Mickey Finn Volume 2, page 27
“I read it better than I can speak it. I’m German, so that’s my first language. I learned English as a child because we grew up near an American military base. Then I moved here and learned Ukrainian in my later years.” She whispers words while reading. “This says the police are looking for fugitives who recruited homeless men. The fugitives made the homeless men cash counterfeit checks, but one man died. These men have made a ruse.”
“More like a scam.”
“Yes, thank you. Not a ruse. A scam.”
It sounds like she’s reading the news release issued by the Department of Justice after they found my son and pegged Myron for the shooting and Donny or Denny for ordering it.
“As I understand it,” he says helpfully, “the fugitives stole mail from local business parks to get information, company logos and the like. Then they forged checks. They recruited homeless people from shelters and offered them day-labor jobs, driving them miles away. But once the homeless people got to the work site, they were told to cash the fake checks that looked like the business checks. That way, the homeless people appeared on bank footage but not the masterminds. Pretty slick, huh?”
“It says they killed one man.”
“He had a problem with using homeless men, so I’m told. Some men are cowards. They want to wear the uniform but they don’t want to play the game. What’s your name, honey?”
“Marina.”
“My name is Don Meredith.”
Don Meredith was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and Jesus fucking Christ if I’m not thinking about Monday Night Football and Dandy Don singing “the party’s over.” But now I remember. His name is Donald Morrison. If that news release was online, it would link to his photo, but it’s just a goddamn piece of paper. So there he sits with clueless Marina who dedicates herself to international relations and asks why can’t people just get along, and now she’s talking to the baby in the universal language of gibberish. Years ago, I would come home from work and my son would yell, “Hey Poppo, Moppo, Choppo.” I guess I was his version of pop or poppa. Then it became, “Don’t call me again, fuckface.” Tears sting my eyes. Don’t cry here. Don’t be a coward.
Dandy Don shifts in his seat and makes a restless noise. Then comes a series of electronic beeps, which sounds out of place on a train that probably hasn’t changed since the days of the Iron Curtain. This compartment needs a clacking typewriter or a telegraph chittering out the Morse code. It needs the smell of wet flannel and the crackle of a transistor radio. It doesn’t need the future. It needs the past, and Christ, so do I, but now it’s slipping away.
“What do you have there?” he asks.
“My phone.” She sounds amused. “You’ve never seen a phone before?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen phones. We had wi-fi back at the hotel, but mine is useless now. Feels weird to be disconnected. You can get online here? We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. Excuse my French.”
“This is a satellite phone. We have them at the institute.”
“Who are you calling?”
“No one. I’m looking up this case.”
He laughs nervously. “There’s not much online.”
More beeps. “Bear with me. I’m sure I can find something. This paper has the names of the criminals. A man named Stetson is the prosecutor. Like the hat, yes? I know my American movies.”
“It’s not…it’s not like the movies.”
I want to scream for this lady to stop. She and the baby should just get out.
“I see your picture,” she says slowly.
Stop talking.
“Your picture… It says you’re one of the men involved in this ruse. Excuse me, this scam. Donald John Morrison. That is your face. A little younger, but that is your face. You and an accomplice. Myron Ward. It says both men are being sought by authorities.”
Donald John Morrison begins huffing and puffing like a Brahman bull. His feet stomp on the floor and something rattles. “Myron, get the hell up. We got a problem here. Myron? Be useful for once in your life.”
I roll out of the bed and hit the floor as the baby starts to cry. The ice pick slides from my sleeve into my hand. Donald John Morrison turns and laughs. He still thinks I’m a passenger on a train in the middle of a snowy Ukraine who doesn’t know shit. He shakes dead Myron with one hand and fumbles in his pockets with the other.
“Don’t bother with Myron,” I say. “He’s not waking up.”
“Who the hell are you supposed to be?”
“My son was gut-shot and left in the freezing cold.”
His eyes turn hard as the dots connect. “You’re the father? Shit, you followed us?”
“Da, motherfucker.”
He tries shoving Myron once more, then gives up. “I’ll make it right. I’ve got money. Your son was going to turn us in.”
The ice pick feels like an extension of my hand. I jam it into his throat, angling upward. He stiffens and gasps. My other hand covers his mouth. The ice pick sinks to the hilt. Blood flows down the wooden handle and onto my wrist like a warm blanket and I almost cry with joy. My son was going to turn them in. My good son. The baby gurgles and coos as I ease Dandy Don onto the lower berth. I turn back to see Marina pointing her phone at me.
“Let me explain,” I say.
The train slows as we near the next stop. Other people might want to use this compartment and hang out with two dead bodies and the mother and her baby and the satellite phone that connects to the world. Jesus.
“I only tracked Myron. The guy in the upper berth. He killed my son. I didn’t think this other guy would be here. They must have come on separate flights and hooked up at the train station. I was just looking for Myron and didn’t see this guy come onboard. Understand? I won’t hurt you. I didn’t plan this part.”
She smiles coldly. “We always stumble into war.”
“Are you going to turn me in?”
She sighs and settles herself. Even the baby seems to be thinking it over. “This man would have killed me and my son. So I must weigh that. Are you some kind of hit man?”
“Like in the movies,” I say.
“Really?”
“Hell no. I work in IT for a law firm. I have a cubicle next to a window. I worked there five years before I got a view, and it looks out onto a parking lot. Up until now, that was my life.”
The train lurches as it slows and comes alive with the thud of luggage hitting the floor, zippers zipped, the laughter and movement of people.
“My son left college his junior year, strung out on drugs. I couldn’t talk to him. I wish I had a good excuse, but I don’t. I wrapped myself in a soul-crushing job and pretended I didn’t have the time. That’s the truth. I told myself it was his fault, that all he had to do was accept my help. But I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t work to understand what he was going through.” I hold back tears and wonder if anyone is crying at my son’s funeral.
Marina looks past me. I follow her gaze to the window. The train crawls past buildings, then a platform filled with people, then it stops. She cradles her baby in one arm and grabs the handle of the compartment door. People are muttering just beyond the door.
She turns a deadbolt and locks it.
“You’re in big trouble,” she says.
“I’m aware.”
“I don’t mean from the police. You’re in trouble…in trouble with yourself. Get off this train with me. Right now. I have friends who know English. My husband will come. He likes the American football. The Patriots. Tom Brady. You’ll feel at home.”
“This can’t be your stop. You just got on.”
“It doesn’t matter. You saved the life of my child, and that means something, yes? My organization helps others, people who are seeking a safe harbor, who need time to think things through. They are dissenters. Dissidents.” She cradles the baby, but she’s no longer a mother. Her eyes are sharp and commanding. “You need to come with me before it’s too late. You’re sick.”
“Marina, I’ve never felt better.”
She swipes at her phone and shows me the video of Donald Morrison’s murder. The ice pick goes in just above his Adam’s apple and he falls onto the lower berth.
“So I go with you or you’ll post the video?”
“Look at yourself.”
I replay it. My eyes squint with effort as the ice pick slides in, and my face twists into a smile. As he shudders for the last time, I am a portrait of joy. I watch it again and freeze it at the moment of death. I pinch the screen and zoom in on my face. I’m smiling so wide that I barely recognize myself.
“According to that piece of paper, these two dead men are part of a larger group,” Marina says. “You will want to hunt down the others. You are headed toward them now. You won’t be able to let it go. This will be your life, tracking them to different places.”
The train comes to a full stop. She stands near the sliding door.
“What’s wrong with tracking the others?” I ask.
“Because you’re not a hit man. You’re a man with a cubicle near a window. If you try and do this again, you might make a mistake. Maybe next time the mother and the baby will die. It happens with countries—they kill two of our soldiers, we kill five of theirs, pretty soon we’re killing hundreds on both sides.”
Donald John Morrison has shit himself and the stench fills the compartment. I open the single window and cold air rushes in. The sticky blood on my hands begins to dry.
“You’re smiling again,” she says.
“Random thoughts, Marina. I’m thinking of when my son enrolled in Virginia Methodist and I came to visit on Parents’ Day. His dorm room smelled of potato chips and sweat. I opened all the windows and turned on the ceiling fan. That’s the last time I remember him laughing. Later that semester, they kicked him out of school for drugs, and I told myself that young men needed to make their own mistakes and learn from them.”
“Like father, like son.” Marina slides the door open a few inches. I can’t tell if she wants to stay or go.
“What is the name of your baby?”
“His first name is Bogdan. He will grow up to be a crusader.” She steps into the hallway. “What was your son’s name?”
“Thomas.”
“And yours?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The door closes as she leaves. The train lurches forward and begins to pick up speed. I sit with my head near the window, the lights of the town beginning to recede like embers of a forgotten fire, my face hurting from the cold air and the expression of joy that will never fade.
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ABOUT THE EDITOR
MICHAEL BRACKEN has edited several previous crime fiction anthologies, including the Anthony Award-nominated The Eyes of Texas: Private Eyes from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods and the three-volume Fedora series. He co-edits (with Trey R. Barker) the serial novella anthology series Guns + Tacos. Stories from his anthologies have been short-listed for Anthony, Derringer, Edgar, Macavity, and Shamus awards, and have been named among the year’s best by the editors of The Best American Mystery Stories and the editors of The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories.
Bracken is the author of eleven books and more than thirteen hundred short stories, including crime fiction published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Mask, Down & Out: The Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Espionage Magazine, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and The Best American Mystery Stories. In 2016 he received the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement in short mystery fiction. He lives, writes, and edits in Texas.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
TREY R. BARKER, cop by day and crime writer by night, is the author of more than three hundred short stories and a handful of novels. His most recent is The Unknowing, published by Down & Out Books. He is also the author of the Jace Salome novels and the Barefield Trilogy.
JOHN BOSWORTH’s short fiction has appeared in Mystery Weekly, Switchblade, and the Akashic Noir Series, “Mondays are Murder.” He lives in Seattle and can be found on Twitter @John_Bosworth_.
SCOTT BRADFIELD is a novelist, short story writer and critic, and former Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut. Works include The History of Luminous Motion, Dazzle Resplendent: Adventures of a Misanthropic Dog, and The People Who Watched Her Pass By. Stories and reviews have appeared in Triquarterly, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Baffler, and numerous “best of” anthologies. He lives in California and London.
S.M. FEDOR has previously appeared in Burning Love & Bleeding Hearts (Things in the Well) and In Filth It Shall Be Found (Outcast Press). He has also had multiple stories in Punk Noir Magazine. Scott splits his time between writing neo-noir and new-weird-influenced stories and creating award-winning VFX for film and television. He currently resides in Montreal beneath a mountain of cat fur. Visit his website at smfedor.com or follow him on Twitter @s_m_fedor.
NILS GILBERTSON is a crime and mystery fiction writer, UC-Berkeley graduate, and practicing attorney. His short stories have appeared in Mystery Weekly, Pulp Modern, Close to the Bone, Serial Magazine, and others. Nils lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife. You can reach him at nilspgilbertson@gmail.com.
J.D. GRAVES is an author and playwright whose work has been produced at the 2016 New York International Fringe Festival. His short fiction can be found, or is forthcoming in, Black Mask, Mystery Weekly, Tough, and other publications. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of EconoClash Review.
JAMES A. HEARN is an attorney and author who writes in a variety of genres, including crime, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, The Eyes of Texas, Guns + Tacos, Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, and Monsters, Movies & Mayhem.
JANICE LAW is the Edgar-nominated and Lambda award-winning creator of the Anna Peters and Francis Bacon mystery novels. A Derringer finalist, she regularly publishes short fiction in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Sherlock, and Black Cat Mystery Magazine, as well as various anthologies. Learn more at JaniceLaw.com.
HUGH LESSIG is a former journalist and Derringer Award finalist whose short fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, and Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir. “Confessions on a Train From Kyiv” was based on a two-week stay in Ukraine as part of a journalist exchange.
GABE MORRAN is a career firefighter and part-time paramedic in Indiana. He received his B.A. in English from Indiana University in 2008, and this anthology will mark his first publication.
RICK OLLERMAN is the author of four novels and a non-fiction collection. He also writes short stories, non-fiction and has edited several anthologies, including the 2019 Bouchercon book Denim, Diamonds & Death.
JOSH PACHTER’s crime fiction has been appearing in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and many other publications since 1968. In 2020, he received the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Edward D. Hoch Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement. He also translates Dutch to English and is the editor of numerous anthologies.
ROBERT PETYO is a Derringer award nominee whose stories have appeared in small press magazines and anthologies, most recently in Hardboiled, Classics Remixed, COLP: Big, Mysterical-e, Gypsum Ground Tales, Flash Bang Mysteries, Amongst Friends, and The Black Beacon Book of Mystery.
STEPHEN D. ROGERS is the author of Shot To Death and more than eight hundred shorter works, earning, among other honors, two Derringers (with seven additional finalists), a Shamus Award nomination, and mention in The Best American Mystery Stories. His website, StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.
ALBERT TUCHER is the creator of prostitute Diana Andrews, who has appeared in one hundred hardboiled stories and the novella The Same Mistake Twice. He recently launched a second series set on the Big Island of Hawaii, in which The Honorary Jersey Girl and Pele’s Domain are the most recent entries.
JOSEPH S. WALKER lives in Indiana. In 2019 his stories won both the Al Blanchard Award and the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction. His stories have appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies, including the first volume of Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir. Visit his website at https://jsw47408.wixsite.com/website.
SAM WIEBE is the author of Hell and Gone, Cut You Down, Invisible Dead, Never Going Back, and Last of the Independents, and the editor of Vancouver Noir. Wiebe’s work has won an Arthur Ellis award and the Kobo Emerging Writers Prize, and been shortlisted for the Hammett, Edgar, Shamus, and City of Vancouver Book Award. Visit SamWiebe.com or follow at @sam_wiebe.
STACY WOODSON made her crime fiction debut in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine’s Department of First Stories and won the 2018 Readers Award. Since her debut, she has placed a number of stories in Mickey Finn, Mystery Weekly, Woman’s World, and EQMM among other anthologies and publications. You can visit her at StacyWoodson.com.
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Here is a preview from Ain’t That a Kick in the Head, the 3rd book in the Rat Pack Series by Nigel Bird.
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Thursday, October 30: Molly’s Coffee Shop
Skates Farrington was buzzing. His legs bounced against the café table while his fingernails tapped out the rhythm that had accompanied his thoughts since breakfast. He stared intently at the steps leading down from the street to the door, barely able to contain his excitement.
