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Richard Prosch

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Richard Prosch

Free Crime Story: The Luck of Frankie Irish

February 2, 2020 By Rich

November 9, 1965: More than 53 years ago, my mom — six months pregnant with me — was stuck in JFK International Airport when the lights went out. Nobody expected the grid to be down for long, but the blackout stretched through the night into the next morning. At JFK, people drove cars up to the windows to shine headlamps into the terminal. Mom remembered a nice elderly couple who stood up and insisted she sleep on a bench while they watched over her.  The old guy rolled up his jacket as a pillow, and his wife shared her candy. Mom had several stories from that night, all good, all filled with the kindness and reasoned ingenuity of strangers. She never tired of telling about it. Me, I was in the dark anyway.
 
A few years ago I read Herbert Asbury’s terrific book, The Gangs of New York—which inspired a mid-century wiseguy character named Frankie. He bounced around between stories for a while until one day, I realized Frankie was at the airport on November 9.
I had to write the following story to find out why he was there.
 
 
 

I never had the luck of Frankie Irish.

He isn’t so good looking, and I don’t know how much bread he’s got in the bank, but he’s always been the kinda slob who could turn a turd into gold without the stink rubbin’ off.

Here’s an example.

Back when we was growing up over by the dumps and we both wore the same kinda torn sardine stained clothes and couldn’t afford haircuts, Frankie’s dad used to make him haul out the night’s empty beer bottles.

You better believe Frankie did it too.  His old man could lay in a beatin’ make Casius Clay look like a schoolgirl.

But rather than complain, Frankie held his breath and dug through the trash and collected out all the beer and soda bottles and caps. He used to sell the bottles for a penny or two a piece. Ten years later, them caps are worth a lot of dough too. Turns out that some of ‘em got collectible.

Me on the other hand, my old man drank more expensive brew but I got no caps to show for it. So my luck’s just the opposite of Frankie.

We’re opposite in other ways too.

Me, I’m a flatfoot detective, and Frankie, well, he’s, uh…

He’s something else.

I saw him duck into the john at JFK International airport around 5:15. Just before the lights went out at 5:27 p.m. November 9, nineteen hundred and sixty-five.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was down at one of the terminals on police business, and I’d just moved my coat and offered the seat next to me to a gorgeous blonde filly, well-built wearing a nice Gabardine sweater and straight from the sticks with her Hooterville accent when I see Frankie.

Well there’s worse places to be than sitting next to some nice trim on a cool evening when all of a sudden she starts boo-hooing on my shoulder.

Turns out she’s a couple months pregnant and supposed to meet her Marine Corps hubby who’s flying in from Europe.

She grabbed around at my lapel, and I thought what if the jarhead shows up now with her paws all over me?  So I tried to untangle myself, which took quite a while and after about ten minutes, I saw Frankie again. This time carrying a book, making a bee-line for a Vendo Coke machine.

So I told mama where I was going, then wandered through a dozen pedestrians to say hello. I get there, Frankie’s trading Playboy party jokes with some bald stiff in gray flannel.

“Detective Tesh,” he said, after telling the guy the punch line.

“How you doing, Frankie?”

“I can’t complain. Fella was just telling me he thinks the Russians are infiltrating the book industry.” Frankie held up the hardback he was reading: Herzog by Saul Bellow.

Frankie was always reading something highbrow.

“Aw, I don’t think the Russians give a crap what we read. And if it’s all the same to you, I wouldn’t go spreading talk like that. People are nervous enough as it is.”

I put a little official weight into it and baldy sorta melted into himself.

“Nice visiting with you,” he told Frankie and disappeared into the shadows.

“Nice to see you, Tesh. Buy you a Coke?” He flipped open his Zippo and lit a cigarette and gave me his familiar crooked kid smile.

“No thanks,” I said.

Frankie was slender, looked five years younger than his thirty years and had a scar down one side of his face where he almost bought it back in a Jersey alley when we both worked for Ike’s shoe company.  His hazel eyes were warm and caring. Not at all the eyes of a killer.

“What brings you to JFK?” he said.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I said. “I sorta figure we might be hanging around, waiting for the same plane.”

“Need to know,” said Frankie. “And you don’t old pal.”

“Olivetti sent you over, didn’t he?”

“Might be I drove over just to watch the girls. You too?” He nodded toward where the pregnant gal waited for her hubby on bench.

“You noticed, huh?”

“She seemed to take a liking to you.”

“I never had the luck you had, Frankie. Especially not with the gals.”

“You’re too hard on yourself. Looked like you were doing fine.”

“She’s a good kid. Waiting for her husband.”

 He finished his cigarette. Then he added. “It might be I got orders to drive over.”

Frankie had been working for Tony Olivetti since Alan Shepherd flew in space, and here we were half way to the moon. 

“You’re still a wheel man? You ought to ask for a promotion.”

“Look who’s talking. You buy Doris an automatic washer yet?”

“One day.”

“It’s always one day with you, Tesh. Any time you want to come over, Mr. Olivetti’d be glad to talk.”

“You got it made, don’t you pal?”

Frankie just gave me that old smirk. “Clean livin,’” he said.

That’s when I see my partner, Jerry Tubb, waving at me from across the room. But I didn’t want to lose Frankie, something being up.

“Can I ask you a favor, Frankie? Man to man?”

“Course.” Frankie saw Tubb waving too.

“Watch the pregnant lady ‘til I get back? Make sure she’s okay, nobody takes advantage of her?”

“Long as I can.”

So I jogged across the concourse to where Tubb was standing, beside a potted plant just outside the men’s room door. Same door I saw Frankie use earlier.

No matter what time of day, Tubb looked like he just crawled out of bed. Hair heavy with gel, going every which way. Shirt wrinkled and tie practically twisted into a noose around his neck.

“The plane’s in. Bobby Mark’s onboard, confirmed.” He told me the gate number, and it was only a few yards from where we were standing.

I blew air into my cheeks, then let it out slow, glad to feel the reassuring weight of my shoulder holster and the hardware stashed close to my heart. The little .38 wasn’t as big as Tubb’s .45 auto, but it packed enough punch to take out a skinny dago like Bobby Mark if need be.

Hopefully there wouldn’t be a need.

Me and Tubb were only supposed to detain Mr. Mark until the D.A. and his special prosecutors could arrive.

“Where’s the D.A. now?” I said.

“Midtown somewhere. Last I talked to anybody it would be at least a half hour until they get here.” We were fifteen miles out of midtown. Half hour on a Sunday morning maybe. I glanced at my watch: 5:19.

I figured we had a least an hour.

“You see who I was talking to?”

Tubb nodded, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That’s another thing,” he said, kind of quiet like.

“What’s another thing?”

“Word is that Olivetti also wants to snatch up Mr. Bobby Mark.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Frankie’s supposed to pick him up, right?”

Tubb chewed his bottom lip, seemed to be holding something back.

“You think Olivetti send Frank over to whack him? That doesn’t square. Frank ain’t the guy for that kinda job. I ain’t saying he’s a choirboy, but—”

“Look Tesh, you and Frank grew up together, I get that. So I gotta tell you….”

“What the hell, Tubb?”

Something was bothering the man.

“Here’s the thing. According to a snitch I got in the organization, it’s the other way ‘round from what you said.”

“Mark’s supposed to kill Frankie?”

Tubb nodded. “Your pal is a marked man. Contract came out this morning. Apparently Frank’s been sleeping with the old man’s daughter or something and….”

Turning fast, eyes straight back to the Coke machine, I tuned out the rest of Tubb’s explanation.

Frankie was gone.

My watch said 5:25. The plane would be letting its passengers out on the tarmac. Bobby Marko would be inside the terminal any minute.

I told Tubbs to hold tight and scanned the crowd. If Frankie didn’t know what was up, and his nonchalant attitude told me he didn’t, then I needed to find him fast. Before Bobby Marko got off the plane, before—  

And then I saw him. 

Frankie on the bench with the pregnant gal rubbing up against him, both hands on his lapel. She was crying, and Frankie seemed to be doing his best to reassure her, patting her arm, giving her that crooked kid smile. 

He kissed her forehead.

She kissed him back.

Which didn’t seem right, her old man coming back from the service and all. Her old man probably on the same plane as Mark.

That’s when a funny idea hit me, just out of the blue, and it’s part of what saved Frankie’s life.

What if? What if just by chance, the pregnant lady lied? What if her old man wasn’t a Marine at all? What if Mark was her old man?

I took two steps forward, bumped into a teenage kid with a transistor radio cord stuffed in his ear, reached up to adjust my shoulder rig, and spotted the gun in the pregnant mama’s purse.

“Frankie!” I yelled.

He looked up, caught my eye, jumped away from the girl as she brought up the gun.

And that’s when the lights went out.

To her credit, the girl held her fire. She was a pro, all right. A street amateur would’ve fired into the dark, straight at the last place Frankie’d been.

Whoever this gal was, Olevetti had hired well.

In the sudden blackness everybody was yelling and crying and making all sorts of racket. About a dozen lighters went on and then a few flashlights, and when I finally stumbled to the bench, nobody was there.

Outside the terminal’s big glass windows, the skyline of Manhattan was pitch black.

The luck of Frankie Irish.

Seconds away from a little lead pill and the Almighty puts his would-be-assassin in the dark.

Tubbs was beside me then with a flashlight. “What do you think, Tesh?”

“I think the lights went out.”

“We need to help calm people down.”

A dozen or so airport security guys were shouting above the crowd, telling everyone to stay put, that everything was under control.

Not exactly true, but a glance into the outside blackness showed a score or more shadows just sort of milling around in front of airplane lights and automobile headlamps.

A couple cars crossed the parking lot and drove straight up to the terminal windows, shining their lamps into the building.

“Those guys have the right idea,” said Tubbs.

“I gotta find Frankie,” I said, giving his arm a pat.

“What about Bobby Marko?”

“Do your best,” I said, grabbing his flashlight.

I went straight down the terminal about thirty feet, then turned hard to the left.

Frankie and me were both pretty familiar with the layout of the airport. More than a decade before, when it was still called Idlewild and the drive from Midtown was a lot more casual, we’d sometimes come out to watch the planes and hustle the tourists.

We got so we knew the people who worked there pretty well. I mean the janitors, the maintenance guys, the vendors.

Frankie made friends with this old guy named Sonny who ran a newsstand. Sonny would hold back new paperbacks for Frankie when they came in. Just behind his nook, Sonny kept a stash of cigarettes and girly magazines in a cold air return vent. 

Frankie always liked that vent. He didn’t care about what was in it. Instead he used to talk about how you could hide out in it if need be. How you could sneak all over the airport. 

But it turns out things have changed at JFK since those days. And moving through the dark with dozens of chattering strangers didn’t help me find my way.

I took a couple wrong turns.

When I got to the old newsstand, I shined my light around the counter to see Frankie and the girl rolling around on the ground, each of them struggling to get control of the popgun she held in her fist.

“Stop! Police!” I said, flashlight in my left hand, .38 in my right.

I had no intention of shooting anybody.

The girl had her leg up and kneed Frankie in the balls. He curled up and rolled over and she was on her feet.

And my flashlight went out.

Just like that. Weak batteries, bad switch, I don’t know which.

One second I could see, the next everything went black.

I expected a shot, but just like before, the woman wasn’t going to waste it.

“Drop the gun,” I said into darkness.

I could hear both of them breathing. 

The gal’s air coming and going at a fast clip. She was standing now. Frankie sort of groaning up from the linoleum floor.

Maybe three seven feet separated us. About half that between them.

There was a rustle of movement, and then Frankie’s voice. “You need a light, Detective?”

A spark, and Frankie’s Zippo flamed to life.

The gal wasn’t pointing her gun at Frankie.

In fact, since Frankie now held the gun, she wasn’t pointing it at anybody.

Within seconds of my appearance, Frankie had turned the tables. All I could do was stare at the girl’s crumpled body and hope beyond hope that she had lied about being pregnant.

  • ••  •  •

We sat on a bench sharing a Coke while we waited for Tubbs and the D.A., the petulant girl smoking a cigarette in the light of half a dozen car headlamps. I wasn’t quite sure what he’d done, a nerve pinch or something, but somehow Frankie had dispatched her without hurting her overmuch.

When she came to, her sweater was rumbled and she had a run in her stocking. And she lost a shoe.

That was about all.

Just like old times.

Yeah, except this girl wasn’t interested in any of our fresh remarks.

In the glare of the car lights she looked like a femme fatale in one of those old movies.

Word was that the entire eastern seaboard lost power when the grid went down. Nobody knew when the lights would come back on.

“Illayna Petrochev,” said Frankie.

“Russian.”

He nodded, took a swig from his bottle. “Soviet Grey Book. Didn’t realize I was so important they’d come after me.”

“Me neither,” I said. “I thought you were here for Bobby Mark. Thought Mr. Olevetti sent you.”

“I said I was here on orders, Detective. I didn’t say who sent me.”

“Who sent her?”

“Not Olivetti. Somebody a little more official. Somebody watching out for Russians.”

I held his gaze. Then said, “Frankie Irish. Secret agent. Doesn’t seem likely.”

“A man can work for more than one organization.” He shrugged, handed me a business card. “Keep it in mind.”

I took a drink, took my time swallowing while I stared at the girl. 

“You want a Coke?” I said.

Her answer was in Russian. Wasn’t hard to translate.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

When I looked up, Tubbs was there.

“Ready to clear this up, Tesh? Security’s got everybody on their way.”

“You get Bobby Marko?” I asked.

My partner shook his head. “False alarm. Turns out he wasn’t on the plane after all.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said, killing the soda. I handed him Frankie’s business card. “Call the number on there. Tell ‘em what happened.”

“Who’s this then?” he asked about the girl..

“That’s the luck of Frankie Irish.” I tipped my empty bottle. “Here’s to clean livin,’” I said.

“Clean livin,’” said Frankie.

 
 

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: crime, free short story, gangs, Irsh gangs, JFK, mystery, New York, New York blackout, Richard Prosch, Season of Ice, short fiction

Stage Fright: Chapter One

January 29, 2019 By Richard Prosch

They call Ozark City the City That Sings, and with scores of upscale theater venues, country bars, jazz clubs, hillbilly hangouts and a regular summer tourist schedule of rock and pop festivals, it’s easy to see why.

 But in Ozark City the real music is the people.

Even inside the city’s newest and most controversial venue—a garish, over-hyped burlesque theater called Les Enfants Terribles—the citizenry was a wonderfully diverse symphony of life and comradery. Despite being stacked like singles in a neon-lit Wurlitzer jukebox, the audience laughed and drank and smoked, slotted as they were into fake wood and blue suede seating, four to a polished table awash in overpriced drinks. They both ogled and ignored a martial parade of inked and painted women in various stages of undress, marching around a hardwood stage of rainbow-hued lights and flashing strobes. 

The rambunctious drumming of the frat boys up front mixed with the more measured percussion of sexually adventurous thirty-somethings and the soft conversational harmony of the middle-aged folks who sat in the back, where dim lights and cigar smoke kept them incognito.

Standing room only.

I recognized several minor celebrities in the crowd: a couple sports figures, a regional writer, and a nationally-known late-night talk show host named Reese Hogan.

These were my people. And they played my song.

Yeah. Even here in a strip joint.

Because, upscale as the place tried to be, the smell of flesh and booze at the edge of the high-tech stage was strip-joint thick. I shared a chair with the scantily clad Apple May, as her friends on stage shook their pasties and shimmied out of feathered corsets and glistening sequined garters.

Then, after the proper build up, even that slight nod to modesty dropped and the girls swaggered around the stage wearing nothing at all. 

Nobody seemed overly concerned with the violation of several state laws.

Not so long as the good times flowed.

On the edge of the theater district, and just outside the city limits of Ozark City, Missouri, Adrian Mitchell’s newest business venture was the talk of the country, thanks to a recent Fox News story that turned the OC’s family-friendly brand on its ear.

Mitchell was heir to this particular crime territory outside St. Louis, and he supervised all sorts of rackets and bad goings on. Tonight he held court at a corner booth under a soft emerald light.

His very presence was a bass chord running through the soul of the crowd.

Like a funeral dirge.

“Buy me another drink, Dan?” 

Apple May wore a G-string, a blue striped men’s cotton business shirt, unbuttoned in front, and a loose tie between her naked breasts. What she lacked in clothing she made up in greasepaint. Her face was a Mexican sugar skull, with black patches around her eyes and needle & thread marks at her lips. Her shoulders and sternum were covered in Art Nouveau-style ink.

Her puffy red ring finger was encircled with an inky black braid, a wedding ring tattoo, not more than a few days old.

The needle marks on her arms were older, and not from a tattoo artist. 

Apple’s right leg bounced up and down as we watched one of the girls on stage peel away from the chorus of strippers to stand in a solo spotlight. 

A twelve-foot-tall chrome pole descended from somewhere above, and Beverly Syn, six feet of glittering orange and black tiger-stripe body paint, wrapped herself around it like a silky jungle cat. She spun like an Olympic gymnast in time to the ever-increasing electronic tempo, flicking her tongue at an eager trio of frat boys who couldn’t help but toss dollar bills at her feet, even if the clientele of Les Enfants Terribles was expected to be more sophisticated than that.

A passing waiter whipped out an arm and snatched up the money.

Sorry Bev.

Apple May pressed her butt snug against my lap and vibrated in time to the music.

I was a little jittery myself.

“When are we leaving, Dan? When are you going to get me out of here?”

I pressed my hand against the small of her back.

“Be patient,” I said.

“Are you really friends with Uncle Howard?” said Apple. “I’ve never seen you before. Why haven’t I ever seen you before. Like, in here, I mean?”

“Clean living,” I said. 

Which was more or less the truth.

I like pretty girls as much as the next guy, but I didn’t feel overly comfortable. A titty-bar is still a titty-bar, no matter how much window dressing or varnish gets slapped around. Maybe the costumes and lights and synchronized dancers made some of the theater’s audience feel enlightened. To me it was tiresome, and I felt weary with age.

During my years as a patrolman and subsequent investigator for the Missouri State Patrol, I got more enlightenment on the subject of erotic dance than I’d ever wanted. I knew generally what went on behind the scenes at places like this and worse, where some of the performers came from.

And where they ended up.

“Beverly is such a good dancer,” said Apple, her blue eyes glued to her friend. “I wish I was half as good as her. Isn’t she talented?”

“She’s incredible,” I said, because she righteously was. “I didn’t know Bev worked here.”

Apple’s ghoulish face was full of curiosity. 

Before she could ask, I said, “She’s a customer at my record store. She comes in every few days.”

“She your girlfriend?”

“A customer at my store,” I said again. 

“When we get out of here, I could be your girlfriend.”

“Or not.”

“Maybe you’ve got a girlfriend, already?” said Apple, licking the glitter from her lips.

“I did. Or I thought I did.”

“So do you or don’t you have a girlfriend?”

“I guess I don’t anymore,” I said.

“What’s her name?”

“Marti,” I said.

Apple ran her fingers up and down the back of my neck.

“What happened? You can tell me.”

“We’re taking some time off,” I said.

“It’s not good to be alone.”

“No,” I agreed. “No, it’s not.”

“It’s not healthy.”

She pressed her lips to my ear. “You know what they say.”

“No,” I said. “What do they say?”

“Eating an Apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

“I should’ve guessed.”

I turned my eyes away, focused on the room’s side entrance—soon to be our exit. 

A Mack truck wearing a black sleeveless T-shirt and grey Levi’s rocked back and forth against the door jamb. The muscles in his arms seemed to pulse and grow larger in the flickering green lights. He had a Celtic knot tat on the side of his shaved head.

I pointed him out and Apple said his name was Toad. “It sounds funny at first,” she said. “But some toads are poisonous.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“Yeah. He sorta says it all the time.”

No doubt.

“Good to have a catchphrase,” I said.

“Eating an Apple a day…” said Apple.

“Yeah, I got it the first time,” I said with a friendly smile. 

Apple giggled with impish glee and took a blue drink from a passing waiter.

Sitting alone at a table near the door, my friend Howard nursed a glass of orange juice.

Howard had been putting in extra time at the gym and looked like a stack of fresh-cut lumber packed into a tight gray T-shirt with jeans, wearing a brown ball cap, his arms like oak boughs and his fists like iron. 

His eyes were fixed on Toad. 

Against Howard, the bouncer wouldn’t stand a chance. 

Not that I needed any help if push came to pounding.

At six two, tipping the scale at just over 200 pounds, I could be pretty forceful if need be. I kept my dark hair cut short and, though I ran a razor over them daily, my cheeks and chin were an iron stubble field. 

Who knows? Maybe I’d scare Toad into cardiac arrest with a steely-eyed glare.

Howard saw me looking at him. He nodded. I nodded back.

Toad followed our interaction with interest, looked straight at me. If he felt the slightest bit woozy, he wasn’t letting on.

“Aren’t you gonna drink your beer?” said Apple.

I lifted a bottle of pale ale to my lips.

“I’m ready to go, now,” she pressed her lips to my ear. 

“Real soon,” I said. “Soon as Bev is done with her dance.”

“What about when we get outside?”

“Once we get outside, Howard will have our back,” I said. “All you need to do is find the blue convertible and jump in. I’ll be right beside you.”

“What about the parking lot?” she said. “They’ve always got security guys watching the parking lot. Toad’s brother works out there. He’ll see me, for sure.”

“Not your worry,” I said.

“You’ll know him when you see him. He looks just like Toad.”

“Lucky guy.”

I’d dealt with Adrian Mitchell’s hired help before. 

Or guys like them. 

Tattooed tacti-cool warriors who packed their oversized handguns in their pants right next to their brains.

I’d be stupid not to be a little scared. Goes with the territory. 

But I wasn’t overly concerned. 

Even if it had been a while since I’d retired from active duty on the Patrol. 

Now I stick close to Spalding’s Groove, the record shop I run in the tourist district of Ozark City. 

Except when I’m helping a friend.

Mob boss Mitchell had launched Les Enfants Terriblesthat summer, with little warning but a lot of fanfare when the doors opened—a surprise appearance as welcome to the OC Chamber of Commerce as a loud-mouthed cousin dropping in unannounced for Christmas. 

Earlier in the day, my friend Howard Steven Thyme alerted me to both – the club, and a troubled relative of his own.

I’d locked up my shop early to cross the street to Howard’s business, the Thyme Out Lounge. 

Once comfortable in an air-conditioned booth, refreshing drink in hand, Howard told me about his niece, Denise May (stage name, Apple).

Missing for more than a year after leaving her St. Louis home on her 19th birthday, Apple sent him a brief text that morning, telling him she was working at the new club outside Ozark City.

And the management wouldn’t let her leave.

In fact, she kinda got the idea they were holding her captive. In fact, she was maybe sorta scared.

And could he please come get her?

Howard didn’t think twice before telling her yes. 

“I thought gentleman’s clubs at the Lake were gone with the nineties,” said Howard after asking me to help. 

“Easier said than done. Strip joints are always good for a variety of illicit trades, from drugs to prostitution, pornography to gambling,” I said. 

“Hard to keep a good thing down.”

“And the reverse is true,” I said, memorizing the pictures he showed me of his niece.

“Good to keep a hard thing down? You planning to take an army along and shut down Adrian Mitchell?”

“It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen,” I said. “But no.”

I smiled at the thought.

“Let’s get Denise out first,” I said.

“You got a plan?”

I shrugged. “Figured we’d just walk in and get her. You drive.” 

Howard had been the drummer for at least two world-famous hair-metal bands back in the day, his face plastered on every magazine stand and TV music video show. 

He covets center stage like a fat kid craves funnel cake. I knew it was the kind of plan he could get behind.

“Easy-peazy,” he said. “I like it.”

“But, Howard—no guns.”

“Yeah, right. I mean—what?”

“Adrian Mitchell and I have an uneasy truce,” I said. “Same with me and the local authorities.” In my mind, State Patrol investigator Tammy Ross gave me a thumb’s up. 

Stay frosty, Danny-O.

“Mitchell was friends with your brother,” said Howard.

“More or less.”

“Yeah, but…no guns?”

“I’m not worried,” I said.

“You’re a smug bastard, aren’t you?” said Howard.

Later that evening, he picked a powder blue Ford Falcon convertible out of his garage collection, and we arrived just in time to catch the end of Apple’s act. 

After the set, I waved a few dollars in her direction, bought her a drink while she climbed onto my lap, and told her who I was.

Bev spun around the pole like a tornado, her long black hair glistening like a tapestry of raven feathers. 

“She’s wearing feathers in her hair, isn’t she?” I said.

Apple giggled. “Beats me.”

The screeching speakers thudded to an abrupt stop and Bev collapsed at the base of the pole to a smattering of applause.

“Are we going?” said Apple, sliding forward.

“Get ready,” I said.

As the stage lights dimmed, and just before everything went black, I saw Howard stand and casually saunter toward Toad.

“Let’s roll,” I said, springing forward, the girl in my arms.

Buy Stage Fright at: Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Kobo.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Crime Stories, Crime story, Dan Spalding, Murder Mystery, Ozarks mystery, Richard Prosch, Stage Fright, Thriller

Free Western Story: Not Much the Cowman

May 15, 2018 By Rich

Slumped over in his sheepskin coat on a bed of bug-chewed corn husks in a Nebraska sod cabin, Mike Morris realized it was almost Christmas and he’d missed the fiery Ozarks autumn foliage for the first time in his life. Nothing helped his melancholy, not Slick Peterson’s dirty jokes, not Windy Bly’s sour smelling mash in the coffee. At the spindle legged cedar table, Slick fumbled with the slick glass chimney of a kerosene lamp that the wind kept blowing out, while Windy tilted back on the cramped room’s only chair, scabby bare knees showing through threadbare holes in his pants.

This story was free to read the third week of May, 2018.
“Not Much the Cowman” is one of several short western stories in my collection, Tough Job in Driftwood.
Each month this year, I will post a free crime story on the first Tuesday of the month, and a free western story two weeks later on the third Tuesday. The stories will stay up for seven days until the next week’s blog post.

Filed Under: Free Short Stories Tagged With: fiction, free fiction, free short story, free story, Richard Prosch, short stories, west, western, wild west

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