FICTION: Fall of the Anchor Grill By A.K. Duvall

“You just couldn’t take it out there now, could you?” snarled Oliver Simonson, while his doddering old hands scooped money out of his safe under the counter and dispensed them into the bag set upon the register. “By Joe, couldn’t find no means to work for your own sport, could you? Y’know what the Good Lord does to lazy, no-good thieves, lad? Oh! He’ll give you such a dose on Judgment Day, m’boy, he’ll send…”

“Belt up, Ollie!” barked Martha Simonson, the heavy-set old woman next to him. “The cacky little shit’s got a pistol, don’t he?” Her nostrils whiffed the air and her face contorted with disgust. “Bloody Nora! And what’s worse, he’s stinking of whiskey! Don’t think that any of your pompous preaching won’t fall on deaf…”

“Bloody hell!” the hood with the pistol shouted, his voice muffled under a black scarf. “I want both you two stinky old gaffers to just shut the fuck up an’ empty what dosh this rat-trap has into me sack, understand?”

What few regulars the Anchor Grill had that morning vacated the restaurant from both the dining room and the counter, at the sight of the adolescent gunman, except for Fat-Bottomed Bill; a rich old gaffer, who remained at the counter with an aroused smile under the furry whiskers of his white mustache. He continued to watch the youth, while finishing his pork banger over the black beans on his plate that were so dark, that they looked blue.

“An’ I want me a sammich, too!” the thief shouted. “Ya know, the one with the turkey an’ bacon that ol’ Mrs. S recommended for me dear old mum last week.”

“Oh my,” Fat-Bottomed Bill said, winking at the thief, “Quite a lot o’ meat in that sandwich for a skinny young boy, Martha. I’ll buy the young gentleman a butty if he’s hungry enough.”

“Piss off, you old tosser!” Martha picked up a spatula and attempted to scurry away the old pervert with her frightful size and temper. Startled, Bill dropped his fork and wobbled back in his stool to avoid her attacks, but remained in his seat. Martha turned to her husband. “Ollie! Hurry the hell up with giving the nasty little pisser all of our money so that he’ll get the hell out of our bloody restaurant.”

“Yeah, an’ don’t forget me sammich neither, ol’ man!” the thief added.

“Right! Mustn’t forget the little shit’s sandwich!” Martha threw her flabby arms in the air and stormed back into the steamy kitchen, leaving her grumbling husband with a pistol pointed at his balding head. Her screeching voice called for their cook. “Lafayette! Lafayette, Damn it, I need a Tuesday Special, right now!”

“Que?” A voice answered from the kitchen.

“Oh for shit’s sake, Lafayette,” Martha shouted, “Don’t pretend that you don’t understand a bloody word I’m saying! You speak English better than you can even pronounce what little French you still know!”

“Je ne comprend pas.”

“Like Hell you don’t! J’ai besoin une sandwiche de Mardi pour A WRETCHED LITTLE THIEF! SI’L VOUS PLAIT? I want a turkey and bacon sandwich for a sniveling little mug who’s trying to knock over the bloody Anchor Grill!”

“Hey! Keep your voice down back there, ya ol’ crow!” shouted the thief. He scratched his ear with the nozzle of the pistol and then stuck it in the pocket of his coat. He pulled his scarf down under his cracked lips, took a fag out from behind his left ear and lit it. “I can still hear ya jestin’ me, I can! Wouldn’t think twice to be puttin’ a bullet in this ol’ gaffer’s head.”

“Listen to him, Martha!” Oliver pleaded. “The boy must be loony, by Joe, he’s all dressed up like some angry, little mug in backalley Albion!”

The towering frame of a man with a sharp nose and hairy arms covered in Caribbean tattoos, strode out from behind the kitchen door with fierce eyes locked upon the thief. Grease and sweat sopped his apron and the skin on his unshaved face, which was scowling like a nun in a whore house. The presence of the man that the Anchor Grill called Lafayette, seemed to grip the intruder’s loose tongue in its place.

That newly-lit fag slipped from the kid’s gapping, freckled jowls and he blew off one, noticeable enough to darken the seat of his trousers.

“Get your arse back into that kitchen, frog!” Mr. Simonson said. “How the bloody hell is an old man supposed to make back the money he’s losing if his staff is gawking at every mug that comes into me store?”

“Monsieur, Zi-mon-zon, you are zo stu-peed,” Lafayette sneered, pushing back the oily strands of dark hair that fell from his pony-tail. He growled at the intruder with a familiar recognition of disgust and spit on the old man’s floor. “You are afraid of zis leetle bast-aird, no? Eet eez just Gremshaw under ze scarf, ode man!” Lafayette lunged forward and grabbed the scruffy kid by the neck before he could turn to run and then threw him upon the cracked maple floor by the front door, which was covered with snow and mud tracks. The cook reached down and yanked the pistol from the unconscious kid’s pocket.

“Oh Gracious, my dear, sweet Gremshaw!” Martha called out.

“Gremshaw?” Oliver asked, still shivering behind the counter. “Why does that name escape my mind, Martha, my woman?” Oliver asked his wife, adjusting his binns back on the bone of his crooked nose.

“Egad! You don’t have the sense the Good Lord gave a blooming goose these days, do you, Ollie? You old goat! You hired our grandson, Gremmy, and his bastard cousin, Mutt Fitzgerald, last week to bus and dish for us!” Martha spit in a brown bus tray on a nearby table, filled with soiled dishes. “And our daft cook just laid him out on the ruddy floor!”

“Oh…right, Gremmy.” Oliver pondered a moment. “The barmy one that our oldest son swears must have the blood of a retarded chimp. He says the boy goes running all over York, talking and acting like he’s in some bloody Dickens novel! Hang it all, woman! Why the hell would I take on a couple of dumb pillocks such as themselves?”

“Because Gremmy is a nice boy and clever as there ever was one. His mummy says that he just loves Victorian literature. Besides, you said that duckies their age are cheap to hire and dumb enough to order about without giving us too much cheek. Bah! Just like most of the other wretched little urchins you’ve been hiring of late.”

“Now that I think of it, Martha, you were the one who wanted to take on the pair, despite the fact that they didn’t even arrive for their first day of work! I would have been more than happy to have sent Lafayette over to the slums, to offer any parent with nowt a pot to piss in, a bit of hot nosh in exchange for the free labor we would have gotten out of their ankle-biting, little scallywags.”

“If it’s strapping, young boys you’re looking for, old chap, I could arrange to send a few naughty ones over here,” Fat-Bottomed Bill said. “That is, if they misbehave themselves, of course. I do so think they’d prefer that over a good flogging or caning, now and then.” The old pervert rubbed the sweaty palms of his meaty hands. “Do you like blondes, Oliver, old boy? Gingers, perhaps?”

“By Joe, Martha, do you listen to this old bugger?” Oliver waved his arms frantically. “Why the bloody Hell haven’t we booted him out and called a bobby over here?”

“Have you seen the wad that the dirty, old bastard keeps in his clip, Ollie? He keeps us in business with his love for greasy food and the chances he gets to put glances and gropes on the spotty youths that we hire! And he bloody-well-knows it, too!” She glowered at the old skunk sitting at the counter, who continued to eat his meal without so much as a shy glance.

“Blimey!” Gremshaw said, regaining his senses on the floor. “Ya stupid, French nutter. Ya can’t just go ‘bout takin’ a honest man’s shit from ‘em like that! Mrs. S, tell the dumb frog that he can’t just…”

Lafayette kicked the lanky kid’s back with the heel of his boot. Gremshaw let out a howl of pain before shutting his mouth for good. Giving the pistol a quick examination, Lafayette rolled his eyes, sneered and dropped it onto the kid’s head.

“Zis eez a fake, Monsieur Zi-mon-zon! I’d be sure to think about who you peek for ‘ired ‘elp nes time.” Lafayette walked back into the kitchen without another word.

“Oh! Good gracious! My poor, dear, sweet, precious little Gremmy! Are you alright, lovey?” Martha waddled over to help their defeated attacker up off the floor. “Mercy, it’s cold as a well-digger’s arse out there! Ollie! Fetch the poor dear something to bundle up in!”

“Damn it, Martha! The boy just tried to nick us with a bloody firearm. He won’t be staying a moment more to collect another honest day’s pay with his piss-poor work…”

“I was jus’ tryin’ to have a bit o’ fun, Guv’na! Honest I was! Ya really think I’d keep all the money an’ not say a word ‘bout it?” Gremshaw winked at his grandmother, who blushed.

“I know what you were doing, you little pecker and don’t call me Guv’na! It’s the twenty-first century for shit’s sake and this isn’t Oliver Twist!

“Boys will be boys, Ollie! Remember when you were a lad and…”

The door burst open and a squat, piggish-looking boy with stubble for hair and a mean lip tumbled through the door, with the fag-end of a cigar hanging in between two crooked teeth jutting out of his bake.

“Gremmy! Did ya nick all the brass from the ol’ man, yet?” Mutt Fitzgerald asked, as he barged into the Anchor Grill to find Martha helping a banged-up Gremshaw to his feet. He noted the furious scowl over Oliver’s face and his shivering fists with their white knuckles. He took a moment to survey the situation before shutting his mouth of the subject.

“Oh…‘ello all!” Mutt said with an oblivious smile as he took off his ragged hat and patched jacket and hung them over a coat hanger made of antlers by the dusty old grandfather clock. Oliver rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath. He began picking all of his money out of the bag that his grandson had demanded him to fill under the guise of a crook and started depositing it back into the safe, while counting it out loud.

“Mutt!” shouted Martha, “put out that damn cigar in my restaurant!” Mutt trembled at the raised voice of his cousin’s grandma and threw the fag-end of his smoke into a nearby bin.

“Good afty, Mutt, ol’ chum!” Gremshaw said with an innocent nod of his head under the safety of Mrs. S’s pillowy arms. “What brings your smilin’ face to the Anchor Grill, this day?”

“Yes, Mutt, m’boy,” snarled Oliver, who didn’t look up from counting his money or cease the fierce swearing under his breathe, “what are you doing here at this hour, lad? You were only supposed to arrive a day or two ago for your first shift.”

“I think,” Mutt said scratching the bumfluff on his face, “well, Gremmy, weren’t we going to work here for the free nosh an’ to save some money for the diner we was going to make across the street?”

The old man dropped a handful of coins from his hand.

“What did you say, lad?” A threatening look crossed Oliver’s wrinkled face. “Gremshaw! What talk is this, now?”

“Don’t you yell at Gremmy, you sallow-skinned old git!” Martha shouted.

“Martha, my woman, our own kin is kindling a mutiny! He’s planning on cheating an old man out of the fodder of this business and then opening up for himself, a diner of his own to drain what business you and I have left here in York!” Oliver turned to his grandson, who now had loosened himself from his grandmother’s arms to help Mutt put on his apron. “Oh-ho, child, the Good Lord keeps his deepest circle of Hell for betrayers, m’boy, you’ll be burni…”

“Ollie, shut the bloody hell up! They’re just children. Its bait that these here duckies couldn’t even open up a squash-stand in a place like Liverpool.”

“Yeah, come off it, Guv’na, don’t go makin’ a dear ol’ dove like Mrs. S kick up such a fuss as that.”

“Stop calling me, Guv’na!” Oliver shouted at his grandson. “And Martha, my woman, they are not children.” He stomped his foot like a child throwing a benny. “Our son’s oldest has got to be sixteen or seventeen and so is her drunken husband’s bogtrotter of a nephew over there! Yes sir, them two conniving little sneakers are quite capable of doing something of the sort that would banjax the Anchor Grill and leave us flat!”

“Come on, dearies,” Martha said, ignoring her henpecked husband, “Let’s get the both of you into aprons and I’ll put you to some chores. Gremmy, you can sit with me while I take carry-out orders, so one day you’ll be able to do it all by yourself. I’ll get you a lemonade and some crisps to munch while you work,” Martha scuttled her grandson up on a stool on the right side of the counter, farthest away from old Fat-Bottomed Bill, who brought a cup of tea up to his mustache and waved his pinky at Gremshaw with a wink. She fetched he grandson his snack and set it on the counter by an old, avocado-green phone.

She then turned to Mutt, who stood there catching flies. “Mutt! I want you to bus these tables all over the shop and then go in the back to help Lafayette peel the taters and onions, and then run some raw chickens through the spits. After that, I want you to mop all the shit up from the bloody loo. Lord only knows it’ll need it, since Frankenstein the Frenchy is doing all the cooking for us until eight o’clock tonight. Hurry along, now!” She grabbed Mutt by the ear and jerked him into the back.

“Hey, Mutt, don’t bogart all the fun for yourself, now!” Gremshaw smiled to his pitiable cousin from the comfort of his cushioned stool. Oliver Simonson stood there with his unorganized funds spread about the counter and glared in between his grandson’s smirking face and the lusty, wrinkled bake of his most despised, yet profitable customer.

“By Joe, the people here are to be the death of this place,” he muttered.

#

The office of Old Man Simonson laid in ruin. That faint, musty smell of aged housing familiar in buildings of historic districts was masked by the sulfuric odor of a hidden pile of feces, purposely placed somewhere out of sight. Shelves were knocked over; the fish tank in the corner was cracked and leaking upon the Victorian carpet; the windows were smeared with soap and the desk and sofas were torn and piled with junk from all about the room, including a dusty elk head, a large stuffed marlin, several pictures, busts, statues, a dislodged old captain’s wheel and an antique, bronzed diving helmet.

Although it wasn’t particularly glamorous, it was the biggest of only three rooms found up the narrow, rickety stairway hidden behind a door that was small enough to be commonly mistaken for a supplies cupboard. The door was marked, Quarters: Keep out, on a rusted plaque nailed into the doorframe. A booth in the dining area was strategically placed near the door that that nobody ever sat in because of what was kept directly across from it: a stinky, saltwater fish tank filled with algae-and-slug infested water that could be heard gurgling in the corner anywhere in the diner. It was home to a sour-faced moray eel. The slimy, grinning fish was the only possession that Mrs. S’s father left in his will to his miserable son-in-law, Oliver.

Lined up in front of a large bookcase filled with musty books, yellowed magazines, tacky book-ends and gaudy knick-knacks, stood the irritable Lafayette, in between Gremshaw and his bumbling cousin, Mutt. Mr. Simonson shook in leftover rage as he fumbled over his keys to lock them all in his office with him, sputtering curses to the devil and his wretched life of misfortune.

“Psst, Mutt, ya think that the ol’ man bubbled what we was up to?” Gremshaw quasi-whispered to his cousin with an arrogant smirk, loud enough for the whole room to hear. Lafayette growled and rubbed his temples, as if overwhelmed with petty drama.

“What-ev-air you two deed to ze ode man’s off-eez, leave me ze fuck out of eet,” Lafayette hissed. “Just because ze ode man eez too stu-peed to figure anything out on ‘is own, doesn’t mean I should ‘ave to suffer more zen I already do everyday.”

“Blimey,” Gremshaw said laughing, “ya catch a whiff o’ that, Laffy ol’ chum? Ya should have seen the monster shit that ol’ Mutt took under the ol’ man’s desk when we broke in last night!”

“Yeah,” Mutt added, choking on suppressed laughter “and then I wiped me hairy bum with a few ripped leafs out from his newest issue of The Distinguished Gentleman, I did!” Adolescent laughter erupted in the room.

“Alright!” Oliver said turning about, “I want to know which-ough-oooww” he stumbled over an overturned bust of some salty captain, but regained his dignity by finding his feet and ignoring the laughter of Gremshaw and Mutt. What was left of his coarse, grey hair was standing on end over his ears and his crinkled face was red under his wire binns that wouldn’t stay on the bridge of his nose. “Alright, you little sacks of shit, I want to know which one of you little motherfuckers ransacked my bloody office and shit on my carpet!”

“Monsieur Zi-mon-zon! Zis eez a complete waste of my time. I am not a child! Let me keep what dignity I ‘ave left in zis dump! Eef you keep me standing ‘ere with zeez two baffoons while you-”

“Belt up, frog! If I say that you’re going to stand here and have a dose from me, along with these two colleagues of yours, then so be it. You were scraping pubic hairs out of piss-pots before my wife took the lice out of your grimy hair, gave you a job and the room across my own office!”

“Ze room eez not a room at all. Eet eez a janitor clo-zet!” Lafayette exclaimed.

“And a rather spacious janitor’s closet, at that. Just be grateful that it isn’t a jail cell for French, ex-criminals who aren’t qualified, in my opinion, to work a single job in all of bloody England and don’t speak enough of the language to swim the English Channel back where they right belong! And you two!” he sprung on the boys, “Stop your God-forsaken snickering before I box your ears into your fat pates!”

“Tsk-tsk, Guv’na,” Gremshaw said. “Mutt an’ I just wanted to know if dear ol’ Mrs. S knows ‘bout what a pigsty you’ve let your office become. Ya know what a fuss she kicks up ‘bout keepin’ the Anchor clean.”

Mr. Simonson looked like he was on the brink of hurling himself out of his office through the glass window and onto the street two stories below.

“And that is another reason why I have you three baboons in my office right now, Gremshaw! Martha’s mother is the old goat that gave us the funds to raise this junk-heap of a mess hall into a reasonable establishment for food and drink.” There was bitterness in the old man’s voice as he added, “Lovely woman, really. She’s coming over here from London to eat with us tonight.

“Bloody Nora, Guv’na! Ol’ Mrs. S has a mother that’s still alive?” Gremshaw asked, slapping Mutt’s back and sounding off another round of laughter.

“I thought I told you to stop calling me, Guv’na, you nasty, little maggot! This isn’t Great Expectations!”

“Nasty ol’ crow has got to be ten years older than water, she has!” Mutt added with his stupid-toothed grin. Even Lafayette seemed interested in the news.

“Nasty old crow, you say, mick?” Oliver asked.

“It’s Mutt,” Mutt corrected, “Mutt Fitz…”

“By Joe, I know your bloody name, Irishman! And Martha’s mother is not a wretched ol’ crow, neither. No. She’s a cruel, bloodsucking, decrepit old harpy with a heart as black as burnt cheese and cold as the lips on a bloody corpse! By Joe, the only reason that monster of a woman allowed us the money to bring up our dream of owning a restaurant was to see me bring it down by the likes of my own incompetence.

“Hah! But By Joe, I’ve kept it alive these past forty years, so help me I have! Oh, you better believe that the wretched old crow will take that to the grave with her, m’boys. I haven’t told any of you about her all this time because I believed that none of you would ever be granted the pleasure to face the likes of her until she greeted all of you in Hell, after you’re all dead. She doesn’t come around because she knows the Anchor Grill stays afloat!”

“But I thought you said, she weren’t no wretched ol’ crow?” Mutt said.

“Shut-up, mick!”

“Zis eez all very touching, Monsieur Zi-mon-zon, but what does zat ‘ave to do with zis office being a mess?”

“Everything! You idiots are what brings this dump to the brink of Hell and back! Tonight, when the devil boards the Anchor Grill and stinks the place up with sulfur and brimstone, I want everything to be perfect. My dream for the past thirty years has been to see the ugly look on that vile woman’s bake when she sees her dear son-in-law, running a successful business with her precious daughter. I want her to remember that it was she, herself, who handed over the funds to make it all possible, so that when we seal the old devil back into her crypt and Hell welcomes her home...”

“I dunno, Guv’na,” Gremshaw interrupted. “I’m not sure if it’s possible for me an’ Mutt here, to meet such expectations with what little trainin’ we been getting’ from dear, ol’ Mrs. S, bless ‘er heart,” a bait smirk crossed Gremshaw’s pasty face.

“Nasty little pisser! What do you want from me? Name it! And by Joe, quit calling me that wretched pet name, you self-absorbed, little git. This isn’t fucking, Hard Times, lad!”

“My word, Mr. Simonson! Are ya suggestin’ that Mutt an’ me want a backhander in exchange for behaving ourselves whilst workin’ tonight?” Gremshaw smiled sheepishly.

“If it’ll get you chimps to run this place right-well for just one blooming night, then whatever it takes, I’ll see to it done.”

“Haw! Zen I want in on zis leetle deal, ode man, ozerwize I might forget that ze limeys pre-fair shicken ov-air frogs and snails,” Lafayette said, as Mr. Simonson pulled what was left of his hair out in rage and then buried his face in his worn hands.

“An’ what ‘bout you two? What do you two codfuddles want to take from me in exchange for what should be an expected hard-night’s-work?”

“Well, we want…” Mutt tried to say,

“We want the wheel to the Anchor Grill, ol’ man,” Gremshaw finished.

“Have mercy on an old soul, what did you say, lad?”

“Ya heard me. You an’ dear ol’ Mrs. S are getting up there in years, mate. Instead o’ having me an’ Mutt here continue to sabotage this place under the protection of your wife in order to build us our own business just across the road, just entrust the restaurant to me an’ Mutt here. If ya stay an’ work for us, we’ll even allow ya to share a room with Laffy up here, an’ receive two free meals a day.”

“What? I won’t allow zis!” Lafayette exclaimed. “I want a raise and some of ze profit zis feelth-trap makes on a monthly basis. I want ze ozer room to myself, as well.”

“So,” Oliver Simonson said, sitting down at his clustered desk while he shook and cringed. “All you devils want is my soul in exchange for a simple favor, do ya? By Joe, if it means putting that crotchety, old bitch in her grave once and for all, then I’ll just pray and hope that the Good Lord offers me mercy at all your slimy hands when this is over.”

“Aw, now don’t say that, Guv’na,” Gremshaw said. “Mercy from us won’t be nowt worth frettin’ for, next to the mercy you’ll be needin’ from dear, sweet Mrs. S, when she finds out what you did.”

#

Oliver Simonson cleared the mess from his office all by himself that afternoon. He did it without a uttering a word of complaint to his wife over their heathen grandson’s reckless savagery, or muttering curses under his breath about ankle-biting, little scallywags, brutishly disregarding the sanctity of a poor old man’s private quarters. All the rest of the afternoon, Gremshaw, Mutt and Lafayette worked an honest shift’s work, seeing to it that The Anchor Grill was as spotless as it could have possibly been, while Mrs. S loomed over them all, adding her two bits whenever she felt it necessary.

When the old man walked downstairs in his best grey suit, complete with bowler and walking stick (in an unsuccessful attempt to look smart), he found Mutt and Lafayette sitting in the booth next to the eel tank, dressed in the nicest, second-hand clothes that they could have possibly acquired (which was not saying much). Mutt taped down the slit of a dusty top hat that he found in the old man’s closet upstairs and wore a brown, corduroy suit that was too small to button all the way down his pudgy figure.

Lafayette wore a clean apron over a stained undershirt, stiff blue-jeans, and stuffed the long tail of his greasy hair up under a ridiculous, muffin-shaped chef’s hat. The old man’s grandson was at least in a reasonable-looking pinstripe suit with only minor wrinkles. His wife was combing the mop of his greasy hair back against his bottle-shaped head.

“Oh, my precious Gremmy looks quite the handsome gentleman tonight, he does,” she said, pinching his freckled cheeks and turning to her husband as he entered the dining hall. “Ollie, he’s sporting your old suit from before we was married.”

“Indeed,” Oliver said glaring, “quite an establisment we have here, Martha: a pudgy, Artful Dodger, a pirate dressed like the Swedish Chef Muppet, and a flustered old hen, clucking over her ugliest chick, Gremshaw.

“Very nice old threads do a lot for a gentleman, Martha, my woman. Nevertheless, in Gremshaw’s case, it wouldn’t matter if the suit was made of motley or cassimere. I daresay the boy still looks as ugly as his mother.”

Mutt laughed and even Lafayette snickered at the old man’s sardonic wit. Martha’s enraged face looked like a boiled cabbage, ready to burst.

“A good evening to you as well, Guv’na,” Gremshaw said. “A pity that you was once able to sport such a nice suit, ya ol’ buffer. Tell me, Mrs. S, did the Guv’na always look like a’ bulimic Churchill, minus the cigar?”

Martha and the boys burst into a fit of laughter, while Oliver stood still, his flaky skin, reddened and his body trembling with rage.

“Yeah,” Mutt added. “He looks like a crooked-boned corpse, all dressed up for an open-casket, he does.” The laughter continued, even harder.

“Enough! All of you!” Oliver shouted. “Martha, have we shooed all the customers out of this dive, my woman?”

“All, but Fat-Bottomed Bill and that little boy, Stephen, I think is his name,” Martha said. “The boy who’s parents you paid a cottage pie and a pint of lager, in exchange for him to clean dishes for us for a couple of nine-to-seven shifts.” Growling, Oliver stormed over to the counter where he found the perverted old gaffer, trying to share a hot malt with a little boy too hungry and exhausted to mind.

“Out! I want both of you out!” Oliver scuffled the large man out of his seat and shoved his cane into his hands.

“Now Oliver, my dear chap, it’s not closing time yet!” Bill said, glancing at the pocket-watch he pulled from his suit. “I was just sharing some stories and a scrumptious sweet with this delightful young gentleman, here.” Stephen looked up at Oliver with eyes pleading for mercy. Oliver grinned.

The visitor bell clanged as he shoved the old man out the front door and into the dreadful winter night. “There are far too many devils under this roof everyday, Bill, that we don’t need the lusty assistant of Beelzebub stinking it up any further. Riddance, I say!” Oliver shouted, slamming the door shut with a satisfied smile. He turned to find little Stephen, staring up at him with saucer-sized, brown eyes.

“And what’s your story?” Oliver snarled.

“It’s snowing outside, Mr. Simonson, sir. I’m worried ‘bout me mum an’ pa. They haven’t showed up yet to retrieve me. I haven’t had a bit to eat all day, neither.” Oliver sighed, seeing the tears that were forming in the small child’s glossy eyes. Kneeling down to embrace the child around his tender arms, he lifted him up and kicked open the door with his foot.

“But-but-the snow, sir! And that dreadful ol’ man…” Oliver dropped the boy in the snow, slammed the door shut, pulled the shades over the glass door and stormed back into the diner, calling out to his crew.

“Hang it all, the horrible old trout will be here any minute now, and if she finds this place…”

The bell to the front door chimed again and the room flooded with both silence and tension. Lafayette ran in the kitchen to add the finishing touches to the meal. Oliver swallowed the lump in his throat as he watched a hunched old woman step into the dinning hall of his restaurant, with the help of her gnarled cane.

Her presence emanated the lingering stink of talcum powder and Bengay in the air, fused with flowery perfume that smelled like a cheap, retirement home. Skinnier than Oliver, Martha’s mother’s liver-spotted skin hung over the brittle bones of her fingers and gaunt skull. Her thinning hair was wrapped in a wool hat and her body was bundled up in layers of flower-patterned black silk, under a conservative dress and a great white, wool shawl. Her bobbing head shook as her yellow eyes swept the place over.

“Mummy!” Martha shouted, waddling over to embrace her mother with feigned enthusiasm.

“My poor, little girl,” Martha’s mother managed, once released from her daughter’s vast bosom. “By Joe, look at you! That bottom-feeding husband of yours hasn’t kept you fed t’all, has he? Bless your dear heart.”

“Edna,” Oliver interjected, “by Joe, I’ve kept your daughter plenty fed, if your bleeding old eyes can’t see how much weight she’s gained since I married her!”

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“Did you hear how your husband just spoke of you m’dear?! Lord knows my husband, if that man were still alive today, would have done away with such a rodent long ago if he had heard him call his daughter a sow!”“I did nowt of the sort, woman!”“I came here for a nice visit and to share a meal with Martha and our little Gremmy, Oliver,” Edna said, “If you’re going to stand her and shout, and insult us all night, then I’ll take our duckies away and dine someplace else. Now, where is Gremmy?”“I’m righ’ here, Grandmum,” Gremshaw said, approaching the old woman. He took a wrinkled hand from her and planted it with a gentlemanly kiss. “It’s a pleasure to see you.”“My word, Martha,” Edna said, “I haven’t seen the boy since he wore diapers under his breeches. What a delightful young gentleman he’s become.” She stood and stared at him for a moment, before a foul look crossed her face. “Although his hair is far too long, I must add. Martha, why haven’t you seen to it that the boy gets a proper, Christian haircut? And what sort of guttural name is Gremshaw, now that I’ve heard it spoke in my presence? Is it German? Nasty Krouts, the Germans are!” Martha was taken back by the change of tone. She stuttered, not knowing how to protect her grandson from such an offense.“Awful name, really,” Edna continued. “It was a Simonson decision, if I remember correctly. Brutes on my son-in-law’s side forced it upon that poor child who married Oliver’s son.” Edna took her cane and struck out for Oliver’s ankles, but the old man was swift and his reflexes remembered the nasty old woman’s last visit.“And who is that pudgy bloke in the corner with the ridiculous hat, Martha?” Edna asked, pointing to Mutt. “Isn’t that the base-born, great-nephew of ours? Twice-removed, I do hope? Come here, boy, I want a word with you,” she said, raising her cane with one hand as she urged him to come forward with the bony forefinger of her other gloved hand.Mutt took a cautious step forward, but Oliver put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.“Enough! Terrible old trout, I want you to belt up and listen well. I’ve kept this restaurant afloat for the past fifty years!”“Forty,” Gremshaw corrected.“Be that as it may, Gremshaw,” Oliver continued, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow this-this…ancient carrion-eater to set foot in the place of business I call my home and threaten my family like that! So help me, God, I won’t allow it!”Mutt, Martha and Gremshaw were stone-still. The old man had actually stood up for the three of them. Edna, taken back by the outburst, suddenly broke into a fit of laughter.“Oh dear, Martha, listen to the dose that old Colonel Blimp is giving me, this night,”“Why don’t we sit down for dinner?” Martha stepped forward. “Can Gremmy and Mutt take your shawl and purse, Mummy?”“I’d prefer to keep it on. Its dreadful cold in this dive your husband calls a restaurant. I’ll allow Gremshaw to take my purse, Martha my dear, but I’ll not have that bogtrotter touching my things,” Edna said. Mutt held his tongue while his cousin took the old woman’s purse and hung it on the antler coat-rack.“We have a real French cook tonight to make us an authentic French cuisine,” Martha said, as they all sat at the three tables that were pushed together for them all to dine together.“I don’t care for the French, Martha,” Edna said, “Snail-eating, Mary-worshipping, stuck-ups have been almost as much of a thorn in the side of the Royal Crown as the Irish, the Yanks, the Zulus, the Indians an’ the Chinese put together.” She looked over at the fish tank on the other side of the room, to find the moray eel, with its slow-moving jaws hissing at her in its murky water. “Speaking of heathens, I see you still have Mongrel.” She snickered. “Martha, your father was so insistent upon leaving that ridiculous fish to your husband.”“Oh, yes, Papa was very proud of Mongrel,” Martha said.“Proud!” Edna exclaimed. “Your father hated that bloody fish! Such a pain in the arse to take care of, the bleeding thing always was. Your nuncle Albert caught it in a net while vacationing in the Great Barrier Reef and brought it home to his brother. “Although,” Edna said after a vague pause, “I daresay I’m most happy to see it now. If it were missing, well, I can only imagine that frog in the kitchen coming out here moments before my arrival, reaching his meaty arms into that cesspool, choking the bloody thing to death, boiling it, stuffing it with cheese and having it served to us for supper.”“Ze eel was to be for our de-zert, Madame,” Lafayette said, appearing in the dinning room from the kitchen, carrying a steaming tray of cod and seasoned vegetables. “We fry zem an’ zerve zem at funerals, with znails an’ zeaweed.” He towered beside the wrinkled guest and plopped the tray onto the table with a hateful glower. “Bon appétit,” he snarled and stormed back into the kitchen.Gremshaw, Mutt and Oliver snickered, but were silenced by the abrasive stares received by the ladies at the table.“Rude as uneducated savages, everyone of them!” Edna exclaimed, throwing her napkin on the table and getting to her feet. “No wonder this-this-this, rat-trap can barely sustain the funds to survive, let alone not earn a single shilling to improve the likes of it! Martha, fire that brute this instant or I’ll walk out that door.”“I’m getting a bit of tea to calm my fucking nerves,” Oliver mumbled to himself. He got up and walked over to a booth in the corner where he kept a hot pot of Earl Grey seeping by the window. Pouring the tea and squeezing the lemon wedge, he returned to his seat, shaking the entire way.“But, Lafayette ain’t got no where else to go, Mum. I can’t just simply tell him to pack up his bags and leave. We took him in several years ago, after…”“Do I look like I give a damn? How dare you give cheek to your mummy, young lady!” Edna scolded.

“By Joe,” Oliver said and stood, “don’t you talk to my wife like she’s your child, you wretched old trout! My woman has a heart of gold. She went and took that tramp off the streets the day before Christmas, seven years ago, without as much as a second thought.”

“And I’m sure, Mr. Simonson, that it was at your decision. Lord only knows you needed the cheapest help possible and of course you never did allow the angel of the house to make a single, bloody choice on her own during the course of her life,” Edna said.

“Hey! Don’t fuss at the Guv’na like that!” Gremshaw said, pointing at Oliver. “I’ve seen dear ol’ Mrs. S grip that ol’ gaffer’s ball-sack in a bloody vice plenty of times, I have! That one ain’t half the man Mrs. S is.”

“Gremmy,” Mutt said, “Fish smells good. Is it awright if I have bit of nosh, now?”

“Food and drink!” Edna howled, reaching over the table to continually slap Mutt on the hand and arm with a wooden spatula. “That’s all the micks ever think about! Strife, food and bloody drink!”

“Ow, ow ow ow owwww”

Mr. Simonson sipped his Earl Grey to help calm his nerves, but the sudden attack on Mutt threw him off balance. He spit a mouthful of his drink across the table and accidently flung his hot cup at his mother-in-law. Edna screamed as the hot tea scolded her face and stung her eyes. Blinded and enraged, she grabbed her cane and started taking swipes at Oliver.

“Bumbling, stupid, wrinkled old fool!” Edna screamed. Oliver was helpless, shielding his face with his shivering arms.

“Possessed!” Oliver said. “By Joe, the shriveled old harpy is possessed by the devil hisself!” For once in her life, Martha Simonson couldn’t inflict her rage upon her husband. Instead, she found herself helpless against protecting him from the only person in the world she was afraid of. She got out of her chair and waddled to the kitchen on the brink of screaming with anxiety.

Click-clank

The room fell silent at the sight of Gremshaw, pointing a pistol at Edna.

“I want you to sit your wrinkled, moldy arse down righ’ now, understan’?”

“Har! Right, keep the bloody pistol on her, m’boy!” Oliver said. “I’ll get the rope!”

The old woman screamed even louder. Abandoning her seat, she ran without seeing where she was going.

“Gremmy, ain’t that the fake piece that Laffy took from you, back when we tried to rob the place?” Mutt asked.

“It’s what?” Edna asked, attempting to come to an abrupt halt.

But it was too late.

She smacked her head right onto the glass of Mongrel’s aquarium. The tank cracked and came tumbling down right on top of her, like a tipped-over Coca-Cola machine. The room panicked as the glass shattered all about. The slimy saltwater rushed out all over the room and soaked into the carpet. The frightened moray eel slithered and bounced, making its way up the frail leg of the old woman, who was too long gone to feel it slid up her skirt and into her bloomers.

“Fuck! J’ai chaud!” shouted a voice from the kitchen.

“Bloody Nora! You’re not hot, you faux Frenchman! Tu es sur le feu! You’re on fucking fire! FIRE, FOR SHIT’S SAKE, FIRE!” Martha shouted, bursting out of the kitchen. “Everybody out!” Oliver pointed at the kitchen door and screamed as Lafayette came running out of the kitchen with his trousers and the puff of his chef’s hat ablaze with fire.

“All you lot, abandon ship, I say!” Oliver shouted, as He, Martha, Gremshaw and Mutt scuttled out of the dining room. Lafayette hurled himself onto the floor to roll out the flames, until the shards of glass all over the carpet started to dig into his skin. Grunting in horrible pain from the fire and broken glass, he saw the big white shawl covering the old devil that had fallen to her death. Without a second thought, he jerked it from the limp, old woman’s body and started slapping out the flames with it. The corpse rolled about from the force of the strong chef’s movement and most of her bundled clothes rolled off her body, revealing her wrinkled, spotted hide as she floppped about all over the hazardous carpet.

“Bloody Hell!” Mutt shouted, pointing, “she looks like some sort of bloody alien or a half-starved manatee, she does!”

“No worries, Guv’na, I got it!” Gremshaw entered the dining room wielding the dusty old fire-extinguisher that the old man was forced to buy upon inspection two years ago.

“Geev zat to me!” Lafayette demanded, as he finished putting the fire on his clothes out. He snatched the extinguisher from Gremshaw’s hands and smacked him across the back of the head. He pulled the pin and went fast to work, putting out the grease fire spreading from the kitchen.

Amidst the chaos of the Anchor Grill, Mrs. S walked back into the dining room from the counter room and paused. There, standing stone-still in utter silence for what seemed like moments, she began to bawl, looking down at the horror of the sight of her dead mother.

Oliver Simonson, her crotchety, but still-loving husband of over fifty years, approached her from behind, and draped a lanky arm across his wife’s wide back to embrace her; offering nothing but the comfort of silence and his caring presence.

Putting his hands in his pockets, Gremshaw walked over to stand beside his grandfather, while Mutt took off his hat and stood to join them, blessing himself with the Catholic sign of the cross.

Cursing out loud in broken-French from the kitchen, Lafayette extinguished the last of the flames and walked out to witness the bizarre scene spread out in dinning room of the Anchor Grill. It was something that he thought he’d never see his entire life. His mouth trembled when he saw the dear old woman, who whisked him away from the cold of winter and the pain of hunger those seven Christmas’s ago, crying like he never thought the woman capable of. Resisting the sudden urge to flee from what was probably the saddest and most nauseating thing he’d ever have to do, he approached his family and embraced them all with his strong arms. Together, including the callous chef, they all started to bawl out loud, ridiculously clasped in one another’s arms.

“By Joe,” Oliver said in between sobs, “if you weren’t that woman’s daughter, Martha, I’d daresay that eel erupted that hideous old woman’s shriveled hymen.”

#

The authorities arrived not long after the fall of the Anchor Grill. Later on, a pair of incompetent insurance representatives arrived with faulty estimates that just added more stress to Oliver Simonson’s miserable life, but the satisfaction of experiencing his mother-in-law’s death was enough for him to admit he could die happy.

Eventually, the deteriorated Anchor Grill did re-open and was a tad better off, run by the silver-tongued Gremshaw and his bumbling associate, Mutt Fitzgerald. By the request of Martha Simonson, a family funeral banquet was held in the dining room of the restaurant, with only the five of them.

“The Good Lord, will take care of her, Martha, my woman,” Oliver said, as the five of them sat down to supper. “Her black heart meant well. I’m sure The Good Lord won’t fault her for what a menace she was in life.” Martha glowered at her husband’s poor attempt at kind words and spit a mouthful of white wine in his face. Cursing, he removed his binns and wiped them clean.

“Gremmy, didn’t you say that Laffy was going to have some afters for us?” Mutt asked.

“Oh Laffy? Chop-chop, mate!” Gremshaw said, looking at the Frenchman. Lafayette rolled his eyes and got up to fetch the dessert.

“Hey Guv’na?” Gremshaw asked Oliver, “What ever happened to Mongrel after it slithered up ol’ Edna’s beef curtains? Did you ever capture it an’ find a home for it in one o’ the tanks upstairs?”

“For the last bloody time, this isn’t Bleak House, boy, so quit calling me, Guv’na! And by Joe, I didn’t save the damn thing! No. It bit me twice when I tried to retrieve it from between that old wretch’s vile twat, so help me, it did. I had the frog choke it for me, which I daresay he rather enjoyed.” Oliver chuckled to himself, while Gremshaw and Mutt grinned. Lafayette returned from the kitchen with a steaming tray and plopped it down upon the table. Everybody at the table stared at it in with gaped bakes. The exotic dish before their eyes appeared to be a type of fried seafood; long, yellow-green planks cut up in fine slivers and surrounded by escargot and leaves of kelp.

“Bon appétit,” Lafayette said, putting out a fag in one of the planks on the tray. He threw a towel over his shoulder and walked towards the tiny private quarters door, next to the bare space in the wall where the eel tank used to be. He opened it with a swift yank and stormed up the staircase to enter what was now his bedroom: the room that was once Mr. Simonson’s office, now belonging to Gremshaw and Mutt, was transferred to the spacey janitor’s closet across the hall.

FICTION: Heaven Can Be Hell by Evelyn A. Archer, P.I.

           I understand addiction.  For two years I was hooked on unhappiness.  Otherwise known as marriage.  Chuck Bainbridge's wife, however, apparently had a habit that was harder to kick.

"Angel did coke in college," he told me two days ago in my office at Undercover Operations. "Years ago, see. Then booze and some weed, but nothing what I would call heavy.  This time's different, you can bet on it."

He was worried about the kids--so he said--ages five and eight.  Boys.  But it took him a sec to remember their names, which meant protecting his money was his primary goal.  Once he proved she was an addict, he'd demand divorce and full custody.  And a charitable chunk of child support, no doubt. 

"I don't want her busted or anything, just some pictures, maybe an eyewitness or something."  His beady little eyes glistened like a cliché from a Raymond Chandler chapter.  "She'll agree to anything then to keep C.J. and Benny from finding out.  Wouldn't want to ruin her reputation as Super Mom."  He grunted in disgust.

Meanwhile he was playing the devoted spouse so she wouldn't suspect.

Nice guy.

So I put Undercover operative Harley Meeks on the case.  He plays the nervous, twitchy type to perfection--he'd pass for a junkie any day.  As arranged, we met at midnight on a neon-colored corner outside the apartment of Angel's best friend and dope dealer, Marla Dickson.  Chuck Bainbridge had made a point of telling me he believed Marla was the zookeeper feeding Angel's bad habit. 

I was wearing my best leather dress that fit so tight my breasts threatened to pop out the top.  I fit right into the crowd on this lively LA strip where "strip" had more than one meaning.

"Bainbridge was right about Marla, at least," Harley told me.  "She sold me a handful of meth yesterday.  Made it in her bathroom, she said."  He picked at his lip and his eyes flicked back and forth.

"Stop shifting from foot to foot, will you?" I told him.  "You look like a Hindu on a bed of hot coals."

He saluted me.  Cocky bastard. "Angel hasn't shown up yet, but everybody else in the neighborhood has."

"Angel's not getting the dope delivered, either," I told him.  "I've been sunbathing in the park by their building from dawn to dark and the only thing I've figured out is that SPF15 tanning oil might as well be used to fry chicken for all the good it does.  Chuckie boy, however, seems rather fond of fried chicken.  He must have jogged by my spot half a dozen times.  Checking up on me or checking me out--one or the other."

"He's a breast man, all right.  He strolled pretty slow through here the last two nights."

"Doing what?"

"Besides ogle, you mean?  Don't know.  He sort of loiters around and then the next time I look, he's gone.  If it wasn't for the fact he doesn't know I'm working for him, I'd say he was keeping an eye on me, too."

"Has he been here yet tonight?"

"About half an hour ago.  Disappeared right before you got here."

I looked up at the lighted third floor window that belonged to Marla Dickson.  A shadow moved across the shade and was gone.

"What's she like?" I asked.

"Blond.  Big busted.  Hard body--cold heart.  Tests her stuff herself, she says."

"You look like you need some sleep."

"And a shower.  Playing a low life sure smells bad."

"Might as well go home, then.  I'm putting you on the Conner case tomorrow night.  You get to wear a tux with a silver cummerbund."

Harley grinned.  "This one's wrapped up then, eh?"  After three years together, Harley could read me pretty well.

"Just about.  A few minor threads left to stitch in place, is all.  I'll fill you in tomorrow."

I walked across the street when he left.  By the time I made my way to the alley behind Marla's building, I'd had to tell two johns I was well beyond their price range.

I was in luck.  I only had to hike my dress up a couple of inches in order to climb the fire escape stapled to the brick wall in back.  Hanging from the third floor landing, years of practice made it easy to hold on with one hand and snap award-winning photos of Marla's bathroom with the other.

Satisfied, and tired of feeling like a hot wing wrapped in licorice, I called it a night.

I resorted to the jogging bit myself the next day--courting skin cancer wasn't figured into my daily fee.  At 12:30, as usual, Angel came out with the boys and went over to the playground.  I stopped under an oak tree for a sec, sipping a few squirts from my water bottle and watching.  Benny wanted Mom to push the swing harder and C.J. was trying to get her to watch how high he could throw the ball and still catch it.  Somehow she managed to do both.  When the kids ran off to join some friends, I walked over and sat next to Angel on her bench.

"You might want to take the boys out for ice cream in a little while," I said to her.

"Hmm?"  She turned her eyes away from her kids with a slight smile still on her lips.  "Do I know you?"

"I'm a friend of your husband, so he thinks.  In about five minutes he's going to meet me here to collect these photos he paid me to take."  I pulled a corner of the envelope out of my fanny pack to show her what I meant.  "He thinks these are the pictures I snapped day before yesterday when he took the kids out for supper so you could juice up."

"Oh, gosh."  Her face darkened and her shoulders sagged.  The loving mother took on the haunted look of a meth-head.

"But they're not."

She looked up with a question, but no hope, in her eyes.

"They're the pictures I took last night through the window when he bought more dope from his girlfriend, Marla.  How long has he been supplying you?"

She shrugged.  The lines around her eyes gave her a twenty-three going on forty-three look.  "A few weeks, I guess.  I was clean for years, even before we got married.  I knew he still got high once in a while, but not at home, not in front of the boys. He knew better."  Fire lit up her eyes.  "Then Marla had a party one night.  I thought, what the heck, the boys were both staying overnight at Grandma's.  So I let Chuck talk me into it.  After that--"

She sighed and looked across to where C.J. and Benny were arguing about whether Benny was old enough to join the big boys' baseball game.  "I never did it in front of them.  Chuck always took them out somewhere for a while."  She laughed bitterly.  "I told myself at least now he was spending some time with them."

"Well, now he'll be doing time.  Before he takes these pictures from my nicely tanned hand, Lieutenant Smentek is going to move in with his lapdogs."

"What about--" She glanced to her sons and back again.

"I hear the Hagen Däz on

Hayes Street

has a special on Cherry Chocolate Sundae Splits.  The kids should love them."

I rezipped my fanny pack and grabbed my water as I stood up.  "You can't miss it," I said, looking down at her.  "It's right next to the Berkley building--where they hold Narcotics Anonymous meetings every Thursday night."

The mother battled with the junkie in the look she gave me, but it was the mother who won out.  "Thanks."

No sooner had they exited stage left than Chuck Bainbridge jogged in from the right.  He grinned like a lecher on his way to a love-in when he stopped, and didn't notice how the old man on the next bench stood up when I leaned over to tie my Nikes.

"You made good time, Archer."  He held out his hand for the photos. "And if you're ever in the market for an even better time. . ."

Instead of photographs, he got a solid steel bracelet clicked on his wrist.  His smile faded fast as Lieutenant Smentek droned on.

"You have the right to remain silent, if you give up these rights, you have . . ."

I plugged my walkman back into my ears and jogged off, scattering a flock of pigeons into flight.  On oldies station WKTU, Phil Collins was singing It's Just Another Day in Paradise.

FICTION: TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES by Rekha Ambardar

Dr. Kathy Van Klein, the new chief medical officer at Belleville Hospital, studied the report on the medical chart. Somebody had given the patient in the labor room a pre-term IV drip of 52 gms of magnesium sulfate to stop contractions when 2 gms should have been administered over four hours. Fortunately, Kelly Ward RN happened to pass by and noticed that the patient was nauseous and alerted the physician.

Kathy and floor nursing supervisor, Don Crouch, stood near the nurse’s station trying to determine how the infusion could have been given at such an accelerated rate, and who had done it. They’d decided to handle it themselves and prevent it from ever happening again.

Don looked through the records on the physician’s order for the patient and finally found it. He looked it over and showed it to Kathy. The 2 gms of magnesium sulfate had been altered to read like a “3”.

Kathy checked with the physician and learned that he had indeed prescribed only 2 gms. “We need floor staff’s activities this morning – duties, times when those duties were performed, and records,” she said to Don.

Don produced the list of nursing staff who were on duty and Kathy scrutinized it. Kelly had been assigned to a patient who was soon due for delivery. Jodie McKinley, the orientee nurse had come in at seven and evaluated the new baby with a mild case of jaundice before getting the IV going on the patient.

“Any special duties and assignments?” Kathy asked.

Don glanced at a chart in his hand. “While Kelly Ward was assisting in the delivery she was called to ER briefly. Evelyn Hyrkas was in C-section as assigned.”

Kathy looked up from the list. “What about you? Where were you?”

“I was helping out with a pre-eclampsia case down the hall.”

“Who was here at the nurse’s station?”

“A couple of nurses checking over schedules, but they were not assigned to this patient and would have no reason to be with her.” Don shuffled through papers lying on his desk.

“Call in Kelly, Jodie, and Evelyn, and we’ll go from there.” Kathy went into Don’s glass-enclosed cubicle behind the nurses’ station. It was lunchtime and things were slowing down. Newly hired aides helped incoming nursing staff in their mid-day duties.

Kelly said she had come in at seven and had gone straight to the delivery room and had been there until another nurse relieved her. When she passed the labor room at eight-twenty, she had noticed the patient looking sick and called the physician.

“Where was Jodie?” Kathy asked.

Kelly shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Had you met the orientee nurse before?”

“No. She hasn’t been here before.”

When they questioned Evelyn she told them she had been at the C-section. After that she had gone to monitor the vital signs of two other delivery patients. She had also stopped by the nurses’ station to check the afternoon schedule.

“Did you see anyone at the nurse’ station?” Kathy asked.

“No. It was deserted,” Evelyn replied.

“What time was that?”

“About ten after eight.”

When they were done with Evelyn, Jodie, the orientee nurse, was called in. She was in her late thirties. Her employee file, which Don had pulled earlier, indicated that she had put herself through nursing school and showed promise. Quite the hard worker, he noted.

“What were your duties when you came in?” Kathy asked.

“After checking in with HR, I was brought to the nurses’ station and Don gave me my schedule. When I was finished at the nursery I set up the IV for magnesium sulfate and started the infusion as prescribed,” Jodie said. She had a intense look about her, like the type who’d do whatever was necessary to get ahead.

“Were you with the patient most of the time?” Kathy asked.

“Yes. Oh - I was called to the phone at the nurses’ station, but when I got there I found there was no one on the line,” Jodie replied.

“It’s quite a long walk from the labor room to here,” Don remarked.

“Who told you about the phone call?” Kathy asked.

“Brenda, an aide.”

After Jodie left, Kathy and Don went through Jodie’s employee file. Some of her records were under the last name of Hyrkas. She had been married to a Dave Hrykas.

Don paged Brenda, the aide, and she came in looking worried.

“You were the one who told the orientee nurse that she had a phone call?”

Lines furrowed deep in her forehead. “Yes. Is anything wrong?”

“Yes. There was a problem,” Don said. “Did you pick up the phone at the nurses’ station when it rang?”

Brenda looked puzzled. “Actually, Evelyn asked me to tell the orientee nurse about the phone call. I didn’t pick up the phone at all.”

Don then called the hospital switchboard and inquired if there had been any phone calls for orientee nurse Jodie McKinley in the maternity ward between eight and nine o’clock that morning. No, the switchboard operator told him, there hadn’t. She’d remember because that was a new name.

“The name ‘Hyrkas’ seems to be the link,” Kathy said. “Can you pull Evelyn’s file?”

Don had HR send down the file and Kathy studied it. Evelyn had been on the staff of Belleville Hospital for many years. She had two sons, the older one was in his mid-thirties, Don now remembered. This son had been through a nasty divorce several years earlier and it had devastated Evelyn. He was an accountant and his ex had taken him for all he was worth.

“I think we have our culprit,” Don said.

Kathy looked at him questioningly.

Don put down the file folder. “Evelyn changed the numbers. It’s time to have a talk with her.”

He reached for the phone, paged Evelyn, and then waited.

THE END

FICTION: SUSPICIOUS MINDS by Rekha Ambardar

 “I know it looks bad for me, Detective,” Lila Patterson said, sobbing, “but I didn’t poison Richard. How could I? I was in bed with a sprained ankle this evening.”

Police officers and the forensic unit arrived at the Patterson house after Richard Patterson had apparently died from drinking poisoned lemonade.

Lila had managed to hobble into the living room and was sitting on the sofa.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Detective Bob Merkel said while his assistant, Officer Jensen, pulled out a notepad.

“I was outside, telling the landscaper where I wanted the rock garden when I tripped over a rock and sprained my ankle. I came inside and had Anne, our housekeeper, ice it. Then I rested in bed,” Lila said.

“Were you in bed all evening?” the detective asked.

“Yes. Dinner was sent up.”

“Where was your husband?”

“At work. He came in a little later and ate by himself. After dinner, he brought up a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses,” Lila explained.

“Did he often do that?”

“No. Anne usually brings up the lemonade. You see, I don’t care for coffee.” Lila rubbed her ankle and winced.

“Was the lemonade already poured into the glasses?” the detective asked.

“Only one – mine,” Lila said.

“Anything else you can tell us?”

“I didn’t have any illusions about Richard, Detective,” Lila said with a wry smile. “He married me for my money. We had our squabbles when he bet on racing horses. Actually I was always afraid he’d kill me for my money one day. Sometimes I don’t think he even liked me.”

“Thank you for being honest,” Detective Merkel said.

Merkel and Jensen consulted for a while and decided to question the victim’s teenage son.

The sullen teenager looked up from his laptop when they went into the study and introduced themselves.

“I hope you’re going to make an arrest,” the boy said.

“Whom do you suspect?” the detective asked.

“My stepmother, of course,” he said with obvious glee.

“We have no proof she killed your father.” Merkel said. “Why do you think she killed him?”

“She hated his gambling.” Danny returned to the laptop with a bored look.

“How long have they been married?”

Danny shrugged. “Three years.”

“Were you at home this evening?”

“No. At a friend’s.”

When they were done talking to Danny, they went to the kitchen in search of the housekeeper.

Anne was no more cheerful than Danny. “Mrs. Patterson is a tightwad with money,” she said grouchily. It seemed to the detective that the household was full of people with grievances.

“How long have you worked here?” Detective Merkel asked.

“Four years for Mr. Patterson. Then he got married.” Anne’s mouth set in a hard line.

“I understand that this evening you didn’t take the lemonade to Mr. and Mrs. Patterson?”

“No.”

“Why was that?”

“After dinner Mr. Patterson said he was going upstairs anyway, and that he would take it up,” Anne replied.

Merkel noticed that the housekeeper was youthful and attractive despite her sullenness. “It must have been a kick in the teeth when Patterson got married. Maybe she hoped to marry him herself,” Merkel said to Jensen on their way back to the living room. “I’d like to talk to Mrs. Patterson again.”

“Was your husband in the room the whole time?” he asked Lila.

“Yes, except when he got a call on the cell phone and then he went into the hall to answer it.”

“Any idea who it could have been?”

“Probably one of his gambling buddies,” she said wearily.

“Did you drink your glass of lemonade?”

“No. I was afraid it was poisoned.”

“Mrs. Patterson, your husband was not the intended victim of the poison,” Merkel said. “You were right in thinking he was going to poison you. You might as well let the cat out of the bag. What did you do when your husband was in the hall talking on the phone?

“What are you talking about? I have a sprained ankle. What could I have done?” Lila said angrily.

“What you did you could accomplish while sitting on your bed,” Merkel said. “Let me explain. You emptied the lemonade in the pitcher into the fresh glass, and poured your lemonade back into the pitcher. The lemonade in your glass had already been poisoned, as you had rightly suspected. When your husband returned to the room, he drank the lemonade from the pitcher, assuming it was poison-free. That’s how you poisoned him.”

“Well, Detective,” Lila said, dropping the wounded wife act. “It was either him or me.”

THE END

FICTION: The Cougar's Tale by P.I. Barrington

Cougars. That’s what they call us these days. Older women who date younger men, insinuating women like me prowl the streets hunting for fresh meat. But hunting anything was the farthest thing from my mind then or at any time afterward.

Orchard Town was a typical New England beach town, busy with tourists in the summer and slow as molasses after the ‘leaf peepers’ abandoned the place at the end of October. It came complete with the requisite Cape Cod and Victorian, Federal and Farmhouse style homes in clean, sweet white amongst the ever present foliage. I’d been there three weeks, staying at my sister’s house a few blocks up from the beach where the town proper sat, with its tiny downtown comprised mostly of boutique and souvenir shops that catered to the tourists and maintained the townspeople through the long hard winters.

My sister grudgingly allowed me to stay at her house once I’d been released from the hospital providing quiet and serenity and someplace to regroup. A New England town is a small place and everybody knows everybody else from before they’re born and anyone who didn’t arrive on the Mayflower is ‘from away’ and rarely let into the family fold. From the day I arrived, the town split into two camps: those who ‘accepted’ me and those who didn’t. Pretty much all of them ignored me.

I’d kept my promise to myself and awakened early planning a morning jog along the beach. I headed toward the boardwalk and the tiny ‘business’ district, in reality one narrow street. The spring sky hung grey and misty and threatened to morph into full-on rain at any given moment. For some ill-fated reason I stopped in at the flower shop across the street from the boardwalk. Tiny tinkling of chimes rattled out as I opened the door. I moved slowly, browsing the card and stationery aisles until I ended up at the fresh cut flowers. I leaned down and buried my face into a bunch of Sweet Peas, tied together with raffia.

“Hi.”

I ignored the voice, sweet as it was, and inhaled the flowers’ perfume. Nobody here would be talking to me.

“Um, excuse me. Would you help me please?”

I looked up and then around to see who he was addressing. It couldn’t possibly be me—I always gave off loony vibes—I might be nuts but no angels had ever spoken to me personally.

He looked directly into my eyes and smiled like the sun breaking through storm clouds.

“Which do you think?” He thrust two armfuls of flowers at me.

I hoped my blank expression didn’t look too stupid.

“Uh, those. The daffodils.” I pointed at the bouquet in his left hand.

Good Gosh, where did you get those eyes, I wanted to scream at him, but managed to clamp my mouth shut. Besides, I knew exactly where he’d gotten them—heaven.

“Yes,” I continued insanely. “I’m a spring baby and they’re the harbingers of spring. Very cheerful.”

“Alright, thank you.” He smiled once again and turned toward the cash register.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t the first person I’d terrified by answering like the mental escapee I was. I watched him for a moment; some irrational resentment rising up in my chest. I’d come off an eight-year relationship that ended in a very public meltdown and unleashed my latent mental illnesses forcing a long stay in a ‘rehab’ hospital. Part of that meltdown, I felt sure, was due to the fact that in eight long painful years, I’d never received one blossom, let alone an entire bouquet. During those years I guess I figured if you were desperate enough for affection and attention, you could let a lot pass. Eight years without a flower from the man, not even on my birthday, was a lot.

I walked out the other door of the shop, pulling up my collar, and headed down toward the beach. The mist had changed to drizzle and by the time I reached the sand and rocks, raindrops formed and dumped themselves over the top of my hair flattening it. I kicked small pebbles out of my way, one for each of those eight awful years. I reached a small pile of rocks and began to climb onto them to look out over the horizon that split into two colors: light grey for the sky, darker grey for the sea.

“Hey! Wait!”

Again I ignored the call, crouching upon the largest, most comfortable boulder. I could hear someone breathing hard and finally turned around when the breaths touched me. It was him.

“Here!” he pressed the bunch of daffodils into my hands. “For you,”

I couldn’t find my voice, no matter how I tried. It just wasn’t there.

“I—”

What could I say? Gee nobody’s ever given me flowers except my mom? What the hell do you want? Are you in some sick way attracted to crazy women?

“You said you preferred them,” He said as I hesitated. He looked unsure of himself, gazing at me with sad puppy dog eyes.

“I—I am just …surprised. I don’t know what to say…thank you.” I looked down at the yellow flowers, too bright in the dismal day. Again the cloud breaking smile appeared.

“I just thought you’d like them.”

“Why?”

He shrugged.

“You looked so…sad. Forlorn, really,”

“I did?” I narrowed my eyes at him. What could he possibly want from me? I’d learned some hard lessons about trusting in the last few years. He was by far the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, eclipsing even the love of my life. He squinted up into the rain where tiny drops landed on his lashes and then looked back at me.

“Would you like to get some coffee?”

Now I shrugged. I figured I had nothing to lose.

“Sure.”

We walked up the beach to the street, making small talk and ignoring anyone and everyone passing us by. In the tiny gourmet coffee shop, another trend that cropped up and died agonizingly slow in the last decade, we located a table in the corner, half-hidden and cozily comfortable. He bought coffees for us and returned to the table.

“Do you live here?” He asked, handing me a packet of sugar substitute.

“Well, sort of. “ I ripped open the pink packet and dumped the white crystals into my cup. Then I scooped up a handful liquid creamer cups and began dumping those into my cup. “I’m staying at my sister’s house a mile or two up from the beach. I’m kind of…in transition… at the moment.”

“Um,” He nodded, waiting for the spoon I was using.

"What about you? Do you live here?" I highly doubted it, handing him the spoon.

"Well, believe it or not, I'm in the same situation as you." He smiled. I doubted that too but said nothing.

"What do you do?" I asked like an idiot.

"I'm a musician."

"Um."

"And you?" he asked.

"I'm a director. Film director, that is. At least, I was." I paused after he gave me a blank look. "You're probably too young to be familiar with anything I've done." I gave him a weak smile. "And I'm probably too old to know any of your music." It hurt like hell to say that.

"Doesn't matter," He shrugged once more. "We know each other now." He laughed. "I'm trying to stay in the present."

"Sounds like a good philosophy."

"It's not a philosophy it's therapy."

"I understand that."

He laughed again shaking his head.

"No, really," I insisted. "I understand more than you know, unfortunately."

He still smiled as if he knew some special secret I could never comprehend. Then he glanced around the café with curiosity as if he might discover additional new friends besides me. It was such a youthful movement, so innocent and non-offensive; a sort of wide eyed interest in everything around him and I needed to look away for a moment. I made a decision when I looked back at him. I decided to lay my cards on the table.

"Look," I said. "I'm going to be honest with you. I’m nuts…crazy. I mean it, I'm not being funny. In fact I've just been released from an extended stay, to put it politely, in a mental hospital."

I watched him empty a packet of sugar into his coffee and stir it. He neither replied nor looked up. I continued.

"So, what I'm telling you is this is your chance to escape. You can just get up and walk away. I won't feel hurt, I'll completely understand. It wouldn't be the first time."

Again, no response. He stirred the coffee with deliberation.

"My best friends have walked away. I never blamed them. This is your chance. You can leave right now."

Silence.

"And you don't even have to acknowledge me on the street. Again, it wouldn't be the first time."

Silence. The spoon stopped spinning and he met my eyes.

"Welcome to the club."

"What?"

"What did you think I was doing in this speck of a town?" He paused. "The same thing as you."

"But—but…what happened?"

"My girlfriend. I should say my girlfriend's suicide happened." He frowned, cupping his hands about the mug.

"Surely that wasn't your fault," I said.

"When I told her I wasn't going to marry her, she killed herself. And my child along with her. She never even told me she was pregnant." His voice, low and emotional barely missed cracking.

I sat nonplussed. Here I'd been whining about my misfortunes and he'd been smashed to pieces.

"When the grief and depression set in everyone figured I'd be suicidal too so I agreed to go to Bellevue. They released me four weeks ago after a year of "therapy". My manager has a Cape here and suggested I come and stay for a bit. I must have arrived about the same time as you." He gave me a sad smile and my heart launched itself into my throat.

"I'm so sorry for you," it was all I could think to say. "I was being selfish."

He smiled wider and placed his hand over mine. It was strong and gentle at the same time.

"Selfish? It was her that was selfish. If you want to kill yourself that's one thing but killing an innocent child? That's damned selfish."

"So, now you're just angry?"

"Yes." His smile grew grim. "I checked myself out early. I guess I didn't stay for the part dealing with forgiveness."

I knew it was wrong. I knew I was making a mistake. I knew my sister, the last living relative that could stand dealing with me, would chuck me out on my ear immediately after the townsfolk gleefully informed her of what went on at her beloved Victorian. She liked her privacy and she worked hard to get to this place she treasured. Once again I managed to destroy the people who loved me—what was left of them. I just didn't figure on total annihilation of everyone involved.

I even tried to resist, to list every reason it shouldn't happen, couldn't happen but I found no way to argue with those eyes, no way to debate myself out of the affair, no way to escape. So I gave in and it began.

Flowers every day. Sometimes twice a day. As was the lovemaking. Too bad I never realized that heaven on earth was merely a catchphrase and that the other side of the coin of heaven was hell itself.

"Who were you talking to?" He frowned at me as I hung up the phone.

"Political poll for something or other," I shrugged.

"How did they know you were here?"

"They didn't. It was probably a random call."

"Did they ask for you specifically?"

"I don't know. I don't remember who they asked for, if they did." I shrugged again and frowned myself, thinking it a ridiculous line of questioning.

“Um.” He didn’t look happy so I plopped myself down on the sofa next to him. I brushed away a strand of hair from his eyes. “I don’t like you getting calls from people that you don’t know. I don’t want anyone to know you’re alone here. I worry about you.” He remained frowning. A secret thrill ran through me. He was worried about me?

“Tell them to put you on the ‘no call’ list,” He added.

“Okay.”

“Make sure.”

“I will.” I said when he gave me a look that said he meant it. I planted a kiss on his lips and grasped his hand to lead him into the bed room.

Five days later he snatched the phone receiver out of my hand when I mouthed the words,

“Wrong number”.

“Don’t call here again.” He lowered his voice into a growl.

“It was just a wrong number,” I spat. “What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is if they hear my voice, they’ll think you have a man in the house.”

“But it was just a mistake. They probably don’t even know what number they dialed.”

“Just do what I tell you.” He tugged on his jacket and walked to the door. I bit my lip. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize this relationship. I was already in too deep.

“So, when will I see you again?”

“Later.” He promised, looking into my eyes and giving me a quick peck on the lips.

My heart jerked up into my chest again as I shut the door behind him. What if he didn’t come back? I wasted the rest of the afternoon, doing unnecessary house cleaning, and laundry, anything to pass time and stop worrying. It didn't work. He came back as promised but not in the mood to be disobeyed.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked following him to the door after a particularly rough round of sex. He said nothing, just put his hand around the back of my neck and kissed me hard then turned and walked down the porch stairs. I struggled not to cry. I was forever asking that question. I took my usual fistful of medicines early that night, washed down with a forbidden shot of my sister’s bottle of Tanqueray and after a woozy five minutes I managed to climb the stairs and fall back into the still unmade bed.

I found myself completely entangled in the bedclothes when the pounding started on the front door sometime near 3 a.m. I scrambled out of the bed, keeping the blankets and sheets still twisted around me, the New England spring still wet and cold and yet to emerge into warmth. I stumbled down the stairs, tripping slightly over the trailing material wrapped around my feet.

He stood unsmiling in the dark; wide awake. I blinked several times.

“What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

He pushed past me into the house but said nothing. I turned around to follow him, dragging the blankets with me. I watched him survey the living room, dining room and the formal sitting room in the Victorian. He walked about as if seeking something. He spoke without looking at me.

“I thought I told you to get on the do not call list.”

“I—I forgot. Besides, how would you know that?”

He gave me a look.

“I’ll do it now.” I stomped to the phone that sat on an antique table and picked up the receiver facing him frowning and angry myself. There was no dial tone. “What the fu—“I held the receiver out so he could hear the deadness. “Well, now nobody can call me. You should be happy about that.”

“I am.” He picked up the line that led to the wall. It didn’t. It was severed in one perfectly smooth cut. “I’m very happy.” He smiled. I shook my head and plopped down on the elaborately carved sofa, blankets and all. He remained standing where he was.

“Look, I’m tired and I have a headache. What did you want?”

In one instant the phone line wrapped around my throat twice, effectively cutting off air. I struggled on two fronts; being strangled and being entwined in the bedclothes, neither of which I could escape at the moment. After another instant, fear gave way to anger and I reached up and behind me, clawing at anything that felt vulnerable. I gouged something squishy and the phone line eased enough for me to suck in one desperate gulp of air and flail about ridding myself of the sheet and quilt.

“Bitch!”

He moved forward again but I’d freed myself from the phone cord and leapt away from the couch, turning to face him enraged.

“What is the matter with you? Are you drunk?” I shouted. His only response was an animal growl and I jumped back another two feet out of reach. “Are you crazy?” The word catalyzed him and he actually leaped over the couch back and landed in front of me. The look in those beautiful eyes told me that he was crazy—completely crazy—crazier than I could ever be, even at my worst, most psychotic moment. I squealed in real fright when he reached for me again and sprinted toward the sitting room, concentrating only on getting away. He cornered me at the bay window and I blindly reached out for anything to defend myself. Unfortunately for my sister, it was her beloved Tiffany lamp. I threw it at him and it landed against his cheekbone, slashing his face but stopping him only a second. I didn’t stop to congratulate myself on my great aim; I was too busy screaming in terror. I backtracked to the living room glancing out the windows, praying a neighbor to hear my shrieks and either come to my rescue or at least phone the police. No such luck. My sister’s historical house sat at least two acres away from all neighboring homes and no lights flickered on at my calls for help. I looked back at my one time lover: he’d suddenly assumed an unnatural calm, not quite smiling, but benign in an insane way. I knew in that moment that it was him or me, no compromise possible; no reminiscing about our romantic interlude. Even if I’d tried, I knew also that it would not distract him. He was single minded now, his only thought to destroy me entirely and I guessed in the most gruesome way possible. I half circled the living room moving backward so I could see him at all times. I edged closer to the kitchen, picturing the wooden block that held the butcher knives and my hand reaching out to grab one. He got there first as if he’d seen into my mind and now he half-smiled, the benign expression spreading. It reminded me of a school teacher encouraging a wayward child; informing me that I should have known I couldn’t win. I turned fully away from him, thinking to reach the front door, telling myself if I could just get out I’d make it. But that was before the full on tackle, knocking me face down and exposing my back to the knife. He brought the blade down full force and I screamed louder than I’d ever done in my life more from the pain than from fear of death. Luck suddenly appeared and spared me another moment to save myself by tangling his feet up in the blankets I dropped at the first attack. He’d stood up and lifted me by one shoulder, the bleeding one, with his free hand but I surprised him by leaning into his grasp. He tripped on the material and went down to his knees and in those few precious seconds I found the one thing that might possibly save me from certain murder.

He started to rise from his kneeling position and we stared at one other for a long moment, each breathing hard from the exertion. I raised my arms and beat him to the punch.



*****

“Look at this place. It’s like a Gosh damned slaughterhouse. You wanna’ change your statement now?”

I looked up at the tall thin cop from where I sat on the wet and stained sofa, the walls blood spattered and dripping. My sister stood outside her house, crying and screaming in horror alternately and I knew I’d never speak to her again.

“I told you,” I said, gazing at the body of my once paramour covered with a bright yellow tarp, his beautiful eyes no longer following me in life or death. “It was him or me. I had no choice.”

“You said he was your boyfriend.”

“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”

“Lovers?”

“Yes.”

The cop shook his head.

“Why the hell would he try to kill you? For what reason?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really have time to ask him.”

“So he just suddenly, with no provocation, attacked you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! How many times do I have to tell you?”

Again he shook his head and walked outside, standing on the top stair of the pristine white wraparound porch and talking non-stop to my sister and another cop, one with more authority from his manner and stance. My sister gestured wildly but refused to look at the disaster that was her house; she’d never set foot in it again. I glanced at the long blade they’d taken from my hand, the one that nearly separated his head from his body, lying on the floor, the handle wrapped carefully to prevent contamination. That’s what they said. Blood was drying on it, dark and hard. It was just one more insult to my sister’s peaceful, happy life, the blade of the sword, antique and authenticated; a nearly priceless piece of a coat of arms that hung low enough over the fireplace for my easy reach. The blood spatter covered the glassed case that held the letters of authenticity and the original historical documents that were to her, now worthless. I wondered vaguely if they’d increase or decrease in value now that they were part of a grotesque murder scene, if the press would see to that.

It didn’t matter. I told the truth and that would suffice. After all, I wasn’t in the habit of cutting men’s heads off, regardless my relationship with them. The cop with authority walked up the stairs and stopped in front of me.

“Stand up.” He said without emotion. I stood up.

He pulled out his cuffs and put them on my wrists and started reeling off my Miranda rights before I could fully understand what was happening.

“But why are you doing this?” I asked truly perplexed. “I told you what happened. It wasn’t my fault. I had to defend myself.”

He shook his head as if he’d heard this story a billion times before and pushed me down the porch stairs in front of him. People milled around and distantly I heard bits and pieces of conversation floating around me in the early morning moist air.

“…escaped? How is that possible?”

“…had a history of violence…”

“…did the same thing to her last boyfriend…”

I glanced at my sister, expecting her to look away but she didn’t. She stared at me with an expression I couldn’t identify, staring at me as if she'd never seen me before. I tried to stop but the cop shoved me forward toward a patrol car parked on the two lane road at the mailbox on a wooden post. Flowers were beginning to bud and bloom and in a few days would color the post in rainbows of blossoms if the weather warmed a few degrees. I looked at them as I passed, time slowing down as I thought of how much I loved flowers. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Especially the daffodils.

"Previously published in Suspense Magazine"