Drum and Coke, fiction by Steve Liskow

By the time the pandemic lockdown lifted, our moving and storage business was history. Mickey and I sold the trucks and the building, paid off the other guys as much as we could, shook hands and walked into the sunset. I was twenty-seven, single, and had just enough in the bank for two months’ rent. Nobody was hiring people with my backgrounds, so I had to go to plan B.

A few promoters were scraping money together from two years of not gigging, and when Git Down opened off Six Mile Road, they needed security. I wrestled in college—heavyweight, at that—so when I showed up in a sleeveless T-shirt, they hired me on the spot. The place was basically a bar with every kind of liquor and microbrew you never heard of, attached to a six-hundred-seat auditorium. They considered local talent their top priority.

Six weeks in, they booked HunnyPott, an all-girl band I’d never heard of.

“They’re getting about fifty thousand downloads a week,” Norman, the owner/manager told me. “Check out their website.”

I did, and understood why they were getting so much traffic. All four musicians looked about seventeen in full make-up, and they wore more of that than anything else. Their vids featured lots of cleavage and tush, accompanied by music that was loud, fast, and subtle as a wrecking ball. The general theme was “I want to get laid.”

A week before the show, we were sold out. Norman hired another bartender to handle the rush. I wanted two more security guys, too, but he shook his head.

“Don’t want to mess with the ambiance.” In his mouth, it rhymed with “Ambulance.”

When the band’s truck pulled up at noon Friday, I saw speaker cabinets that wouldn’t fit in my kitchen.

“We’ve got a good sound system here,” I told the head roadie. His name was Truck, and his huge hands twitched.

“Not this good,” he said. “These puppies can raise white caps on Lake St. Clair.”

He and his entire crew rode the white line express. Just what I needed.

Rudolph, the band’s manager, was about forty and a little beefy, with eyes that told me the band members were about ten years older than his preference. After talking with him, I felt like I needed a shower.

But the women were a surprise. At the sound check, I discovered they all really could play. Tina, the bass player, studied cello for six years. Angela played violin and classical guitar along with her Les Paul. Wanda—Rudolph pronounced it “Wanna”—warmed up on keyboards with the Goldberg Variations, and Rika loved jazz. Her drum heroes were Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Buddy Rich, and Tony Williams.

They all wore ear plugs during the sound check, and Rika gave me an extra set.

“I got to admit,” I said to her when we both stepped outside for a smoke, “I saw some of your vids and figured you probably knew about four chords between you.”

“Yeah.” She shrugged and I pretended not to notice. “But how many people would show up tonight if we wore choir robes and played chamber music?”

“Not many,” I admitted. “But still…”

She belched smoke from her nostrils. “My grandfather used to listen to the Stooges. They were good musicians, but managed to hide it.”

“But they were guys,” I said. “They didn’t stick it in the camera while they played.”

She held another drag for a minute before letting it out. “If it makes you feel better, that’s not really my butt on the video of ‘Big Finish.’”

By the time they finished the sound check, people were already showing up at the bar. We had to check IDs, and a scary number of women showed up wearing stuff I’d expect in a porn video. Barely legal in more ways than one. The guys with them looked like they’d discovered heaven. I had visions of lots of babies being born next April.

Four hours later, HunnyPott took the stage, dressed for the Sahara in a heat wave. Angela leaned into the mic so everyone could look down her shirt. You could read the fine print on a contract through the fabric anyway, but…

“Hey, Git Down,” she whooped. “We’re gonna do that tonight, right?”

The crowd roared, and she nodded so her patent-leather-black spikes bounced. “We’re gonna help each other git down, and git dirty, ‘cause it’s better together. You all up for that?”

The crowd whooped again and the band kicked into their opener, a song called “Candy Panties.” During the guitar break, Angela turned her back to the audience and bent over to flash flesh-colored hot pants. The crowd went crazy. The next song was called “It’s Better on Top,” and you can guess how that went over.

The first set lasted an hour, finishing with what they called their Beatles tribute, “I Wanna Hold Your Gland.” During the break, my crew stayed busy keeping guys out of the girls’ bathroom and vice versa. The bartenders needed roller skates and four arms to handle the traffic, and that was probably only a fraction of the medicine being shared. A statue could get a contact high in the men’s room.

The second set opened with “Share and Share Alike,” and I saw roadies handing out backstage passes like Halloween candy. I hoped the musicians would dash off-stage and get the limo to their hotel right away, but Jessie, my lone female security, laughed.

“Not even in your dreams, Russ.” Jessie could bench press two-fifty and looked like a librarian with her wire-rimmed glasses. “There’s going to be enough hot young flesh backstage to repopulate Dearborn overnight.”

Milo, an inch taller than me and thirty pounds heavier, shook his head. “That bass player, you ever seen legs like hers?”

“Only in my dreams,” Jessie said. “I wish I was her cello.”

Norman and Rudolph stood in the wings. Norman looked ecstatic and Rudolph looked even sleazier than before. Four guys tried to climb the apron between the monitors, but Milo and I pushed them back. Even with the ear plugs, standing between those monitors made my skull vibrate.

The band finished their set and moved to the apron to take a bow, flashing pretty much everything God gave them. The crowd screamed for more, probably not a dry seat in the house.

“You’re gonna love this.” Rudolph’s voice seemed to float down a long hallway.

Sure enough, the girls came back onstage minus their shirts. They glowed with sweat, adrenaline and pheromones while they picked up their instruments again. Jessie, beside me, took deep cleansing breaths.

“You’ve been great,” Angela purred into her mic. “We really like a crowd that keeps us going. And maybe coming…back.”

She waited for a lull in the screams.

“Here’s our closer. It’s called ‘Big Finish.’”

The one with not-Rika’s tush on the video. Angela held the last note long enough to get another round of applause. She, Wanda, and Tina played an impossible riff in unison, Rika went ballistic on the drums, and they finished together a second before the lights went to black and the crowd went berserk.

My crew headed for the dressing room to repel boarders while the roadies moved onto the stage to strike the gear. Dozens of fans appeared—both sexes—with backstage passes and we tried to reason with them. Have you ever tried to debate with an avalanche?

“I’ve got a pass,” one guy snarled, his saliva spraying my cheeks. “Do you know who I am?”

“No, sir, sorry.” He wore a blazer with more sequins than they had in Nashville, and jeans so carefully distressed they had to cost three figures.

“I’m Tyler Weinecke.” The name had italics when he said it. “My old man’s William Weinecke, President of the City Council. You let me in or you’ll be sweeping Woodward Avenue tomorrow morning.”

Two other guys and a woman wearing a latex top crowded behind him. Jessie and Milo argued with a cluster of other kids, mostly male. The Weinecke kid retreated, but he came back with Norman, who looked like he was trying not to mess his pants.

“Let him in,” he said.

I shrugged. “Your call.” Rank has its privileges, and this kid was pretty damn rank.

Rudolph escorted young Mr. Wienecke through the door and slammed it behind him.

Truck and his crew moved hand trucks and dollies toward the loading dock, speaker cabinets stacked taller than I am. Another guy followed with rolled-up cables. They returned a few minutes later, Truck with drumsticks sticking out of his hip pocket and cases that apparently held Rika’s drums. His crew wheeled a dolly with guitar cases and mic stands and mics, that reminded me I still wore the ear plugs Rika gave me. No wonder the voices sounded muffled. I tucked them into my pocket and returned to the dressing room.

Jessie stood by the door looking pissed. Milo stood across the hallway from her and didn’t look any happier. Truck nodded curtly at them and disappeared through the door, raucous voices escaping until he slammed it again.

“There’s gotta be two dozen kids in there,” Jessie said. “Any pronoun you can think of. That Weinecke jerk’s one of them.”

“His face looks like he was eating a powdered donut,” Milo commented. “He’s somewhere around Uranus.”

“Not mine,” I replied. Milo shrugged.

“Well, somewhere no man has ever gone before.”

“Which probably means he’s not with any of the band.” Jessie’s voice felt like broken glass. “Oh, did I say that out loud?”

“You did.” I tried the door, but it was locked. That was a no-no. I knocked on the top panel.

“Hey, unlock this and let us in.”

No answer. I pounded again, harder. I was about to tell Milo to help me kick it in when it opened and the voices spilled out again. This time, they sounded shrill and scared. Rudolph stood in the opening, his face pale.

“There’s a dead guy in the shower.”

I pushed past him, Milo and Jessie behind me. The groupies and musicians stood in clumps, everyone craning their neck toward the two shower stalls beyond the hanging clothes. Rika clutched a towel too small to conceal that she was a natural redhead and sobbed into Trish’s chest.

“Everybody shut up.” I said it loud enough so it worked. “Now, what happened?”

Rudolph spoke first.

“The shower. There’s a kid. Rika says she found him.”

“I always sweat like a horse when we play,” she said. “I was going to take a shower and…unwind…”

Two guys held their shirts in front of them, but they were naked, too, like they’d planned to help her. Their eyes danced around the room.

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. He must’ve had a pass, but I…”

“Milo, don’t let anyone in or out.” He moved Rudolph back and closed the door. He pulled out his phone.

“You want me to call the cops?”

“That’s Norman’s call. Text him and tell him to get his ass down here pronto.”

I threaded my way through the crowd to the shower stall. I saw feet in black sneakers and distressed jeans. I stepped closer and saw a sequined jacket, covered with vomit. Sure enough, it was the Wienecke kid, his eyes wide and his face bluish gray. The stench was so thick I could almost see it; his sphincter had let go. I breathed through my mouth and felt the side of his neck for a pulse I didn’t expect to find. I pulled him flat on his back and tried to clear his tongue for CPR, but my fingers felt something in his mouth.

A drumstick. Under the layer of vomit, the tip showed blood. The kid hadn’t OD’d, he’d been murdered, and I held the puke-covered weapon in my own fingers. Yeah, Norman had to call the cops, ASAP.

He burst through the door, almost knocking Milo off his feet.

“What’s the problem?” he demanded. “What’s going on, Russ?”

I tilted my head back toward the showers.

“Weinecke’s kid is dead back there in the showers.”

“Oh, Christ.” Norman’s eyes grew big as Rika’s cymbals. “What happened?”

Everyone turned to look at Rika, who shook her head helplessly.

I held up the drumstick. “This was jammed down his throat. He may have been stabbed, or he may have choked on his own vomit, or both. But someone killed him.”

“Rika, you stupid bitch.” Rudolph strode across the room, but Jessie grabbed his arm and yanked him back. He twisted free and glared at the naked drummer.

“You friggin’ moron. How could you be so stupid? Christ, you do two or three guys every night, and now you get—”

“I didn’t—”

“No,” I said. “She didn’t.”

All the eyes in the room turned to me.

“The kid’s fully dressed, and his clothes are dry. He’s lying in puddles because the other musicians have showered, but Rika was going last.”

I looked at Trish, Wanda, and Angela, all fully—well, partly—clothed. Then at Rika and her two admirers.

“Rika’s hair is dry, and so are these guys. They weren’t in the shower yet. I’ll bet you smelled the kid first, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” Rika’s head bobbed up and down. “I did, then I looked down, and…”

The two guys nodded, too.

“Besides,” I went on, “who takes a drumstick into a shower? I’ve heard of sex toys, but a drumstick? I don’t think so.”

“So someone framed her?”

“Maybe.” I tried to follow the train of thought that was just ahead, like trying to play along with a song everyone else knew.

“But who would have killed the kid?” Norman snapped. “Christ, his old man will close us down. Our ass is dead meat.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “The kid was giving us a lot of grief earlier, and we could all tell that he was high. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this was a drug buy gone bad.”

“That’s a helluva jump,” Rudolph said. His eyes were still moving over Rika, inch by inch.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But if he was buying, it had to be someone he could only see here, not a regular friend, right? Or he’d have done it somewhere else.”

The room went silent and I saw Rudolph and the musicians process that idea. Truck, the only roadie in the room, stared at the shower stall and at the floor, but not at anyone else.

“Truck, you were taking the drum kit out to the loading dock earlier, and you had drumsticks in your back pocket. Got any more of them?”

The guy whirled toward the door and shoved Norman out of the way. He yanked the door open, but Milo blocked it with his foot and grabbed Truck’s biceps. Truck tried to swing at him, but Milo blocked the punch and half-threw him back into the room. He glared at me and cocked his fist again.

“Damn you…”

He swung, but I blocked it and punched under his arm. My fist sank into his solar plexus and his eyes opened wide. So did his mouth. His face turned red, then blue, and he sank to the carpet. Milo and I grabbed his arms and pulled them behind him.

“Norman, call the cops.”

Truck threw up on the floor. I looked down and saw one drumstick still standing at attention in the hip pocket of his jeans.

# # #

At eleven the next morning, Rika rolled out of my bed and I admired the sun turning her whole body a warm amber that complemented her red hair.

“If you want to take a shower…” I pointed to the bathroom door.

“You want to join me?”

“Um, that’s kind of kinky, isn’t it?”

She shrugged, which worked well with her naked. “Hey, I’m in a band called ‘HunnyPott,’ remember? I’ve got a reputation to live down to.”

The shower took longer than it would have if we’d taken turns. We toweled each other off and went back to the bedroom, where she bent over to pick up her underwear. She turned around and caught me looking.

“I told you, that’s not my butt on the video.”

“I know.” I found my own shorts. “Yours is better.”

She cocked an eyebrow at me.

“You’re just saying that because you hope you’ll get another crack at it.” She frowned. “Maybe I could have said that better.”

“I doubt it.”

She pulled her T-shirt over her head and found a pair of cut-offs. She slid them up her legs, not as good as Trish’s, but close. I wondered if Jessie scored with her, too.

“I owe you. Owed you. You saved my ass—damn, there I go again, don’t I?”

“Saved the club, too.”

“There’s that.” She checked her phone. “Jesus, Rudolph’s sent a dozen texts. They’ve checked out of the motel and have my stuff. They’re leaving in ten minutes. We’ve got a sound check in Flint at three. The truck’s probably already there.”

“I can drive you.” I stepped into my jeans and felt her eyes on me like everyone’s on her the previous night. The cops held everyone until they finished processing the crime scene at three a.m., so we reached my place at four. We slept about four hours after she finished thanking me.

“You sure?”

“No problem. Flint’s only about thirty-five miles up Seventy-five.”

I escorted her out to my car and heard my own phone ping. I checked the most recent message and learned that Truck had confessed.

“You could watch our show in Flint tonight,” Rika said. “We could comp you in, no problem.”

“Git Down’s got a show tonight,” I told her. “But maybe a rain check?”

“Maybe. I don’t think Rudolph’d have to twist your boss’s arm much to have us back, either.”

“Probably not.” “I didn’t look at her. “I wouldn’t mind closing with another ‘Big Finish.’”

“That wouldn’t suck, would it?”

She sighed. “Damn, there I go again.”

Steve Liskow (www.steveliskow.com) is a former English teacher, theatrical actor and director, and guitar player. He was the first to win the Black Orchid Novella Award twice, and he has been a finalist for both the Edgar Award and the Shamus Award. His latest novel is Words of Love, the fifth in the Chris “Woody” Guthrie series. 

Two Good Hands, fiction by Steve Liskow

“Not even to have two good hands.” Julia gives Aura Lee a glare that I can feel from across the room.

“Let the dead lie,” Belle agrees. She’s Aura Lee’s grandmother—Julia’s mother—but her eyes say she can kick my butt if I give her half a reason.

“But it’s an awesome song.” Aura Lee sits on the couch with her bare legs curled under her. Glasses of iced tea sweat on the coffee table, an old door with the knob removed.

“’Awesome.’” Belle lights a cigarette and belches smoke from her nostrils. “We send you to college and that’s the best you can do? ‘Awesome?’”

“You know what I mean.” Aura Lee hunches forward and I can see her sinking into the family dynamic, her at the bottom of the tree. “It would be perfect on the CD. But I don’t know all the words and I can’t find it anywhere. Plus we want to get the writing credits right.”

“Not going to happen.” Julia shakes a cigarette onto the table and puts it between her lips. She wears jeans and an old Jackson Browne tee, both faded to the color of gravel, but she’s still seriously hot. She’s Aura Lee’s mother, but she might still be pushing forty from this side.

“Why not?” Aura Lee’s chin inches forward. The three women look so much alike I can see the DNA flowing down the family tree. Same triangular faces, same green eyes, same wine-red hair, except Belle’s has a little gray. Varicose veins turn her lower legs into a barber pole.

“That was Luther’s song.” She lights Julia’s cigarette and Julia draws until the end glows like a new penny. She blows smoke toward the window. The wallpaper has a yellowish tinge and the whole room smells like an ashtray.

“I barely remember him,” Aura Lee says. “I thought maybe it would be a way to, you know, connect with him again.”

“You were learning to walk when he died,” Belle says. “Cancer. Went like that.” She snaps her fingers, the click filling the room.

“Cancer,” Aura Lee says. “You should quick smoking, Gram.”

“Yeah, and you should forget the damn song and go back to your books.”

“Classes are over,” Aura Lee says. “We get everything set up, we can record it all in a few days before the fall semester starts.”

Julia draws again and puts her cigarette in the ashtray. “You know how long cutting an album takes? Months.”

“Not now, the technology’s so much better. We’re talking about a week, max. The guy who runs an open mic off-campus has a decent studio. He’s already penciled us in for late July.”

Belle and Julia look at each other like they’ve just been offered a handful of beans.

“Um, excuse me?” They turn to me with shotgun eyes. They have to know Aura Lee and I hooked up last fall. We still have separate housing in the dorms, ‘cause you can’t move off-campus until you’re a junior.”

“Ms. Holden, you said your husband sang the song? Do you know where he heard it first?”

“Nope.” Belle crushes out her cigarette.

“But you still play, don’t you?” Her fingers still have calluses and I wonder where her guitar is. Ours are in my car. Maybe we should bring them in, try to loosen things up.

“Some.”

“And you sing, don’t you, Ms. Holden?” It registers for the first time that they’ve got the same last name.

“A little. I couldn’t play…”

Julia’s voice fades and she holds up her right hand, the one not holding her cigarette. A thumb and pinkie. It’s all that keeps her from being perfect. Her daughter’s still working on it, but she’s getting there.

“Born this way. Lucky they were making shoes with Velcro by the time I was learning to dress myself. Buttons are still a bitch, though.”

“I’m sorry.” It sounds stupid, but I can’t think of anything better.

“Not your fault.”

Aura Lee clears her throat. “Listen, can we play you our other songs? You know the older stuff, but I’m starting to write too, a little. And I really like ‘Pear Tree.’ It’s a terrific story, sounds like some of the old Appalachian ballads.”

The older women drag on their Marlboro lights. Aura Lee rolls her eyes.

“OK, can I at least show Ash around?” She glances toward the stairs. The whole downstairs isn’t much bigger than a suite in the dorms, and I wonder how big the bedrooms are. There have to be three of them, and I’m not sure that leaves room for a bathroom.

“Keep your door open,” Belle says. Aura Lee rolls her eyes again.

I follow her upstairs, the women watching me pretend I’m not checking out her ass. The stairs are so narrow I wonder how they got furniture up there unless they built it in the rooms. Aura Lee leads me into a room with one large window overlooking a field. She opens it wide for what little breeze it offers.

“They’ll think about it.” She flops on the bed and her top rides up so I see her belly-button ring. I wonder if the women know about that. Or her tattoo. She took her eyebrow piercing out before we came.

“Is that good or bad?” I’m only five-ten and I have to stoop with the low ceiling.

“We play some of our other stuff, they’ll hear how that song would work for us and change their minds.”

Aura Lee doesn’t have a great voice, but you can hear the truth in it, like she’s lived every word she sings, like she’s been nineteen forever and it never gets any better. We met at an open mic last fall and figured out right away we should team up, and now we get a gig once in a while. Twenty-five bucks and a burger, but it beats a finger in your eye.

“You didn’t mention your grandfather sang it.” I sit next to her on the single bed, the only thing that can fit in here. The dresser looks slightly heavier than cardboard. I wonder how her clothes don’t crush it.

“I only remember Gram and Ma singing it, but Ma never sang out. She always told me Gram and Gramps were pretty good.”

She points at a picture on the wall. A cheap wooden frame contains Belle and a man with a heavy jaw and light hair. The girl in front of them can’t be more than seven or eight, but I recognize Julia hiding her right hand behind her back. The man holds a pear in his hand, and the tree behind them spills shade across their faces.

Aura Lee goes to the window and I join her. A few hundred yards away, a split rail fence seems to be slowly dying, a small brook and a patch of woods beyond it. Between us and that fence, a blasted stump sticks up like a finger.

“That’s the tree in the picture,” she says. “It got hit by lightning when I was seven. Scared the shit out of me.”

The stump stands a hundred yards away. If it had been closer, the falling tree might have slammed through this wall.

“You look like your mom,” I say. Nothing gets past me twice.

“Yeah.” She stands. “Let’s check the attic.”

“There’s an attic?”

“Yeah, it’s probably stuffy as hell, but maybe there are more pictures. Gram and Gramp playing out, something like that.”

“They didn’t record anything, did they? You would’ve mentioned it.”

“You needed money and an agent back then. And they were doing Americana before it had a name. Nobody could’ve cared less.”

Turns out there is a bathroom, not much bigger than a phone booth, and outside it is a swinging trap door with steps that fold down. The heat spills out so thick my eyes tear up while I follow Aura Lee’s cut-offs up that ladder. The attic ceiling’s only about five feet tall, just enough so old clothes can hang on racks. Dresses and shirts under plastic wrappers, winter coats and boots. An old trunk that belongs in a pirate movie. Yellowed newspapers and magazines. I walk around a sticky strip dotted with dead flies.

“Hot damn.” Aura Lee points to a stack of old LPs and 45s.

“Bob Dylan,” she says. She digs deeper. “Pete Seeger, Cisco Houston, Woody Guthrie, Kingston Trio, Burl Ives, Josh White, Chad Mitchell, Phil Ochs, Tim Buckley, Peter, Paul and Mary...”

She pulls a Dylan LP from its sleeve. “Great condition. Shit, you could get a few bucks for these.”

She reads the label on a box with an old tape reel.

“Library of Congress. Jesus, this is old stuff they were probably learning from.” She spreads more boxes on the floor. “Let’s see if ‘Pear Tree’ is on one of these.”

A couple of boxes are old bluegrass and I check them first. The song has that high lonesome feel, minor key creepy. No luck.

“Not that I see a tape recorder up here,” she says. “If we find the tape, we can take it back to school, someone must have an old reel-to-reel.”

Sweat drips down my back and my throat scratches from the dust. I’m ready to bag it when Aura Lee opens the trunk. Old bed linens on top, framed pictures under them, some with Julia holding a baby that has to be Aura Lee.

“Whoa.” She digs into the pile and pulls out a framed eight by ten. Her grandparents huddle next to a microphone with their eyes closed. The man holds a banjo and the woman plays a Martin guitar. The tuning pegs of another guitar hide behind the man’s knee, maybe the old Guild Aura Lee plays now, and a neon Schlitz sign glares red behind them.

“I wonder where this was taken. It’s gotta be a bar somewhere around here.”

“Doesn’t have to be around here,” I say, but she shakes her head.

“They never made enough to travel much. Didn’t get farther east than Ann Arbor or west than Muskegon. Don’t think they ever left the state.”

“They always lived around here?”

“Gram’s family did. Gramps came up from Kentucky to work in the auto plants back when we made our own cars.”

“Kentucky,” I say. “Maybe that’s where he learned the song.”

“Maybe.”

She pulls out more pictures and finds a shoebox. When she opens it, a bunch of cassettes stare up at us, labels with smudged pencil. A beat-to-shit cassette player lies under the box.

“When did CDs take over?” she asks. “Before we were born, I know that.”

“Eighties?” I say. “My father has some old tapes and vinyl, but mostly CDs.”

“So this is probably thirty years old, give or take.”

We put the other stuff back. Aura Lee goes down the ladder first and I hand the player and tapes down to her. Back in her room, I think she’s even more surprised than I am when the cassette player works. Tinny music comes out of the speaker, drums, bass, electric guitars.

“Someone’s out of tune,” she says. The tape seems to speed up and slow down, and I can’t decide whether it’s the player or if all the years up in that heat stretched the tape. We listen to a few minutes, then she ejects it and tries another one. That’s more electric stuff, and even worse than the first one.

“I wish we could read the labels,” she says. She pulls out one of the old reels. “If it’s one of these, we’re screwed. The tape looks like it’s melted together. We probably won’t be able to play it even if we can find someone with a reel-to-reel.”

Julia appears in the doorway, her eyes narrowed to green slits.

“What are you doing?” Aura Lee puts in another cassette without looking at her. “We found these up in the attic. We’re checking to see if one of them has the song.”

“They’re probably all junk.” Julia’s eyes remind me of a cat, even more than her daughter. When she looks at me again, I feel like a mouse.

Aura Lee turns up the volume and we can hear that this tape is acoustic, so maybe we’re getting closer.

“Ash, why don’t you go get our guitars. We can try to figure out the chords.”

It’s ten degrees cooler out of that cramped room. I pop the trunk on my old Chevy and pull out our guitar cases, both covered with stickers from every open mic and coffee house we’ve played since last fall. Jackson, Ann Arbor, East Lansing…

When I step back in, Belle looks up from her cigarette.

“Is that Luther’s old Guild?” Her voice is softer than anything else she’s said.

“Well,” I say, “it’s what Aura Lee plays. If it was her grandfather’s first…”

Belle’s lips tighten. I maneuver the guitar cases up those tight stairs. Aura Lee’s still listening to the tapes and Julia’s still hovering over her.

“It’s Gram and Gramps,” Aura Lee says. “Crappy recording, probably live.”

Julia crosses her arms, her right hand underneath. “I think they wanted something live to send to the record companies. I don’t know if it’s one of these or not. Not that it matters, none of the record companies ever got back to them, I don’t think.”

“When was this tape made, Mom, do you remember?”

Julia shrugs. “Not exactly. Maybe 1990? Dad died in ninety-eight. You were only a little over a year old.”

The room goes silent except for the tinny version of “Long Black Veil” on the cassette player. Crowd noise drowns out the guitars. Aura Lee turns the cassette over and we hear more singing, but no crowd. Lots of stops and starts, with talking in between.

“Saw him pick her fruit.” That’s Belle. Julia’s eyes widen and Aura Lee turns up the volume.

A guitar plays a rhythm figure and a man sings the line.

“And only that ripe old pear tree

“Watched as he picked her fruit. Yeah, that’s better. I like that.”

Aura Lee looks at her mother, toward the stairs, and back at her mother.

“They wrote it? They wrote the song? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Julia hugs herself and shakes her head. Aura Lee turns off the tape and stands.

“Let’s take this downstairs.”

I lead the way because nobody can get by our guitar cases anyway. There’s a little more room in the living room, but Belle’s already lighting another cigarette. Her face shows she heard us upstairs.

“Gram.” Aura Lee puts the cassette player on the coffee table and looks for an outlet. “You and Gramps wrote the song, didn’t you?”

“How did you two decide you’re ready to do a record?” Belle doesn’t look at her.

Aura Lee glances at me. “We’ve been playing together since late last year, ten bucks here, twenty-five there, pass the hat a lot. Some guy asked us if we had CDs to sell, and we figured we could probably do that. We know a guy who has a studio, a couple of graphic artists from school…”

Julia appears at the foot of the stairs. Aura Lee looks at her, then back at her grandmother.

“Gram, why didn’t you tell me you and Gramps wrote the song?”

Belle shrugs. “We were just fooling around, stealing from lots of the old ballads we knew. We never meant to play it out, even if Luther lived. It’s not even finished.”

Aura Lee shakes her head. “Four or five verses, that’s pretty much a whole song.”

Julia sinks to the bottom step. All she needs is a flowing dress and long hair streaming behind her to look like a wronged maiden out of those same ballads.

I open my guitar case and find the pencil and paper I keep under the tuning pegs. Aura Lee takes her own guitar and sits on the couch next to the cassette player. When she strums a chord, both Julia and Belle seem to shrink.

“Standard tuning?” Aura Lee rewinds the tape a few seconds and turns up the volume. When the music comes up, I strum a few chords and find where it’s going.

“Yeah. And in ‘A’ minor.” We listen to the words and music, and I try to find the bass note as we go along. It’s not hard, especially since they keep stopping and starting to try different words.

“Under that ripe old pear tree,

“He swore he loved her true. “And only that ripe old pear tree

“Watched as he picked her fruit.”

Aura Lee looks at Belle. “The only verse I remembered, and I didn’t understand that line when I was little. Confused the hell out of me.”

Belle holds up the cigarette pack to Julia. When she nods, Belle lights a cigarette and walks it over to her.

“When she began to blossom,

“She told to me his name…She revealed to me, she let me know…what do you think?”

“Um…‘revealed’ sounds better. Maybe ‘man’ instead of name?”

“Gotta rhyme with ‘shame’ at the end.”

I put down my guitar and pick up my pencil. “Back it up and play it again.”

Belle puts her hand over Aura Lee’s.

“Don’t.”

“But Gram…”

“Please.” Julia’s voice barely carries across the room. The cigarette smoke wreathes her face.

We play through three verses, lots of stopping and starting again, which gives me plenty of time to write down the words. And the chords are baby simple, like hundreds of other old ballads. But now we know this one isn’t that old.

Julia stares at her partial hand and Belle’s eyes burn into the cassette player.

“Aura Lee,” she says. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“Gram…” Aura Lee plays the next verse.

“And give that ripe’ning child his name

“And share with them his wealth…his life…his pride…never mind, keep going…

“But he just sneered go ‘way old man

“I’m not your daughter’s first.”

“What a great line.” Even Aura Lee whispers. “But it’s so awful, too.”

Belle leans over and yanks the cord out of the outlet.

“Enough, God damn it, that’s enough.”

“Gram, what the hell…?” Aura Lee puts down her guitar and reaches over for the cord, but Belle jerks the other end out of the cassette player and throws it across the room.

“Enough, enough, enough.” She looks a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier than a few minutes ago, and her eyes slash across us like a hawk’s talons.

“That song must never, never be sung. I thought we threw it away years ago when Luther… Give me that damn tape.”

“Not a chance.” Aura Lee pops the little door open and jams the cassette into her pocket.

Julia rolls into a ball on the bottom step, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hands covering her ears. Her shoulders twitch and her keening gives me goose bumps.

“Mom? What’s…” Aura Lee crosses the room and sinks next to her mother.

Belle steps between them and cradles Julia in her own arms with her back to her granddaughter.

That’s when I remember the pictures upstairs.

“Jesus.”

I go over and pull Aura Lee back onto the couch. “Wait a second,” I tell her. “Just be quiet for a few minutes.”

“But—”

“No,” I say. “Seriously. That stump in back of the house, the tree you said was hit by lightning, it was a pear tree, right?”

“Yeah, but…” I see her get it, too. “Oh, my God.”

We force ourselves to sit until Julia uncoils and looks at her daughter. For all she sees me, I might as well be on Mars.

“Mom.” All three women are about the same height, but when Aura Lee sways across the room in her cut-offs, she seems to be nine yards of legs. They tangle in a big hug, all arms and red hair and sniffling.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. They don’t hear me. I go over and pry Aura Lee loose long enough to find the cassette against her hip bone. The three of them sink to the bottom step in one big heap and I replace the cassette and plug the player in again even though I know what’s coming now. Aura Lee finally turns to her mother.

“This isn’t made up, is it?” Julia’s throat moves like she’s swallowing an earthquake. “Not all of it.” She wipes her nose on the back of her hand and lets out a sigh she seems to have been holding in for years.

“Son of a bitch wouldn’t marry a cripple. He didn’t want a child of his to inherit....”

Aura Lee’s eyes widen and I force myself to push “play” again. “Then rage filled up this father’s heart

“My child’s tears fed the flame…fueled the flame, do you think?” Luther’s voice, that same guitar figure.

“Go on, we’ll fix it later.” Belle’s voice.

“And now that wicked young man lies

“Where he laid my child’s good name.”

I write it down while one last chord hangs in the room. I hit “stop” and none of us look at each other.

I walk outside, around the house. The sun hammers my head and I wish I had a hat.

The stump is about three feet tall and a foot across, the outside jagged and blackened, and the center looks pulpy, like it’s rotting. I don’t know a pear tree from a flag pole, but judging from the diameter, this one must’ve been tall.

I walk around it in ever-widening circles. Nothing looks different, some tall grass, a few bare spots, a few rocks. It’s a field, for Christ’s sake, what else do you have in a field?

Aura Lee joins me, her mother’s eyes looking out of the younger face. I and pull her against my chest and feel her shaking.

Belle and Julia join us, leaning against each other like it’s all that keeps them upright.

“This side.” Belle’s shadow falls across the stump and reaches back toward the house, tiny in the distance. “Right here.”

Aura Lee’s fingers squeeze mine and I squeeze back in self-defense.

“Nobody ever found out?”

Belle looks at the stump, then at me holding her granddaughter.

“The whole family was mixed up in all sorts of…shenanigans. Nobody asked any questions because they wouldn’t want to know the answers. He might’ve just took off with money or…”

And now that wicked young man lies

Where he laid my child’s good name.

“Is he buried here, too?” Aura Lee’s voice breaks to little pieces in the breeze.

“Uh-huh.” Belle and Julia look so beautiful I know I’ll see them in my dreams for the rest of my life—and wake up screaming.

“Forget that song,” Julia says.

I’m still holding the paper with the words, now almost bruising my eyes.

“It’s a great song.”

And then I think about why it’s such a great song. It tells the truth, about how people love and care for each other and put themselves in danger doing it. I never knew Luther, but I see now that he was a hero. He’s not around to suffer, but Belle and Julia could go to jail, which won’t help anyone. All because of Aura Lee, and she wasn’t even born yet.

It really is a great song. But letting other people hear it…

I hold up the page so the women can see it, and tear it in half, then tear the halves again. Then again. One more time, the packet thick enough so I have to work at it. I open my fingers and let the wind carry the shreds away, ragged white moths floating across the field until I can’t see them anymore.

I kiss away the tears running down Aura Lee’s cheeks before I look at her mother again. “We’re all in this together now. Aren’t we?”

Aura Lee walks over and hugs her grandmother. Then her mother. Then she turns and holds out her hands to me, two good hands, the ones that play guitar, the ones that hold me tight.

Two good hands.

Steve Liskow’s stories have earned an Edgar nomination, Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Award (3 times), and the Black Orchid Novella Award (twice). Those stories appear in Tough, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies. Words of Love, his 15th novel, will appear late this year, and The Kids Are All Right was a finalist for the Shamus Award in 2015. He lives in Connecticut. Visit his website at www.steveliskow.com.

Annie Works the Midnight Shift, fiction by Steve Liskow

Annie walks into Quickie Mart at nine twenty and finds Lainie, her older sister, leaning by the register reading a magazine. She looks even more bored than she does tired.

“You’re early.” Lainie’s voice is tired, too.

“It’s nothing but re-runs on TV,” Annie says. “They aren’t better the second time. Or funnier.”

“Different commercials, though.”

“I suppose.” Annie looks down the three aisles and tries to count the things they sell that show up on TV. Fritos, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Dr. Scholl’s, Right Guard. If the rest of the night is as slow as right now, she can make a list. There must be easier ways to drive yourself crazy.

Lainie points to Annie’s hair. “That gets any higher, you’re gonna get it caught in the ceiling fan.”

Annie looks up at the blades, rotating so slowly she could probably grab onto one and let it carry her around in a circle. Another way to go crazy.

“Something for when Missus Atwood tells us to write what we did on our summer vacation.”

Lainie rolls her eyes. She’s got beautiful eyes, not as happy as before, but still big and blue. She shouldn’t use all that eyeliner, though. Sixteen Magazine says don’t use as much now.

Maybelline, that’s something else they carry that’s on TV.

“Has it been like this all night?” Annie asks.

“A guy stopped about an hour ago for gas,” Lainie tells her. “He wanted to know where the nearest motel was. Think he had Pennsylvania plates.”

Annie looks out at the two Shell pumps, one regular and one premium. “An hour ago?”

“Yeah.” Lainie jerks her thumb at the cartons on the floor behind the counter. “Good thing the new magazines came in this morning, ‘cause I’ve read all the old ones. Except Field and Stream and Playboy. If I thought it’d stay like this, I’d close up and tell you to go on home.”

“I need the money.” Annie’s barely sixteen. Moms and Dads didn’t want her working the ten to six shift, but it pays five percent more, that’s seven and a half cents an hour. She does six nights a week, so that’s eight hours at time and a half.

“Don’t we all.” Lainie had to drop out of school when she got pregnant. Their parents watch her daughter while she works.

“If it’s gonna be so slow, I can restock the magazines,” Annie says.

“Yeah.” Lainie holds up a clipboard and shows her the invoices. “I’ve already counted them and checked them in, so you can switch out the old ones and dump them into the same cartons.”

“OK.” Annie picks up the new Playboy and looks at the model on the cover. “I like the way her hair curls. You think I could do that with mine?”

Lainie rolls her eyes and lights a cigarette. “You’ve got such a small face, it’d disappear you wore your hair down like that. Besides, you’re too young.”

“I’m only three years younger than you,” Annie says. “Besides, nobody looks at these girls’ hair.”

“Yeah, well you shouldn’t be looking at that magazine anyway.” Lainie blows smoke toward the ceiling and watches the fan blades slice it up.

“I heard the articles are good, they do interviews.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Some guy at school, I don’t remember who.”

“None of the bozos at school can read,” Lainie says. “The only way they get out of this dump is the Army.”

Annie lets the magazine fall open to the centerfold. “I heard they pay lots of money for these pictures.”

“Well, sure. Strippers can do it every night. But you do it here once, everyone’s seen you so you better get a lot.”

“How much you think they pay?”

Lainie frowns. “You shouldn’t think about stuff like this. Come on, let’s count the register.”

Annie moves behind the counter with her. “If they paid enough, I’d pose for them.”

Lainie’s eyes widen. “Don’t talk like that. Moms and Dads’d never live it down. I screwed up bad enough.”

“If they paid me enough, I’d leave this town and never look back. Maybe there’d be enough to take you with me.”

“Yeah, and if our fairy godmother turns a pumpkin into a Corvette, I get to drive.”

Lainie counts the twenties and passes them over to Annie to re-count.

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“You’re too young for that, too. Moms knew I gave you a cigarette, she’d kick my butt clear to Toledo and back.”

Lainie passes the tens over and takes the twenties back.

Cigarettes, Annie thinks. They’ve got commercials for them on TV, too. Winston, Tareyton, Marlboro. . .

A car rumbles up near the door and stops. The light shines on a red hood and Annie’s glad Lainie’s still here.

Sure enough, Duane Peasey walks in. Tight white tee shirt, greasy jeans, black high top Converse sneakers.

“Hey, honey. Hey kid.” Duane’s eyes might be raisins in a doughy face, and he looks smarter than his buddy, who’s built like a coat hanger and has zits to make raspberries jealous.

“We got names,” Lainie says.

“Yeah, me too.” Duane leans on the counter and Annie can smell his breath, cigarettes and beer. “You play your cards right, you could be screaming it all night long.”

“I’d rather choke on a rusty rake.”

Duane drops his eyes to Annie’s chest, then back up to her face. “How ‘bout you, little one?”

“I’m working.” Annie feels her skin crawl. Duane and a bunch of other guys got Lainie drunk at a party and one of them—maybe Duane himself—is her little girl’s father, but she was passed out so she couldn’t tell who did it. Duane’s supposed to go into the Army in August now that he’s graduated from high school after five years.

“Your loss. Gimme a pack of Camels.”

“Filters or regular?”

“Regular. Guy what smokes filter cigarettes probably squats to pee.” Duane’s laugh reminds Annie of a mule braying.

Annie bends down to get a pack and feels both boys looking at her rear. When she stands again, she can almost smell Duane’s smile.

“You ain’t a bitch like your sister, are you?”

Annie rings up the sale.

“Thirty cents.”

Duane gives her a crumpled dollar bill and she runs it between her fingers to smooth it out.

“You want me to work that hard, the least you could do is give me one of those.” Lainie’s mouth drops open.

Duane taps the pack against his palm a few times before he pulls off the strip and peels back the foil. He slides one into his hand and points it at Annie’s chest. He gives her that same slimy smile and she remembers everyone calls him “Sleazy Peasey.”

“Give me a light.” Duane sticks the cigarette between her lips and a lighter appears in his other hand. He holds the flame under her cigarette. She feels heat in her mouth.

“You gotta suck on it, little girl.” His voice slithers into her ears. “Like you smell fresh apple pie, right outta your mamma’s hot oven.”

Sharp heat claws down Annie’s throat. She leans over the counter, coughing so hard her eyes tear up and her head feels light. The cigarette drops between her hands and she almost burns herself on the flaming tip.

Duane gives that mule-bray laugh again and his buddy does the same. Annie coughs until she thinks she’s going to throw up, fighting for air, her eyes and nose running and her face burning. When she stops, Lainie shoves a few tissues into her hand.

“You two about done here?” she asks.

Duane drops two more crumpled bills on the counter.

“Gonna put in two dollars of reg out there.”

He leads his buddy back outside. Annie blows her nose and wipes her eyes and doesn’t look at Lainie.

“I’ve got half a mind to close up and drag you home by your ear like a four-year-old.” Lainie sounds like she wants to slap her.

“I didn’t want them to think I’m just some stupid kid.” Annie can barely hear her own voice. One drag on that cigarette, her throat feels like she swallowed a blow torch.

“Guess you showed ‘em, didn’t you?” Lainie watches the two guys laugh by the gas pump. “I should go make sure he only pumps two dollars, but I don’t feel like talking to him again.”

When the Mustang roars off into the darkness, Lainie opens the cash register and they count the fives and singles and then the change. She tucks her cigarettes into her purse and gives Annie a look that reminds her of their mother.

“I know you want the money, but some things aren’t worth it. If nobody shows up by midnight, you can close up early. I’ll be up when you get home, and I’ll fill out your card tomorrow like you went all night.”

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“You’re my sister. One of us has to make it out of this dump.”

Lainie strides out the door and up the road. She’s nineteen and walks like she’s twice that. Have a baby and losing your dreams makes you old quick. The Quickie Mart’s only two miles from their house, which is good since neither sister has a driver’s license.

Annie stands behind the counter for twenty minutes before she remembers her transistor radio in her purse. She turns it sideways and finally gets the best signal she can from Cleveland. The Beatles new record comes on, “A Ticket to Ride.” She turns it up and stacks the magazines on the counter.

Life, Time, Newsweek, Sixteen, Woman’s Day, Tiger Beat, TV Guide, Sports Illustrated, Car & Driver, Field & Stream. One at a time, she carries the new issues to the rack next to the anti-acids and pain relievers. She replaces the old ones and counts them before putting them back in the cartons. Playboy stays behind the counter so the little kids don’t see it.

Eleven o’clock, and nobody’s come in yet. A few cars whoosh by the gas pumps, but the most excitement so far is clouds floating across the half moon. Thrillsville. The radio plays Elvis, the Supremes, and Herman’s Hermits. She wonders if they’ll play that new Beatles song again.

She looks at the hair styles in Sixteen. One model has long hair with that fishhook curl at the end Annie’s working on, just brushing the top of her shoulders. The lady on the cover of the new Playboy has the same hairstyle. Annie wonders how old she is. You probably have to be twenty-one to take your clothes off for pictures.

She doesn’t look anywhere near twenty-one. If she looked older and a rich man showed up for gas, could she talk him into taking her with him, leave all this behind?

How can she look older?

Can she make her hair look like that girl on the cover?

She walks down the notions aisle across from the candy and picks up a can of Aqua Net. She shakes it up on the way back to the counter and digs in her purse for her compact.

The door opens and a man comes in, eyes heavy, feet dragging. “You got any No Doz?”

“Second aisle,” Annie tells him. “About halfway down. You want some gas, too?”

“Might as well.” The man’s shirt is all wrinkles and his shoulders stoop.

“Let me have three dollars, the high-test.”

Annie looks out at the big station wagon and makes change for the man’s ten. He leans against the back fender while he pumps, then slams the door and pulls back onto the road. Annie watches until he’s long gone.

The radio plays “Louie, Louie.” All the boys at school say the words are dirty, but nobody can make them out. Probably just a story to sell more records.

Annie finds her comb and leans forward so her hair tumbles around her face, spraying with the Aqua Net until she’s dizzy from the aerosol and her blood rushing to her brain. She straightens up and teases her hair with the comb before looking in her mirror.

She holds up the magazine and looks at the lady, back in her mirror, then back at the magazine. Not bad. Not great, but it makes her look a little older. Like a junior, maybe even a senior.

Not enough. She puts the magazine back and stares at the blacktop outside.

Eleven forty. Another six hours and twenty minutes. That’s three hundred eighty minutes. She’s wondering if she can figure how many seconds that is without using a pencil and paper when she hears her transistor by the register.

It's what’s up front that counts.

Winston, they carry them, too, of course. Duane laughed at her when she choked on his cigarette. She felt like a stupid little kid.

How hard is it to learn to smoke?

Annie turns to the cigarette display behind the cash register. Duane smokes Camels, which Dads calls “coffin nails.” Annie knows filters are milder and studies the colorful packs in their neat little rows. Kools have soothing menthol, so maybe she should try one of them.

Thirty cents a pack. She’s making a dollar thirty-two an hour. She opens the pack with her fingernail and slides a white cylinder out between her fingers. It’s slightly longer than her middle finger, the filter the tan of her mother’s pancakes. She sniffs it and thinks she can smell menthol.

Nobody in sight on the road. She takes a book of matches and twists one free. Close cover before striking. OK. She rubs the head against the flint and nothing happens. She tries again, harder, and the match bends in her fingers. She throws it away, takes another one and pushes harder but still not hard enough. How can people use these things?

One more match, third time’s the charm. She pushes the head against the rough surface with the ball of her thumb and rubs it away from her. The head flares up and she drops everything.

“Damn!” She sucks on her thumb until the sting fades, then pulls it out of her mouth. She can already feel a blister forming. Damn, damn, damn.

There has to be a better way.

She runs her fingers across the cigarettes again, then past the yellow cans of. . . lighter fluid. Of course, a lighter. She digs under the counter and finds the cheapest Zippo in the display. She grabs a can of Ronson fluid and totals her sale on the cash register. Jeez, how can people afford to smoke?

She’s watched Moms and Dads fill their lighters so she knows enough to slide the shell off and moisten the cotton. Drip, drip, drip. The smell fills her head. It’s a little like that Aqua Net, still standing by the cash register. She has to pay for that, too. She puts the Zippo back together, sticks the Kool filter between her lips, and presses her thumb against the wheel on the lighter.

Fire. At last. She holds the end of the cigarette in the flame and takes a deep breath.

A cool nail jams its point into her throat and she’s coughing again. She fights for breath and feels more tears coming to her eyes. It’s not as bad as Duane’s Camel, but it’s not that much fun, either.

She walks outside and drops the cigarette on the ground. Blue-white smoke snakes upwards until she grinds the burning end into the gravel. She’s still coughing.

She finds a box of Luden’s wild cherry cough drops in the aisle next to the pain relievers and returns to the cash register. She’s going to have to work through the night just to pay for all this stuff. She pops a lozenge into her mouth and lets the taste spread across her tongue.

One-fifteen. She sucks another cough drop and wonders if she wants to read Tiger Beat—Paul McCartney is on the cover—or try a crossword puzzle book.

A car pulls in by the gas pumps and two people sit there. She can’t tell whether the car is black or dark blue, but it has a dent in the back fender and the engine needs a tune-up.

Two men walk through the door, both wearing jeans and Ohio State sweatshirts. It’s late at night in June, but they both wear ski masks over their faces, too. The taller one holds a hunting knife in his hand, and the blade looks big as a car bumper.

Annie’s chest turns to ice.

“Open the cash register and nobody gets hurt.”

“We don’t got much here, mister.” She fights to keep her voice steady. “Not enough for you to go to jail for.”

“We’re not going to jail. Just shut up and open up.”

Annie punches the No Sale button and the door clangs open. She reaches for the cash, but the guy comes around the counter and sticks the knife in her face.

“Back up, kid.”

Annie does. The skinny guy scratches his neck and looks around the store while the man with the knife stuffs the bills in his pocket. Two hundred in twenties, a hundred sixty in tens. . .

Annie tells herself it’s a good thing she and Lainie counted it. She’ll be able to tell the police exactly how much they got. The guy shakes his head.

“This is all?”

Annie nods. The knife blade flickers under the lights.

“Pump some gas,” she whispers. “You can fill your tank.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re gonna do that anyway.” His raisin eyes look through the red knitted mask. “Maybe I should fill your tank too, you like that?”

Annie feels her throat burning again and her hands turn cold. Her lips move but her voice doesn’t work.

“Whatta you say, kid? Just you and me, right here on the counter.” The guy points the knife at Annie’s tee shirt and she feels three years old, not grown-up at all. She shakes her head and feels her lips trembling.

“P-please,” she whispers. “I’m not. . .”

The skinny guy speaks up. “Don’t do that, D—”

“Shut up.” The man with the knife whirls. “No names, you dope.”

He backs Annie up against the cigarette display and hooks her tee shirt on the point of the knife. He slices through the fabric and goose bumps spring out on her chest and arms. He looks down.

“Hell, not even enough here to grab onto and steer.”

“Don’t do that, man.” The skinny guy speaks up again. “We got the money, let’s get out of here before someone comes.”

“You want us to leave, kid?” Annie feels her eyes cross while the knife hovers under her nose. She presses her lips together and nods.

“Say please.”

Her throat burns and her knees shake. The word struggles up from her lungs.

“Please. P-please leave.”

His eyes stare into hers for hours before he steps back.

“OK. You’re going to be that way about it.” He steps back and his eyes lower. “At least I can grab some smokes, too.”

He pushes her out of the way and takes two cartons of Camels. When he turns back toward the counter, he sees the pack of Kools by the register.

“What’s this? Little girl cigarettes, filters and menthol? You kidding me, kid? You trying to be a big girl?”

He brays like a mule and turns to his buddy. Annie wants to slide through the floor and disappear from the whole wide world until she recognizes his laugh.

Of course! Nobody else calls her “kid,” either. It’s Duane Peasey and his idiot buddy. Annie feels her fear turn to rage. These are the guys that raped her sister, and they were going to. . .

He shows the Kools to his buddy. “Gonna smoke like the big girls. What a joke.”

Annie clenches her teeth.

“You said you were leaving,” she whispers.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” He drops her Kools next to the can of Aqua Net. “Well, one more for the road, OK?”

He takes another carton of Camels and puts it on the other two. He tucks them under his arm and steps back. Annie reaches into her pocket for her brand-new Zippo.

“You want a light before you go?”

“Huh?” Duane turns back and his knife lowers.

Annie yanks the cap off the Aqua Net and sprays it into his face. She pops the cap on the lighter and her thumb finds the little wheel. She holds it under the spray and flicks.

Duane Peasey’s ski mask explodes into bright orange and his shriek fills the whole store. Annie drops the Aqua Net and watches his hands claw at his burning face. Footsteps pound toward the door but she can’t look away. A car engine roars, but she barely hears it between Duane’s screams and the crackle of yarn and flesh.

When he stops screaming and thrashing, Annie steps back. Her nostrils fill with a stench like charred pork and her hands won’t stop shaking, but somehow she manages to dial the Sheriff’s office. The deputies arrive minutes later and find her on all fours, throwing up near the premium gas pump.

Someone calls an ambulance and someone finally thinks to call Lainie, who shows up with her hair in curlers and her nightgown tucked into jeans. Annie falls into her arms and holds on. She hears herself sobbing like a little kid.

“Are you all right?” Lainie asks. “I mean, are you hurt?” Duane’s knife sliced through Annie’s shirt and bra and she’s hanging out for all the deputies to see. They don’t pay her enough to move out of this dump either, and now she’ll never get a second chance.

The scratch on her chest burns.

“I don’t want to work the midnight shift.”

Steve Liskow’s stories have earned an Edgar nomination, Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Award (3 times), and the Black Orchid Novella Award (twice). Those stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies. He has published 14 novels, and The Kids Are All Right was a finalist for the Shamus Award in 2015. He lives in Connecticut. Visit his website at www.steveliskow.com.

Par for the Corpse, fiction by Steve Liskow

Normally, Sasha can spot Winifred three strokes on each nine and still beat her, but today, everything seems to have gone to hell. Winifred, petite, dark and five strokes ahead after twelve holes, wades through grass that reaches her shins.

“Nothing over here.” She pushes stalks aside with her driver and looks deeper into the trees. If Sasha’s drive did land in here, they may not find it until they both have grandchildren in grad school.

Sasha, tall and blonde, unzips her golf bag and pulls out a new ball. “I’ll drop another one.”

According to the rules, a lost ball means she should go back to the tee and hit her drive again, but four men in carts are practically in their hip pockets, so she’ll call it her third shot to save time. It’s not like they’re in a tournament.

  It’s Thursday, which most doctors take off to play here at the Slippery Ridge Country Club, but these guys play so quickly Freddi wonders if they have cocktails waiting, maybe wives or girlfriends and dinner, too. If she and Sasha hold them up, they’ll stay close and make snarky comments the rest of the round.

“Yeah, OK.” Winifred returns to her own ball, fifteen yards ahead of Sasha’s and in the middle of the fairway. In the two years they’ve played together, she can count the times that’s happened—except for today—on one hand.

The men crowd around the markers on the tee. One leans on his club. When he sees Freddi look back at him, he brings up his arm and seems to study his watch. If he were a little more subtle, he could be in opera. Or ballet.

Sasha faces the green and drops another ball over her shoulder. Her legs look long as Freddi’s driver and their tan makes her white golf shoes resemble an albino Dumpster. When she steps away, Freddi can see her ball nestled in a patch of crabgrass with the texture of a scouring pad. From that lie, no way she can reach the green.

“Par for the course today, is it not?” Sasha pulls out a six iron. It will still leave her a long shot to the green, but from that lie, her best bet is to hack her way back to the fairway. She might do even better with a machete, but she’s only allowed fourteen clubs.

She takes her grip, plants the club behind the ball and takes a slow backswing, careful not to snag her club in that tall grass.

“Fore on the right!”

The voice sounds like it’s right behind them and Sasha’s head jerks up. She tops the ball, which bounces into the fairway only a few yards beyond Freddi’s tee shot. Freddi can already see the cut in it, bigger than the smiles on the faces of the jerks behind them.

“Shi-shoot.” Freddi promised herself she was going to clean up her language. “Going to need a new ball when you get to the green.”

“Those assholes…” Sasha didn’t make any such promise. She glares back at the two carts bearing down on them like chariots in full battle mode.

“You want a mulligan?” Freddi asks. “They distracted you.”

The men come closer, crisp golf shirts and razor-cut hair. Freddi wonders how much money they’ve put on this match. She and Sasha bet a fruit cup. With five holes to go, she’s about half an orchard ahead.

“They’ll just get even more obnoxious if I keep holding them up,” Sasha says. “Let’s let them play through.”

“Might as well.” Freddi pulls her cart up next to her ball. One of the men is about thirty yards beyond her, but on the same line. The carts slow down and one comes to a stop inches from Freddi’s cart. If they weren’t on grass, she’d hear tires screech and smell rubber burn.

“Hi, sorry we hit so close.” The guy’s voice almost drips off Freddi’s face. “We thought you were farther along.”

“We’re just girls.” Sasha’s voice makes Freddi think of a snake waiting for the rodent to get closer. “We’re not big and strong like you.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” The guy in the royal blue shirt eases out of the cart and frowns toward the green. His shoulders are square as a storm door, but his shirt strains across his stomach. Freddi would need a four-wood, but he takes a five-iron. Testosterone adds lots of yardage.

“Would you like to play through?” Sasha asks. The guy’s already taking his stance, but he stops and turns.

“Oh, thanks, we’d appreciate that.” Freddi’s afraid Sasha’s going to flip them off, but she doesn’t.

The guy bends over his ball again and waggles his club so often Freddi knows it must be a ritual he goes through every time he swings. Which one of the pros does that? Whoever it is, it looks stupid. The guy takes a divot the size of a snow shovel and contorts his body while he watches the ball flutter into the sand trap to the left front of the green.

“That is one of the most annoying traps on this course,” Sasha says. Freddi can almost see Sasha’s raised middle finger.

  The guy glares at her before he strides back to his cart and shoves his club into his bag. He and his buddy take off without another word.

“And your mouth is another,” Sasha finishes.

The other cart is on the far side of the fairway, where a man nearly as thin as his
clubs hits a beautiful shot that arches high and settles gently on the green just the way it’s supposed to. Freddi hates him.

The carts pull up between the green and the next tee and all four men get out. Blue shirt hits a decent shot out of the sand and returns to the cart for his putter.

“Jerks,” Sasha says. Her voice barely carries to Freddi.

“You OK?”

“Par for the course today,” Sasha answers.

Freddi waits until the men have replaced the flag, then hits her shot to the front edge of the green. Her putt will be long, but straight uphill.

“No, really. Are you OK?”

Sasha shrugs and fiddles with her clubs. “I’m a little tired,” she admits.

“Not sleeping?”

“Something like that.” Sasha pulls out a nine iron. Her eyes stay focused on the flag on the green. She hits her best shot of the entire round so far, settling on the middle of the green, no more than twenty feet from the flag. She slides the club back into her bag and walks to the green with a decisive strut that suggests she’s just found her rhythm and stroke again. If she has, Freddi’s five-stroke lead could melt like a snowball on the Sahara.

The men hit their drives on the next hole and their carts move down the next fairway.

Sasha’s first putt rolls around the rim twice before staying out. Freddi two-putts, too. They move to the next tee and pull out their drivers while the men hit their second shots toward a green that looks smaller than an emerald in a patch of trees four hundred yards away. On a good day, Sasha can reach it in two. Freddi needs three.

Freddi tees up her ball and hits down the left side of the fairway.

“Are you and Chuck making any headway?” she asks. Sasha and Chuck have been going to a marriage counselor, but Sasha told Freddi two weeks ago that she doesn’t think it’s helping at all. He still misses dinner one or two nights a week and she’s not sure he’s always at the office.

“We’re fine,” Sasha says. She tees up her ball, then changes her mind. She picks up the ball and tee and moves two steps to her right to tee it up again. She stands behind it and sights toward the green, then hits her drive at least forty yards beyond Freddi, and smack in the center of the fairway. If her second shot is as good, she’ll reach the green.

While they pull their carts up to their drives, the men scatter across the green with putters in their hands.

Sasha clears her throat.

“Actually,” she says, “he didn’t come home last night.”

“What?” Freddi almost trips over her own feet. “Did he call or anything?”

Sasha stares straight ahead so Freddi can’t see her face. But she strides more quickly until they reach Freddi’s ball. The men move to the next tee. The fairway runs parallel to the one the women stand on.

“I hope they hit the water on sixteen,” Freddi says. Sasha and Chuck live just across the fence from the sixteenth green. The pond in front of it turns an easy hole into a potential nightmare.

“I wish there were alligators,” Sasha replies.

Freddi’s second shot is well short of the green, but in the fairway where she has a straight shot at the flag. Sasha’s stroke slices off to the right, bounces once and rolls into a sand trap. She stabs her club back into her bag.

“Did you try to call him?” Freddi asks. “Or text him?”
“I only hit his voicemail. He never answered.”

“Not even a text?” Freddi feels her mouth sag open. It’s about two in the afternoon now. Chuck should have been home, had breakfast, and gone off to work hours ago.

“Not even a text.” Sasha shrugs but Freddi can see the anger in her shoulders. “Like I keep saying, par for the course.”

“Shit.” So much for cleaning up her language. “Did you call the police?”

“This morning. They told me they can’t do anything until he’s been missing twenty-four hours.”

“That’s stupid,” Freddi says.

“Tell me about it.” Sasha’s voice feels brittle.

They reach the green and Sasha shuffles through her clubs. She frowns and looks through them again, then looks back at the fourteen holes they’ve played.

“Can I borrow your sand wedge? I can’t find mine.”

Freddi hands it to her. “You haven’t been in a trap today. Were you practicing before we started? Maybe left it by the practice green?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe.”

She takes a few practice swings with the strange club.

“A bit lighter than mine.” She digs her feet into the sand and waggles the club above the ball a few times, then takes an easy swing.

The ball flies out of the trap in a splash of sand and stops about twelve feet short of the flag.

“Nice shot,” Freddi says. “Especially with a strange club.”

“Thank you.” Sasha hands it back and returns to her own bag for her putter. Freddi wishes she’d lost her putter instead of her sand wedge. When the pressure is on, Sasha can roll putts in as if the cup is the size of a bath tub. Sure enough, her putt looks good as soon as she hits it. It disappears into the cup. Freddi takes two putts and her lead drops by one stroke.

On the next hole, Sasha hits her best drive of the day, and Freddi concentrates on keeping her own shot in the fairway. The men pull their carts to the left of the green, near the seventeenth tee, and one of them starts back toward the pond. He has what looks like a ball retriever with an expanding handle in his hand.

“Ha,” Freddi says. “One of them caught the water. My prayer has been answered.”
From where she is, she can’t reach the green. With the flag on the upper left corner, she decides to aim to the right. That way she can hit her third shot past the corner of the pond instead of risking dumping her shot into the water like the guy ahead of them has apparently done.

Sasha watches the men intently. Her own shot is a long way from the green, but she might be able to reach it if the pond didn’t block her direct line.

Through the split rail fence that signifies out of bounds, Freddi sees Sasha and Chuck’s Dutch colonial. The patio facing the green has a table with a big red umbrella above it, and a Weber grille nestles in the corner near the garage.

Blue shirt moves to his right and stops. He stands up straight and says something to the others. They all hustle to the edge of the pond and look where he’s pointing. The skinny guy takes off his shoes and socks and rolls up his pants before he wades into the water, waving his arms to keep his balance. He bends over and disappears from sight.

When he stands again, Freddi can hear his voice halfway down the fairway.

“Holy shit!”

One of the other men extends a golf club for him to grab and they pull him back to
dry land. They toss him a towel and he wipes off his feet while one of the other men dashes back to the cart.

“Something’s going on,” Freddi says. She takes a few steps toward the men, the four-iron forgotten in her hand.

“You think?” Sasha doesn’t move. The man at the golf cart picks up his phone and dials so quickly Freddi knows he must have called 911. He looks around the course and at the houses beyond the fence, then back at the pond, where the other men still squat and stare into the water.

“Um…” Freddi looks at her ball, then at the men. “What do you think we should do?
We can’t very well hit our next shots with those guys right there.”

“They almost hit me half an hour ago,” Sasha points out. But she leaves her cart next to her ball and joins Freddi. The caller tucks his phone back into his pocket and joins his friends. They remind Freddi of little kids who’ve found a dead mouse in a field.

“Let’s see what’s going on.” Freddi slides her club back into her cart and walks toward the men. Sasha speeds up until they’re walking together. The men’s voices carry toward them, but they can’t make out words yet.

When they’re almost at the edge of the pond, the man in the blue shirt holds up his hand.

“I don’t think you want to come over here, ladies.”

“What’s wrong?” Freddi asks. The men look even more like kids, eyes wide and tongues moving across their lips.

“There’s a dead body in the pond.” The man’s bare feet look white and wrinkled and his rolled-up pants legs drip water all around them. “I found it when I was looking for Irv’s ball.”

“You mean a person?” Sasha says. “Not a squirrel or a bird or something? A skunk?”

“It’s a man. His face is all smashed to hell. It’s pretty gross.”

“A man.” Freddi feels her knees weakening.

“Yeah. We called the police. They can trace where we are with the GPS in my phone. I don’t know if they’ll follow the holes to get here or stop on the streets outside. I don’t know the streets around here so I couldn’t give them an address.”
Sasha opens her mouth, then closes it again. The longer grass between the green and the fence is packed down from golf carts, but Freddi sees two parallel grooves leading from the fence. She walks over and sights across it at Sasha’s and Chuck’s grille. She takes a deep breath before rejoining the crowd.

Another foursome has teed off and approaches the women’s carts in the middle of the fairway.

“I don’t think we’re gonna be playing any more golf today,” Blue shirt says. “Why don’t you ladies play through.”

“Actually,” the man with the phone says, “you shouldn’t stay around here. We’ve probably already trampled any prints the police might have found, but you’d just make it worse. Why don’t you just pick up and go on to the next hole.”

Sasha looks at the pond. “I suppose that is a good idea. There are already people coming up behind us.”

“Right, that’s what I’m thinking.”

Sasha starts down the fairway to her cart and Freddi hurries to catch up. They pick up their balls and pull their carts to the left of the fairway, passing the men’s cart and stopping at the seventeenth tee. Freddi sinks to the bench and takes deep breaths until her stomach settles.

Sasha points to the fairway. “You won the last hole. It’s your shot.”

Even with her hands shaking, Freddi manages to balance a ball on the tee. She grips her driver and takes a hard practice swing. That’s better. Holding onto the club steadies her. She forces her eyes to look down the fairway at the red flag fluttering three hundred seventy yards away.

She hits into the rough on the right. Not long, but farther away from that pond and that dead man. Sasha swings and Freddi hears the sharp crack. The ball might still be rising as it sails beyond her own shot, hooking slightly at the end and bounding down the left center of the fairway. It stops almost eighty yards beyond Freddi’s.

Freddi finds her ball in the rough, nowhere near as thick as where Sasha lost hers on the twelfth. She hits into the middle of the fairway where she has an easy shot to the green. She looks back at the sixteenth and sees two uniformed police climb through the split rail fence in Sasha’s and Chuck’s back yard. Blue shirt trots over to them, pointing back at the pond where the other men still huddle together and look into the water. The group behind them has caught up, so now eight men and four carts crowd the site.

Sasha’s second shot hits a few feet short of the green and rolls onto the putting surface. Freddi forces her mind back to the game, but it’s hard. She almost flubs her shot, but it rolls onto the very front of the green. She’s still farther from the hole than Sasha is.

They line up their putts. Freddi’s club feels heavy and clumsy in her hands and she can’t see the path to the hole clearly. She steps back, then addresses the ball again and taps it toward the hole. It’s a foot short. She looks toward Sasha.

“Gimme?”

“Of course.”

Freddi tucks the ball into her pocket. Sasha squints at the hole. There’s something different in her face now. She steps up to her ball and plants her feet, then lays the head of the putter behind the ball and looks toward the hole.

Freddi can’t stop herself from speaking.

“Is your sand wedge in the water, too?”

Sasha strokes her ball and it rolls gently toward the hole. It slows down gradually and disappears into the cup. They both hear it rattle like bones.

Sasha picks her ball out of the cup and looks at Freddi.

“Please do not talk when I’m putting.”

Steve Liskow’s stories have earned an Edgar nomination, Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Award (3 times), and the Black Orchid Novella Award (twice). Those stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and several anthologies. He has published 14 novels, and The Kids Are All Right was a finalist for the Shamus Award in 2015. He lives in Connecticut. Visit his website at www.steveliskow.com.