A Busy Writing Season

Its been, and is, a busy writing season.  Working on projects galore.  So far this year I am writing on three novels, while at the same time, trying to get out onto the market four separate projects (two collections of short-stories and novellas; two separate novels).

This is one of 'em.  The two-novella set featuring the early novellas of Smitty, my dark eyed wunderkind of a hit-man.

Yes, the novellas were published earlier in a collection of combined short-stories and longer pieces.  But I've felt for a long time the two longer stories should be back-to-back showpieces in a separate offering.  And then somehow pushed out onto the market more vigorously.

We've talked about Smitty before.  How he came along in a serendipitous-like accident.  How he seems to have made himself truly unique in a sub-genre filled with hit-man/assassin characters.

(Look back in previous posts.  You'll find a number of discussions about Smitty.  Along with a few short stories)

Today I thought I might share the opening chapter of novella number two in the collection.  Called, A Killing Kiss, it's basically about the dark eyed man becoming . . . of all things . . . almost like a shinning knight in black armor.  Yes, he actually does save a damsel in distress!

Hope you like it.  Hope this might whet your appetite for both of'em.

A Killing Kiss

 

            Through the gloom of the night he saw the flash of bright tail lights of the Mercedes as it slowed before turning off the highway and onto the paved county road.   The black top road was miles outside the city.  It cut a narrow swath through a thick forest as it wound its way around the bases of small hills and generally meandered toward the Mississippi River.

            In the darkness of the heavy four wheel drive pickup he was driving his thin lips pulled back into grim little sneer.  Down shifting into third he slowed as the black top road approached and then rolled the big Ford F-150 onto the county road and sped up rapidly.  Two miles ahead was a steep, narrow curve in the road he had chosen for the hit to go down.  On one side the black mass of a steep hillside filled with trees crowded up against the road’s pavement.  On the other side a ditch.  Actually a deep creek filled with trees and underbrush on its steep sides and deep, fast moving water down at the bottom.

            The perfect spot.

            Ideal for what he had in mind.

            The perfect resting place for victim number one.

            The big Ford engine up front increased in volume as he pushed the vehicle well past eighty in an effort to catch up to the Mercedes.  In moments the tail lights of the German luxury car came into sight.  Inside the car he knew its driver would be suspecting nothing as the head lights of his big truck came up fast on its rear bumper.

            Just another good’old boy heading down to the river to do some fish’n.  Maybe fishin’ and sippin’ the suds some.  Big boys and their big powerful toys.  Always ran this road a little too fast–a little too recklessly.

            Yes . . .

            That’s exactly what Charlie Rich would be thinking as bright headlights lit up the rear view mirror on his windshield.  Just another good’ole boy . . .

            Except.

            Except the front end of the big truck had a tubular steel pipe bumper system strong enough to smash through brick walls.  So just as the giant machine smashed into the left rear fender of the Mercedes Charlie Rich had no time to react.  The truck hit him with a tremendous blow–throwing the car’s tail around to the right so violently the big car began sliding out of control and heading straight for the drop off down into the creek below.

            Tires screeching, Charlie sawing desperately back and fourth on the steering wheel in a useless effort to bring the care under control.  But it was a useless gesture.  With the big Ford engine of the pickup behind him screaming in anger poor Charlie had no chance.  The right set of wheels slipped off the pavement and down into loose gravel.  The sudden change was enough to flip the car on its side.  Sparks flew as the metal of the car skidded back onto the pavement.  But instead of slowing down the nose of the Ford pick up kept slamming into the car like an enraged black rhino–slamming into the Mercedes with sledge hammer blows that continued to push the car toward the edge of the creek embankment.

            One final blow and the Mercedes titled dangerously for a half second on the edge of the creek . . . and then disappeared altogether in a blinking of an eye.  Smitty screeched to a halt only inches away from the creek’s edge and threw open the pick up’s door and jumped out.  In the darkness the tumbling roar of the Mercedes rolling and crashing through the underbrush and bouncing off the rocky walls of the creek filled the dark eyed man’s ears.  A grinding, ripping, shattering series of explosive sounds as he stood on the creek’s ledge and looked down.

            Ninety feet.

            Ninety feet to the bottom and then . . . distinctly . . . the splash of the car diving, roof top first, into the swiftly moving deep stream.  If the drop of ninety feet  didn’t kill the overweight, wheezing mobster the fast moving water would.  Charlie Rich didn’t know how to swim.  If by some miracle Charlie survived the fall he wouldn’t have time to unstrap himself and climb out of the car.  The water was frigid cold.  The car was a smashed and twisted heap of metal.  He made sure of that.  No way to get out of the car easily.  No way.

            A grim little smile stretched across Smitty’s lips as he turned and climbed back into the Ford.  Charlie Rich was a dirty little bastard who needed killing.  The small time hood who liked to hurt people.  Liked to inflict pain.  He wasn’t a nice man.  One of Jacob Menten’s henchmen, Charlie Rich had thoughts of taking over his boss’s operations.  Becoming the boss himself.   The boss–Jacob Menten–was dead.  Dead from a massive heart attack.  His organization was without a leader.  A leader strong enough to keep the organization together.  There was a void at the top and if someone didn’t step up soon and take over the organization was going to fold.  And some other underworld kingpin would move in and take over the territory.

            But not Charlie Rich.  Charlie was out of the picture.  Permanently. 

            One down.  Five more to go.

            Closing the door the dark eyed man pushed the gearshift up into reverse and backed up.  It was time to leave.  Time to start working on hit number two.  Time to start working down the list.  One at a time.  Time to make Jacob Menten’s wife and young son safe.  Safe from the wolves gathering to feast on the corpses of their leaders if something wasn’t done.  Something drastic.

           

****

 

            It all began a week earlier.  A week earlier on a day that was a cold, gray overcast day in the middle of a cemetery.   Underneath a big elm tree a small knot of men in women, most dressed in various shades of black, stood around a freshly dug grave and mutely watched as a large bronze colored casket was slowly lowered into the ground.  In the middle of the gathering was a young woman dressed in black with a black veil over her face. Yellow hair, the color of ripened wheat, cascaded down past her shoulders.  A startling bright splash of color in a sea of mourning.  Tall, slender, almost like a Greek statue of Aphrodite herself, she stood in the middle of the mourners holding her month old baby close to her.

            She was Jacob Menten’s wife.  Charlene Menten.

            Unbelievable gorgeous.  And more–the mask of her Hollywood kind of beauty hid a brilliant mind.  A brilliant mind intellectually matched with the soul of a giving, loving, tender mother.  Marking her, unfortunately, a prize beyond compare.

            Encircling her were the six henchmen Jacob Menton relied on to keep his organization running smoothly.  Charlie Rich.  Harry Bosley.  Will Marconi.  Greg Tarkanian.  Stu Sheppard. Mick O’Toole.  Six strong, ruthless, greedy men who stood respectfully by the boss’s wife and paid their respects to the dead.  Yet stood each eyeing each other and wondering how and when the first one would begin the process of taking over the business.  Meaning . . . who would be the first to be knocked off.

            From a distance, standing beside a large tree, he had watched the funeral service in silence.  Watched the six men standing close to the beautiful widow.  Watched as they lowered Jacob Menten in the ground.  Watched as each of the six henchmen stepped toward Charlene with a few words of condolences and then moved away.  Watched as, one by one, each of the hoods drifted back to their cars and drove away.  Drove away leaving the woman and her baby standing alone by the heap of freshly dug ground of her husband’s grave.

            Charlene lingered by the grave a few minutes more.  Stood holding her baby in his layers of warm blankets and stared down at the fresh grave.  And cried.  Cried silently but forcefully. Tears flowing down her cheeks and ruining her makeup. 

            Eventually the weeping subsided.  Eventually she tried to wipe the tears from her face.  Eventually she took a deep breath, looked up at the gray overcast sky, and turned to walk back to the limousine waiting for her.  Head down, carefully watching how she moved across the dead grass of the cemetery in high heels, she didn’t look up and see the man standing beside the open rear door of the limo until she stepped onto the paved road.

            A thin man.  Not tall.  Not short.  With a sharp, angular face oddly attractive.  Wearing jet black shades covering his eyes.  Dressed in a black, tailored and quite expensive suit.  Handsome . . . yet, somehow . . . with an air of menace to him.  Of violence kept under control.  Barely.

            “I’m your friend, Mrs. Menten.  A friend of yours and your son’s.”

            “Who . . . who are you?”

            “Shall we get out of the cold?  I’m sure the baby is beginning to feel uncomfortable,” the soft voice of the menacing man answered, opening the rear door for her and the baby.

            Charlene Menten pressed the soft bundle of blankets closer to her and nodded, long blond hair rustling softly across her shoulders in the process.  Sliding into the rear seat she moved over some, giving room for the dark men to slide in as well.  When he did and closed the door the driver of the limo–a man close to her husband–said nothing but started the car up and began driving.

            “He knows me, Mrs. Menten.  Knows why I am here.  Your husband didn’t trust too many people.  But he trusted Otto.  You can be sure of Otto’s loyalty.  As you can of mine.”

            “But who are you?  Why are you here?  How did you know my husband?”

            Charlene Menten had a husky voice.  A voice that captured your attention immediately.  A voice he knew Jacob Menten could not have disregarded.  Her beauty–her voice–would have, did actually, capture Jacob Menten’s heart the moment she spoke to him the first time.

            “Most people know me as Smitty.  I worked, shall we say, on assignment for your husband down through the years.  On mutually beneficial business transactions more as partners than as employer to employee.  Over the years Jacob began to trust me.  As I trusted him.  That’s why I am here.  My last assignment he asked me to complete when the time came.”

            “I . . . I’m confused.  What assignment?  When did Jacob talk to you last?”

            Confusion.   Consternation.

            A vague portrait of growing panic filling the green eyes of the beautiful woman beside him.  He almost smiled.  The smell of her perfume drifting to his nostrils.  The luster of her dark blond hair almost making the interior of the car glow.  Her voice.  Her youth.  An image of unattainable beauty sitting beside him.  A woman of desires.  A woman to be desired.  Coveted and desired.  A trophy waiting to be snatched up and claimed by the one strongest enough to take over the organization.

            Unless.  Unless . . .

            “Jacob called me two weeks ago.  Said he wanted me to do something for him.  Said it was important.  Made me promise.  I agreed.  And so here I am.  Fulfilling that promise.”

            “What promise?” she asked, a gloved hand coming up to pull back the thin black veil which had partially hidden her face.  “What are you talking about?”

            “Your husband knew he was going to die, Mrs. Menten.  Knew someone within his organization was going to kill him.  He didn’t know who.  Or how.  But he was sure someone was after him.  So he made me promise him.  Made me promise him that if he died within a year of our conversation I was to come to town.  Come to town and find his killer.  Find his killer and protect you and his son from harm.”

            “His killer,” the beautiful woman’s husky voice repeated, her eyes widening in horror.  “Jacob was murdered?  You’re saying one of his friends murdered my husband?”

            Smitty, dark eyes hidden behind the black wrap around shades, said nothing as the black limo moved silently past the hundreds of headstone of the deceased.  But beside him the soft whimper of a woman quietly crying again–crying and trying not to at the same time–came to his ears.  And in her arms the baby stirred and made the first little squeak of a hungry child.  

Turner Hahn and Frank Morales at OneTrueMedia.com

The promo video for my newest release.

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Let's Celebrate

To celebrate this collection of Turner Hahn and Frank Morales coming out soon, I thought I'd tickle your fancy with one of the stories found in the collection.  There's twenty-one short stories in it.  Twenty-one stories written over a three year period.  Some good.  Some average.  Several, I think, very, very good.

Here's one which, in my not so humble opinion, is one of the best of the lot.  It's call Prove It.  About a cop going over the deep end.  I think you're gonna like it.

I've talked about Turner and Frank before.  About how close they are to me.  About wanting to write hardboiled stories that featured 'buddies' working, backing each other up, in the dark alleys of Mankind's darker side of humanity.

It is quite possible these guys will never be a popular as I think they should be.  Too bad.  They're really two unique characters.

So here's Prove It.  Hope you like it.

By the way, the collection should be out by the middle of this month (September.)

Prove It

 

 

            We were the first on the scene. 

            A hot night, just after a major thunderstorm, the streets wet with steam rising off the parking lot like malevolent wraiths. 

            The car was parked in a glazed and glistening empty ten acres of wet asphalt. The only car parked in this flat pool table of loneliness.  A metallic island in a sea of black.  Pulling up behind the Caddy de Ville we got out, unbuttoned our sport coats and walked to the car slowly, each of us gripping our weapon just in case.  At three in the morning you expect anything.  Especially if you’re a cop and you get a phone call that said something about screeching tires, shouting voices, and gunfire.

            She was sprawled on the front seat of the caddy with half her head missing.  Most of it was a dark smear across the right side passenger door and window.  A big caliber gun held just in front of her left ear had done the trick.

            Efficient.  But messy.

            She was in her early forties.  A blond with a skimpy summer dress of black with white poke dots.  A dress that was way too tight but one that nicely expressed the trim compactness of her frame.  Lying on the floorboard in front of the slumped over body was a big purse of black plastic.  Between the purse and her, lying on the bloody leather seat, was a blood stained business card.  Looking up at my partner I grunted and pointed to the card.

            “Can you read it from your side?”

            Frank grunted and bent down to look through the passenger side window.  Think ‘thug’ when you think of Frank.  Or misanthrope.  Maybe Neanderthal would be better.  Big, ugly, with stringy red hair and a nose about the size of a Goodyear blimp.  But don’t voice your thoughts.   There are some things best kept to your self.

            “Can’t,” he said, standing up and shaking his head. “Too much shit on the window and not enough light.  Let me get a flashlight and maybe you can read it on your side.”

            “Right,” I nodded, looking up and at the back of the big man as he walked back to our car. “Run the license plate while you’re at it.  I think I know this car.  I’ve seen it before.”

            I pulled out my cell phone, flipped it open, and called for an ambulance and forensics team.  In the middle of my talk I heard footsteps behind me.   Turning, Frank stood staring at me.  The look on his face told me I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.

            “Turn, the car belongs to Grace McKenzie.  She’s Dave McKenzie’s wife.”

            Sonofabitch.

            Dave McKenzie was Officer David McKenzie.  One of our own.  A patrol officer stationed in the South Side Division.  He was downstairs in the patrol divisions.  We were upstairs in the detective division. We knew the guy.  Knew him for years.  Knew how much in love he was with his unfaithful wife.  Knew how much of a hot head he could be if anyone started making smart-ass remarks about her.  And when he became angry it was a mean, brutal anger.

            Mean enough to murder.

            “Can you see the card now?”

            Frank lifted the flashlight and shot a white-hot beam through the driver’s side window.  Bending down he squinted and grunted before standing and clicking the light off.

            “Ruby’s Irish pub,” he said. “And someone’s written a phone number and what looks like a motel room number across the front of it.”

            Ruby’s was a decent little place to catch a beer or a stiff drink across town.  It was frequented by the young college types who were professionals in some kind of high dollar tech or corporate job.  Lots of women could be found there.  Women who were looking for a good time with someone who had money to burn.

            “Turner, we’d better find Dave and get him isolated.  If he finds out someone zipped his wife he’ll go ape shit.”

            “Unless he already has,” I nodded, staring down at the corpse.

            Dave worked the same shift we did.  So by rights he should be somewhere on our side of town sitting in his black and white with his partner.  He wasn’t.  A couple of phone calls later confirmed it.  Dave came to work all right.    But around nine p.m. he got a phone call and had to go home.  Family emergency, he told his patrol sergeant when called in.

            That didn’t sound like Dave.   Dave was like clockwork when it came to his job.  He never got sick.  He never was late.  Always willing to pull a few more hours when he could.  That wasn’t Dave to suddenly check out and go home.

            We drove over to Dave’s house.  A big, rambling old two story Victorian set in the middle of a block lined with old elm trees.  A house—a neighborhood—to raise a family on.  To see kids playing in the front yard or riding bicycles down the sidewalks.  But Dave and Grace never had kids.  Only ten years of arguing and unfaithfulness; with Dave being the workaholic, dedicated cop and Grace being . . . Grace.

            The house was big, black . . . and lifeless.  Even the detached garage, with its doors wide open and inviting, felt dead.

            Ruby’s Irish Pub locked its doors at two in the morning.  Glancing at my watch I noticed it was a little past four.  A couple of more hours and the sun would be coming up.

            In silence we drove over to The Adirondacks Motel off the 456 exit on the north side of town.  The scribbled phone number was from the motel.  Driving into the still pre-dawn parking lot of the hotel we got out of the car and stared up at the room listed on the card.  Around us the still air was as silent as a morgue’s during after hours.  Even the traffic up on the bypass just a block away was eerily absent.     

            Glancing at Frank I could see it in the set of his jaw muscles.

            He was getting bad vibes just like me.

            Something didn’t feel right.

            It didn’t take long to find it.  The motel door was splintered and partially open.  Frank used a gloved hand to push the door open gently as we both reached for iron.  We waited for a few second and then slid into the blackness of the room half expecting gunfire to greet us.  No gunfire.  But lying in the middle of a rumpled bed was man dressed in slacks and a white shirt with stringy brown hair and large blue eyes staring up at the ceiling.  He looked to be about forty.  Arms had been pulled behind him and layers of gray bound them tight.  Over his head was a plastic bag sealed at the neck with more duct tape.  There were bruises on the arm from someone powerful who had yanked the dead man’s arms back to bind them.  There were a lot of bruises on his battered face from being slapped around a lot before the bag was pulled over his head and sealed shut.

            Whoever wanted this guy dead wanted to extract a little pain from him first.  The kind of pain that . . . say . . . a jealous husband might want to extract.

            As we stood on either side of the body Frank was on his cell phone calling for forensics my phone chimed up.  Pulling it out, I flipped it open and grunted.

            “Turner, this is Blake.  I know where you can find Dave.”

            Blake Gauge was a big black cop, the biggest I’d ever seen, and who had been Dave’s patrol sergeant for years.  He and Dave were old friends.  If anyone might have a line on Dave’s whereabouts it would be Blake.

            “When he gets down in the dumps over something Grace's done he usually goes and hangs out in a dive called Calypso’s down on Second.  Know the place?”

            I knew the place.  An all night hole in the wall filled with the blue haze of chain smoking hucksters and down on their luck drifters drowning their sorrows in tall glasses of ice cold beer. The place always had that dry smell of old urine and stale beer hanging faintly in the air and the lights were always turned low.  A good place for a stranger to lose himself in a crowd if he wanted to.

            We found him sitting, alone, at the end of the bar.  In front of him was a half consumed bottle of cheap whiskey, an astray overflowing with dead butts, a pack of cigarettes on the bar in front of him, and a bowl of shelled peanuts.  In sat in the middle of a thick haze of cigarette smoke which seemed to just hang in the air.

As Frank and I walked into the place David shook a fresh cigarette out and lit it.  Blowing smoke over his head he reached for the book of whiskey and poured himself a drink just as Gus, the bartender on duty this morning, strolled over to us.

            “Boys, get him outta here.  Take him somewhere and sober him up.  He’s in a sour mood and is scaring the hell out the customers.  I don’t want any trouble.  And I sure as hell don’t want this place busted up!”

            “How long has he been here?” Frank asked, his face turning hard and grim.

            “Since around one this morning.  Came in here, Bill told me, a little past one and went through the first bottle of whiskey like it was bottled water.  That’s the third he’s working on now.  He should have passed out a long time ago.  If he doesn’t die of alcoholic poisoning his liver will kill him soon enough.”

            We nodded and moved past the wiry little bald bar tender and strolled down the bar toward our friend.  Both of us were tense.  Expecting anything.  David was acting strange—not the loud, grinning cop we normally saw.  Not drunk either.  He seemed distant.  Aloof.  Amazingly calm.  But he looked like hell.  Red bleary eyes, disheveled, sweaty brown hair—wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt which looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week.

            We’ve seen this kind of change in personality before.

            It never turned out well.

            We slid up to the bar, bracketing our friend like two hulking bookends.  Dave acted as if he hadn’t noticed.  Exhaling a long pillar of cigarette smoke he watched it for a moment or two dissolve into the cloud of smoke hanging over him and then reached for his drink.

            “Dave,” I said softly but firmly. “You know why we’re here.  We need to go downtown and talk.  And then we need to get you some help.”

            The fleeting glimpse of a grin flashed across his gray lips just before taking a drink.  Lowering his glass he didn’t turn to look at either of us. 

            “Ever love someone, Turner?  I mean, really love someone.  Love someone so much they became a part of you.  Like breathing.  Like blood pulsing through your veins.  Ever love someone like that?”

            I shook my head no and said nothing.  Frank said nothing but I saw him spread his feet out and clinch hands into fist.  Coming off the bar I unbuttoned the sport coat but made no other move.  Behind me I heard chairs sliding back hurriedly and feet pounding across the wooden floor heading for the door.  Even Gus seemed to have disappeared.

            “I loved her, Turn.  Grace.  I loved her like no one could love her.  Sure, she had a temper.  We had our shouting matches.  We had our fights.  But never . . . never did she doubt that I loved her.  Never.  Not even when she’d come home at odd times of the night and day looking like she’d been sleeping in some back alley with a dead wino.”
            A rattling, half-sob of a sigh came out of the man’s chest and eyes filled with tears.  But with a steady hand he poured himself another drink and sat the bottle down in a slow, deliberate fashion before speaking.

            “But it never lasts, friend.  You know.  Love—it never lasts.  One day something happens.  One day you wake up and find her gone again.  She’s not in your bed.  She’s not downstairs cooking breakfast.  She’s nowhere around.  So it just happens.  Like catching the flu.  One day something just . . . . snaps and you realize you can’t take it any longer.  You realize she never loved you.  Realize you were nothing but a patsy—a lunch ticket—to her and nothing else.”

            “So what happened, Dave?  Who was the guy in the motel?”  I asked.

            “Some shit head for a traveling salesmen who would call her up every time he got into town.  From Pittsburg.  An asshole with a nice wife and three kids.  Didn’t give a damn about his wife or kids.  For the last five years . . . five fucking years . . . the two of’em would go out on the town.   Party . . . get shit faced drunk. . . screw around.  Five fucking years.”

            I nodded.  I heard the pain and anger in his voice.  I was very familiar with this tale.  Scribble in different names—different events.  But the story was disturbingly similar.  And similarly, potentially very dangerous.

With a smooth, calm effort Dave slid off the bar stool and half turned toward Frank.

            “Before we go anywhere, Turn, I need to take a piss.”

            “Hold it,” I grunted in a hard voice.

            Dave half turned and faced me with an odd grin on face.  But he didn’t stop.  With a bang the flimsy wooden door slammed shut and we heard the click of the lock from the inside.

            “Sonofabitch!” hissed Frank as he turned and started moving toward the head.

            “He’s gonna blow his fucking brains out, Turn!  He’s not gonna let us take him in alive.”

            We both jumped for the bathroom door—but stopped suddenly in our tracks when we hard the toilet flush.  The door banged open and out stepped Dave drying hands off with a thick wad of paper towels and that same strange—odd—grin on his lips.

            “What?  You think I was gonna try to escape?  Run?  No?  Oh, I know. You thought I’d eat my on piece.  Check out by painting brain matter all over the bathroom walls.  Ha, that’ll be the day.”

            Jesus.

            That’s when I got scared.  I’ve seen all kinds of strange things being a homicide detective.  I’ve seen just about every way a person can die.  Naturally and unnaturally. Frank and I have arrested bad people.  Mean people.  Innocent people who, in the heat of anger or fear, made terrible decisions.  But I’d never encountered this.  The guy who walked into the head was David McKenzie.  The guy who walked out wasn’t.  Sure, he looked like the guy we used to know.  He sounded like the guy we used to know.  But he wasn’t Dave McKenzie.  Somehow David McKenzie’s soul died in that dirty, filthy bathroom and the person who came out was someone entirely different.  Different inside.

            “So,” the stranger grunted, his odd—evil—smile widening in pleasure. “Someone must have iced Grace and shit head.  Wonderful.”

            “You did,” I said, pulling out handcuffs and stepping toward the stranger.

            A menacing laugh rolled out of the stranger’s chest.  Dead eyes stared directly into mine.  Dead eyes of a soulless creature. I still remember the tone, the snarl of pure hate, in his voice as he replied.

            “Prove it.”

            And—as you might guessed—we didn’t.  We never found the murder weapon.  There were no fingerprints either on the Caddy or in the hotel room.  There were no witnesses. 

            We had nothing.

            He walked.  Walked out of jail. Laughing.  Laughing as moved down the stone steps of downtown lockup and disappeared into the night,

           

           

The Making of a Good Movie

As yourself this;  What makes for a good movie?  What separates a truly good movie from the also-runs?  Is it plot?  Car chases? Action galore?  Photography?  Great actors?  A great director?

What?

I'm going (raising my hand meekly in front of a ruler-armed matriarchal dominatrix) for a great plot.  The story telling. . . in both the said and unsaid, makes the best of stories.

Yes, Veronica dear;  the silences one can encounter in a movie can be as loud, and as needed, as the verbiage or the beautiful imagery.

Take for instance the Alan Ladd movie, The Blue Dahlia.  Filmed in 1946 and starring Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix and Howard da Silvia, it is one brilliant cinematic masterpiece of hardboiled noir.  And guess who wrote the script . . . the noir master himself; Raymond Chandler. (I won't bother you with a detailed description of the movie.  But trust me . . . you'll like it.)

What makes the movie so delicious is both the pacing, the photography and the quality of the writing displayed.  There's nothing flashy about the movie.  There's no explosions.  No recklessly insane (and unbelievable) car chases.  No incredible escapes from imminent danger.  But there is a story.  There is palpable emotion.  There is a genuine mystery.

There is imagination.

Maybe that's it.  It's not so much story telling as it is imagination.  Figure out a way to run some high voltage through one's imagination and you have a hit.  You have that proverbial 'captive audience.'

Let me me give you a couple of examples.

Here is the sci-fi movie, Elysium.  Came out this year (2013).  About an Earth that is bereft of any resources now solely occupied by the poor and downtrodden while the super rich reside in paradise on an orbiting space colony large enough for everyone planet side to see with the naked eyes day or night.

A simple story, really.  Told so many times it should be boring.  But the pacing, the visuals, the story itself, gripes you and doesn't let go.

Above everything else . . . it's the imagination that captures you  and doesn't let go.  Here perhaps it is the visuals that tell more of the story and the words do.  (I'm thinking of the shots of the modern day slums of Mexico City used to portray Earth in the 22nd Century). 

People.  People everywhere living in squalor.  Absolutely stunning to behold.

Another current movie (2013) it's directed by the South African, Neill Blompkamp (the same guy who wrote and directed District 9), the movie has Matt Damon and Jodie Foster in it.  It's a wonderful movie that should be seen by everyone.

My third example of imaginative story telling is this one.  2Guns.

Not a big movie.  Not a blockbuster.  It won't see the super crowds a lot of other movies will see this year.  But the story telling is superb.  Superb in a different way if compared to the one just mentioned.

This one relies not so much on imagery as it does in a complex plot.  You have to pay attention, especially with the opening sequence, to understand what's going on.  There are twists and turns and double-crosses and treachery galore.    Who can you trust?  Who is the bad guy?  Or is everyone the bad guy?  Just the stuff to jack up a noir fan from the get-go.

Back to that ole' frying pan again:  Imagination.

Capture the imagination and you capture the audience.  And to capture the audience means to tell a great story.  In whatever mode you choose to use.

But there is an addendum to this expose I should throw in.  And it's this.  Could the three pictures above be as good as they are IF the original actors were replaced with someone else?  Would the chemistry, the chutzpah, the believability be as real?

Good question, Maynard.  Maybe that's for another blog, eh?

A Good Story, Good Art . . . and Luck

Let's talk a little about three of the many components you need to write something that sells.  That is in itself something of a contradiction in terms since, if I wanted to be honest, I would have to admit very little of my writings have sold much.

So let me rephrase my opening statement;  Let's talk a little about my theories on three of the many components needed in order to write something that sells.  Take the theories as you like.  Accepting them as genuine, viable concepts.  Or take'em as nothing more than BS and throw'em in the toilet bowl and flush.

(Hmmm . . . I believe I can hear the disturbing sounds of flushing now across the entire globe.)

One;  Ultimately you need to write an excellent story.  What a reader is basically looking for is a story that they can sink their teeth into.  That gets their imagination fired up.  One that presses all kinds of emotional buttons internally.  Without a story that plucks the strings of at least one or two of these emotional buttons, the writer has failed and the reader is going to find something/someone else.

Notice I said ' . . . at least one or two of these emotional buttons.'  The perfect writer who has composed the perfect story SMACKS ALL of the emotional buttons.  But who the hell is the perfect writer?  When was the last time you've read the 'Perfect' story?  If you're like me, you have to admit that piece of pleasantry has been rather rare in one's life.  And getting more rare as we age.

Which, in my opinion, explains why a lot of mediocre writers become multi-national best sellers.  Somehow . . . someway . . . readers found one or two of their buttons were pressed in reading a certain writer who, for many reasons,  others of various habits think is a writer not worthy to read at all. 

You can name writers whom you love . . . and writers whom you despise.  Your list and my list may or may not have any resemblances to'em.   Two writers come instantly to mind and both sell GAZILLIONS of books each year.

And so it goes.

The second necessity for a writer is good artwork for your efforts.  In order to get the reader to cough up the price for your creation something has to catch their eye.  Lots of readers go for the artwork (be it as the cover or a traditional print cover or the cover as an ebook).  From there they may journey on to read the descriptive blurb about what's inside.  But the journey begins with the visual stimulation.

In many respects the artwork acts like a surreal mirror reflecting what the story inside the cover is going to be.  Like the story itself, the cover must activate the imagination of the reader; offering the reader the possibilities that not only the story will stimulate the imagination, but it holds the promise of perhaps stimulating the other five senses as well.

Traditionally publishers took care of the artwork.  A mistake, if you ask me.  A mistake in the sense that many publishers have no clue what good art for a cover should look like.  Some publishers are even down right pernicious when it comes to artist, willing to slap any ole' photo onto a cover and then trying to make up for the mistake by inserting large bold print across it in an effort to make it look 'Modern.'

I have always thought it was incumbent on a writer to have a very large say in both the composition of the artwork and in its approval for being the composition accepted by the publisher.  Unfortunately I suspect at least in the traditional publisher world the writer has very little say in the matter.

Finally comes the third, and most mysterious, component of all.  Luck. 

Pure, unadulterated, serendipitous LUCK.

Think of all the mega-produced books/series that have been whipped up by major publishers which have fallen flat on their faces and died horrible deaths from readers who had little, if any, interest in them.  Now think of books/series which have come out nowhere . . . literately nowhere . . . and stormed the citadels of the reading public like the hordes of Mongolian horsemen of Genghis Khan.

(Can anyone say the name,  Harry Potter?)

Sheer luck.  Inexplicable.  Unexpected.  Stunning to behold.

As far as I am concerned all the pundits who have said, "Work hard and you make your on luck" must have been on a drug overdose when they uttered such balderdash.  I haven't met a writer yet who doesn't work hard writing their material.  Yes, some writers are better salesmen when it comes to pushing their material out to the general public.  But I suspect that's more attributable to the amount of money a writer is willing to spend out of his own pocket to buy the promotional material he needs than anything else.

Writing a bad novel, as the pundits say, takes every bit as much time as writing a Pultizer prize winner.

But Luck just comes along.  It drifts in like a low lying fog late at night.  One moment its not there.  The next it suddenly has engulfed everything in sight with a white, surreal, envelope of translucence.

What are the factors which induces Luck to appear?  No one knows.

Above are the three covers I am going to use on my Agnastas Hoolia serial novel I'm writing.  I think the story line is excellent.  I think the artwork is more than just adequate.  I think it is award-winning (always open for debate, of course).  So I think I can safely say I have two of the three attributes needed to become successful.

But Luck?  What about Lady Luck?

Gosh.  I wish the hell I could bank on that persnickety woman to show up.  But I can't.  All I can do is cross my fingers and hope.

(Oh, by the way . . . look at my last blog and you can read the first chapter of the Agnastas Hoolia novel.  You tell me if the story is good or not)

The Steampunk Spy; Agnastas Hoolia

A steampunk--fantasy--spy--adventure novel.  A novel broken down into a four-part serial and introducing Agnastas Hoolia to the unsuspecting reading public.

Agnastas Hoolia. 

Part spy  . . . part adventurer . . . a talented wizard.  Works for twelve clans of magicians (White Magic) who have formed an organization called The Inter Dimensional Magic Bureau.
A very large organization which spans through Time and Space who combat the dark machinations of the twenty six or so clans who use Black Magic to further their devious plans. (Their plans being, of course, to dominate and rule entire worlds found in the nineteen or so known universes)

The idea is to bring out a four-part novel with each novel between 22,000 to 28,000 words.   Each part has its own cover.  I thought I'd reveal the cover and maybe share the first chapter of the novel.  Just to whet your appetite, of course.

I'm waiting for some black and white pen drawings to be completed (six in total) I plan to insert into the entire novel.  The first two will be found in the first offering.  I'm looking for dark and moody pen and ink renderings.  If they come out well it should be one hell of a reading adventure!

There's some editing to be done---and the artwork yet to come.  But I thought maybe you'd be interesting in seeing what's being stewing around in my head lately.  So without fanfare, here you are . . .

August. 1873.  New York City.

            The hottest time of the year to be in the city.  Especially this part of the city.  The inhabitants called it The Bowery.  The southern portion of the city filled with the poor and the final destination for the ever increasing masses of freshly arriving immigrants swarming daily through Ellis Island and flooding into the city.

            The Bowery was filled with Irish, Italian, and German immigrants.  A Tower of Babel environment of the poor and penniless. Because they were the poor and disenfranchised it meant few in Tammany Hall, the city's political center, thought of them.  Which meant this part of the city had little sanitation.  No running water.  And no effort to collect and wheel away the growing piles of refuse which littered the streets everywhere.           

            Underneath the hot August sun the aroma rising into the cloudless sky was an almost visible miasma of stench.  So no one paid attention to the black leather and brass trimmed two wheeled hansom, pulled by a dapple gray mare, trotting smartly down the brick street and rolling to a halt in front of tenement building.  To the ten boys standing on the sidewalk or sitting on the steps leading up to the tenement's entrance, the hansom, nor the heavy sat, jowly cabbie sitting above and behind the enclosed portion of the hansom meant anything to them.  Dressed in shabby, thread bare castoffs, with faces sooty black from all the coal dust floating in the air, the boys tossed a baseball around or smoked cigarettes and talked but didn't glance at the hansom again.

            Until the passenger stepped out and onto the curb.

            He was a compact little man with a thick mop of curly blond hair.  Dressed nattily in a three piece suit of startling white cotton.   He had on black spats partially covering the upper portion of his highly polished leather shoes.  Very expensive leather shoes.  In hand was a pair of kid gloves he held casually.  In the other a black ebony cane with an odd looking bezel cut glass orb ornamenting its top.  One eye held a large monocle in front of it with a black lanyard dropping down and looping over to one his coat's lapels.  Instead of a tie he had a mauve colored kerchief tide around his neck and stuffed inside his shirt.  The shirt was off white, made of silk, with gold cuff links.

            He was the grandest looking thing the boys had ever had the privileged be this close to in their young lives.  All of them stood looking at the dandy with mouths open and eyes wide.  When the man stepped onto the sidewalk in front of them and extended the hand holding the cane out to brace himself in a gesture of arrogant nonchalance a few of them actually thought about applauding.

            "Hey, boyo!" a voice came flying out of the air from one of the boys standing on the stairs.  "Ya got a dollar or two you can spare?  Me and the boys haven't had a drink in days."

            The man, lowering his eyes for the first time to gaze at the objects in front of him, eyed the waifs for a moment before making a decision.  Turning slightly he tossed the expensive leather gloves into the hansom and then reached inside a vest pocket and pulled out a ten dollar gold piece.  With a skillful flick of a thumb the coin went arching over the heads of the nearest and straight to the Irish lad who had just spoken.

            "My good men," the dandy said, smiling wider after seeing the big Irish kid snatch the coin out of the air with and stare at it incredulously.  "Perhaps that will procure me some needed intelligence."

            "Huh?" another voice, a younger one, piped up quizzically.  "We ain't smart, fella.  We're Irish."

            "Awh, pipe down, Ian!" the bigger kid in the back barked, shaking his head disgustedly.  "The fella's looking for some information.  Who you looking for, fella?"

            The dandy cradled the odd looking black cane in the crook of one arm but didn't answer immediately.  Glancing to his right his eyes swept across the wide expanse of the Hudson river, noted the three fat looking tugboats chugging their way up stream, laying down heavy curtains of sooty smoke in the process.  A quarter of a mile downstream he saw the massive stone monuments of what would be, a few years from now, the freshly completed Brooklyn Bridge rising up out of the river waters.  But today the construction was still in its early stages.  The river site for the two massive edifices surrounded by steamers and wide barges riding low in the river due to their heavy loads.

            Most impressive, he thought to himself.  Most impressive indeed!  The last time he had been in New York the Dutch were still negotiating with the local Indian tribes for additional land.  But now, now humans were building a megalopolis!  They were constructing in stone and steel!  Using steam power instead of muscle power to do their heavy work.

            Progress, by god!  That's what it was.  Progress!

            Maybe the Elders of the Eight Clans were right.  Maybe humans in this dimension did have a future ahead of them.  Breaking into a rakish dimpled grin he turned his attention back to the big Irish kid who seemed to be the group's natural leader.

            "I am looking for a large framed gentlemen by the name of Mordecai Bloom.  Does he live in this building?"

            "Who?" another dirty faced waif blurted out, lifting a hand and scratching his head.  "Ain't never heard of'em."

            "He means The Mad Hatter," the Irish spokesman said, shaking his head irritably as he lifted a thumb up and pointed to the building behind him.  "You know, the fat guy with the funny hair and the bug eyes.  Yeah, fella.  He lives up on the sixth floor.  Apartment 61."

            He started to thank the Irish lad but a flash of bright bluish-white light above caught his attention just before an ear splitting explosion ripped through the late afternoon heat.  Glass, wood, pieces of furniture, and shreds of ripped clothing were ejected violently out of what once had been a sixth floor window.  The thundering explosion reverberated across the river, sending up a curtain of pigeons which had been nesting on the building's roof, as the flotsam and dendrites of what once had been the furnishings for an apartment rained down upon them.

            The moment the explosion announced itself the boys in front of the dandy ducked, covered their heads, and fled all in one motion.  Seconds later the tenants within the building came screaming in terror out of the building and began running as well.

            Through the pandemonium of fleeing tenants the dandy fought his way up the stairs and into the building.  Eyeing a steep set of wooden stairs leading up to the next floor he began taking two steps at a time as he dodged around descending, screaming residents.

            Billowing gray black smoke began filling the third and forth floor stairwell.  The unmistakable crackle of flames about to turn into an out of control inferno emanated from above.  Nevertheless the well dressed stranger continued this assent as fast as his legs could move.  By time he reached the fourth floor the occupants of the building had fled.  On the fifth floor he stopped suddenly in his tracks, turned, and stared down the long narrow hallway toward the far end apartment.

            He felt her aura.  Felt her pain.  Lifting the cane in his hand up the blue tinted glass orb adorning it began to glow white and expand outward in a translucent white bubble.  In the direct center of the orb an image snapped into reality.   The image of an old woman, well into her sixties, hobbling toward the apartment door on crutches.  One of her legs was missing.  She was racked with pain.  With panic.  Desperate to get out of the burning building.  Watching her arthritic old hands trying to clasp the doorknob to her apartment door he knew she would never make it.  Above the top floor was a hungry conflagration teetering on the edge of sweeping through the entire building and consuming everything in its path.  If the fire could not be extinguished immediately the woman would have no chance for survival.

            Resisting his first urge to rush to her and use a little magic to whisk her away from danger instead he leapt forward and began charging up into the roaring flames above.   Throwing an arm across his face to ward off the incredible heat he moved into the middle of the sixth floor hallway and assessed the situation.   Flames were everywhere.  Howling jets of fire were bellowing out of apartment doors.  A rolling carpet of bubbling flames danced across the hallway's ceiling.  Glass from window panes were violently shattering out into the street below like shotgun blasts in six or seven different apartments.  The scorching heat was hot enough to make his own clothing begin to emit curling trails of smoke from his jacket's arms and cuffs.   Seconds, that's all he had.  Just seconds before the fire was out of control. 

            A mask of determination settled across his youthful, handsome face.  No one was going to die today.  No one.  Gripping the cane in hand he lifted it up and then brought the gold tip of the staff down hard on the wooden floor of the hall.

            "Extinguishio Finalis!" he exclaimed with a harsh voice of authority.

            Something amazing transpired immediately.

            A shock wave, powerful and devastating, of frigid cold air filled with a fine mist of water, expanded out exponentially from the glass orb of his cane and swept forward and backwards from his position.  Apartment doors were blown open and ripped from the hinges.  Individual pieces of hardwood flooring in the hallway peeled off the floor as if they were nothing but cheap cardboard slats.  So cold the blast not only extinguished the flames at the snap of one's fingers but a fine layer of frost covered the walls, ceiling, and the flooring of the hallway.

            Fire no longer ravaged the building.  Replacing the hungry consumption of a ravaging beast an unearthly, even eerie, silence settled into the building's interior.

Slowly he around in the hallway and gazed toward one blackened gaping hole that once had been a furnished apartment.  Mordecai Bloom's apartment.

            He found himself staring at the devastated apartment but reluctant to move toward it.  The cane in his right hand was irritably tapping the floor with a nervous staccato twitch.  He knew he had to investigate.  It was his job.  He was a Inter-Dimensional Magician's Bureau field agent, for the Love of Diddly!  But he didn't want to.  Didn't want to face the possibility of finding the charred, blackened body of one of his oldest friends lying in the consumed ruins.  Nevertheless, rubbing a hand across his lips in anticipation of finding the worse, he took a deep breath, forced his mind to clear the dreadful images filling it and ordered his feet to move.

            And that's when he saw it.  Saw the faint mist of green dust hanging in the doorway of the Mordecai Bloom's doorway and an even fainter trail of tracker-dust  floating in the cold but motionless air in an unbroken trail all the way down the length of the hallway itself!

            Mordecai Bloom was alive!  Alive!

Something Old, something New, coming out soon

Coming soon.  A collection of 21 Turner Hahn/Frank Morales short stories I hacked together over the last two years.

I have to admit (again!) Turner and Frank are my two most favorite characters.  I dunno . . . there's something about their personalities and their chemistry which makes me smile every time I start writing a story with them as the main ingredients. They're like two old friends.  You just like being around them as much as you can.

As you know they're homicide detectives.  Two cops dropped down into a city filled with bad guys who look upon the act of murder as a day-to-day occupational hazard.

No big deal.

So there's twenty-one stories.  Murder . . . puzzles . . . damsels in distress . . . damsels who will slit your throat twice before you can bat your eyes.  There are killers who are bat-shit crazy.  Killers who are as cold as ice.  And there are killers who get away with their crimes. 

And humor.  Dry . . . almost droll . . . humor.

I have a theory about writing in the mystery/detective genre.  The best stories are the ones which have three major ingredients.  A Plot.  Interesting Characters. And Humor.  Not necessarily in equal measures, mind you.  But each one absolutely essential.   We can quibble about which of the first two ingredients are more important:  plot or interesting characters.  I, for one, think they are absolutely equal.  Don't mix enough of an attention-grabbing plot . . . or make the characters cookie cutter wannabes . . . and the story is going to suffer.  Suffer to the point of not working at all.

But humor is absolutely vital.  Yet it is the ONE ingredient so many writers fail to plug into their chemistry set.  I call it the Ying-Yang theory.  You can't have blood and mayhem without off setting it with a measured amount of laughter.  Or at least a sardonic little smile.  Humor does two things in a story.  First, it makes the trauma of murder more poignant.  Secondly, it settles the mind back into a neutral position for the next big slap in the face.

Ying and Yang.  Life and Death.  Light and Darkness.

Turner and Frank are interesting characters.  Each as their own little quirks.  Each has their own brand of humor.  Just happens the two separate characters work very, very well as a team.  They are synergistic in nature.

And the stories . . . the plots . . . are not bad at all.  Remember now; we're writing short stories.  That means you've got to pack the whole works into a rather tight frame and hope to hell they work.  I happen to think they do.

In the next few days I hope to get them out in ebook format.  Yes, I'm the one bringing them out.  No publisher seems interested.

As they say about the Jamaica bobsledding team winning the Winter Olympic event;  maybe someday . . . .