Released:
Hacksaw
Ruthless gangsters and unscrupulous federal agents collide with Houston PI Eva Baum's hunt for a serial murderer in this exciting detective novel.
Chapter One
“All right, Eva, let me get this straight. You want me to pay this … woman twenty dollars so she will ‘read’ me and tell you whether I’m a ‘putz’ or not.”
I looked at Crazy Wilma, standing there in the harsh glare of the streetlight, trying to see her through Norman’s eyes. Norman the surgeon with his crisp white linen shirt and conservatively striped tie. Norman with the tassels on his impeccably polished leather loafers and the gold Rolex on his wrist. Would he see the genuine affection for me in Wilma’s bulging constantly darting walleyes? Would he have noticed how she had deliberately circled us to put herself down breeze so as not to offend us with her admittedly horrendous stench? Would he see how frail she was beneath her tattered clothes?
I found that I couldn’t see Wilma through his eyes. My vision was modified by what I knew. I remembered bringing her grandson to the park one day so that she could watch him playing on the jungle gym, her standing like a statue half-hidden by a tree for two hours. She must have memorized every detail because she would regale me with retellings of the momentous day every chance I gave her. And Wilma would take no charity. So I paid her for her infallible ability to judge people. Or actually I had my dates pay her. She had never been wrong yet. She invariably declared them putzes, and they invariably turned out to be just that. Only Eddie had gotten a tentative “half-putz,” and she had been dead on there.
Norman looked down at me, lowering his head to see me through the proper part of his bifocals. He’s six feet two inches tall, and I’m only four feet eleven inches—though my killer stiletto heels added some to my total. I gave him an encouraging smile. He must have liked what he saw. From his height, he was getting a great view down the cleavage of my summer frock. I hate bras. He grudgingly pulled a pair of sawbucks from his Italian leather billfold and passed them gingerly to Wilma.
Wilma gave him a thorough going over with her less clouded eye, then gave a decisive shake of her head. “He’s a putz.”
“Don’t take it too hard Norman. Wilma is our local Cassandra. Her evaluations never seem to affect my behavior in any way.” I gave him a coquettish smile that seemed to cheer him immensely.
“Ain’t you going to have Shade draw you and the putz?” Wilma gestured over to where Shade had set up a small easel and drawing pad. It took her a while to register that Shade was not there. “He was here just a minute ago. I told him that you told me you was bringing a sucker here. I hope the aliens hasn’t got him.”
I glanced up at Norman. He looked annoyed. I could only manage a sheepish grin this time. “I’m sure the aliens haven’t got him, Wilma. I’m sure he’ll be back in a little while—he wouldn’t leave his things for long. Tell him that we’ll see him after we’ve eaten.”
Wilma was nodding and mumbling about aliens as I took Norman’s hand and dragged him into Gino’s. The bell over Gino’s door smacked him in the head. I heard him mumbling just like Wilma. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, though I think it had something to do with “scams”, “tiny trollop”, and “better be worth it.” Heck, what was he complaining about? Even with the twenty for Wilma and the twenty he was going to give Shade for sketching a memento of our wonderful first date he was going to come out ahead of the game. After all, I had insisted on Gino’s where the food is both plentiful and very cheap instead of the expensive restaurant to which he had wanted to take me. He’d probably only drop another forty dollars in Gino’s, even with wine. He would easily have spent two hundred dollars at that pretentious place, especially the way I eat. And if he had any knowledge of my past dating history his chances were darned good of getting very lucky indeed.
The only other patrons in Gino’s were Mr. and Mrs. Kim from the Golden Dragon next door. Gino invariably ate at their establishment and they invariably ate at Gino’s. The Kim’s ate sparingly and Gino did not, so it worked out roughly equitably. Gino himself led us to a booth. The red vinyl bench was cracked; the red and white checked plastic tablecloth had a tear down the middle; and the candle in the Chianti bottle was sputtering in the last few minutes of life before it fell inside the bottle. But within a few minutes we had a bottle of a very sweet wine-like liquid, focaccia bread to dip in little plates of olive oil, and some goat cheese covered with slivers of sun-dried tomato. I had also taken off one of my stilettos and was exploring the skin just above Norman’s sock with my toes. He seemed considerably more at ease. Almost calm enough for me to introduce the topic of my profession. Surprisingly, few men react positively when they learn I’m a licensed PI.
It was at this moment that Mrs. Kim screamed. I turned to see Crazy Wilma staggering towards our table. She had an ugly gash across her forehead and blood was flowing copiously down her face.
"He hurt me. And now he's hurting Shade. Hurry, Eva.” Wilma’s voice was a harsh whisper and slurred. She just reached our table when she collapsed. Norman instinctively drew back—I had to throw myself across the table to keep Wilma’s head from smashing into the corner. Wilma’s weight carried me on across and I ended up tangled with an unconscious Wilma on the floor. Norman helped me to my feet. I could barely stand with one barefoot and one six-inch heel, so I quickly took off my other shoe, trying not to slip in the olive oil I had all over myself and spilled on the floor.
“Come on Norman, we’ve got to help Shade.” I ran/slid for the door but Norman didn’t follow. He had at least bent down to examine Wilma’s wound. He looked up just as I reached the door.
“Don’t be a fool, Eva. Wait for the cops.” He gestured towards Mr. Kim who was already on the phone near the cash register. Putz.
The street outside Gino’s was empty. It was fully dark now though the sidewalk was garishly bright—lit by the sodium light above and the various shades of neon from Gino’s and the Golden Dragon on one side, and The Happy Sailor tattoo parlor on the other side. Neither Shade nor his attacker was visible. Shade’s easel was now on the ground, smashed. A trail of art pencils, gum erasers, and oddly shaped remnants of charcoal led off towards the alley between Gino’s and the tattoo parlor.
From somewhere behind the buildings I heard Shade scream. I ran into the pitch-black alley at full speed tripping over trash bags and bouncing off dumpsters. Sharp things gouged at my bare feet and I winced at the thought of the needles that might lie on the filthy pavement back there. I made it to the back door of Gino’s where there was light from a bare bulb. The back door opened bathing the alley in more light. Gino emerged covered in flour. He had a large marble rolling pin in his hand. He stepped out to block my way.
“Eva, wait. The police will be here soon.”
“Come with me Gino. Shade’s in trouble.” Gino could only shake his head. Whatever expression he saw on my face made his eyes well up with tears. I held out my hand for Gino's rolling pin. I was unarmed and it would have to do. He hesitated a moment and then handed it over. The damn thing must have weighed ten pounds.
I tore off without another word. It was ten more steps down the alley to a T. I took the right fork leading further away from the street. After another few steps, I listened and heard whimpering from somewhere ahead. For another twenty paces I was in utter darkness again. A dumpster nearly blocked the exit. I squeezed past on the right to emerge into a dismal courtyard full of trash.
The only light was from a powerful flashlight in the left hand of the figure standing over Shade. Shade was illuminated on the ground beside his overturned shopping cart clutching at his mangled right hand. The man standing over him was a dark silhouette. All I could see clearly was the huge revolver pressed to Shade's head.
"Police. Throw down your weapon. Now.” I was not the police and I had no weapon, but I think I got the voice right. Suddenly the light turned on me. I was blinded. I dove back the way I had come, behind the dumpster. The bastard shot at me, twice. He must've had a .44 magnum. Both rounds went completely through the steel dumpster making it sound like a gigantic bell. The whole thing rocked back into me, throwing me to the filthy cement. I picked myself up, took a step to my left, and saw two small circles of light from his flash shining right through the bullet holes onto the front of my now filthy dress. I had missed death by a step.
When the dumpster had rocked back, it had jammed against the alley walls on both sides. There was no way around. I backed away, then took a running start and jumped. I was barely able to clamber onto the lid of the dumpster, especially trying to hold on to that rolling pin with one hand. The gunman's light tracked wildly to the left and then the right of the dumpster. He didn't see me standing on the lid. I hurled the heavy rolling pin directly at the light. There was a satisfying grunt of pain and the flash fell to the cement. When it smashed, the courtyard returned to near total darkness. I heard the gunman running away across the courtyard and through the continuation of the alley on the other side. I made no attempt to follow.
I found Shade by his sobs. I could already hear sirens approaching. I got down and held him while the cops and EMT's made their way through the alley maze to find us.
The Resqueth Revolution
The Resqueth Revolution is Mark's entry into the science fiction arena. Disgraced scientist Steve Marks joins a group of investigators of the paranormal and is soon swept into violent confrontations with both powerful other-dimensional beings and their human allies within the U.S. military. As he discovers more about the entities and how to hurt them he becomes valuable to a number of factions. He also rediscovers his own integrity—an integrity that will lead him to risk his friends, his new-found love, and even the survival of the human species for what he knows is right.
Chapter One
"What do you want?" The secretary was ancient, with blue-white hair piled into a shellacked mess atop her wrinkled pate. A cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth, and her inquiry dislodged a significant length of ash onto her rose colored blouse where it proceeded to slide down and then out along an ample, but sadly lowered breast until it disappeared below the level of her desk.
"My name is Steven Marks. I have an appointment."
"Which ad?" She held out her hand. I dug through my battered briefcase until I found the clipping from the Chronicle of Higher Education. I handed her the clipping. She snatched it from my hand, put it about a half inch from her rheumy eye and then returned it. I shoved it back in my briefcase. I stood there, slightly out of breath. The climb up to this little ramshackle office had been three flights. I was also fighting off the urge to sniffle. It was bitter cold outside and stifling hot in here.
"Dr. Krim is in there," she indicated with a flick of her thumb, and returned to the work on her desk.
I took this as an invitation to present myself which turned out to be a bit of a challenge. The door was warped and I had to apply a shoulder to it to unstick it. The wood felt moist and smelled of mildew and years of cigarette smoke.
A man stood at a lab table in the middle of a large room. He wore a black rubber apron over a white lab coat. He pulled off thick dark goggles to look me over. The goggles left red circles around his eyes. His snow-white hair hung below his shoulders, although he did not otherwise appear too much past 50. He affected a short goatee, equally white. He was very lean, with high cheekbones, and a prominent, thin beak of a nose.
"He's here about that ad." For such an ancient woman she had the lungs of a stevedore.
"Which ad?" His own bass shout was enough to shake plaster from the moldy ceiling.
"C.H.E."
"Thanks Beatrice."
He moved over to the left side of the room where a large desk, a swaybacked sofa and about ten over-sized filing cabinets stood. He motioned me to sit on the sofa, while he removed the apron and lab coat to reveal a clean white shirt with rolled up sleeves underneath, no tie. He sat down behind the huge desk. A large very clean window behind him looked out onto a dreary row of abandoned small factories. From what I had seen on the cab ride over, his office was perhaps the only active business within a mile in this blighted section of Milwaukee's rust belt.
I handed him a file folder with copies of my resume, school records, and letters of recommendation. While he read them, I took off my coat and looked around. On the opposite side of the room was a library with about twelve parallel rows of ten-foot high shelves, crammed full of books. At the back was a glass walled and roofed enclosure with a revolving door surrounding a further three rows, obviously an environmentally controlled room for more fragile texts. In the middle of the room was a large lab table presently set up with some sort of optical experiment. I recognized a high powered commercial laser and a series of standard splitting mirror assemblies. The back of the room was partially closed off with high curtains, but I could see enough for me to surmise that there was a small kitchen and bedroom spaces back there. Overhead was a huge skylight, very filthy with years of accumulated pollution. The floor was pitted and scarred concrete covered here and there with expensive, but now stained and threadbare Persian carpets.
"Dual physics/philosophy from Northwestern, graduate work at CERN, Ph.D. Berkeley. What the hell are you doing here?" He looked up from my papers and fixed me with sharp gray eyes.
"Two pages further along. I like to be honest with possible employers." A headhunter consultant had advised me never to volunteer any information about my 'troubles'. He was an ass-hole. Employers always found out, eventually. Then it was pack up and move again. I was tired of moving. It was easier in the long run to get it out in the open from the start. He leafed through the clippings and the court papers. He took the time to read carefully and occasionally jotted notes in a spiral notebook. He used a beautiful old-fashioned fountain pen. He finally looked up.
"Is this all accurate? Are there any mitigating circumstances that you would like to add?"
"Nope. It's accurate. I knew exactly what was going on from the start. I could've blown the whistle on the whole thing at any time. I wanted my share of the grant money and I wanted my name on the papers that were produced. I was a duplicitous, greedy prick in a lab full of duplicitous, greedy pricks. I've paid for it over the last 6 years, and have every expectation of paying for it for the rest of whatever professional career I get to have. I'm sorry for it, and I would not do it again no matter how sure I was that I could get away with it. I understand that my name would undermine the credibility of whatever research you are doing, and I am perfectly willing to work anonymously and without credit."
I was getting uncomfortable under his unwavering intense gaze. It felt as if I was being released when he glanced back to my folder. He read for a few more minutes. He finally looked back to me and leaned back in his cracked red leather swivel chair. He put his ratty black high-top Keds up on the desk, knocking over one of the many stacks of papers and computer printouts where they joined an unorganized pile of paper around the base of the desk. He made no attempt to retrieve them.
"The salary is 20% of net profits. I get 40% and there are two other members of our group who get cuts equal to yours. If you had been with us three years ago, you would have made $140,000. Last year and the year before, you would've made about $11,000. Extrapolating on what we have made so far this year, you might actually make nothing. There are minimalist accommodations on the floor below, and you are always welcome to live on site. If you choose to stay here, room and board, such as they are, are free. I provide full medical, dental, and vision. Ms. Beatrice Rutt, who you met, keeps all the books, which are open to all employees at all times. She can explain how net profit is calculated, though I should tell you that she embezzles an extra 10% over and above her official salary. It used to be 5%, but last year she gave herself a cost of living adjustment. Her normal salary is part of the overhead -- the embezzled funds come out of my net profit and in no way impact your cut. You are somewhat overqualified for our little enterprise, but I hope we can provide some challenge to keep you busy."
"What will my duties be? What does your company do?"
"Well, we do a variety of things, mostly in a consultant role. A subset of our activities is the debunking of supposed paranormal phenomenon. If you don't mind, I usually give a couple of tests to potential employees. Feel up to it?"
"Of course."
"The first test is rather trivial, but it will give you a little taste of the sorts of hoaxes we come across from time to time." He turned towards the curtained off area at the back of the room and called softly. "Claudia? We have a visitor. Would you like to come say hello?"
Nothing happened for what seemed like a long time. I was getting a bit dizzy and my ears were tingling. I reached up to scratch my ear. But then I noticed that it was getting appreciably colder. Within minutes I could see my breath and my glasses were fogged. It was also getting darker. I glanced at the skylight and could see that the sky outside was rapidly darkening as if dusk were falling though it was only the middle of the afternoon. I removed my glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. I glanced at Krim. He had risen and was backing away, looking at the curtains.
The curtains stirred and then something emerged. The hackles rose on my neck. It was a girl, perhaps 8 or 9. She wore an old-fashioned dress with a high neck, but it was filthy, ripped in numerous places, and had large sections soaked with what appeared to be fresh blood. Her flesh was a dead whitish green. Her eyes were dark but surrounded by whites shot through with broken blood vessels. Red tears leaked from them and ran down her shrunken cheeks. She had a scalpel in her hand and was idly using it to cut parallel deep cuts in her left forearm. Blood flowed freely and dripped to the floor. She looked me in the eye and smiled, an unnerving evil smile. Her teeth had been crudely filed into points. She spoke in a shrill hoarse voice, distorted and choking as if made by something unfamiliar with human vocal chords.
"You've brought meat."
With a motion almost too fast to follow she drew back the scalpel and flung it directly at me. She seemed to waver and go slightly transparent. I heard a distinct sharp exhalation, like a loud cough. I felt the wind of the scalpel, saw the glitter of it out of the corner of my eye, as it passed my left ear and embedded itself in the brick wall behind me. Brick dust made me sneeze.
As I leapt off the couch the girl took a step forward. I could hear a low feral growl from her. And then she came straight towards me at astonishing speed. I put up an arm to block her attack as best I could. She had long ragged nails outstretched and her lips curled back from those hideous fangs. Red foam was at the corners of her mouth. I searched for anything to ward her off. There was nothing.
She was only a few feet away when she quite suddenly lost cohesion. She had completely dissolved into a noxious red mist by the time she reached me. The cold wet mist wrapped about me, smothering me in the odor of rotting diseased flesh. I gagged and drew away from the horrible odor. Then it was over. The light in the room returned to normal; the smell dissipated; the temperature returned to normal.
Krim returned to his desk. He pulled out a key and tossed it onto the desk.
"I have some work to do. Feel free to move around the building if necessary. That's a master key. What it won't unlock is irrelevant to the current demonstration. Ask for any equipment you might need. I've put a few things out on the desk that you are welcome to use. Don't give me your report until you have the whole thing worked out."
Anthologies:
Texas is a great place to visit...but you wouldn't want to wake up dead
there...or you might!
Enjoy
these collections of short stories - A Death in Texas - by The Final Twist, a Houston,
Texas based mystery writers group will be releasing in the fall!.
For Vampire fans, Sleeping With the Undead a collection of vampire erotica will also be out in the fall!