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Scorpio Rising: book review by Dell Horoscope
22 Apr
SCORPIO RISING, by Alan Annand
What astrology needs to show its authentic depth is a super-hero in the tradition of Sherlock Holmes, Sam Spade, and Hercule Poirot. Since astrologers have inside information about how the universe works beyond the apparent three dimensions of our manifest world, they should make great detectives. So far, our justice system remains skeptical about how astrologers might help, but a few writers have begun creating protagonists who use the celestial arts to solve murder cases.
Author Alan Annand has created Axel Crowe, an astrology-savvy hero in Scorpio Rising. In this dramatic tale, three murders take place simultaneously in three separate locations across the USA. Axel Crowe has been hired to investigate one of those murders. At first, all he knows about is the one that took place in New York. The other two murders take place in San Francisco and Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Due to the wealth of all three of the murder victims, and the anti-terrorism work of the victim from Los Alamos, all kinds of police investigators and FBI agents are called in. Naturally, they don’t have a clue about whodunit, but Axel Crowe starts figuring it out after 300 pages or so. His first insight comes from noticing a variety of threes and triangle shapes during his investigation. The trail is interrupted by some violence, a few sex scenes, and a tangled narration that jumps from one location to the other every few pages.
When he arrives at a place relevant to the case, he adds up the digits in the address to get a numerological clue. He notices whether a corporate building is designed according to vastu (akin to feng shui) principles. When he’s offered a drink, he asks for mango juice (“rich in anti-oxidants”). He quickly sizes people up according to their ayurvedic body type or the shape of their hands and fingers. He reads signs, coincidences, and is always ready with an appropriate quote from his guru. What more could you ask for in a New Age hero?
Most importantly, Axel Crowe has an iPhone with an astrology app. When he arrives on a scene, he checks the current transits. He can guess a suspect’s rising sign with uncanny accuracy, and thus also derives a natal horoscope to check out character and alibis. As it turns out, the murder he’s investigating took place when Scorpio was rising, hence the title. Most people associate Scorpio with death, sex, and the dark side, and much of this book’s content provides ample fulfillment of this connection.
Take one of the main characters, Carrie Cassidy. In her opening scene, she meets a handsome, studly fellow on the elevator while on her way to visit her mother: “Fit as an athlete and squeaky clean, just the way she liked them.” She quickly hooks up with the stranger to indulge in an afternoon quickie, and still has time to visit her mother without being too late. For most of the story, Carrie appears to be an ambitious, lusty writer trying to make it big with her first novel. She’s spent the last three years working on it and just wants to get the thing published.
Those interested in astrology will find some satisfaction with Crowe’s analysis and interpretation, and the story line is a welcome entry into twenty-first century fiction. Naturally, Axel Crowe is skilled in the martial arts, and toward the end, he has a merry chase through the craggy terrain of New Mexico. In the last chapter, he explains to his client and the hapless mainstream detectives how the murders were all connected.
Spoiler Alert: The plot was akin to Alfred Hitchcock’s film Strangers on a Train, where each stranger agrees to kill the other stranger’s intended victim, a wife and a mother, respectively. In this way, the out-of-town killings would provide foolproof alibis. Hitchcock’s story involved two murders, while in Scorpio Rising, there are three.
Scorpio Rising is a step forward in the New Age detective genre. For those with a mystical blend and more than a touch of Scorpio darkness, you’re in for a treat. Just remember that, as Crowe’s guru was fond of saying, “The subtle has the capacity to penetrate the gross, but not vice versa.”
– Chris Lorenz @ Dell Horoscope
For all the latest REVIEWS of Scorpio Rising, see: http://pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
To purchase Scorpio Rising (digital $2.99, paper $11.99)
- Paperback & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
Scorpio Rising: book review by Horoscope Guide
20 Mar
SCORPIO RISING, by Alan Annand, Sextile.com
358 pages, paper $11.99 (available at Amazon.com or Createspace.com). Digital versions for all ereaders available ($2.99) through Smashwords.com.
Independent investigator Axel Crowe has promised to look into the murder of a friend’s sister, who was found dead under odd circumstances on a New York street. Having been allowed access to the detectives assigned to the case, he asks first for the basic details of the murder: where it happened, approximate time of death, and so forth. As the cops give him the requested information, he is thumbing his smart phone, glancing at it from time to time, not the kind of gesture that gets much attention from anyone these days of course. What he is doing, though, is having an astrology app do the chart, and a Vedic chart at that, for the date, time, and place of the murder. He glances down at it and thinks to himself:
With Scorpio rising, a fixed sign suggested murder connected with a family member. The seventh house was Taurus, a female sign, and its ruler was Venus, a female planet. Together, they indicated a female killer. Venus in dual sign Pisces implied more than one person involved. An exalted Venus, in planetary war with Mars, described an aggressive professional who was into sports or martial arts…
And neatly with a few strokes of a thumb and a not insubstantial fund of knowledge gained from his former guru, Crowe has outlined the clues that begin to lead him to the murder. Earlier in the book Crowe’s guru had cut him loose as someone too much taken with his vices (relationships, drinking, and gambling) to give proper attention to spiritual tasks.
That kind of character work I found refreshing almost from the start of Scorpio Rising, as over the years I’ve read probably most of the small number of works of astrological fiction published, and a major fault in most (with the exception of Barbara Shafferman’s Addie Price in The President’s Astrologer, published in 1998) is that the main character tends to be a type, not a person. One can’t imagine them falling in love, having any bad habits (if they have habits at all), and certainly one can’t conceive of them ever making a mistake. Crowe is good at what he does, but he is not perfect, and he is good at being human, though again not perfect.
Though I’ve started this review with a quote that is firmly astrological, protagonist Crowe is also a palmist and uses other intuitive and symbolic techniques such as vastu shastra (similar to feng shui, though there is only a partial overlap between the two). Mostly though, he is a smart, observant detective who knows how to put together little bits and pieces of clues to make the big picture that leads him to the culprits. While there is no doubt that astrology, supported by these other techniques, is a central player in the untangling of the mystery, that app on Crowe’s smart phone is introduced only where it makes a difference and this is done in such a way that the reader isn’t required to know much, if anything, about the subject.
The story revolves around three murders that occur on the same day in geographical locations far removed from each other, and though from very early in the book we have an idea of who the culprits are (by nature if not by name), just how the murders might be linked, and how that could relate to the motives is always just a chapter or two ahead of the reader. I happen to gravitate toward mysteries in my off-hours reading (and more so since the advent of the Nook and library e-loans), and they tend to fall into two categories: those you read to the end in order to find out what happened, and those you read (sometimes grudgingly) to the end to confirm what you already know.
The first category is the best of course, and Scorpio Rising falls firmly into that class. Around page 150, though I was enjoying the read, I was quite sure that I had figured out most of the key elements of the mystery, but two chapters later I had to stop patting myself on the back when a couple of additional details told me that I had totally misjudged two of the characters, derailing most if not all of my detective work. And so it went, all the way to the end.
What it comes down to is that Scorpio Rising is an engaging mystery with twists and turns that keep you reading all the way to the last page of the last chapter. Axel Crowe is a new kind of character on the mystery scene, who is a quick study when presented with a baffling murder in part because he combines his own mix of intuitive methods with a thorough understanding of methods used by police and crime labs the world over. Though his intuitive insight may give him an edge and put him a level or two above the more tedious tasks of police work, Crowe is not some shiny mystical figure travelling on a higher plane, but rather someone who deals every day with the limitations of his own imperfections.
A good mystery all the way around!
~ Kenneth Irving, editor, Horoscope Guide
For all the latest REVIEWS of Scorpio Rising, see: http://pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
To purchase Scorpio Rising (digital $2.99, paper $11.99)
- Paperback & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
Scorpio Rising: book review by Astrology Toronto
13 Mar
SCORPIO RISING by Alan Annand
(book review by Julie Simmons)
Usually when I read a book I like I just say to whomever I think might enjoy it, “You should read this book. It’s great.” I don’t think of myself as a reviewer. But here I am reviewing Alan Annand’s book, Scorpio Rising. Before I get into the telling details, let me just say, “You should read this book. It’s great.”
Everyone loves a good mystery. Astrologers might love mysteries more than most because we are all detectives on some level although most of us are not called upon to solve the perfect crime. Rarely if ever do we find a mystery novel (worth reading) that features a major character who is an astrologer as well as a palmist with an active spiritual life.
Axel Crowe, the brilliant investigator of Annand’s book, is just such a character. He manages to present and defend his use of astrology to the cops in such a way that they accept him. We can all use some of that. His view of the world as a seamless web of connections is always present. I had the feeling that synchronicity itself is the unnamed character in this book.
One of my favourite things in this novel is the way Crowe rectifies a chart. It’s as though he pulls information from the air. And he’s cool, so cool he steps up to sit in with the band at a blues club on New York’s legendary Bleecker Street.
Axel Crowe is Agent 007 for the New Age set. He’s a pacifist at heart, but knows how to handle himself in a fight. He doesn’t drink and he lives a moderate life despite having access to plenty of money for a more excessive lifestyle. He is a genuine student of the mysteries and lives in a world he has charmed into speaking to him thanks to his years spent sitting at the feet of his guru.
Then there is the actual plot. The supposedly perfect crime can only be solved by reading clues and connections that only an astrologer could find. Crowe reads the twisted minds, hearts and personalities of the criminals and tracks them to their lairs. He can see a lot in a fingerprint or the chart of the moment. We are never bored as he journeys to different cities and encounters the good, the bad and the ugly. There is even a car chase and shoot-out in the desert.
Personally I enjoyed every minute of this book at many levels. I was entertained, intrigued and delighted to be along for the cosmic ride. Annand refers to his book as the first in a New Age Noir series. I look forward to reading more and it’s not just because I’m a Scorpio rising.
Julie Simmons is a full-time astrologer in Toronto, Canada. She writes a monthly astrological column for Vitality Magazine and has published two books on astrology: Passion Signs, and Earned Wisdom. http://www.juliesimmons.ca
For all the latest REVIEWS of Scorpio Rising, see: http://pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
To purchase Scorpio Rising (digital $2.99, paper $11.99)
- Paperback & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
Scorpio Rising: book review by NCGR newsletter
2 Mar
SCORPIO RISING, by Alan Annand
(reviewed by Donna Van Toen)
And now for something completely different… It’s not common to see a novel where astrology plays a major role, but that’s exactly what we’ve got here.
The protagonist, Axel Crowe, is a criminal profiler, finder of missing people and things, damned fine detective, and just for good measure a Vedic astrologer and an excellent palmist as well. When we meet him early on, he is also a follower of a guru, known only as Guruji. Guruji dismisses Crowe early on, but his pithy comments appear throughout the story – which is definitely not the story of an aesthete living in an ashram. There are murders, there is mayhem, and there are plenty of women.
The action takes place all over the map – in Toronto, in New York, in California, and elsewhere. Annand has a good eye for setting tone, a good ear for dialogue, and excellent ability to whip up a fast-paced plot. And he throws in just enough astrology and palmistry to pique our interest. Not gratuitous astrology or palmistry either – it’s an integral part of Crowe’s bag of tricks and definitely a part of the story.
Annand is a seasoned writer of detective stories and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s fast-paced and has enough twists and turns – as well as enough astrology and palmistry – to keep you turning those pages and distract you from your more mundane chores. I enjoyed it immensely. I did wonder though, how someone of non-astrological bent might relate to it. So I passed it along to a non-astrological friend. The verdict – he liked it too. “But,” he asked, “is all that stuff about palmistry for real?” I assured him it was, and that the author – in addition to being a good writer, was a pretty fine astrologer and palmist as well.
If you like thrillers and detective stories, this one is a terrific read. You may even be able to justify reading it as “study” because chances are that you will learn a few tidbits here and there. My one caution would be: Don’t lend it until you’re really ready to let go of it. When I went to track down my copy, it had already been loaned to a second person and it took me two weeks to get it back so I could do this review. The borrower did, however, give me a pound of cashews by way of an apology. Guruji would not have been pleased, but I’m pretty sure Crowe would have smiled. He’d know that just like cashews, this is a book to indulge in.
Donna Van Toen is an astrologer, teacher, and author of “The Astrologer’s Node Book” and “The Mars Book.” She coordinates the annual State of the Art (SOTA) Conference, and speaks for groups and conferences throughout the world. http://www.donnavantoen.com.
Scorpio Rising, Sextile.com, 2011, 348pp paper $11.99, digital $2.99
For all the latest REVIEWS of Scorpio Rising, see: http://pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
To purchase Scorpio Rising (digital $2.99, paper $11.99)
- Paperback & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
Scorpio Rising: book review by The Mountain Astrologer
13 Jan
Scorpio Rising by Alan Annand, part of the New Age Noir series, is a gripping murder mystery with a Hitchcockian twist. Private investigator Axel Crowe is an appealing and upstanding protagonist who uses astrology, palmistry and other esoteric techniques to solve crimes. With bits of Vedic wisdom sprinkled throughout, this book is an enjoyable read and an engrossing narrative.
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Scorpio Rising by Alan Annand, part of the New Age Noir series, is a gripping murder mystery with a Hitchcockian twist. The protagonist of this story is a private investigator named Axel Crowe who uses esoteric techniques to solve crimes – intuition, numerology, palmistry, horary astrology, Ayurveda, Vedic astrology, and a well-developed sense of smell. One FBI agent refers to Crowe’s bag of tricks as “whatever it is you do.” Years of observing the subtle signs of the environment have given Crowe the courage to follow his intuition.
He also looks for signs in the form of synchronicity. Here is one unusual method for determining someone’s ascendant: “Out in Central Park, the blue kite wheeled high in the air. Blue was the color of Venus. Libra was an air sign ruled by Venus. On the wall was an Ernst lithograph, Portrait Bleu, featuring a bird-like figure. More corroboration. [She] would have a Libra ascendant.”
Crowe, of course, has to deal with a lot of skepticism from law enforcement officials regarding his methods. When someone suggests that it is quite a leap from criminology to astrology, Crowe responds: “I suppose, although some would say, they’re both black arts.”
Crowe is an “infomaniac,” according to his Vedic teacher, Guruji, who had tutored him for 14 years and taught him that our greatest enemy is our own desire. (The novel attempts to prove this maxim.) Crowe was quite attached to his guru: “His heart brimmed with love for the man who had shown him the narrow trail through a bramble thicket of ignorance and misperception.”
The bits of Vedic wisdom sprinkled throughout this book were my favorite parts. For example, here’s what Crowe has to say about women: “Women were mothers, sisters, lovers, angels and rarely, but possibly, demons. Every now and then you might have the bad luck to meet a Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, and she would add your head to her collection of skulls.” We meet one such demon in this novel.
This is not a whodunit. By page 60 of the book, a pattern has emerged, and we know who has done what to whom. The reader simply waits for Crowe and the detectives to find the pattern and locate the parties responsible for the murders.
Scorpio Rising is an enjoyable read and an engrossing narrative, but it is not for the super-squeamish. (If you set out to read this book, it is recommended that you have at least one Scorpio planet in your chart.) There are several unsavory characters here – murderers, adulterers, and thieves – but the police detectives are painted as real working-class people, warts and all, and Crowe is an appealing, upstanding guy who is nonetheless not quite perfect.
– reviewed by Jan de Prosse, The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 2012
Scorpio Rising by Alan Annand, Sextile, 2011. Softcover, 352 pp, $11.99. ISBN 978-0-9869206-4-6.
For all the latest REVIEWS of Scorpio Rising, see: http://pinterest.com/alanannand/scorpio-rising/
To purchase Scorpio Rising (digital $2.99, paper $11.99)
- Paperback & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
Harm’s Way = hard-boiled excitement
31 Oct
“For Canadian writers setting hard-boiled stories in Canada, the closest approximation yet to a US-style private eye is Montreal investigator Lee Harms in Harm’s Way by Alan Annand.” – David Skene-Melvin for Rara-Avis
My fifth novel, Harm’s Way, was published under pseudonym by St.Martin’s Press, one of New York’s venerable houses, in 1992. The book received some good reviews but never enough to make it a bestseller.
In the last few years, publishing has been through a paradigm-shifting upheaval. The mass paperback market is down, bookstores are closing and e-books are on the rise.
Having seen the writing on the wall, I’m now self-publishing. In 2012, I released three novels. Two were new mysteries – Scorpio Rising and Hide in Plain Sight – both available on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com.
The third novel was a re-release of Harm’s Way, whose copyright I had recovered years ago when it went officially out-of-print.
After refreshing my memory about what reviewers had said about the book back then, I gave it some ruthless editing and a total re-write. One criticism was that I hadn’t adequately captured the ambience of Montreal, one of North America’s most vibrant cities. So in my re-write, I worked very hard to bring this great city into focus.
Along the way, I tightened up every chapter, until the book moves at the pace of a runaway train. Once you get started, you won’t be able to put it down.
Here’s the jacket copy for Harm’s Way:
Lee Harms, free spirit and investigator-for-hire, is on the cusp of an on-again, off-again love affair with longtime confidante and astrologer Celeste when fate serves him a witch’s brew of trouble.
Start with a broth of sexual intrigue, toss in a kidnapped redhead, stir in two kilos of pure cocaine, dissolve a few pages from a psychiatrist’s notebook, and bring to a boil the fury of an underworld gang whose favorite son has died in an all-night bacchanal. Money ignites the fire under this cauldron, but the fuels that keep it bubbling are sex, violence and the darker forces of human nature.
Although Harms has the advantage of Celeste’s astrological insights to guide him, he must rely increasingly on his own wits to out-maneuver crack-crazed thugs, libidinous porn stars, and a deranged young woman with a dark secret. It’s dangerous enough for Harms, but when his own ten-year-old daughter is taken hostage by the underworld, he must pull out all the stops to rescue her from harm’s way.
Here are more reviews of the day:
“Harm’s Way is a solid P.I. thriller, a nastier-than-you’d-expect slab of pornography, cocaine, gangsters, incest, madness, torture and vengeance.” – Thrilling Detective
“Underneath the New Age trappings, divorced ex-cop Harms is plenty hard-boiled, using fists, guns and sheer wit to escape the many tight spots here.” – Publisher’s Weekly
“Energy, superior punch-‘em out sequences, and humor.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Harm’s Way is a fast-paced action drama featuring an unlikely variant of the private detective. The writing is above average, the plot convoluted, and the characters well-developed with a past, present and future, something often lacking in the detective field.” – The Westmount Examiner
“Annand has a gift for storytelling. There’s more than enough menace to keep a reader intrigued.” – The Montreal Gazette
“A well-written, quickly-paced story with colorful details of Montreal. And Harms is a likable character – the reader wants to know what happens to him.” – The Daily Gleaner
To purchase Harm’s Way (digital $0.99, paper $8.99)
- Paper copy & Kindle : www.amazon.com/Harms-Way-ebook/dp/B005LVXIA2
- All other digital formats : www.smashwords.com/books/view/86740
The Date Square Killer (short crime fiction)
28 Aug
Ken liked to relax at the Mercury Café. No one there knew he was a killer. He could drop in for a coffee and a date square and sit in one of their dumpy club chairs and read the newspaper. No one would be talking business – explaining to him their beef with someone, and asking him how much it’d cost to have their beef turned into hamburger.
It was a slack day and he had time on his hands. He took out his mechanical pencil. It was a beautiful red Pentel he’d taken from an accountant who’d borrowed far more cocaine money than he’d budgeted for. He worked on a Sudoku puzzle. It was a beginner’s level because he wasn’t that good with numbers and if he got frustrated and started to hear the voices of his grade school math teacher echoing in his head, terrible things could happen.
As he worked on his puzzle, he nibbled on a date square. He patronized the Mercury Café because of their perfect date squares. If she weren’t dead, he could have believed his mother had made them. They had just the right amount of date filling, husk-free and not too sweet. They stuck together perfectly, so he could hold one in his free hand and eat it until it was gone and it wouldn’t fall apart on him. Some of these other places, you needed a whisk broom to finish the damn things.
He was sitting in his favorite chair in the back corner when a couple came in. The guy was maybe 21, 22, but looked like he’d got stuck in high school mode and couldn’t squirm out of it. He had a skateboard in one hand and a can of Red Bull in the other, tats up and down his arms and calves, wearing a T-shirt and a pair of those ridiculous baggy pants that came down to just below the knee.
There was a girl with him, she looked maybe 19 but stretching for a few years beyond, like she couldn’t wait to graduate from being a girl and turn into a beautiful young woman. She wore a sleeveless white cotton summer dress, briefly translucent as she was framed in the sunny entrance, and had a thick tangle of blonde hair that obscured her face.
They stood at the counter while the guy ordered a couple of coffees from the barrista. It was the end of the afternoon and the place was pretty busy so the good seats in the front half of the café were already taken. After they cased the joint and came to the same conclusion, they walked into the back and sat on the old sofa that was next to him.
The guy propped his skateboard against the sofa and put his feet on the coffee table. The girl sat beside him, but closer to Ken, keeping her knees together and smoothing her dress around her thighs as she settled in. Her tanned legs were the color of coffee ice cream. She carefully removed the lid from her takeout cup, took a brief sip and grimaced at the heat. She blew on the surface of the coffee and Ken noticed how pretty her lips were, pursed like that, as if she were blowing a kiss.
“Are you coming to Mom’s birthday party?” she asked the guy with her.
“I dunno. I want to go to a party in Oakville.”
“That skank you met on Facebook?” she said.
Annoying rap music erupted from somewhere inside the guy’s pants. He pulled out a cell phone and said, “Whazzup, bro?”
It turned into a long conversation, something about a girl that the caller had a hardon for, but it was apparently going nowhere fast…
Ken knew the feeling. Women didn’t dig him. It was like they had a sixth sense, they looked at his hands and knew he’d done so many bad things with them, and they couldn’t stand the thought of him touching them, and they ran away as fast he appeared on their horizon. He could write a book about unrequited love.
“Are you finished with that section of the paper?” the girl asked him.
Ken looked at her. She was looking at him. Her eyes were like emeralds with lights behind them. He was blinded, like a raccoon in the middle of the road, and a Jaguar bearing down on him. Whump. That was the sound of her tires running over his heart.
“Uh, yeah. Help yourself.”
She took the newspaper, the Entertainment section, and began to read the cover story.
Ken looked at the numbers on the Sudoku grid and couldn’t make sense of anything. His mind was like one of those paperweights that had been shaken, little snowflakes cascading down upon a landscape vaguely familiar and strange, hiding his tracks so that he wasn’t sure how he’d actually got here or how he was going to get home again.
The guy was still talking on the phone. Ken couldn’t believe how rude he was, ignoring the girl beside him. He understood from their three-line dialogue they were probably brother and sister, not boyfriend and girlfriend, but still. People with cell phones didn’t deserve to have friends, or family for that matter, if they were going to behave so badly.
Some days when Ken was in a bad mood he made lists of people he would kill for free. People who abused and abandoned their pets. Drivers who didn’t signal their turns. People who tossed litter on the sidewalks. Owners of very expensive cars who always seemed to have handicapped placards on their dashboards, but not a handicap in sight.
He looked at her again and wracked his brain for something to say. Her beauty was a frightening hurdle, like a mountain in the distance that he wanted to climb but knew that he would run out of oxygen and die before he reached its peak.
She turned the page in the newspaper, picked up her coffee, sipped it again, and her eyes drifted briefly his way.
“Would you like a date square?” he said to her, regretting it immediately. Could he have picked anything more ridiculous to say?
She looked at him and after a moment a crooked little smile appeared on her lips. “Who you calling a square?”
It took him a few seconds before he got it. Word play. She was messing with him. He liked that. His heart started pounding like a big bass drum.
“You’d never make it as a square,” he said. “Too many curves.”
“The better to roll with the punches,” she said.
“Anyone punched you,” he said, “I’d tear their arms off and club them to death with the stumps.”
“Ooh, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.”
“Did I…? Oh, I’m sorry. I thought I was only thinking it. Sometimes things slip out.”
“Yes, I know. It’s like that motherfucking Tourette’s Syndrome. Don’t you just hate when that happens?”
“Don’t get me started. There are so many things to hate.”
“You know what pisses me off?” she said. “Take a walk along Avenue Road, see how so many handicapped people seem to drive a BMW, a Mercedes or a Porsche. I’d like to line up the doctors who signed those permits and run over their legs with a bulldozer.”
Ken couldn’t believe his ears. It was both shocking and exciting to hear someone who thought so much like him. He stood up, but he wasn’t sure whether he should walk or run away. The last time he’d expressed an attraction for a woman, she’d called 911.
“Would you like something? Date square, chocolate brownie, macadamia nut cookie…?”
“What? I thought you were asking me for a date. Now who’s square?”
He stared down at her. Was she still messing with him? This was worse than Sudoku. The numbers didn’t add up. She was beautiful and innocent, and he was a beast with homicidal hands. What kind of children would they have?
Ken looked from her to the other end of the sofa, where the guy was now curled up like a pretzel, still on the phone. “I wouldn’t have said something like that, not when you’re with someone.”
She made a dismissive wave. “My idiot brother?” She looked at her watch. “We were supposed to catch up, on account of we haven’t seen each other, for like a month, but he’s been on the phone all this time and now my break’s over and I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Where’s that?”
“The Gap on the next block.”
She stood up, made the universal thumb-and-pinkie signal to her brother. Call me, asshole. And walked out.
Ken followed her into the sunlight. Briefly, it was like something out of a movie, where the earthlings step out of the spaceship and the new world is all bright and shiny and marvelous and they know somehow everything’s going to be all right.
He saw it too late to warn her. Some idiot had left a juice bottle lying on the second step. She slipped on it and would have taken a header onto the sidewalk if Ken hadn’t reached out with reptilian reflex and grabbed her bicep in his hand. He held her steady until she was on the sidewalk.
“Oh my God, your hands are so amazingly strong.” She looked up at him with gratitude. “And warm.”
“Thank you.”
“You can let go now.”
“Sorry.” His mother had always said, you find what you want in life, you hold onto it tight and never let it go. He wondered about that sometimes, and why she hadn’t held onto her own life, instead of spiraling down the drain in a swirl of cheap wine.
“I’ve got to get back to work.” She pointed down the street.
“What’s your name?”
“Barb.”
“I’m Ken.”
“Barbie and Ken.” She smiled. “My friends are going to rip me a new one over that.”
It took him a few moments before he got it. Was she making fun of him? He looked at her, still standing there, smiling with teeth from a dental ad, waiting for him to say something clever…
“What time do you get off work?”
“Six.”
“Would you like to go to dinner with me?”
“Only if you’ve got a lot of money, because I am really hungry. Not to mention, thirsty.”
“I have money.” It had been a good month. He’d killed two guys and he had another one to do this afternoon, although he wouldn’t get paid until tomorrow.
“If you’ve got the money, honey, I got the time.”
Ken had to control himself from having a nostalgic meltdown right then and there. His mother used to sing that song when he was a kid, and waltz him off his feet around the kitchen in their shitty little two-bedroom apartment, until he got too big for her and she got too drunk to dance.
Ken looked at his watch. “How about if I meet you right back here when you get off work?”
“Deal.” She offered her hand.
Reluctantly, he shook hands with her, feeling her little palm swallowed up inside his big paw. Her hand was very warm and slightly moist, like a burrito that had just come out of the microwave.
“Okay, I’ll see you later.”
“You know, maybe I shouldn’t say this,” she said, “but you have awesome hands. They give me the shivers, you know, in a nice way.”
“I get that a lot,” he lied, and he knew by the way she laughed that she knew he was full of it and she didn’t care. She waved bye and headed off toward the Gap.
He turned and walked away. He gritted his teeth, telling himself not to get all mushy and look back at her. He started to hum a tune to himself, observing the debate going on between his ears. There was the old Ken who insisted she’d stand him up and he’d never see her again, and there was the new Ken who believed he’d see her for dinner tonight, and then who knows what could happen…
He walked back to his car, a 14-year-old white Volvo – solid, dependable and unremarkable, very much like himself. He got inside and drove across town to Danforth Avenue where he parked on Logan in the heart of Greektown. It was wall-to-wall restaurants and bars and cafés for half a dozen blocks along this stretch. It was a warm and sunny September afternoon and there were lots of people on the terraces. He found the restaurant he wanted and went inside and saw the guy sitting there with a couple of friends. He was wearing a yellow shirt that stuck out like a banana in a haystack. Perfect.
Ken checked his watch and walked back to his car. He knew the guy had to be somewhere else at five o’clock, and he’d have to leave soon. But if Ken had his way, he wouldn’t get far.
He got back inside his Volvo and opened the glove compartment to take out a pair of flesh-colored latex gloves. He pulled them on and then reached under his seat to take out the gun. It was a .22-caliber Comanche revolver with a 9-shot magazine. They were pretty cheap and he bought them by the six-pack for a discount. The originals had 6-inch barrels but he’d taken a hacksaw to all of them and cut two inches off the muzzles. All the work he did was close up and personal, and he didn’t need a gunsight to hit a frontal lobe.
He got out of the car and slipped on the double-breasted blue blazer with the gold buttons that he kept in the car for his work. He looked around to make sure no one was looking and stuck the gun into his waistband. He took a pair of sunglasses from the dash and slipped them on.
He opened the back door and picked up a soda can from the floor. He’d stuffed it lightly full of cat hair that he’d accumulated from weekly brushings of his 12-year-old Angora cat, whose name was Boston Blackie. The rate at which Blackie was shedding was sufficient to handle about three hits a month, and since Ken rarely achieved such a level of business, he had a bale of hair at home, enough to stuff a couple of pillows or knit a few sweaters.
He locked the car and headed back to the Danforth, occasionally raising the soda can to his lips and pretending to take a sip from it, but all he got was a whiff of pussy hair. Typical. Sometimes a whiff, rarely a taste. But all that could change…
He glanced at himself in the window of a storefront. Lookin’ sharp, man, like a car salesman in a recession, all dressed up and no place to go. A couple of songs danced through his head, competing for his attention. He’s a real nowhere man, working with his awesome hands… And those bearded Texas bluesmen, singing Everybody talkin’ ‘bout a sharp-dressed man…
He was a hundred feet away from the restaurant when the banana shirt stepped out onto the sidewalk. That was one thing Ken had, it was a sense of timing, like he was right in lockstep with destiny. He followed Mr. Banana a dozen stores down the street, and stood looking in the window of a bookstore until the guy re-emerged from a convenience store. Mr. Banana tore the cellophane off a pack of cigarettes, ripped out the foil-wrap sleeve and lit a cigarette with a lighter. He crumpled the waste in his fist and threw it half-heartedly at a trash bin, totally missing the waste paper aperture, and the garbage fell onto the sidewalk.
Ken gritted his teeth, picked up the litter and placed it in the Paper & Plastic compartment. It wasn’t much, but it was the principle of the thing. What was the matter with people these days?
He followed the guy around the corner onto Carlaw. A dark blue Porsche Cayenne was illegally parked in a commercial zone. Its lights blinked, its horn made a little toot, and its engine started up as Mr. Banana approached it. Ken crossed the street with him, glancing around him as he went. No innocent bystanders to witness what was about to happen, the nearest pedestrians on Danforth a good twenty yards away.
Mr. Banana opened the door and slipped behind the wheel. Ken was just five steps behind him. He saw it was a Cayenne Turbo, which listed for about $125K. Interestingly enough, there was a big blue Handicapped placard lying on the front dash. Oooh, bonus points!
He caught the door just before Mr. Banana swung it shut and in one smooth movement he pulled the Comanche from under his jacket, jammed its barrel into the mouth of the soda can and popped the guy one right under the armpit. The home-made silencer burped discreetly. The guy leaned away from him, pawing the air like he was trying to shoo away a bumblebee, and his voice gagged in his throat, like the noise Blackie made when he was trying to cough up a hairball. Ken grabbed the flapping hand, held it tight for a moment, and popped the guy another one right in the temple.
There was no big splat from an exit wound because a .22 didn’t have the power to do more than one cranial wall. The slug just went in and bounced around once or twice and that was all she wrote. The Cayenne’s cream leather interior would be left unspoiled and the wife could either keep the ride or, if she felt any guilt about it, sell it like new.
“Now you’ve got a real handicap,” Ken told the dead guy.
He kept the soda can but dropped the gun on the floor and closed the door. He looked around. Not a soul was looking in his direction. He’d always been lucky that way too. He walked back to Danforth and headed for his car. He stopped at one of the litter bins and inserted the soda can into the compartment marked Cans and Bottles. He peeled off the latex gloves as he walked along the sidewalk, glancing at the happy couples eating pikilia and drinking wine.
There was a small square at the corner of Danforth and Logan dedicated to Alexander the Great. Ken put the gloves in the Garbage compartment of another litter bin. A place for everything, and everything in its place, his mother used to say. Just that he’d never understood why she had to go so soon to the place most people tried to avoid.
He unlocked the Volvo, took off his jacket and laid it flat in the back seat. He was hungry and there was a souvlaki joint right there on the square, but it was already after five, and he didn’t want to spoil his appetite.
As he headed back downtown, he ran through a short list in his mind of places where he could take Barb for dinner. But mostly, he wondered what he’d tell her when she asked him what he did for a living.
– The End ‑
————————————————————————————————-
Did you like this short story? Want to try something longer, with a whole lot more action? Read some of the reviews for my novel Harm’s Way:
“For Canadian writers setting hard-boiled stories in Canada, the closest thing yet to a US-style private eye is Montreal investigator Lee Harms in Harm’s Way by Alan Annand.” – David Skene-Melvin in Rara-Avis
“Harm’s Way is a solid P.I. thriller, a nastier-than-you’d-expect slab of pornography, cocaine, gangsters, incest, madness, torture and vengeance.” – Thrilling Detective
“Energy, superior punch-‘em out sequences, and humor.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Underneath the New Age trappings, divorced ex-cop Harms is plenty hard-boiled, using fists, guns and sheer wit to escape the many tight spots here.” – Publisher’s Weekly
Harm’s Way
A private investigator searches for the runaway daughter of an aspiring politician only to find that, on or off the campaign trail, honesty is the rarest commodity. As mystery descends into mayhem and murder, he confronts an unsettling truth – the innocents are always the first victims.
Kindle: www.amazon.com/Harms-Way-ebook/dp/B005LVXIA2
Other: www.smashwords.com/books/view/86740
Specimen (short crime fiction)
11 Jun
The island appeared in the distance, a smear of tan and green between the dark blue sea and the pale blue sky. It looked to be only a dozen miles in length, lying very low on the horizon as if hoping to escape notice.
Peter Flutterman in a white cotton suit and a straw hat stood on the foredeck, one hand gripping the deck railing as the boat crept up on the island. At his feet were a large suitcase, two portfolio-sized briefcases and a tubular case that looked as though it might contain a fishing rod.
* * *
As the boat approached the landing, a man came down to the end of the dock. He was wearing faded blue pants and a white shirt whose tails hung loose from his belt. A pith helmet sat low on his forehead. He looked to be in his mid-forties, the same age as Peter, although it was hard to judge with a full beard covering so much of his face. In any event, he looked well-preserved, unlike the typical islanders weathered by sun and wind.
The boat bumped up against the dock. A deckhand slung a rope that slithered snake-like across the dock. The bearded man picked it up and wrapped it around a capstan. As soon as the boat was secured, the deckhands formed a line and began transferring a series of boxes, barrels and bales from the hold to the dock. From the cabin, the captain waved silently to the bearded man, lighted his pipe and shook out a newspaper to read.
Peter picked up his tubular case and stepped over the gunwale. The bearded man reached out a hand to steady him as he stepped onto the dock. One of the deckhands added his suitcase and briefcases to the chain of dock-bound items.
The bearded man embraced Peter. “It’s been a long time, brother.”
“Walter? Is it really you, with a beard like a pirate?” Peter shook his head in wonder.
“And what about you, with cheeks like a baby’s bottom?” Walter touched the back of his hand to Peter’s face.
Peter tried to conceal his embarrassment. He wasn’t used to being hugged and touched, even by his long-lost twin brother. “Where’s your staff? We need help with this luggage.”
“We’ll manage all right by ourselves.” Walter picked up Peter’s two briefcases, leaving his heavy suitcase where it lay.
“I’ll need that,” Peter said.
“My staff will fetch it when they bring up the load of provisions. Let’s go up to the house and get you settled in.”
* * *
They walked up a footpath towards a large house framed by palm trees. Beyond the house was a quadrangle formed by long sheds. As they approached the house, a butterfly gyrated across their path. Peter dropped his case and chased it with his hat but it rose into the air and fluttered into the trees. Peter donned his hat in dismay, feeling foolish he’d been so overcome by excitement that he hadn’t extracted his butterfly net from its case.
“You needn’t have bothered,” Walter said. “You’ll see dozens more when we go into the jungle. You’ll catch them two at a time.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Of course you do. It’s the only reason you came.”
“I’d have come anyway. It’s been too long since we’ve seen each other.”
“I’ve been writing you for years. First time I mention butterflies, you decide to come.”
“Oh, let’s not start arguing. I’ve barely arrived and we’re at each other’s throats again.”
“Right. There’ll be time for that later. You’re staying the week, aren’t you?”
“Hardly any choice, is there? Given the frequency of your supply boat.”
* * *
After dinner, the night came upon them suddenly, like a heavy curtain at the end of a scene. They sat in rattan chairs on either side of a big sturdy table. Dirty dishes were pushed to one side. A bottle of whiskey sat on the table, a drink within each man’s reach. Through the open window, a three-quarter moon was visible. Walter smoked a hand-rolled cigarette.
“Still got that filthy habit, I see,” Peter said.
“I’ve got a lot of filthy habits.”
“Whatever your faults, you’re a decent cook. I can’t believe you made this whole meal yourself.”
“I enjoy cooking.”
“I can’t imagine doing it all the time, though. Especially not in this heat.”
“Usually I have a woman do it.”
“A woman?”
“Lovely brown-skinned thing, about 20 years old. Taiana.”
“So where is she?”
“Vanished.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Ran off. They do that, you know. They get tired of working and they just disappear.”
“But you’re on an island. She can’t just disappear. She must be out there in the jungle somewhere.”
“She’ll be back after a week or so.”
“This happens often?”
“Once a month, with great regularity.”
Peter helped himself to more whiskey. He took a sip and cleared his throat. “I don’t know whether this is the right time or not, but I think it needs saying. I hope there’re no hard feelings between us.”
“How do you mean?”
“After the will and everything. I mean, it wasn’t my idea that Father left everything to me. You were the one who decided you couldn’t stick around to work the business.”
“Thick-headed old bugger, he would never take my advice anyway. It was like working for a dictator.” Walter stubbed his cigarette in a saucer.
“I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“No, it’s all right. I don’t hold you any grudges. I went my own way, and you stayed at home. How he disposed of the estate was his business.”
“I was afraid you’d still be bitter. To tell you the truth, I was a little worried about coming here alone.”
“I’ve found peace in what I do.”
“Hard to imagine, living out here in the middle of nowhere, in charge of forty hardened criminals.”
“It has its rewards.”
“Really? What are they?”
“You’ll see – later in the week.”
“I never really liked surprises.”
Walter nodded. “I know.”
An old clock atop a cabinet in the living room began striking twelve. Peter noticed the tones had no sustain to them, as if they were muffled slightly.
Peter yawned. “I ought to pack it in. It’s been a very long day.”
“I’ll see you to your room.”
* * *
They entered a small bedroom containing a single bed, a clothes dresser and a small bedside table. Walter carried a lantern, which threw barred shadows on the walls. A canopy of mosquito netting lay draped over the bed. Walter set the lantern down on the bedside table and opened the window.
“I keep the windows open for the fresh air. The drawback is the mosquitoes, but the net will protect you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Peter said.
Walter opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out a revolver. He spun the cylinder and set the gun atop the table.
“What’s that for?” Peter said.
“Snakes. Prisoners. Taiana.”
“Snakes?”
“Boa constrictors. Sometimes they come into the house, looking for mice.”
Peter scanned the corners of the room. “Prisoners?”
“This is a penal colony,” Walter reminded him.
“And Taiana?”
“This is her room.”
“Really?”
Walter went to the door. “Good night. Pleasant dreams.”
* * *
They sat at the breakfast table. Walter was finishing off a fairly large fish. Another fish, complete with head, lay untouched on Peter’s plate. He toyed with a piece of toast.
“No appetite?” Walter gave him a glance. “Did you sleep all right?”
“Not really. I had a nightmare.”
“Probably shouldn’t have eaten so much of that goat cheese last night.”
“A woman came into my room last night, wearing only a grass skirt.”
“Couldn’t have been Taiana. She never wears anything after midnight.”
“She sat on the edge of my bed and put her fingers on my lips,” Peter said. “She told me I was in great danger.”
“You would be, if you ever let Taiana into bed with you.”
“She told me you had gone insane.”
Walter snorted. “She’s a fine one to judge. Once every month she runs off into the bush and lives in a tree.”
“She said that, every full moon, you go insane and kill somebody.”
Walter clucked his tongue. “Quite a dream.”
“It seemed so real.”
Walter shook his head with amusement. “Look outside. That is reality. The jungle waits for us. Beautiful butterflies. What do you want to do, get out there and add them to your collection, or sit here and relive some cheesy nightmare?”
* * *
Peter, carrying a basket and a butterfly net, walked with Walter, who had a small rucksack slung over his shoulder. They passed through the prison compound, a square courtyard bounded on three sides by long low sheds, and on the fourth side by a wall. The doors of the sheds were closed, the windows shuttered.
“Where are all your prisoners?” Peter asked.
“They’ll be gone all week. My guards took them to the other end of the island, harvesting pineapples. I didn’t think you’d want to have them around while you’re here.”
“Still, I was curious.”
“If you really wanted, we could hike to the other end of the island to see them. But it’s fifteen miles – a full day’s journey. We’d have to camp overnight and come back the next day.”
“Sounds like an adventure.”
“Wait and see how you fare today. This might be as much adventure as you can handle.”
* * *
Peter followed Walter along a jungle trail. The trail was barely visible. Now and again Walter swung his machete to clear away vines and undergrowth.
“Aren’t we close yet?” Peter said. “We’ve been walking for two hours.”
“You want prize specimens, you’ve got to get off the beaten path.”
“Frankly, I can’t see a path at all.”
They emerged into a large clearing on a hillside. At the upper end of the clearing was a 20-foot cliff separating them from higher ground above. In the middle of the clearing was a huge stone head similar in size to those on Easter Island.
Peter stared in amazement. “What is that?”
“Piece of local art.”
“It looks like me, without my glasses.”
“It’s me – before I grew my beard.”
“The natives regard you as a god?”
“It was done by one of my prisoners.”
“Why’d he make you look so sinister?”
“Artistic license, I suppose. But then, the prisoner never loves his jailer.”
Walter walked to the base of the cliff, where the sun cast a deep shadow, and slung his rucksack from shoulder to ground. He stuck his machete in the ground and removed his pith helmet to wipe his face on his sleeve. Peter, still staring at the stone head, followed him into the shade.
“So this is it,” Walter said.
“What?”
“Your hunting ground. Take a look around.”
Peter set his basket down and began to walk along the perimeter, where many flowers grew. Suddenly the air was filled with a cloud of butterflies. Peter pursued them with his net, capturing several in a few swipes. He came back to where Walter was now seated on the ground, his back against the face of the cliff.
“Didn’t I tell you?” Walter said. “Two at a time.”
“This is amazing.”
Peter opened his basket and took out half a dozen small jars. One was filled with cotton, another with fluid, the rest empty. He opened the jars, took a cotton ball and dipped it into the fluid, then put the ball in an empty jar. Carefully he plucked a butterfly from the net, examined it and then put it into the jar with the cotton ball.
“Ether?” Walter guessed.
“Chloroform.”
Peter plucked another butterfly from the net, examined it and tossed it away. It fluttered away across the clearing. He plucked out another one and put it in a jar.
* * *
Walter sat at the base of the cliff, reading a book. A bottle protruded from the top of his open rucksack. Peter trudged in from the sun and collapsed on the ground beside him.
“Anything interesting?”
Peter caught his breath. “Three new families.”
With obvious weariness, he prepared the last three jars. He poked around in the net, mauling the undesirables, and withdrew one by one the best three specimens of the catch. He placed each in its jar and put all his jars into his basket.
“What a day!” he rejoiced.
Walter offered Peter his bottle. “Celebrate. Have a drink. You’ve earned it.”
Peter hesitated, then took the bottle and drank.
* * *
Walter stood in the middle of the clearing, facing the stone head. Their expressions were equally grim. Walter dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his foot. He walked to the base of the cliff, where Peter lay curled, sleeping on the ground. Walter picked up the machete. He looked down at Peter, at the carotid artery pulsing in his exposed neck. Walter ran his finger along the edge of the machete. Peter snorted in his sleep, his legs twitching. Walter moved in closer until he was standing directly over Peter.
“Peter,” he called.
Peter woke up and raised his head. He saw Walter looming over him with the machete. His face convulsed in alarm. “No!”
“Yes,” Walter said. “It’s time to go. It’ll be dark by the time we get back.”
Peter lay frozen a moment, then scrambled to his feet. He gathered up his hat, his basket and his net. “How long was I asleep?”
“An hour or so.”
“What were you doing?”
“Getting hungry. Are you ready to go?”
* * *
Peter sat alone at the dining table. He removed the last specimen from its jar and with a long pin mounted the butterfly with the others on a panel of his portfolio case. He sat back and admired them.
Walter came in from the kitchen, carrying a platter of meat, a bowl of vegetables and a few plates balanced on his arms like a waiter.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” Peter said.
Walter nudged the portfolio cases aside and set down their food. “Yes, but more so when they were alive.”
* * *
Six nights later, they sat in rattan chairs on the verandah. A pair of glasses and a bottle of whiskey occupied the small table between them. Walter smoked a cigarette. A full moon hung well above the horizon. The water was dead calm.
“I can’t believe the week’s gone already. “Peter shook his head. “Tomorrow the boat comes to take me back.”
“Pity, isn’t it? We barely got to know each other.”
“I know. We’re still awkward – like strangers.”
“And there are still so many things I don’t know about you.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know anything about your personal life.”
“I have none. I told you I never married.”
“But with no heirs, then what would happen if…?”
“Everything goes to the Royal Society.”
“Really?”
“Science is my only passion. I want to help support their research. I suppose you might think that’s unfair.”
“Not at all,” Walter shrugged. “As I said the night you arrived, I’ve made peace with my life. I don’t need your money.”
Peter squirmed a little in his seat and cast a suspicious look at Walter. He reached for the whiskey bottle and refilled his glass. Walter lighted another cigarette.
“And the business,” Walter asked, “does it take up much of your time?”
“Not really. Two foremen handle everything in the factory. An accountant takes care of the books, the bank transactions…”
“A business that runs itself,” Walter mused.
“That’s right. I have almost complete freedom to devote to my studies and researches.”
“Admirable.”
The clock in the living room began striking twelve.
“Good heavens, midnight already. No wonder I feel half dead. It’s time I retired. What about you?”
“I don’t usually go to bed until after one,” Walter said.
Peter stood. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Pleasant dreams.”
* * *
Peter lay snoring in bed. The door opened softly and Walter entered with a jar in one hand and a small towel in the other. He sat gingerly on the edge of Peter’s bed and parted the mosquito netting. He opened the jar and poured some liquid onto the towel. Averting his face, he gently placed the cloth against Peter’s nose and mouth. Peter snorted and raised a hand. Abruptly his hand fell back down to the bed and he heaved a deep sigh. Walter remained motionless at his side, the towel still on Peter’s face.
When Peter awoke, he discovered himself bound by wrists and ankles to a wooden frame propped against the wall of a shed. His surroundings were dimly lit by a lantern hung from a beam. Peter looked around and saw the vague outlines of several large whitish objects propped against the opposite wall. He sniffed the air and made a disgusted face. He struggled against his bonds but couldn’t budge.
Succumbing to panic, he screamed, “Walter! Help!”
Another lantern approached from the far end of the shed. It was Walter, with one hand behind his back. He hung the lantern on another beam. Peter looked beyond Walter and now, in the improved light, saw the lime-caked hulks of several dead men on wooden frames propped against the wall opposite, each with a wooden stake in his chest.
Peter fought to find a voice in his dry mouth. “Walter. Those men…”
“My prisoners, my specimens… As are you.”
Walter brought his hand from behind his back, revealing a heavy mallet and a wooden stake. He took the stake in his free hand and placed its sharpened tip against Peter’s chest. He raised the mallet over his head.
Peter screamed to no avail. “Please, no…”
* * *
Walter shaved off his beard and rinsed the soap from his face. He toweled himself dry and ran his hands over his smooth cheeks. He picked Peter’s glasses off the sideboard and put them on. He regarded himself in the mirror. Lovely. He looked just like Peter.
* * *
Walter stood on the dock, wearing Peter’s white cotton suit and straw hat. The supply boat bumped up alongside the dock. The deckhands unloaded a couple of crates and carried Peter’s suitcase, portfolio cases and net case aboard. Walter stepped onto the boat.
“Good morning, sir,” the captain greeted him.
“And to you, Captain.”
Have a good vacation?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Your brother’s not here to see you off?”
“He’s busy at the moment, tracking down an escaped prisoner. But we said our goodbyes already.”
“Right, then. Let’s be on our way.” The captain called to his deckhands. “Cast off, there.”
Walter strolled back to the stern as the boat pulled away from the dock. He stood there a long while, looking back as the island slowly receded in the distance. He picked up one of the portfolio cases, placed it on a deck hatch and opened it. Dozens of pinned butterflies lay arrayed in neat order within the case. He pulled the pin from a butterfly and placed it in the palm of his hand. He tossed it up into the breeze and watched as it appeared to flutter away towards the distant island. He pulled the pin from another butterfly and did the same. And another, and another, as the distant island sank into the horizon.
– The End ‑
If you liked this short story, try one of Alan Annand’s novels:
SCORPIO RISING
Kindle: www.amazon.com/Scorpio-Rising-ebook/dp/B0050IOY6I
All other formats: www.smashwords.com/books/view/59231
HIDE IN PLAIN SIGHT
Kindle: www.amazon.com/Hide-in-Plain-Sight-ebook/dp/B0050K1EZA
All other formats: www.smashwords.com/books/view/59291
HARM’S WAY
Kindle: www.amazon.com/Harms-Way-ebook/dp/B005LVXIA2
All other formats: www.smashwords.com/books/view/86740
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