Small Felonies - Fifty Mystery Short Stories Read online

  SMALL FELONIES

  By Bill Pronzini

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2012 / Bill Pronzini

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  OTHER CROSSROAD PRESS PRODUCTS BY BILL PRONZINI

  STORY COLLECTIONS:

  Case File

  Night Freight

  Oddments

  Scenarios

  Sleuths

  NON-FICTION:

  Gun in Cheek: An Affectionate Guide to the Worst in Mystery Fiction

  Son of Gun in Cheek

  STORY COLLECTIONS:

  Carmody's Run

  More Oddments

  On Account of Darkness

  Problems Solved

  Small Felonies

  Spadework

  Stacked Deck

  Westerns:

  Border Fever

  Day of the Moon

  Duel at Gold Buttes

  Gallows Land

  Starvation Camp

  Non Fiction:

  Son of Gun in Cheek

  Sixgun in Cheek

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  CONTENTS

  Preface

  A Cold Foggy Day

  A Dip in the Poole

  Something Wrong (A "Nameless Detective" Story)

  The Imperfect Crime

  Shell Game (with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)

  Sweet Fever

  Perfect Timing

  Dear Poisoner

  Thirst

  Skeletons

  The Same Old Grind

  His Name Was Legion

  The Dispatching of George Ferris

  Little Lamb

  Once a Thief (with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)

  Under the Skin

  Changes

  The Storm Tunnel

  Defect

  The Clincher

  The Facsimile Shop (with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)

  Waiting, Waiting . . .

  Peekaboo

  Words Do Not A Book Make

  Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern (A "Nameless Detective" Story)

  The Terrarium Principle

  On Guard! (with Michael Kurland)

  Memento Mori

  A Little Larceny

  Mrs. Rakubian

  Toy

  House Call (with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)

  Deathwatch

  Outrageous

  Muggers' Moon

  Hero (A Tale of the Old West)

  The Man Who Collected "The Shadow"

  For Love

  Unchained

  Tiger, Tiger (with John Lutz)

  Here Lies Another Blackmailer

  Buttermilk

  Retirement

  One of Those Days

  Don't Spend It All in One Place

  Cache and Carry (A "Nameless Detective"/Sharon McCone Story, with Marcia Muller)

  The Killing

  Black Wind

  A Case for Quiet (with Jeffrey M. Wallmann)

  Whodunit

  PREFACE

  The short-short story is both a difficult and an atrophying literary form. One fact may explain the other: because it isn't easy to concoct a story of two thousand words or less that has a credible plot, deft characterization, suspense, and a strong climactic effect, many writers tend to steer clear of that length. Many editors, too—though in the few remaining markets for short genre fiction, good vignettes are still welcome.

  Personally, I've always admired the short-short. I find conceiving and writing them to be pleasurable, challenging, stimulating. They're over and done with quickly, too. Novels take months to write. You can turn out a finished short-short—the first draft of one, anyhow—in an hour or two. Immediate sense of accomplishment, instant gratification.

  I've published close to a hundred vignettes in the past twenty years, in a variety of categories—about the same number (though not, alas, of the same uniform quality) as the master of the category short-short, Fredric Brown. Most of mine, unlike most of Brown's, happen to be in the mystery/suspense field. And that is what led me to the idea for this book.

  So far as I know there are only five other single-author collections composed mostly or entirely of popular short-shorts at least some of which are criminous. All fifty-three entries in Octavus Roy Cohen's Cameos (1931) are vignettes—mainly of the slice-of-life, slick-magazine variety—but less than a score ideal with mystery themes. William MacHarg's 1940 collection, The Affairs of O'Malley (reprinted in paperback as Smart Guy), contains thirty-three detective tales featuring the tough homicide cop; many are two thousand words or less, but several others are longer. Two superb collections by Gerald Kersh, published only in England, are loaded with short-shorts: thirty-two of thirty-seven stories in Neither Man Nor Dog (1946), thirty-one of thirty-five stories in Sad Road to the Sea (1947); there are only a few crime tales in each volume, however, and all entries are a remarkable, oddball fusion of the literary story and the genre story, spiced with elements of fantasy, horror, and dark humor. Fewer than half of the forty-seven stories in Fredric Brown's likewise superb Nightmares and Geezenstacks (1961) can be classified as crime fiction, and of those, one is five thousand words; the rest are mordant fantasies and science fiction, most but not all of vignette length.

  Small Felonies, therefore, is the first single-author collection of exclusively short-short—none is longer than two thousand words—and exclusively criminous stories. I make note of this fact with what I hope is pardonable pride. To have a first of any kind in the mystery field is a rare treat.

  For the most part, the stories in these pages originally appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine between 1968 and 1981. Others were first published in such long-defunct periodicals as Mystery Magazine and Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine, and in a variety of anthologies. Eight are originals. And there are eight collaborations, five with Jeffrey M. Wallmann and one each with John Lutz, Michael Kurland, and Marcia Muller. A fair number of the reprints, in particular those written and first published early in my career, have been revised to one extent or another, to correct all manner of youthful sins and excesses. Rereading one's early stories can be a very humbling experience.

  If I may be permitted to coin a collective noun, what you are about to read is a "slumgullion of short-shorts." Lots of disparate ingredients mixed together in the same kettle. Upbeat stories, downbeat stories, offbeat stories. Detection, ratiocination, impossible crime, psychological suspense, satire, farce, horror, light fantasy, apocalyptic fantasy, lady-or-the-tiger dilemmas, the cautionary tale, the biter-bitten, the O. Henry twist, the exercise in reductio ad absurdum—even a humorous look at Russian spies (sort of), a shameless "thing" composed mostly of puns, and my candidate for the shortest murder mystery ever written. Plus three brief adventures of the "Nameless
Detective," among them a locked-room mystery and a "Nameless"/Sharon McCone collaboration with Marcia Muller told entirely through dialogue. The settings range from San Francisco to New England, Mexico to Montana, the north of England to the Mediterranean island of Majorca. And the styles run the gamut from the Hemingwayesque to Wodehousian whimsy.

  You may now begin, if you haven't already, to partake of this slumgullion of mine. I hope you find it a savory blend, up to and including the fiftieth and final morsel.

  Bill Pronzini

  Sonoma, California

  January 1988

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  "The Facsimile Shop" (as by William Jeffrey), "Once a Thief," "Sweet Fever," "Under the Skin," "A Cold Foggy Day," "Black Wind," "Changes" (as "Times Change"), "The Dispatching of George Ferris," and "The Terrarium Principle" were originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1970, 1975, by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey Wallmann; copyright © 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 by Bill Pronzini. Revised version of "The Facsimile Shop" copyright 1988 by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey M. Wallmann.

  "Waiting, Waiting. . . ," "Words Do Not a Book Make," "Don't Spend It All in One Place," "The Clincher" (as by Jack Foxx), "One of Those Days" (as by Jack Foxx), "A Dip in the Poole," "Perfect Timing," "Muggers' Moon," "The Imperfect Crime," "Skeletons" (as "Skeletons Go Forth"), "A Case for Quiet," "The Killing, "Shell Game," "Memento Mori," "Here Lies Another Blackmailer. . . ," "Unchained," "For Love," and "House Call" originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1975 by H.S.D. Publications, Inc.; copyright © 1981 by Davis Publications, Inc. Various revised versions copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini; copyright 1988 by Bill Pronzini and Jeffrey Wallmann.

  "Retirement," "A Little Larceny" (as "There's One Born Every Minute"), "On Guard!" (as "Dog Story"), "The Storm Tunnel," "The Same Old Grind," and "His Name Was Legion" originally appeared in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1969, 1970, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979 by Renown Publications, Inc. Revised versions copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini; copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini and Michael Kurland.

  "The Man Who Collected The Shadow" and "Thirst" originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Copyright © 1971, 1973 by Mercury Press, Inc. Revised versions copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Buttermilk" originally appeared in Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1974 by Renown Books, Inc. Revised version copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Peekaboo" originally appeared in Nightmares. Copyright © 1979 by Charles L. Grant.

  "Tiger, Tiger" originally appeared in Mystery Magazine. Copyright © 1981 by Mystery Magazine.

  "Toy" originally appeared in Shadows 8. Copyright © 1985 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Deathwatch" originally appeared in Mystery Scene Reader. Copyright © 1987 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Hero" originally appeared in The Silver Spur Anthology of Western Fiction. Copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern" originally appeared, in slightly different form, in An Eye for Justice: The Third Private Eye Writers of America Anthology. Copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini.

  "Something Wrong," "Dear Poisoner," "Little Lamb," "Defect," "Outrageous," "Mrs. Rakubian," "Cache and Carry," and "Whodunit" are original stories published here for the first time. Copyright © 1988 by Bill Pronzini; copyright © 1988 by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.

  A COLD FOGGY DAY

  The two men stepped off the plane from Boston at two o'clock on a cold foggy afternoon in February. The younger of the two by several years had sand-colored hair and a small birthmark on his right cheek; the older man had flat gray eyes and heavy black brows. Both wore topcoats and carried small overnight bags.

  They walked through the terminal and down to one of the rental-car agencies on the lower level. The older man paid for the rental of a late-model sedan. When they stepped outside, the wind was blowing and the wall of fog eddied in gray waves across the airport complex. The younger man thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his topcoat as they crossed to the lot where the rental cars were kept. He could not remember when he had been quite so cold.

  A boy in a white uniform brought their car around. The older man took the wheel. As he pulled the car out of the lot, the younger man said, "Turn the heater on, will you, Harry? I'm freezing in here."

  Harry put on the heater. Warm air rushed against their feet, but it would be a long while before it was warm enough to suit the younger man. He sat blowing on his hands. "Is it always this cold out here?" he asked.

  "It's not cold," Harry said.

  "Well, I'm freezing."

  "It's just the fog, Vince. You're not used to it."

  "There's six inches of snow in Boston," Vince said. "Ice on the streets thick enough to skate on. But I'm damned if it's as cold as it is out here."

  "You have to get used to it."

  "I don't think I could get used to it," Vince said. "It cuts through you like a knife."

  "The sun comes out around noon most days and burns off the fog," Harry said. "San Francisco has the mildest winters you've ever seen."

  The younger man didn't say anything more. He didn't want to argue with Harry; this was Harry's home town. How could you argue with a man about his home town?

  When they reached San Francisco, twenty minutes later, Harry drove a roundabout route to their hotel. It was an old but elegant place on Nob Hill, and the windows in their room had a panoramic view of the bay. Even with the fog, you could see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz Island. Harry pointed out each of them.

  But Vince was still cold and he said he wanted to take a hot shower. He stood under a steaming spray for ten minutes. When he came out again, Harry was still standing at the windows.

  "Look at that view," Harry said. "Isn't that some view?"

  "Sure," Vince agreed. "Some view."

  "San Francisco is a beautiful city, Vince. It's the most beautiful city in the world."

  "Then why did you leave it? Why did you come to Boston? You don't seem too happy there."

  "Ambition," Harry said. "I had a chance to move up and I took it. But it's been a long time, Vince."

  "You could always move back here."

  "I'm going to do that," Harry said. "Now that I'm home again, I know I don't want to live anywhere else. I tell you, this is the most beautiful city anywhere on this earth."

  Vince was silent. He wished Harry wouldn't keep talking about how beautiful San Francisco was. Vince liked Boston; it was his town just as San Francisco was Harry's. But Vince couldn't see talking about it all the time, the way Harry had ever since they'd left Boston this morning. Not that Vince would say anything about it. Harry had been around a long time and Vince was just a new man. He didn't know Harry that well—had only worked with him a few times—but everybody said you could learn a lot from him. And Vince wanted to learn.

  That was not the only reason he wouldn't say anything about it. Vince knew why Harry was talking so much about San Francisco. It was to keep his mind off the job they had come here to do. Still, it probably wasn't doing him much good. The only way to take both their minds off the job was to get it done.

  "When are we going after him, Harry?" Vince said.

  "Tonight."

  "Why not now?"

  "Because I say so. We'll wait until tonight."

  "Listen, Harry—"

  "We're doing this my way, remember?" Harry said. "That was the agreement. My way."

  "All right," Vince said, though he was beginning to feel more and more nervous about this whole thing with Dominic DiLucci. He wished it was over and finished with and he was back in Boston with his wife. Away from Harry.

  After a while Harry suggested they go out to Fisherman's Wharf and get something to eat. Vince wasn't hungry and he didn't want to go to Fisherman's Wharf; all he wanted to do was to get the job over and done with. Harry insisted, so he gave in. It was better to humor Harry th
an to complicate things by arguing with him.

  They took a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf and walked around in the fog and the chill wind. Vince was almost numb by the time Harry picked out a restaurant, but Harry didn't seem to be affected by the weather. He didn't even have his topcoat buttoned.

  Harry sat by the window in the restaurant, not eating much, looking out at the fishing boats moored in the Wharf basin. He had his face close to the glass, like a kid.

  Vince watched him and thought: He's stalling. Well, Vince could understand that, but understanding it didn't make it any easier. He said finally, "Harry, it's after seven. There's no sense in putting it off any longer."

  Harry sighed. "I guess you're right."

  "Sure I am."

  "All right," Harry said.

  He wanted to take the cable car back to their hotel, but Vince said it was too cold riding on one of those things. So they caught a taxi and then picked up their rental car. Vince turned on the heater himself this time, as high as it would go.

  Once they had turned out of the hotel garage, Vince said, "Where is he, Harry? You can tell me that now."

  "Down the coast. Outside Pacifica."

  "How far is that?"

  "About twenty miles."

  "Suppose he's not there?"

  "He'll be there."

  "I don't see how you can be so sure."

  "He'll be there," Harry said.

  "He could be in Mexico by now."

  "He's not in Mexico," Harry said. "He's in a little cabin outside Pacifica."

  Vince shrugged and decided not to press the point. This was Harry's show; he himself was along only as a backup.

  Harry drove them out to Golden Gate Park and through it and eventually onto the Coast Highway, identifying landmarks that were half hidden in fog. Vince didn't pay much attention; he was trying to forget his own nervousness by thinking about his wife back in Boston.

  It took them almost an hour to get where they were going. Harry drove through Pacifica and beyond it several miles. Then he turned right, toward the ocean, onto a narrow dirt road that wound steadily upward through gnarled cypress and eucalyptus trees. That's what Harry said they were, anyway. There was fog here too, thick and gray and roiling. Vince could almost feel the coldness of it, as if it were seeping into the car through the vents.