So. The novel is done, I like it. I think the two or three fans who've read most of my Smitty short-stories are going to go bananas over it. Now the question is . . . what do I do with it?
Oh, gosh . . . I gotta a confession to make. The idea of hammering out inquiries to various lit agents and/or publishers to take a peek at it doesn't appeal to me at all. But the idea of putting it out there myself isn't that much more appealing.
The question is this; if you put it out there yourself, and have done something like this in the past, have you had in genuine success at it? I mean. . . have actually made more than, say, a buck-two-ninty-five selling it yourself. My suspicion is that no, you haven't. I know I haven't. My experience is, if you don't have the moolah to heavily advertise all across the reading spectrum, you're not going to be successful.
So . . . what the hell, I'll figure something out.
But I thought I'd share this (again.) A few opening paragraphs from chapter one. Enjoy.
One
Nerves.
Twisted to the breaking point. Wound so tight he could barely keep his hands
under control. He sat in the booth of
the small diner and directly across his partner he tried to act calm. Tried to look normal. Impossible.
Even when he lit his cigarette it was obvious. The hand holding the cigarette lighter danced
the flame around at the tip of the cigarette like he was beating a drum. But flipping the old Zippo closed with a loud
snap he slid the shaking hand into a pocket and sat back in the booth. Eyes filled with worry, he turned and stared
into the gloom of a foggy night.
Nerves.
Fear.
Knowing he was doing something wrong. Knowing that, if caught, it would be the end
of his career. The end of
everything. Ten years. Ten years as a cop. Flushed down the tubes and forgotten. If he was caught. If. . .
“Artie, you all right? You feeling sick?”
He blinked a
couple of times, his partner’s voice bringing him out of his dull reverie of
the night’s fog and forcing him to turn and look at the red nosed cop sitting
in the booth opposite him.
His partner for the last two years.
. . an Irishman by the name of Joe Gallagher, sitting across from him lowered
his cup of coffee and looked at him with eyes of concern. All night long on their shift he had barely
spoken three words. But then the call
came in to go out and check on the report of a body lying in the street down in
front of Pier 86. It was another
victim. Another butchered woman. Number five for the maniac the papers had
dubbed ‘The New Jack Ripper.’
“I’m . . . fine, Joe. Fine.
It’s just that, well . . . it’s the fifth prostitute killed. The fifth one on our beat. Cut to pieces like she was a piece of fine
beef fresh from the slaughter house.
Jesus, what a mess. And what a
crowd we had to hold back. I mean,
people everywhere. Reports and
cameramen. Everywhere. Down to get a glimpse of the body. Sick.
Just sick if you ask me.”
His partner frowned, set the coffee
cup on the table, and nodded. Yeah. It had been a bloody mess. Always is when someone is eviscerated. Just thinking about the gory mess the two of
them had stumbled on made him shiver involuntarily.
“Listen, the shift’s over. We can write our reports tomorrow. Let me drop you off at your house. Get some rest. Drink a beer or two. Try to forget about it.”
“You go on home, Joe. I’m supposed to go over to a friend’s house
and drink a couple of beers with him.
I’ll just call a cab and wait for it here.”
Gallagher’s brown eyes narrowed
thoughtfully as he sat in the booth and looked at his partner. Artie Jones was a good cop. A very good cop. Slightly bald, getting a little paunchy
around the middle, always a smile on the man’s face. Yeah, a good cop. But one who thought too much. Cared too much. Maybe . . . maybe tried too hard in trying to
make the world a better place. Not that
there was anything wrong in that. The
trying. The caring. But sometimes it got
to you. Sometimes the meanness of humanity
becomes overwhelming.
Sometimes, to be brutally honest, it
was best to not care so much and just do the job needed to be done. Better that than driving yourself into an
early grave trying to save the souls of those who didn’t want to be saved.
“All right. But get some rest, Artie. Jesus, but you look terrible. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Artie nodded, waved a hand, and
smiled as his partner slid out of the booth and walked to the diner’s
entrance. He turned and watched Joe
unlock the door to the black and white patrol car and slide in. It was almost one in the morning. Dark.
The street lights glowing a dull orange yellow, filling the wind-swept
street with an eerie feeling almost palpable.
What if the sergeant found out? The Louie?
What if someone sees him talking to him? Hell!
Was he even going to meet him tonight?
I mean . . . come on! He was a
cop. He was supposed to stay away for
this guy unless he was arresting him for a crime committed. But hell. His discreet phone call to the
phone number Smitty advertised in the paper, done on a landline in an office
building where no one knew him, asking for help, could get his ass fired if
anyone found out. Everyone knew
Smitty. Supposedly the very expensive
security consultant/private detective who worked out of a small set of offices
over on Brewer Street. A one of a kind
professional who hired out at top dollar, usually to large corporate clients
who needed his kind of specialty. . . i.e., meaning industrial espionage . . .
yet he also worked for individuals.
Rich individuals, but not necessarily always rich individuals. But there were the rumors as well. Every cop in the city knew the rumors. He was supposed to be the mob’s top hit
man. He was supposed to be
invisible. He wasn’t even really known
by those who employed him, for chrissakes!
No two mobsters brought in for questioning ever described Smitty in the
same fashion. He was tall. He was short.
He had shaggy brown hair. He was
a blond with a flat top crew cut. He was
heavy built. He was a slim as a
toothpick. Whenever a victim of a
contract killing was found there wasn’t a single piece of evidence linking
Smitty to anything. No video. No witnesses.
No prints. No residual evidence.
Crazy. Just crazy.
No one could pin anything illegal on
this guy. All anyone could say for sure
was the guy was an absolute merciless killing machine. He somehow could slip in, silence his victim,
and slip out and no one would know until hours later. And he had connections. Knew everyone who was anyone to be known on
the streets. That was the deciding
factor. That was the single point for
him to get this wild idea. Ask Smitty
for help. The police department, the
entire city, was baffled. Scared. Frozen in indecision. This madman left no traces. He left no evidence behind. He left no DNA material behind. It was like .
. . like he was a ghost who prayed upon those who practiced the oldest
profession in the world. No one knew
why.
So maybe it would take a ghost to
find a ghost. A killer to stop a killer.
A shaking hand ran across his lips
as he looked down at his coffee cup.
With the cigarette between his fingers he reached for the cup just as he
heard the noise of an approaching car through the plate glass window beside him. Lifting the cup Artie turned to look outside.
He froze in mid motion. Eyes almost popping out of his head with a
mixture of surprise and horror.
A cab–an old Ford Crown
Victory–battered and abused, sitting parallel to the curb in front of the
diner, its right rear door open.
Waiting. Waiting for someone to
get in. The clatter of his cup slipping
out of his fingers and bouncing on the table top made everyone in the diner
turn and look at him. Blinking a couple
of times, color draining from his face, he stared at the taxi for a heartbeat
or two and then turned to look at the eight or ten people sitting in the
dinner.
They were staring at him. Faces puzzled. Or bemused.
“Hey, buddy!” the guy behind the
diner’s long counter said, holding a phone up to one ear and staring at him
irritably. “It’s the cabby outside. He’s says the meter’s running. So how about it? You want him to take you someplace or not?”
Artie Jones stared at the diner’s
chief cook for a moment in shock and turned his head back to look out the
window and at the waiting taxi. He
hadn’t called for a taxi. The story he
told his partner about going over to see a friend tonight in a taxi was just
that. A story. So how . . . how . . . . how . . . ?
“Hey, Mac! Some time tonight, okay? I got orders to complete.”
Artie felt himself nodding. Moving his hands and his body to slide out of
the booth. He felt himself walking down
the length of the diner and out through the entrance into to the hot
night. Like an out of body experience he
saw himself walking down the sidewalk toward the open door of the cab and
folding himself up and sliding into the back seat. He saw himself close the cab’s rear door–saw
the cab accelerated away from the curb rapidly.
Saw it all–experienced it all. Yet couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it. It was so . . . so surreal. So bizarre.
The car accelerated hard down the
street and then made a sudden right hand turn.
A block later it turned again sharply–and turned again straight into an
alley. The headlights went off as the
car bounced and rolled down through the alley rapidly and came out on the
opposite street. The lights came back on
and the car slowed down.
In front of him all he saw as the
back of the head and the upper shoulders of a man wearing a cabbie
uniform. Glancing down at the back rest
directly in front of him he looked for the small plastic pocket which was
supposed to show the cabbie’s license and photo. There was no license. No photo.
But there were eyes. Cold black
orbs staring at him. Reflecting off the
rear view mirror whenever a sliver of street light flashed past.
Cold eyes. Hard eyes.
The eyes of a killer.
“I hear you’ve been looking for me.”
A surreal, almost rasping harsh
whisper. Coming out of the darkness of the front seat. Unnerving.
Making Artie involuntarily wince.
“Smitty?”
“That’s what some people call me,
Artie. But I answer to a number of
different names.”
He felt a cold chill run down his
spine. He tried to swallow. Tried a couple of times. But he was so scared there was nothing to
swallow. He lifted a hand up to his
face. Almost. But he stopped suddenly when the whisper
exploded in the darkness. Like a scalpel
flashing out of the darkness.
“Make sure you keep you hands away
from your gun, friend. Away from any
pockets. Understand?”
Artie hesitated, looked at his
hands, and then back up at the rear-view mirror and nodded.
“Good. Now tell me. What does an honest cop like you
want to talk to a man like me?”
How was he going to do this? How was he going to ask for help? He was a cop, fer chrissakes. Cops go after the bad guys. Cops solves the murder cases. Cops are the ones who are supposed to protect
the public from madmen like . . . like this new Jack the Ripper. Or from the likes like Smitty.
“Well, you see . . . we’ve . . .
we’ve got a problem. There’s man we’re
after. Crazy, insane. Actually, a fucking madman. He’s going around killing women. Prostitutes.
And we’ve got nothing. Absolutely
nothing. He’s been killing for the last
four months. We know about as much now
about this guy as we did when we found the first body.”
The cab flew down empty
streets. Never staying on one street for
more than two blocks. Swift, hard turns
right and left. Mostly right hand
turns. A few left. But in general Artie got the feeling they
were traveling in one twisted, jagged, clockwise circle. Somehow he knew that when this conversation
was over he would he would not return to the diner.
“So what is it you want me to do.”
It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a statement. It was decision time. For Artie.
Say what had to be said, Artie.
Say it firmly and without hesitation.
And let the Angel of Death, as some people whispered this man actually
was, decide if he would help or not.
“We’ve got to take this guy off the streets. We’ve got to stop him. Stop him before he kills again. So . . . so I’m asking you to help us.”
Silence.
Slivers of light exploding in the
interior of the cab momentarily as they slid underneath a street light. Explosions of light. Followed by enveloping, inky darkness. Surreal.
Down the empty streets the cab flew.
Streets walled in on both sides by long rows of old apartment buildings
and brand new apartment complexes.
Sitting in the back seat of the cab Artie waited. Waited for some kind of response to come out
of the front seat. Waited. And waited.
Each passing second working like a carpenter’s file sliding across raw
nerves.
When the dark figure in front
answered the man’s harsh whisper almost sent Artie screaming out of his seat. But somehow, somehow, he controlled his urges
and tried to react calmly.
“Why would I want to help you,
Artie. You or the police.”
He blinked a couple of times. He opened his mouth to answer. But nothing came out. He realized he had no idea why this man would
help him. Why would a killer hunt a
killer? The only thing he could do was
shrug his shoulders and shake his head in despair.
“I can’t answer that,” he admitted
and smiling weakly. “I don’t even know why I came down here. Desperation I guess. If my desk sergeant or the task force
lieutenant found out I was in this cab with you I’d been suspended indefinitely. Maybe even arrested. Certainly fired. But something tells me we’re not going to
find this guy. Not by our normal
methods. It’s like this guy isn’t
human. He makes no mistakes. He disappears into the night. Leaves nothing behind. So I thought . . . I thought . . . you might
be our best hope. Our only hope to nab
this guy.”
Silence. Again.
The car rocking and swaying as it moved. The flashing explosions of light. The shadows of parked cars and SUVs whipping
past them. The rows upon rows of town
homes and apartment buildings. All of
that painted in layers upon Artie’s hyper active conscience as the figure in
front remained silent and drove.
“How do you know I am not this
madman? You’ve heard the rumors. You know what I sometimes do for a
living. That’s why you’re here, isn’t
it? So tell me, why not consider me as a
prime suspect?”
He shook his head no. Silently. Vigorously. The one thing Artie was sure of was this; the
guy known as Smitty wasn’t a homicidal maniac.
He didn’t kill for some sickly thrill–some perverted pleasure. Smitty was a professional. A master at blending in and out of a
crowd. Of taking out his assignment with
a cold efficiency a lot of his fellow police officers grudgingly admired. And so far . . . so far as he knew . . . this
dark eyed man had never killed an innocent victim. Each of his kills had been someone from out
of the crime world. Someone who
deservedly needed to die.
“I know it’s not you. I know this.
These murders don’t fit your MO.
They don’t make sense. Your hits
always make sense. You hit someone for
money. But your targets are slime balls
who need to be put down. Uh . . no
offense, by the way. About the slime
ball thing.”
A flicker of a smile flashed across
the dark eyed man’s thin lips. But the
eyes never blinked. They kept moving.
Watching. Calculating.
“What do I do with this man if I
find him. Do I kill him? Do I hand him over to you?”
“I dunno, Smitty. I dunno,” he answered.
Truthfully. He didn’t know.
If suddenly a street cop came
walking into the precinct house with this guy cuffed what would he say? How could he explain to everyone this
miraculous nab when the entire detective division was completely stumped. How could he explain this to his
partner? Joe would have a
“So you’re asking me to find this
guy and take care of him. You don’t necessarily
want me to kill him. But you can’t bring him in. And I can’t reveal myself to your
bosses. Interesting. What we have here, Artie, is a conundrum. A social intersection of impossibilities. A most curious dilemma.”
It was as if he was a giant balloon
filled with helium and a kid came along with a big needle and stuck it in
him. All the energy, all the worry, the
fears, the emotions, dissipated out of him and into the night like escaping
helium out of the balloon. Dropping his
head in defeat he stared at his hands silently.
Blinking back tears of frustration.
