s guess.
I made my way through the crowd and luggage over to her and she gave me a hug. “Thanks for coming.”
“Anytime,” I said, and I meant it.
“Thanks, Stan,” Patty said to the air.
“More than welcome,” Stan said without showing himself.
The young woman with Patty sort of looked around for the voice, but before she could say anything Patty said, “Lisa, this is Poker Boy.”
I turned on my what I called my “Charming Power” for lack of a better name. It helped put people I was trying to help in a more relaxed and talkative mood. I shook her firm hand. “Very nice meeting you.”
Lisa looked like an odd imitation of an American flag, with a red, white and blue outfit that included a too-tight skirt. It really wasn’t a flattering look on her. Up close I could tell she couldn’t be more than twenty-two, and more than likely she would get carded everywhere she went in this town.
Plus she had on way too much makeup. Her eyelashes seemed to extend halfway into the big lobby.
She smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her dark eyes. I could tell that something was very wrong in her life.
“Tell him what’s bothering you,” Patty said, patting Lisa’s arm gently in support.
As a superhero in the world of hospitality, Patty could calm the most upset person and make them feel good about anything. It was one of her many superpowers.
Lisa nodded, took a deep breath, and then in a deep southern accent she said, “My daddy is an undertaker.”
I waited for her to keep going, but she seemed to think that was enough explanation of her problem.
Finally I said, “Yes, go on. What’s happening?”
“No, you don’t see do you?” Lisa said, clearly about to break into tears that I was sure would run black from all the makeup. “I’m turning twenty-one in four hours, and my daddy is an undertaker.”
I looked puzzled and was about to try a tell-me-the-truth power on her when Patty said softly to me, “Capitalize the word Undertaker.”
I opened my mouth to say something, then the realization hit me: the young woman in front of me was the child of an Undertaker, the most feared branch of all the deities.
That wasn’t possible.
Undertakers never had children.
I had never heard of an Undertaker having a kid, and of all the rumors about Undertakers, the worst rumor was that their kids never lived past the first moment of their twenty-first birthday!
Now I saw the problem.
“Which one of the twelve is your father?” I asked softly, almost afraid to hear the answer. There were only twelve, one per month. It seems the twelve of them took turns being Death for the month.
“They call him Mortuary Dan,” Lisa said.
Patty’s face went white, and I felt like the chicken TV dinner I had eaten was about to make another showing in the lobby of the MGM Grand.
“I’m assuming you want to live longer than four more hours?” I asked, getting right to the point as I tried to get my stomach back under control.
The worst part of the kid rumor was that their own fathers took them.
The Undertakers took everyone at one point or another, except for maybe the gods, who seemed to live a very long time. And some superheroes as well. Patty had been a superhero for about a hundred years before I became one. I’m not aging now and so far we’ve never talked much about what happened in those hundred years before I was born.
“I would like to live longer,” she said. “Much longer. Can you help me?”
Usually I just say that I can help the person, give them encouragement, make them feel something positive. But all I said to Lisa was, “We can try.”
But what Patty and I could do against an Undertaker was beyond me. Especially Mortuary Dan, the oldest of all the Undertakers. He was the worst, the nastiest of the twelve from what I had heard. All twelve were nasty people. Dealing with the dead and dying every day, day after day, would do that to a person. It was no wonder they only worked one month at a time. I had no idea what they did the other eleven months of the year. I honestly didn’t want to know.
Somehow, to save this woman, we had to stop Death himself.
The big problem was that Death was her father.
TWO
I took a deep breath and tried to pull my thoughts together. Somehow, we had to stop the tradition of not letting a child of an Undertaker live longer than the first moment of their twenty-first birthday.
I had no idea at all why such a stupid rule existed.
“Has your father ever talked to you about this?” I asked Lisa.
She shook her head.
“Do you have a place to stay here in Vegas?” I asked.
Lisa nodded. “I came here to enjoy my last night, then when checking in, I broke down in front of Patty and told her the entire story.”
“Tell you what, Lisa, go ahead and go to your room, have a nice relaxing bath, then meet us down here in two hours if we haven’t contacted you first. We need to do some work and you might as well enjoy the time it’s going to take us.”
“I’ll upgrade you to a nice suite,” Patty said, nodding to me and gently turning Lisa around toward the front desk before the Daughter of Death could object.
I pulled out my phone and called Screamer
and had him meet us at our normal place downtown in fifteen minutes. Then I called The Smoke, the fourth member of my team, a human who could turn into a wolf when he wanted. He was out of town and working a case in the Canadian woods. There was no way he could make it in time, and I could tell he felt bad. I assured him that missing this one was a very good idea.
Then, as Patty got Lisa headed toward the elevators and turned to join me, I shouted into the noise and crowds of the large lobby, “Stan! Need some help!”
Around me the room froze except for Patty, as Stan took us out of time and appeared beside me. Everyone else just stopped in the instant of time. I had the power to do that as well, but Stan was better at it than I was.
“I thought I might be getting a call when I saw who needed help. You know the rumor is that she’s going to be dead in a few hours by her own father’s hand.”
“That’s what we need help with. We want to try to stop that.”
Stan just laughed long and hard, choking before catching his breath. His laugh echoed in the quiet of the frozen huge lobby.
Patty and I didn’t join him.
After a moment he said, “You two are serious, aren’t you?”
Patty and I both nodded. “I don’t even understand why a rule like that exists,” I said.
“Because it does,” Stan said.
“Why?” Patty asked. “How did it get started? Maybe if we knew that, we might be able to figure a way around it.”
Stan shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. It’s just been a rule for the few children of Undertakers for as long as I have been around. Although, to be honest, no Undertaker has had a child except for Lisa in all my years. She’s the only one.”
I wanted to ask Stan how long that was, but decided it was a question for another time.
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