The tattooed face broke into an ugly snarl, as the spearhead nearly grazed one shoulder of its owner’s powerful frame. He lunged forward, the double-headed axe swinging and the crowd yelled as he claimed his kill, severing the arm of the spear-wielding warrior at the shoulder in a fountain of scarlet and removing his head with a backswing, as effortlessly as a chef might slice through a soft cheese.

It was a very popular kill. This animal, who had the fighting-name ‘Therloon’, had been the new darling of the Alfor crowds since he had arrived in the arena a couple of moons after the Fair. He was of the nomadic folk from the Eastern Continent and had their renowned tenacity and powerful build combined with a flair for the theatrical and a spectacular viciousness that was all his own. Playing to the crowd like the professional he was, Therloon swung his axe around his head and roared, his face contoured into a hideous grin which must have been visible even to those who stood furthest from the edge of the arena. The crowd responded to his signature salute and roared his name.

The powerful Easterner turned to where one opponent remained facing him. The smaller man held his sturdy frame prepared, the curving sword he gripped in one hand looked as frail as a blade of grass against the life-harvesting scythe of Therloon’s whirling axe. But the crowd expected good sport before they had their final glut of blood. For this was no ordinary combat unfolding before them and the money that rode on the outcome of this single bout would have paid the wages of half the troops Qabal Vyazin had been mustering on the outskirts of Tabruth. This was the kind of match that men waited years to see and could only be provided by this, the most prestigious Arena in Temsevar – that of the city of Alfor.

It occurred to Torwyn, watching this display as he ran a hand through his short terracotta-coloured hair, that there were many places better to be than standing less than ten paces away from the axe-wielding maniac and on the wrong side of the high barricades which protected the crowd from the fighting-slaves within.

Facing Therloon, now alone, stood the one they called the Sabre, whom the crowd had just seen defeat his own previous opponent with a classic display of athletic grace and skill. Now, invisible to all except those in the audience closest to where he stood, he shifted his weight very slightly, as if knowing what to expect. The charge, when it came, made him move quickly aside and turn to duck under the axe whilst bringing his own, lighter, blade across to cut at the bigger man’s back. It was not sufficient to do any real damage to his opponent, but enough to gain an appreciative call or two from the crowd and Torwyn could tell it had angered the Easterner.

“Sabre! Sabre!” He evidently had supporters out in strength, probably as many as were there to cheer for Therloon, but then few fighting-slaves were as well-known as the Sabre because few survived six years in the Arena as he had. Few overcame for that long the ever more creative and dangerous demands made on a crowd-pleasing favourite which turned life and death combat into gore-fest theatre or blood-drenched farce.

If it had not been for the coming war this fight would never have been allowed so soon. To end deliberately, the career and crowd-pulling earning power of a top fighting-slave was not a decision made lightly by the lanista of an Arena. More especially when the lanista was well renowned for being a tight-fisted miser, who kept his fighting-slaves in the minimum conditions and invested all his money in crowd-pleasing exhibitions and expensive exotics.

The dance of death continued on the blood-stained sand of the stadium between the unwieldy axe, made agile and serpentine in the hands of the powerful Easterner, and the insubstantial blade of the sword weaving the will of the man who held it. From the first, it had been apparent that the sword was no real match for the heavier weapon with its much longer reach. It was only because the man who held it seemed to possess almost precognitive reactions and a creatively robust athleticism, that the inevitable end was being delayed so long. The tension became palpable and the focus of the two men was absolute. For them, the world had shrunk to the circle of sand and the sweep of feet, hands and weapons.

Normally, the element of drama would have featured far more in any performance by either man. The Easterner was famed for his love of blood and to watch him fight was to watch a butcher at work in a slaughterhouse – but a butcher with a malicious streak of sadism – and the crowd, never sated, loved that. By comparison, the Sabre was known for the humour and finesse he brought to his savagery, playing with his opponents in burlesque ways which would have the crowd fired up with laughter and then stunning them into silence by the breath-taking skill of his acrobatic agility.

Even now, apparently pressed to his limits, Sabre found time to dance a brief step or two with a flower in his teeth, thrown by one of the crowd. It proved to be an expensive crowd-pleaser as the Easterner seized the moment to strike and Sabre, ducking under the blow, raised his own weapon ineffectively to deflect the lethal weight of the axe. It barely turned the heavy slicing blade but at the price of being smashed away from its owner’s grip.

Disarmed, the Sabre dived into a desperate, ground-covering roll that brought him distance from the certain death of Therloon’s backswing, and a few more precious moments of life. But his move was accompanied by the groans and boos of the watching throng. Those who had placed their money on the Sabre were most vocal in their disappointment. The fight was lost and many who had bet on the old favourite knew they would go home the poorer. But the let-down was soon overlaid by a fresh building of anticipation. There remained the catharsis of the kill itself, and Therloon was a master of spectacular, messy killing. That was something to look forward to. The Sabre’s last show would be an essay in violent, agonising death and those he had just robbed of their winnings would enjoy that revenge.

Torwyn watched the Easterner as he advanced across the floor of the arena. Therloon was fully aware that this was his moment and the exaggerated grin that split the tattooed face was as much leer of derision as smile of victory. Only those nearest the edge of the arena heard the tattooed man’s words as he approached his unarmed foe.

“You want to take back what you said before?”

The Sabre backed off step by step as the other man advanced, his arms spread wide in a gesture of pacification or surrender and the roar of contempt from the crowd at this sign of cowardice swelled close to riot.

“Take it back? Why should I?” he said as if puzzled by the question.

“Because on that depends how fast you die.”

“I don’t see why.” The Sabre’s tone was soft. “No matter how quickly or slowly you kill me it is all still true, Gant. You are an imbecile, a laughably dumb brute. You have less intelligence than the beast they named you for.”

An animal growl in his throat, the Easterner shot forward, the long axe held lightly in his hands. Sabre stepped back in a nervous retreat and in doing so missed his footing and tripped, sprawling backwards over the body of Therloon’s previous victim. He fell on his back, arms wide, body spread open and helpless.

The Easterner charged the last few paces, his face congested by anger and hate and Torwyn knew he was going to make this kill one his audience would long remember. Then the fallen man moved. His body rolled suddenly backwards, looking for all the world like a street tumbler, legs disappearing over his head and he finished the movement smoothly on one knee, the spear he had rescued in the process of completing the roll, held in his hands and braced solidly against his foot.

Therloon could no more have shifted his course at that point than taken flight and his eyes barely had time to widen in horrified comprehension, before his stomach was impaled upon the spear.

Sabre was on his feet as the impact was carried through, driving the point home deeply, twisting it to bite into the spine as the Easterner went down. Standing above his fallen foe, the sturdy fighting-slave looked down, without compassion at the tattooed face which was broken now by a rictus of agony.

“How fast do you die?” he asked savagely, for once allowing the fury and disgust to boil up through his veins. But the Easterner was beyond words, lungs pierced by the ripping barbs on the side of the spear’s head and breathing only in wheezing grunts.

The adoring ululation of the crowd ran like a hurricane around the arena and a monsoon of flowers and ribbons rained down onto the blood-drenched sand.

“Sabre! Sabre! Sabre!”

Torwyn straightened up and looked around as if seeing the scene for the first time. Then, strangely impatient and with no more than the most perfunctory of gestures to acknowledge the adulation, he ran his hand through his short rust-coloured hair and strode back through the now open gates, into the dark tunnel beyond.

From Transgressor: Dues of Blood by E.M. Swift-Hook

If you really don’t ever get laid
And of women you’re truly afraid
You need not scream and cry
From the Zon you can buy
A kindly inflatable maid

© jane jago 2017

Hi de hi, and happy days.

Your teacher, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, famed for the immortal ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, is here with a bag of sweeties for good children, a rap on the knuckles with a ruler for bad children, and a smile of beatific contentment. One is ready to be kindly teacher aujourd’hui.

But. As I sit at my desk and pen this lesson the siren call of other ways and other enticements draws mine eye from the pristine page. Oh to be free of the shackles of teacherly duty! Oh to merely wander barefoot the grassy tracks of…

No, wait. Compose thyself pedagogue… Duty demands. Of us all. Pay attention mes enfants.

Lesson 33: The Write Adverbs

Let us for a moment consider the adverb, close cousin to the adjective, for the less well educated among my pumpkins this is the descriptor of action as opposed to the descriptor of object.

One can, of course enrich one’s literary efforts with adverbs in much the same fashion as one should with the humbler adjective.

Consider if you will the verb to walk. One can have one’s protagonist simply walking, but how dull, how lifeless, how detrimentally uninteresting! Why not express sorrow by having him walk listlessly, painfully, unheedingly? Equally, a happy camper may walk springily, cheerfully, expeditiously. A sick person walks stumblingly, haltingly, agonisingly. A poor man shamblingly. A rich man arrogantly. A lover voluptuously and with the sun dappling golden skin with flecks of purest amber, or sensuously with high arched feet bruising the sward to release the fragrance of grasses and crushed herbs, or silently unheard until a beloved hand brushes one’s cheek or cups the globes of one’s… No. Desist ye from this primrose path lector. We have no room here for reminiscence. There is work to be done, lessons to be learned, students to be brought to a higher place of understanding.

Back to our muttons. Consider if you will the difference between two sentences essentially providing the reader with the same set of informations.

Firstly: Ariadne walked into the temple clearing.

Secondly: Ariadne walked tremulously, with her tiny feet barely bruising the grass, she breathed shyly in shallow gasps as fear and enrapturement in equal measure brought her creeping silently into the dappled shade of the goddess’ own glade.

Add your add-jectives and add-verbs. Add them or there will be no sweeties for you and no ice cream. Decorate your prose, so that it becomes as luscious as the fur on some great golden cat that rests throughout the day draped in the branches of a banyan tree.

Learn well, and if I feel your understanding I may yet decide to divulge unto you the dearest secrets of my own heart and soul. Do I hear you beg of me one tiny clue? Very well. Just one…

Before. Mumsie entered the room where one was attempting to work at her usual shambling and graceless half-canter accompanied by those other drunken minions of misfortune whose methods of perambulation were as varied as they were unpleasing to the eye. Some limped, some ambled, some were upheld by others as their liberal potations had rendered their lower limbs unreliable and somewhat of the texture of rubber bands…. One watched in increasing dismay as they filled the family abode with hawking, spitting, sweating, malodorous flesh. And then… And then. One came – into that turbid pile of human excrescence. One came. Gold and graceful as a great jungle cat. One came….

Pauses to rearrange one’s mind.

Great feline
Walking softly
Eyes meet eyes
Dampness of palms
Heat in the depths
Great feline
Notice one, please
Lest one fade
To nothing
Under the unregard
Of your amber gaze

So, my children, you have your clue.  Study with assiduity the adverb in all its forms.

Next time. The denouement.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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The outbreak of violence was sudden and almost gleeful. At one minute the darts match was friendly, if a little rowdy, the next second the air was full of curses, thrown punches and broken glass.

Mickey crouched down behind the bar, pulling at Charlie’s trouser leg until he too ducked under the sturdy wood.
“Get down Chas. It ain’t worth getting hurt for a few bottles of cheap hooch.”

For an instant he looked as if he was about to argue, then his shoulders slumped and he sat down. Mickey passed him a thin, black cigarette and he lit it moodily.

As they sat smoking, a bar stool flew through the air smashing into the optics ranged behind the bar. Charlie winced, and Mickey patted his shoulder. There was a further loud crash before the welcome sound of sirens split the air.

The atmosphere in the bar did another abrupt flip-flop as the navvies and stevedores who had been happily exchanging punches suddenly found lots of other places they needed to be.

Charlie stood up for a look, just a second too soon, as he was hit in the side of the neck by a shard of glass from the last salvo of broken pint mugs. He slumped back to the floor and Mickey grabbed him.
“Chas, Chas.”

By the time the police got to them, Mickey’s hands were slippery with blood, and her face was slippery with tears and snot as she cradled her dead brother to her skinny chest.

© jane jago 2017

It is not often one is granted insight into the mind of one’s parent through the medium of literature. But so it was that I came to understand Mumsie’s tendencies to overindulge in aspects of culture most regard as less desirable – sex and booze.

It was last summer and I had gone into her ‘retiring room’ to see if she had, yet again, absconded with my iPad as I had a hankering to take it and compose bucolic pastoral poetry whilst sitting in the garden. I needed something to provide the quintessential inspirational imagery so lacking in our squalid backyard, whilst I committed the consequential flow of rhyming commentary, contemporaneously to paper with pen.

Instead, I wound up reclining in the garden reading with interest a volume I had found poking out from under her favourite chair. It even reminded me of Mummy in appearance being much handled, rather fat and dog-eared. Surprisingly it had a Biblical quotation for its title, not something I would normally associate with my mater. There were also many self-revelatory notes in my mother’s long-lost youthful hand, highlighting passages or underlining phrases.

I later learned it is also a science-fiction classic.

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

There is much written nowadays about supernatural beings like vampires and angels and this book falls neatly in that category.

In this book, the angel called Michael Smith comes to earth from Mars. He is fabulously wealthy and naturally has magical powers. He lives in a commune where everyone runs around naked and has sex with everyone else and they eat dead people. He is eventually killed and comes back as a ghost to explain that he is going to take over the world with a new super-race, by evolving his followers. In the end, it turns out he was really an archangel.

I found the story by turns cloying, disgusting, strangely sensual, often all three together and always puzzling.

Three stars for the intriguing footnotes and marginal commentary from my maternal parent.

Moonbeam F. Metheringham IV

Adoring Fans can join my Facebook Group

 

Sanity slept in one of the wells below the deepest workings of the abandoned mine.
Yris knew because he dreamed of her often, dressed in pink froth and smiling with glass eyes at the abyssal dark. She had left him so many years ago and she had left the child with him. Perhaps she thought it a fair exchange, but she was wrong. Without her, he found being had long since become more than a burden. But he had continued to be, even so.
One hundred years to the day.
Nothing reached out from the past to offer solace. Only the weary shades of loss and bitter disappointment – of hopes raised only to plummet, like burnt out comets no longer trailing their glory and fire. The uncertain light flickered on the marl-plastered wall which held the record of those years. A private diary of his humiliation. Half his life lived out in these caverns.
Yris ran a hand over the protruding notches of stone he had set in the wall at the end of each year, the last still warm to the touch from the rock-melting heat of the energy weapon he had used to fix it in place. He thought about the final vial of life, cradled in its hiding place and wondered if he was right to wait longer.
“Will you at least eat?”
The voice made him turn, startled, but slower than he should. His ears, even with the deft enhancements he had created, no longer warned him of quiet footsteps on the cavern floor. He felt himself a fool for his moment of panic. The child was now a woman, this woman, who held out a bowl of something edible. He had long since stopped asking what. Her expression held pity. It perturbed him.
He should pity her, one who had lived out her whole life in the dark here with him,one who had no haunting memories of sunlight and open skies. No haunting, taunting, memories, echoing with the long silent voices of a lost time. And the laughter. He did remember the laughter – the taunting laughter – and sanity crying.
“You should eat, Gran’pa.” She put the bowl on his table, the one not covered with broken and disembowelled technology others had scavenged so he might build yet another wingless hope. Now she came over. Close to, he remembered this was not the child grown to a woman, this was the child of that woman’s child, also now grown. He could see nothing of sanity in her. His legs weakened as that realization grew stronger.
One hundred years.

The start of the story Tongueless Caverns by E.M. Swift-Hook, a Fortune's Fools story from the Inklings Press anthology Tales From The Underground.

From The Artist by Lyra Shanti.

Christmas was filled with sensation: bareness of skin, glowing golden in hues of candlelit moonlight. It was my hand upon her hip, her thigh around my knee, and all the places of unknown tenderness. I had no idea how much I had been kept unaware.
She said she would sleep with me until breakfast, and I found myself passed out like a drunkard. My dreams were like the visions of a drugged shaman, searching for answers to long lost questions that had only, until then, belonged to the Sleeping Spirits.
When I woke, the innkeeper’s niece had disappeared with the dawn and I spent Christmas morning in a confused, yet liberated daze. I immediately took out my journal, as to gain some kind of stability.

Christmas Morning 10:25 AM
What wonders are held for all the infidels and artists? Have I come to the pearly gates of Hell, or the fiery entrance to Heaven? Is freedom a price to pay for sanity?
No! I now know that my sanity is a small sacrifice for what I must do. I MUST become a madman and a genius. Whatever it takes to feel life beyond those who study and cloister their hearts away from any sort of passionate existence.
So be it! I am a madman now! I am a slave reborn! I am wild like a wolf on the hunt! No more carefulness and classes. No more doing it exactly right! From now on, I WILL BE WILD!

A Bite of... Paul aka The Artist

Question one: As an artist, what is your greatest inspiration?

Paul: <<grins>> I have to be honest; the female form inspires me greater than any other subject. However, I am often inspired by other things, such as lovers kissing, a powerful symphony, or perhaps a rain storm. Anything has the power to inspire, if the artist is truly open.

Question two: At what age did you realise that your talent was such that it was your fate to be both artist and musician. And how did the realisation come to you?

Paul: Well… my father, Victor, was a serious musician, albeit not that well known. He began teaching me the piano forte at an early age… Around three or four years old. He also noticed my ability to draw and paint soon afterward. By the time I was seven, he wanted me to become the famous artist and composer he never was. I suppose it was fate, but only one of his making.

Question three: Who is your greatest friend, and who is your greatest enemy? And why?

Paul: My greatest friend? Hmm… True friends are hard to come by for me. They usually either become competitive or lusty. But… I do have a beautiful black dog whom I consider a dear friend. His name is Gabriel, and he’s rather loyal.
My greatest enemy? That’s easy. My own self. No one is as critical or cruel as I am to myself. But aren’t all creative types the same? In the effort to create beauty, pain, and passion, we often nearly destroy ourselves in the process. It’s a blessing…and a curse. Wouldn’t you agree?

Lyra Shanti is a novelist, poet, playwright, and songwriter who currently lives in Florida with partner and spouse, Timothy, and their two insane cats. A lover of nature, animals, anime, music, theatre, movies, myths, and of course, great books, Lyra seeks inspiration from everywhere possible! 
Author of the award winning sci-fi series, Shiva XIV, Lyra is a dreamer of worlds far away. Further information about Lyra's stories, music, and more can be found on her website.

 

A couple of hours later, Sam and Anna left. Bonnie shook her fur very firmly and jumped into the car with a look of relief on her face.

“Good girl, Bon Bon,” Anna said, “you were so patient.”

“She’s remarkable,” Sam said. “She has put up with being hugged and kissed and mauled about. I can see how relieved she is to leave. So how does she put up with it?”

“Honestly, Sam, I don’t know. She just always has. She is a certificated PAT dog, but that doesn’t explain it either. Florence, used to be just the same. My best guess is that they somehow know those people can’t help it, so they adjust.”

“Whatever it is, Bonnie is a brilliant dog. Now where are we going?”

“To buy me that kick-ass dress I mentioned.”

 

The boutique was a small, narrow shop, half-hidden in Brighton’s rambling lanes. The shop owner obviously knew Anna and Bonnie well, greeting them both with affection. “And who do we have here?”

“Mine,” Anna said laughingly.

“Well keep a tight hold on him. Now what can I do for you today?”

“I need a kick-ass dress for a big bash.”

“How kick ass?”

“Right up there.”

“I got three real belters in your size. You want to try them and let mister sexy have a say?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

 

The first dress was vintage, bronze-gold velvet. Sam hated it and said so. Number two was apricot silk jersey. Sam liked it better, but wasn’t knocked out. Anna shrugged and went back for number three. When she emerged from the changing room, Sam let out a low whistle. Anna stood before him in a skin-tight deceptively simple sheath of grey fabric shot with rainbow shades. Whenever Anna moved, a thread of colour picked up the light. He was stunned.

“That’s it princess. That’s kick-ass if ever I saw it.”

“I thought so too. I’ve got some dangly earrings, so jewellery is covered. Gotta get shoes, though.”

 

Shoes came from another shop in the Lanes; skinny strapped sandals with toothpick heels.

“My feet are going to hate you, Sam. I’ll be expecting a foot rub at the end of the evening.”

“That’s a deal, and those shoes are so sexy that I can promise more than your feet getting rubbed.”

She snickered wickedly.

“Now. What about you?”

“Got a monkey suit. Clean too. Still in the cleaner’s bag from the last time. Got shoes. Might need a new silly shirt. Think the old one is a bit crap.”

“Well. We’ll get that too. And a new bow tie. A proper one.”

“Shit Anna. I can’t tie one of those things.”

“I can.”

“Oh well. In that case.”

They finished their shopping happily and were just meandering back to the car when Sam stopped suddenly. He stood stock still in front of the window of a tiny jeweller’s shop.

“Look Anna.”

“Look at what?”

He pointed to a ring box in the corner of the window.

“Oh,” Anna said softly, “how lovely”.

“I thought so too. Let’s go see if it’s your size.”

He grabbed her unresisting hand and towed her into the shop with Bonnie at her heels.

“Can we see the emerald and diamond ring in the window please?”

The man got up from behind the counter and unlocked the window.

“This one?”

“No. The one in the red leather box.”

“Ah yes. That’s exquisite. But it is rather expensive.”

“Let’s see if it fits the lady before we talk money,” Sam said firmly.

 

The square-cut emerald was flanked with blue-white baguette-cut diamonds, and the ring slid onto Anna’s finger as if it had been made for her.

“Like it?” Sam asked tenderly.

“Love it. But it’s a lot of money…”

“So? You can’t have a cheap engagement ring.”

Anna couldn’t speak, so she just blinked and nodded her head. Sam turned to the shopkeeper.

“I think the lady likes it. We’ll take it.”

The jeweller’s face was wreathed in smiles.

“I have a particular fondness for that ring, and it looks as if it was made for your fiancée. It’s early twentieth century and was pretty battered when I bought it. I spent many hours restoring it. If it’s your engagement ring, I’ll throw in the matching wedding ring as part of the deal. It’s platinum too, set with diamond chips, and carved to match the shoulders of the engagement ring. How will you be paying?”

“Debit card all right?”

“Certainly.”

“Done.”

 

While Sam and the jeweller did business, Anna stood looking at the lovely ring on her hand. Then she bent and showed it to Bonnie, who wagged approvingly.

“I think this means you and me will be marrying Sam. Do you approve?” she whispered into one soft, black ear. Bonnie flattened those ears and wagged harder. Anna hugged her dog, too happy to be sensible. When she came back to herself, Sam had finished his business with the jeweller and was smiling down at her.

“Come on lovely, we’re cluttering up the nice man’s shop.”

He held out his hand and Anna put her own in it.

 

They left the shop handfast, clutching multiple shopping bags, and followed by a happy-looking black dog. The jeweller shook his head and smiled.

“Stupid with happiness,” he remarked to nobody in particular, “I wish them well.”

 

When they got back to the car, Sam stowed the bags and belted Bonnie into the back seat. Anna, still in a happy daze, just stood staring at the emerald as it winked green fire at her. Sam scooped her into the passenger seat and got behind the wheel.

“Now,” he said on a laugh, “you do realise you just promised to marry me, don’t you?”

“I guess I did. But it’s OK, Bonnie approves.”

He laughed, then leaned over to kiss his lady love.

“I ought to ask you properly, though. I love you, will you please marry me?”

“I love you back much harder, and of course I’ll marry you.”

“Good. Now direct me to the Lamb and Flag.”

“Not simple. I’d better drive. I just need to moon over being engaged to you for another five minutes, then I’ll be OK.”

 

In the end, they both mooned, entranced by the beauty of the ring and the sweet promise of a life together. They were brought back to earth by Bonnie’s wet, warm tongue.  Sam laughed until he nearly cried.

“That’s us told. We’ve done sentimental for long enough.”

“We have,” Anna grinned appreciatively at him. “Let’s go book in and take little miss impatience for a good walk.”

The rest of the weekend passed happily. They ate an excellent dinner in the Lamb and Flag’s cozy dining room, where Sam and Ted discovered they had more in common than affection for Anna. In the end she sat back and listened to their banter, learning things about both men she hadn’t thought too much about before: Sam’s year working with Medecins sans Frontiers; Ted’s gap year working in a school in China; Sam’s encyclopaedic knowledge of Monty Python; Ted’s ability to do Margaret Thatcher’s voice; and a whole lot more.

 

The next morning, Sam and Anna drove to Ted’s house where Anna’s car awaited them, ready packed with her stuff. Sam whistled appreciatively when he saw the black Range Rover.

“That makes the Audi look a bit sick.”

She smirked.

“Yeah, but so would Little Noddy’s car.”

He made a grab for her, and they wound up chasing around the Audi with Bonnie capering beside them. Ted stood in his doorway laughing out loud.

“You are so good for her,” he said to Sam, “the dignified and rather sad Miss Marshall seems to be a person of the past.”

“Thanks, Ted,” Anna snorted.

“Get along with you,” he grinned. “Go home. Drive safely.”

They loaded Bonnie back into the Audi with Sam driving, Anna took the wheel of the stately Range Rover, and they went home.

Jane Jago

You are old, don’t you see it’s too late
You can no longer procrastinate
But you’re riding the sleeper
Towards the grim reaper
Still flicking two fingers at fate

© jane jago 2017

Sam Nero’s office can be found on the fifty-fifth level of the City. It’s not the mean streets, but it’s not exactly busted flush territory either. The outer office is skinny and dusty and inhabited by a peroxide blonde named Sugar. Sam’s inner sanctum, should you ever find yourself there, boasts a scratched leather-topped desk, an upright visitor’s chair, and a statue of an ugly bird that sits on the window ledge…

 

The moment she walked into my office, I knew she was trouble. Any private eye worth his salt knows that a dame like that in a dive like this spells trouble for somebody.

She was classy, and way out of my orbit. Even the sound of silk on silk as she crossed her legs spoke of money beyond my imagination. She uncrossed those legs, leaned forward, and pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of her handbag. I took my cue, lighting the end of her cigarette with my brass Zippo.

Leaning back in the tatty office chair, my visitor smiled a feline smile. She smoked in silence for a moment, and it crossed my mind that she looked as out of place as an orchid in a ditch.

When she spoke, her voice was almost as wealthy as her appearance. It was smoky, and sexy, and carefully modulated.

“If a person wanted to have somebody rubbed out, where would that person go?”

“The eraser factory?”

She leaned back and blew a smoke ring. “Very funny, Mister Nero. But I asked you a serious question.”

“I’m a private investigator, not a facilitator.”

My visitor laughed, low and husky. “Very good. And I’m not asking you to facilitate a murder. I’m asking you to investigate one.”

I leaned my elbows on the desk. “Aren’t the police investigating?”

“No. Or I wouldn’t be slumming it.”

“Two questions. Who died? And why not some up-level investigator with a shiny office and an even shinier reputation?”

She stared at me before leaning forward and stubbing out her cigarette with vicious little stabs. I couldn’t help noticing the perfection of her manicure and mentally pricing the job at more than what I earned in a month.

“Not so stupid, then.” Her voice lost some of its melody and grated a little on the ear. “I came to you because I heard you were honest, and maybe not afraid of getting your hands dirty. And who died? Lefty Galento. My father.”

It was my turn to stare. Then I spoke in carefully neutral tones. “Lefty died of natural causes.”

“Oh sure,” she said harshly, “if you call being smothered with his own pillow natural.”

“What do you mean, smothered? The newsfeed said he died peacefully in his bed. And Meditech agreed.”

“You have clearance for Meditech?”

I wriggled my fingers, and the ghost of a smile passed across her features. “If you had to hack in, why did you bother?” She sounded curious.

“Because Lefty and me went back a way. And I wondered which of his family got greedy.”

“That’s what I wonder too. And what I want to know before they start dividing up the assets.” She regarded me somberly for a minute, then appeared to come to a decision. “As far as the family is concerned, I am one of Daddy’s assets. I just want to make sure that whoever they want me to marry didn’t pay his nurse to hold a pillow over his face.”

She got up from her seat and reached into her bag once more, pulling out a fat brown envelope. “There should be enough cash there to engage your services. I’ll be back in three days.”

She left my office with a swing of her hips.

All she left behind her was an image burned into my retinas and the suggestion of her perfume. Oh, and an envelope of cash.

I put the envelope in the drawer of my desk and waited.

It wasn’t long before the office door was flung open with a crash. I only just had time to wonder how a holographic door could make a noise, when a pair of huge hands with black hairs crawling across the backs of them grabbed me by the shirt front. The goon grunted as he attempted to drag me out of my seat, but I’m a big boy and I don’t drag easily. I heard the material of my shirt tear, and that annoyed me. I don’t have enough shirts to destroy them without a backward glance. I put my hands around the goon’s wrists and squeezed, gently at first, then with progressively more force. The goon left hold of my shirt and started to whimper.

I waited until he dropped to his knees, then let go. He was dumb enough to go for whatever was in the holster under his left armpit. I coughed gently and he looked up right into the barrel of a blaster disguised as a vintage Colt .45. And those barrels look mighty big when they are right up close to your eyes.

“Down, boy.” The voice that spoke from my doorway was educated, with mild undertones of thug, and the goon was obviously in fear of the owner of that voice, because he scrambled to his feet and hung his head.

“Sorry, boss,” he mumbled.

“Just go. Wait for me outside and make sure we are not disturbed.”

The goon went, and I eyeballed my second visitor with some interest. He was slim and dark and good-looking, and he exuded dangerous with every breath.

He sat where the dame had been only minutes before, and I found myself thinking they had to be related.

“I understand you just had a visit from my cousin.”

“Classy broad, about so high, wearing a red suit?”

He nodded.

“Then I did.”

“What did she want?”

“Hadn’t you better ask her?”

“I’m asking you.”

I looked at him for a few seconds, noticing that the whites of his eyes showed all the way around the dark brown irises, before replying in carefully colourless tones. “She wanted me to find out who disposed of Lefty Galento.”

“And what did you say, my large friend?”

Thanking all the gods and all the techs for my excellent poker face, I looked at him blandly. “As far as I am aware, Lefty died of natural causes.”

From Sam Nero - PI by Jane Jago one of the stories in Dust Publishing's anthology The Last City.