A Twist Of Noir 488 - Robert Meade

ONCE UPON A MIDNIGHT DREARY - ROBERT MEADE

When I started seeing the old lady’s face in the window, I figured it was the booze. I finished all twelve steps of the program, but I still saw a thing or two that wasn’t there.

The old lady died last year and the house was empty. Supposedly. But the married daughter kept calling the precinct to say that someone was stripping the place at night.

A burglary stakeout isn’t very sexy. But you take what you get. I checked it out. It smelled like cat urine and mildew. Apparently in her golden years the old lady wasn’t much of a housekeeper. Why anybody would steal anything from this dump was beyond me.

But sure enough the radiators had been disconnected and lined up by the windows. Someone had ripped copper wire out of the walls and coiled it on the floor next to the radiators. So I sat in my unmarked for a few nights. Nothing.

On the third night a face appeared in the window. Wire-rimmed spectacles. Pinched mouth. Silver hair tied back in a bun. She looked a hell of a lot like Granny from The Beverly Hillbillies. I figured it was a reflection from someone else’s TV, so I didn’t pay it much mind. Besides, like I said, sometimes my brain made things up.

But later in the week the face moved around and appeared in different windows. Then it started waving to me. The front door had this little half-moon window. Sure enough, Granny was there, waving me in.

No way in hell was I going in there. I called for some backup and locked the doors to my Crown Victoria. It was midnight, the witching hour.

But then I saw a light moving around the house. I didn’t know any ghost that could pick up a flashlight. So I slipped around the side of the house and peered in. My perp was this college-looking kid with red hair and a hare-lip. He was getting ready to head out the back with a coil of wire. This rusted pick-up was parked on the back street. I figured that’s where he was headed.

I pushed open the window and pulled myself up and in. I stepped around the corner and shined my Maglite in his face.

“Police!” I identified myself. He gave me a funny look, like a first grader who just pooped his pants. He dropped the wire and threw his hands up. Apparently he already knew the drill.

I cuffed him and sat him by the cellar door.

“It’s not nice to rip off old ladies,” I told him. “Even dead ones.” He wouldn’t engage, just stared straight ahead. He was pissing me off with that smug little smirk. He’d probably get out the next morning, just in time to start planning his next caper.

I flipped open my phone to find out where the hell my backup was. The reception was terrible, so I moved over to the window.

This god-awful scream came from the vicinity of Mr. Hare-lip. I whipped around, reaching for my gun, and I saw his feet disappearing through the now open cellar door. I ran over to the top of the stairs. What I saw stopped me dead in the doorway.

This sounds impossible. I’m not sure if even I believe it. It can’t be true, but I swear it has to be. I saw it.

Granny was dragging my perp down the stairs. Only Granny didn’t resemble any cookie-baking, gingerbread lady I could remember. Granny had unhinged her jaw and put my perp’s entire head in her mouth. She was chewing him up, sucking the life out of him, as he kicked and flailed all the way down to the cellar floor. His muffled screams stopped only when Granny released him, blue and cold.

She looked up at me and smiled. Her eyes were ruby red. She started up the stairs. I pulled my gun and started firing.

The door slammed and I must have been knocked out. The next thing I knew, my backup was there, slapping me in the face, loading me into the ambulance along with a body bag that had to be my perp. After I told them my story, I had to go see the police shrink, who put me on leave. They took away my gun.

You ask me why I like this place? Why I stay? I’m not crazy. I didn’t shoot that kid like they said I did. It was Granny who took him. And Granny’s still out there somewhere, waiting for me. Sure, I could stay away from that house. Never go back.

But that don’t much matter. Granny can go anywhere she wants. I saw her in my cell window last night. The only thing that kept her outside was the bars. And my crucifix. So this little room is the one place Granny can’t get me. Why would I want to leave?

Now give me my meds. It’s going to be midnight soon. I don’t want to be awake when Granny comes gently rapping at my prison door.

BIO: Robert Meade is a transplanted Bostonian now firmly rooted in Mohegan Lake, in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and three children. He teaches at Loyola School in Manhattan. A published author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, his work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The New Flesh, Microhorror, Angels on Earth, Guideposts and Apollo’s Lyre.

A Twist Of Noir 464 - Robert Meade

IT CAME UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR - ROBERT MEADE

Slappy Joe hated December jobs because his feet froze. Standing on roof tops at midnight or staking out a corner all day gave him near-frostbite. Nothing helped. Extra socks. Vaseline. Foam liners. Battery-powered heat socks. The blood refused to flow south. He’d kick a wall or slam his feet against the pavement. Nothing.

Normally he would gut it out, but tonight it was so cold he was getting the shakes. He was perched atop a brownstone on 51st Street between 9th and 10th Avenues, looking down at the front of Sacred Heart Church. He was supposed to shoot the Pastor when he came out of the rectory and headed over to church for Midnight Mass. Why? He didn’t know. It was just a job. A job that came straight from the top, though, and was a way back for him, into the good graces of those that mattered. He didn’t ask any questions.

Slappy leaned against the chimney stack, absorbing whatever heat he could, balancing the rifle on a metal bracket sticking out of the bricks. He sighted through the scope at the oak door of the rectory. Nothing was moving, except the scope’s crosshairs, which jittered in sympathy with his shaking.

“Damn!” He stood the rifle against the bricks and clapped his gloved hands against his overcoat, up and down his body. He stamped his numb feet. A night like this got him into trouble. Now he might not get back out.

Roddy McCain was a nice guy. He wasn’t connected to the muscle end of the family. But a year ago that didn’t stop someone from putting a .22 pistol behind his right ear and pulling the trigger. Slappy Joe was supposed to be Roddy’s bodyguard that night, but when he went to take a leak they got Roddy between the appetizer and the main course.

In the weeks that followed, there was talk that maybe Roddy wasn’t done in by Slappy’s weak bladder. Maybe Slappy gave him up, was in on the hit. But Slappy eventually cleared his name. He explained the new car and clothes and all the finery as stuff he bought with money he won in Atlantic City.

Still, for the better part of a year, he was pretty much on the fringe, not getting much action. Then this job came along. It meant that the bosses trusted him again. It could lead to bigger and better jobs. He had to deliver. If he blew it this time, he might as well pack up and move to Albany.

He peered over the façade. People below straggled into church. The organ rumbled to life and the choir tuned up. Their wheezy voices came to him, thin and brittle, on the cold air.

Slappy yanked his wrist up to his face and pulled back the coat sleeve. Twenty to twelve. Slappy smiled. The old man had to waddle out of the rectory soon. Twenty minutes and Slappy could say good bye to eleven months of bad food and even worse whiskey.

Each minute ticking by was an eternity made longer by the sharp tooth of his longing. Why doesn’t this man come out? Slappy wondered. Doesn’t he know I have a job to do?

Slappy heard the rectory door creak. He yanked off his gloves and grabbed up the rifle and positioned it on bracket. He jammed his right eye into the back of the sight. Nothing yet. Wait! The door shivered as someone pulled it back. A final tug and on the top step stood the Pastor, all in black with a biretta perched on his white head. Slappy put the crosshairs right on his nose.

The choir groaned out its song about peace on earth, good will toward men. Slappy focused on the red veins of the Pastor’s nose and put his finger through the guard, readying his shot. He held his breath and counted slowly, feeling the trigger. One. Two. He exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

An explosion of white and yellow and red clouded his eyes. His head jerked back towards the crippling blow from behind. The rifle fell to the rooftop and strong hands grabbed him under the arms on either side and rushed him to the edge of the roof. He tried to dig his feet in, but he couldn’t feel them.

“This is for Roddy,” a voice growled. They pitched him over the roof. He plunged in a cart-wheeling kaleidoscope of sound and light, feeling the night air rush over his face and down his neck into his groin.

He smashed into the street like a pumpkin. The churchgoers still outside screamed and the Pastor ran over and picked up one of Slappy’s hands, whispering into his ear while making the sign of the cross above him.

Inside, the choir sang about angels and kings, prophets and peace. On the street, Slappy Joe’s blank eyes stared at the asphalt as the blood pooled beneath him in a pinwheel of steaming red.

The police came and put a blanket over him. He never felt the neighborhood urchin removing his shoes to take them home to his alcoholic father.

BIO: Robert Meade is a transplanted Bostonian now firmly rooted in Mohegan Lake, in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and three children. He teaches at Loyola School in Manhattan. A published author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, his work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The New Flesh, Microhorror, Angels on Earth, Guideposts and Apollo’s Lyre.

A Twist Of Noir 421 - Robert Meade

HORROR AMONG THIEVES - ROBERT MEADE

When I get home from a job, I unwind by flipping through the channels. They all suck, but I sit there pushing the button on the remote anyway. It takes my mind off things.

So I get interested in this high school flick about some kid who’s still hot for this chick Emily even though she dumped him. He’s talking in this phone booth--where the hell do they still have phone booths, anyway?--and she’s crying into his ear all hysterical, ‘Thigpen’s got no dick!’

So naturally I’m interested in Thigpen and why he has no dick. It turns out to be a good flick. But I’m pretty pissed at the end when I realize there’s no guy named Thigpen, dickless or not. What the chick said was, ‘The Pin’s got the brick.’ I just heard her wrong.

So now I get to thinking, ‘Hey, maybe my hearing’s going.’ Which really pisses me off because I’m the kind of guy who can hear a cat creeping across foam rubber fifty feet away. While there’s a freight train lumbering by.

So I take out my cell and check the time. Damn. Only half an hour left. I pull on my jacket and grab my pocket knife and a plastic sandwich bag and my car keys. This is gonna be close.

I head up Route 9 and pull into the Cabrini nursing home in Dobbs Ferry. I usually park a little south and come in from the back. But this is quicker. At four in the morning, there shouldn’t be anyone else around, but you never know when some pain-in-the-ass night watchman might decide to actually earn his pay.

I trot around back into the woods to the abandoned castle turret that overlooks the river. I kick in the plywood I’d replaced so carefully just an few hours ago, and step inside. A short set of stairs and I’m at the bottom, next to the 300 gallon brine storage tank I keep here. I click on the flashlight I’ve got hanging from the ceiling and I peer over the rim. There he is, strapped to the chair, naked, duct tape across his mouth. The water from the garden hose is up to his chin.
He doesn’t look at me because he’s got other things on his mind. Like how to get out of this tank before the water covers his head. He’s squirming and straining and rocking the chair and blowing air out his nose and sending muffled groans through the duct tape. He’s not going to make it, and he knows it.

I punch him in the head to get his attention, but I must be wired with the moment and I knock him out. I grab the back of his hair and yank his face out the water and pull the garden hose out of the tank.

“Thigpen,” I say, shaking his face in the water, pulling it out again. “Wake up.” He starts coming around. “That’s it, baby,” I say. “Come to Papa.” He glares at me. I rattle his head against the inside of the tank.

“I want you to listen very carefully, Thigpen,” I tell him. “When we were chatting before and I asked you what you did with the money, you gave me a very dissatisfying answer.” His eyes start rolling and I shake him some more.

“Don’t you pass out on me yet. No, no, no. Not yet. When I asked you about the money, I thought you said, ‘I’ll tell you when my dick sprouts wings.’ But maybe you said something else like, ‘Well, I don’t know dick about anything.’

“So here’s the deal. I pull this tape off your mouth and give you one more chance. Tell me where the money is and I let you go. If not, I put the hose back in and walk out. Your call.”

I rip the tape off his mouth and his lip starts to bleed. “Fuck you,” he spits at me. I take out my pocket knife and open it up.

“I can start cutting things off, you know. I promise you they’ll be things you will miss.” I reach in and run the blade across his chest.

“Fuck your mother, too,” he snarls. So I tape his mouth back up and stick the hose back inside the tank. I reach in and grab his dick and slice it off. I pop it into the sandwich bag and hold it up. Behind the duct tape, he’s screaming, his eyes bulging. I stand there looking at him, letting him think about what the rest of his very short life is going to be like without a dick.

I click the light off and leave. In the car, I pull back out onto Route 9.

I didn’t think he would tell me. I’ll toss his apartment tomorrow. Probably stuffed his mattress with the money, or stuck it in the freezer.

We’re supposed to be partners on this Brigham’s heist, but at the last minute, he tells me he got robbed? What’s that all about? He thought I would swallow that? Well, he deserves what’s coming.

Still, Thigpen is one tough son of a bitch. That guy’s got balls. I pick up the sandwich bag and laugh. And still does, I suppose.

It’s getting light out. I turn onto Warburton Avenue and stop at the light and throw the baggie onto somebody’s lawn. I see a cat dart out from under the bushes. Her paws swish along the grass as she tackles the bag, looking for breakfast.

Down by the river, a freight train lumbers by. I laugh and the light turns green and I give her some gas. Who knows? When I get home, maybe there’ll be another good movie on.

BIO: Robert Meade is a transplanted Bostonian now firmly rooted in Mohegan Lake, in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and three children. He teaches at Loyola School in Manhattan. A published author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, his work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The New Flesh, Microhorror, Angels on Earth, Guideposts and Apollo’s Lyre.

A Twist Of Noir 416 - Robert Meade

THE PANDA MURDERS - ROBERT MEADE

Newspaper accounts of the killings had become as commonplace as spaghetti on Wednesday nights. This much was clear: the modus operandi of the murderer involved propping his victims in a sitting position, with a stuffed panda positioned in the crook of the left arm. The panda was eight inches tall, with Kennedy half-dollars glued over its button eyes. Analysis revealed the glue to be of a type commonly found in hardware stores. The panda itself was not so common. A replica of a Chinese panda, the stuffed quadruped was manufactured exclusively by Macrotech, Inc., whose plant was located outside Springfield, Massachusetts.

It was to Springfield I was headed that fateful night in March. The flight had begun well but turned sour when fog socked Bradley Airport in for an hour and stacked planes like paper plates for fifty miles. The flight attendants were very good. They kept us contented with cocktails for the duration of the delay. I waved off the third scotch, however. Told the girl to take it to some poor beggar in coach.

After we landed, I hired a car out to Springfield and promised the driver a bonus if we rode non-stop to the plant. He said his name was John Smith. He said he would be the best driver I’d ever had. I looked straight at him.

“Cut the nonsense,” I said, jabbing my thumb at the trunk, “and take care of my bags.” I was tired of being oiled by the John Smiths of the world, any one of whom would slit his own mother’s throat for the promise of an extra penny. I climbed into the rusting clunker and felt the seatback springs digging into my spine. Just as well. I didn’t want to nap. I wanted to think about the case. The cab lurched into the night, and I pictured the body of Angelica Hughes.

She had been found in her apartment by her boyfriend, who broke the door down the third day after she failed to return his calls. She had been dead since the first of those three days, apparently the victim of a push-in at the door the night she returned from a baby shower. The television was on and her body had been left—with panda—facing the flashing screen. She had been strangled. What the police failed to discover, however, was the faint scent of almonds in her throat. This trace of cyanide should have alerted the police to the obvious fact that the woman was first rendered unconscious and the fatal indignity not administered until she was already quite near death.

“Mind if I stop for a cup o’ joe?” Smith asked. He was eyeing me in the rear-view mirror.

“No,” I said. “I don’t mind at all. That way, I won’t have to pay your bonus.” I peered out the window and watched the wisps of fog swirl by. I was beginning to enjoy myself. Smith said something under his breath and stepped on the accelerator. The cab shot through the gloom.

Yes, the Hughes’ case should have established the criminal’s cunning and his extraordinary strength. Carrying an unconscious woman up three flights of stairs—the elevator had been out—was no easy feat. That the woman had known her assailant had also escaped the locals. Their push-in theory neatly accounted for the absence of forced entry, but did not explain why there were no screams of terror. An unconscious woman doesn’t scream, of course. Once unconscious, she could scarcely have led the man to her apartment. No, he knew her and knew where she lived. He’d brought her there and then killed her.

A road sign caught my eye. I began banging on the plastic partition.

“Smith, you idiot!” I yelled. “Turn around! You’ve missed the exit.”

I saw him glaring at me in the mirror. Instantly, I recognized that glower of anger and hatred. “You ain’t payin’ me enough,” he growled. He grinned at me. “Kick in a C-note, and I’ll think about it.” His eyes, like panda eyes, loomed large in the mirror.

Blast. Another delay.

“All right, Smith,” I said. “Stop the car.” I wasn’t going to be squeezed, not by an idiot like Smith. The car crunched to a halt along the side of the road. I climbed out and slammed the door behind me. Smith was standing there with a tire iron in his hand.

“You’re gonna give me that money, one way or another.” He waved the tire iron in my face. I sighed.

“If it’ll make you happy, Smith,” I said, “come and take the money.” He leaped forward, swinging the iron. I stepped to the side and grabbed his arm as it flew by, twisting it behind his back. With a quick turn I fractured his wrist, then caught the tire iron and plunged it point-first into the back of his skull. He fell and did not get up.

I dragged him around to the driver’s side and stuffed him into the front, propped him neatly at the wheel with his head back against the seat. Anyone passing by would think he was napping. I took the keys from the ignition and retrieved my bags from the trunk. I opened the large bag and took out the only panda I had left. The silver half-dollars on its eyes glinted at me. I placed it carefully in the crook of Smith’s left arm and slammed the door. I shouldered one bag and grabbed the other.

I hadn’t really known him, but at least I’d done the job right. The Macrotech plant wasn’t far away, and soon I would have a whole new supply of pandas.

BIO: Robert Meade is a transplanted Bostonian now firmly rooted in Mohegan Lake, in Westchester County, NY, with his wife and three children. He teaches at Loyola School in Manhattan. A published author of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, his work has appeared in Bartleby Snopes, The New Flesh, Microhorror, Angels on Earth, Guideposts and Apollo’s Lyre.