“How much is this?” the middle-aged man asked, irritated. He pointed a finger at a bunch of lacinato kale—fresh in, a chalk-marked sign indicated, from a farm outside Hickory. He had been waiting at the stand for five minutes, and was not about to wait a minute longer.
“Four-fifty,” said the man behind the table. He looked too old to still be farming, and he spoke softly. It was hard to hear him over the banjo playing nearby. The upright bass didn’t make it any easier. “That’s fresh in from Hick’ry.”
“That’s what the sign says!” replied the man as he stuffed two bunches into his tote. The WNCW logo covered the canvas bag in big blue letters that nobody could miss. “I usually do rainbow chard, but it’s disgusting this week. It looks like it’s from the SuperSaver.”
“Well, we’re the freshest,” said the farmer, smiling sweetly . . .
Miss Jo ladled an extra spoonful of golden brown stew over the fat, long dumplings in the bowl before sliding it across the counter to George. His mouth watered at the sight of the red crab legs glistening in the curry. “You fix me well nice,” he said, beaming at the food.
Miss Jo beamed back at him. Her gold tooth with its tiny diamond winked at him from between her full, brown lips. “You know you does get it special,” she said. She leaned her heavy, middle-aged bust over the counter. “I go get my special later?” she whispered . . .
Tami didn’t even count her night’s tips before she shoved the wad of coins and damp bills into her purse and went out the back door of Chevy’s Pub just minutes after closing. She gunned the Fiesta past her apartment, past the Sidney city limits, heading straight for the used RV she kept down by the river. She knew she’d find Dale with that slut who had been hanging on him all night . . .
His father had never come, nor his father’s father. Nothing called them. They drove their herds to the ridges, within sight of the distant towers and haze, and sold them to middlemen. They turned their horses when the business was done and rode back to the steppe, to the autumn camps and their families and the young, strong animals that would survive the howling winter and fatten in the spring . . .
Mondays Are Murder features brand-new noir fiction modeled after our award-winning Noir Series. Each story is an original one, and each takes place in a distinct location. Our web model for the series has one more restraint: a 750-word limit. Sound like murder? It is. But so are Mondays. This week, Gary Phillips (editor of […]
Matty saw the asshole as soon as he climbed over the fence from Volunteer Park into Lakeview Cemetery. Butchie was waving, like an idiot, right where he had told Matty to meet him: Bruce Lee’s grave at two a.m. Like he had to wave, like there’d be anybody else but Butchie the Rat by Bruce Lee’s grave at two a.m.
He walked over to the asshole. “Where’s my cat, Butchie?”
Skeleton umbrella. Coney Island crucifix. Tilyou’s Eiffel Tower. Steeplechase shrine. Icon. Landmark: looming, impotent, mocking, futile, naked, moot, regal, red, and ridiculous. Soaring twenty-six stories above the beach and boardwalk, passersby genuflecting at its feet, the Parachute Jump was all of these and none of these and more. Never less. Never. All you had to do was ask Richie . . .
