Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Issue #92 -- October 2025

El Pozolero

by Christopher Edwards

When Tommy finished, he sucked in a deep breath. The room stank of sweat, sex, and blood. He looked over at his brother, the only other conscious person in the room. The girl, he didn’t know her name, lay limp on the bare mattress. Her name wasn’t the only thing he didn’t know about her, but it wasn’t the most important thing he didn’t know. The most significant piece of information Tommy and Tony hadn’t bothered to process was that she was dead.

Neither of them realized this critical detail until their chemical-fired lust wore off from lack of fuel. Crank had kept them going for hours. Now they were spent. Now they’d finished with her. Now she was dead.

Tommy shoved a thick finger into the pockets of his grimy jeans, searching for one last rock he might have overlooked. His brother Tony said something that didn’t quite make it through the whine of his fading buzz.

“What?” The question came out as a croak. His tongue pawed at the roof of his mouth, failing to produce any moisture. He tried again. “What?”

“I think she’s dead,” Tony said.

“Bullshit.” Tommy leaned forward and slapped the girl hard on the ass. “Wake up.”

“Oh, fuck me,” said Tony. “There’s shit coming out of her nose, bro.”

Tommy rolled the girl over. On the mattress was a pool of blood and mucus. More bubbled from the girl’s nose and mouth. Her eyes stared up at him with blank intensity.

“Give her some Narcan,” he said and sat back down, fingers already resuming their fruitless search.

Tony grabbed fistfuls of his greasy hair with both hands. “I used the last one we had a couple days ago. I was gonna grab some more tomorrow. What are we gonna fucking do?”

Tommy paused his search and glared at his brother. Tony tended towards paranoia when he was high. He shrugged. “What have I told you about getting so worked up over shit?”

“Bro, she’s fucking dead.”

“I can see that.”

Giving up the search, Tommy settled for a cigarette. He took a few draws, his eyes flicking from the dead bitch to his nervous brother who was becoming more agitated.

“Bro…what the fuck? Bro, I mean what the fuck?”

He carried on like that while Tommy smoked. He lit another and decided he’d had enough.

“Tony.” When his brother didn’t stop, he shouted. “Tony!”

Tony stopped, eyes wide, head cocked. He looked like a startled animal.

“Tony, sit…the…fuck…down.” The cigarette danced to emphasize each word.

Tony stared at Tommy for a few heartbeats, then took a breath and sat in the corner.

Tommy needed to think. Most of the crank had worn off. His brain was scrambling in slow motion. The cigarette helped but he needed to clear his head. His mouth was still so dry he had a hard time prying his lips apart to speak.

“Where’s the whisky?” he said.

“Kitchen.” Tony’s eyes were still locked on the girl.

Empty beer cans rattled as Tommy shoved them aside to grab the bottle of Jameson from the counter. He swigged it straight. The whisky burned his throat. After a few minutes, his mind began to clear.

They had to get rid of the body. The easiest way was to load her in the car and dump her in an alley. But with all the surveillance cameras these days that was more dangerous than you’d think. Not to mention all the DNA he and Tony had left inside her, hell all over her.

He took another long pull of Jameson. What they needed was a way to get rid of the body that would destroy the load of evidence they’d left behind. Tommy chuckled at the pun…load.

“What’s funny?” Tony said.

When Tommy looked up, he realized Tony was still naked. “Nothing,” he said. As he headed to his own room. “And put some goddamn clothes on. I don’t wanna be staring at your dick all day.”

“But she’s still in there.”

“Like I give a fuck. I swear to God, man-the-fuck-up and quit being such a pussy.” He slammed the door to his bedroom behind him, annoyed at how much that had sounded like Big Tony. Tommy had always sworn he would never be like that piece of shit. But here he was doing the same shit, saying the same shit, wishing he could catch a break. If he didn’t have to carry his fuck-up paranoid brother around, maybe he could get ahead a little.

Tommy let that thought percolate while he pulled on a t-shirt. He wondered if that was how his sperm doner Big Tony, he never called him dad, had thought about him and his brother.

He shrugged off the stray thoughts and got back to the problem at hand. They could burn the body. But he’d heard a story about the cops still being able to get DNA off a burned corpse. They didn’t have access to an industrial furnace, so fire was iffy.

Then it came to him. He grabbed his cell and dialed.

           * * *

Miguel backed the minivan into the driveway. The house was in an older neighborhood. Most of the houses on the street had their driveways in the back. Almost all of them, including this one, had privacy fences that enclosed both the backyard and the driveway. This was also beneficial for what he had to do. It limited the ability of a passerby to see any activity at the back of the house. He switched off the van and got out.

A couple of houses down, a dog started barking. A distant siren blared to life and then faded into the night. Miguel scanned three hundred and sixty degrees. A man shouted at the dog. The dog yelped and fell silent. Miguel crossed himself, kissed the pendant of Sante Muerte that hung around his neck, and approached the house.         

The back door opened before he could knock. It was the older of the two brothers, Tommy. Technically the smarter of the two, Tommy was one of the lower-level dealers who distributed the latest products from Mexico to the east side of Indianapolis.

Miguel slipped inside, stepping into the kitchen. He took in the cans, the cigarette butts, the overflowing trash. The floor was sticky under his shoes. Inwardly he shuddered. Filth disgusted him. These white trash vatos were the definition of filth. The house was rank, and the two brothers smelled even worse. It was so bad the scent of his $200 cologne was lost in the miasma of rotting food and body odor.

Miguel followed them to the bedroom. On the bed was a body wrapped in a blanket that had been knotted at both ends to keep it from falling open. The knot at the top hadn’t prevented the long dark hair from spilling out. At the bottom a single foot poked free.

“Any ID or anything else with her name on it?”

“I don’t think so,” Tommy said.

The other brother shrugged and shook his head.

“Conchole, cabron!” Miguel said. “Don’t think so?” He hated dealing with amateurs. Miguel locked eyes with Tommy.

“Hey man. She...came to party, ya know? We never seen her with a bag or anything. We don’t card at the door, know what I’m saying? If she had one, we never saw it.”

“Clothes?”

Tommy poked his chin at the blanket. “Wrapped up with her.”

“What are you going to do with her?” This from the younger one.

“Tony…” Tommy said, giving his brother a look that said ‘shut up.’

Miguel turned to Tony. Sometimes a little education was beneficial. “I’m taking her to El Pozolero,” he said.

“Where is that?” Tony said. “L-pozlaro.”

“Not where,” Miguel said. “Who... En Inglés you say The Soup Maker.”

“What’s a soup maker?”

“El Pozolero is a man who makes soup.” Miguel smiled. “But not the kind you’d want to eat.”

“Soup?”

“He cuts up the bodies into pieces, then dumps them in a barrel full of acid. Soup.”

Tony’s face went white.

“Do you need help carrying her?” Tommy said.

Miguel stared at him. “Este basura…isn’t my problem till it’s in the van. Carry it yourself.”

He wouldn’t touch her until he got to Tio’s, and only then after putting on latex cloves and a Tyvek suit. He went back out to the van and waited.

The brothers came out with the body. Miguel opened the van’s rear door. After they deposited their burden in the back, Miguel slid the makeshift flooring over the body, forming a compartment that hid anything inside it from casual view. When it was closed, he went around to the driver’s side.

“Hey man,” Tommy said. “Thanks for taking care of this little problem. I owe you one.”

“You both owe me,” Miguel said. “Do you understand what that means?”

“Yeah, I just said I owe you one.”

“Both of you owe me. And you owe me until I say the debt is paid. If that doesn’t work for you, then you can take that dead puta back in your shithole house and deal with it yourself. Or hand me $10 grand right now and we can call it even.”

Miguel’s eyes bored into Tommy. When he didn’t blink for a long time, Tommy swallowed and looked away. Miguel flicked his eyes to Tony who was looking down at the shadows skulking around his feet. Miguel got in, started the van, and drove away.

He drove down Massachusetts Avenue until he reached his Tio’s business. The sign out front said, Enrique’s Tires. Below the name was a picture of an exploding tire, a phone number, and the words se habla Español printed across the bottom.

Once inside the compound, Miguel drove past the working tire shop to a ramshackle building that sat behind the rest of the business surrounded by layers of cracked swollen pavement. The redbrick structure boasted an ancient smokestack that loomed over the property like a specter. Despite the age baked into the bricks, a well-functioning garage door opened with smooth efficiency when Miguel clicked the remote affixed to the van’s visor. He backed the van into the dark opening then shut the door with the remote.

Sitting in the darkness, he took out his cell phone and sent a single text. Thirty seconds later it buzzed a response. It was time to get started.

* * *

The overhead lights were humming when Enrique entered the old building’s subbasement.  Miguel had already lowered the body down on the makeshift elevator they’d rigged up. Tonight’s ingredients lay wrapped in a filthy blanket on the floor next to an empty plastic barrel. Imbedded in the flooring was an industrial sized drain that would carry away any excess fluid.

He flexed his shoulders inside the Tyvek suit and grabbed an electric saw from the table set against one wall. Judging by the size of the blanket’s contents, this would be more of a cup’o soup job. He chuckled at the stray thought. Down the hall he could hear Miguel bringing the container of acid. He reached down to tug free the knots on the blanket.

Enrique had never kept count of how many bodies he’d gutted, dismembered, and stirred into the acid soup. It had never bothered him. Men, women, the occasional child, none of it even tickled at his sense of revulsion. The only thing that mattered was the profitable addition to his regular business.

When the corners of the blanket, freed of the hasty knot, fell back from the dead girl’s face, Enrique immediately, and violently, vomited into his surgical mask. The saw clattered to the floor. He swiped the mask aside and staggered to the drain. Even after his stomach had squeezed itself empty, he continued to wretch.

When it was finally over, he felt Miguel’s hands supporting him as he staggered away from the drain, away from the body huddled on the floor. His lungs strained to pump oxygen into his body.

“Tío, qué pasó?”

Enrique couldn’t speak but gestured with one hand back towards the body.

Miguel moved to the girl. His eyes widened and he felt his hand reach for the nickel 1911 that was normally tucked into his waistband. His gloved hand rasped against the plastic as it tried to find the pistol. It took him a long time to look away from a face he’d known her whole life. It was Enrique’s youngest daughter, little Louisa. She’d been missing for about a week. Now she was fresh ingredients for the soup.

“Quién?” Enrique said.

“Dos hombres muertos.” Miguel’s fingers reached up and grasped Sante Muerte squeezing the pendant through the plastic suit.

“Bring them to me…Alive.”

* * *

Tommy downed the last of the whisky. His head was pounding. Scarface was playing on Netflix. It was the chainsaw scene. He watched as the blood spattered the faces of the characters. That was some hardcore shit. It was one of his favorite parts of the movie.

Tony was passed out on the couch next to him. Tommy kicked him. “Hey. Wake up. We need more booze.”

It took a few more kicks to rouse his brother. When he sat up, he looked around in a panic.

“What? What happened? What the fuck happened.?”

“Jesus, chill out. You ain’t getting chopped up in a bathtub. Wake up, we need more booze.”

Tommy’s phone vibrated. It was Miguel. He frowned at the screen.

“Hello?”

“I need you for something.”

“For what?”

“You don’t get to ask questions.”

“Okay.”

“Do you remember the place we met?”

“Yeah, that t…”

“Don’t say it on the phone. Be there in an hour. Both of you.”

Tommy glanced at his brother who was staring into space, barely conscious. “Look man, Tony isn’t up for much right now. I’ll handle whatever you need.”

“I’m not asking.”

Tommy sighed.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Tommy said.

“One hour.”

The call went dead.

“What the fuck?” Tommy said.

Thirty minutes later, Tony was awake enough to walk to the car. They got in Tommy’s Dodge Charger, and he pulled out into the alley. They headed towards the Mexican tire shop where he’d first met Miguel.

Tony was slouched in the passenger seat, eyes closed. Halfway to the tire shop and he was snoring, useless as usual.

The shop, when they arrived, was dark. Tommy pulled up to the gate. After about five minutes, Miguel appeared from the shadows. He grabbed the gate and walked it open, the razor wire bobbing back and forth. He opened it just enough for the Charger to pull in, then closed it behind them.

Tommy rolled down the window, but Miguel just walked back the way he had come, one hand gestured for Tommy to follow. When they reached the back of the shop, Miguel indicated that Tommy should pull up to a garage door on the old brick building at the back of the property. The door opened and Tommy pulled in.

“Shut it off,” Miguel said.

Tommy did, then killed the lights. A set of fluorescent bulbs fluttered overhead. Miguel approached as Tommy got out of the car. Miguel held something up in front of his face. Due to the dim lighting, he couldn’t see what it was. He heard what sounded like an aerosol can discharge and felt a cold mist hit him in the face.

“What the…” That was all he got out before a well of darkness swallowed him. He didn’t even feel his head bounce off the floor.

* * *

His eyes split open. A bright light crashed down, and a fierce cold washed into them. When he tried to cover his face with a hand, he found his arms were bound behind his back. A question formed in his mind and tried to crawl up his throat, but as his mouth opened, the cold flooded in. The only sound he could manage was a drowned choke. A gargled scream clawed its way past his teeth. The cold vanished.

Tommy opened his eyes again. His body a cold puddle on a hard surface that seemed to spin and lurch. There was a musty smell like an old basement with a hint of bleach mixed with something else he couldn’t place. The scent seemed to burn as he drew it into his nostrils. Overhead was a bright light. Beyond the light was darkness. It hovered, coiled like a nest of storm clouds. As he watched, the darkness pulsed with a presence. The bright light shrunk as the darkness grew, becoming a tiny pinprick engulfed by greasy tendrils. As terror took hold, Tommy lost control of his bowels.

“El está listo.”

The disembodied voice jarred him from his contemplation of the hellish clouds swirling above him. His neck strained as his head spun trying to find the source of the words.

“Who’s there?” The whimper vomited from his mouth forming green slime. It hovered in front of his face for a moment before dissolving into smoke.

A chuckle wiggled out from somewhere between the light and the darkness. It fell onto the floor next to him with a wet splash.

He realized sound was taking physical shape. “What…?” More green goo spewed from his lips.

Droplets of water somewhere to his left became silver roaches that scurried across the floor in a steady stream. The scuff of a boot behind him rent a hole in front of his face. Inside more creatures wriggled.

“Bienvenido.” The greeting, scaley consonants coiled blood red above his face, flicked at his ears with a forked tongue.

“Where am I? What is this place?” His mind grasped for a reason to explain the nightmare he found himself in. If you could somehow combine crank with DMT to create some kind of super hybrid hallucinatory reality, maybe you could build something like the freakish hell he now found himself. The alternative was even worse. Maybe this was hell, or the gateway to it.

“Sit up, cabron.” Chilled fingers took hold of his shoulders and wrenched him upright. The voice softened to something more slippery. “Tienes hambre?”

Tommy’s head snapped around and he searched for whatever was purring the words at him. Finding nothing but that infinite darkness waiting, he closed his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “I am hungry.” And he found that it was true. The question had somehow conjured a debilitating hunger. He was famished. His stomach clenched and snarled.

That reptilian chuckle came again. “Entonces, comes mi amigo, comes.” The voice said. “We have plenty of meat.”

Tommy found that he could now move his hands. Something was thrust into them, a bowel. The copper tang of rare meat wafted up his nose. His hunger intensified and his fingers plucked a morsel from the bowel, plunging it into his mouth. It was a little undercooked for his liking but the hunger that raged in his gut didn’t care. The flesh was warm and juicy. The more he ate the more his stomach shrieked for more. His teeth tore through the hunks of meat like a masticating blender. Fat, gristle, and small bits of bone clogged his mouth, but he didn’t care. He sucked it all down, trying to fill the raging void at his core.

 As he ate, he noticed that the darkness overhead grew with every bite. With each swallow it crawled closer to reality. By the time the bowel was empty, nothing else mattered.

“Es bueno?” the darkness asked.

Filled with awe, he could only nod.

Tommy raised his face to the dark awareness above him. He grinned his thanks, teeth shining bright and red. He held up his bowel in both hands.

“Is there more?” he said.

Tendrils of black smoke from above formed into fat flies that buzzed around Tommy’s head and fell to feast with him as more flesh slopped into the bowel.

“Oh, si. Siempre tendremos mas.”

If this was hell, at least he wouldn’t starve. Tommy wondered briefly if Tony was hungry. Then with a shrug, he decided he didn’t care.

More for me.   

 

Christopher Edwards is a former Homicide detective. He lives with his wife in Indiana where he dabbles in photography and is doing his best to become fluent in Spanish. His fiction has been published in Esquire, Pulp Modern, and Needle: A Magazine of Noir among others.

 

 

 

 

Monday, September 1, 2025

Issue #91 -- September 2025

Chains

by Frank Vatel

He was listening to the Bills game on the car radio when it streaked past him. Snow pummeled the windshield, making it hard to see much of anything. Still, he had a feeling. The brain is wired to recognize certain shapes no matter what the conditions, and a body crumpled at the side of the road is one of them.

Kurt nosed the car onto the shoulder and glanced at the rearview. It was forty yards back now, a dark smudge in a field of white. A farmhouse levitated in the hills beyond.

He eyed the passenger seat, hoping a stocking cap and gloves would materialize. A brown fedora stared back at him. Sighing, he clutched the collar of his overcoat and withdrew from the Plymouth’s warm confines.

The going was difficult. Snow caked under his wingtips, throwing off his gait and making him wince with each footfall. He’d blown out a knee in the senior game in fifty-one. The injury had spared him from Korea, which suited him fine, but his leg hadn’t been right since. At least traffic wasn’t a problem. It usually wasn’t on these country roads.

As he mushed along, the scene before him crystalized. The dim outline of a barn joined the farmhouse and a sloping driveway connected the property to the road. He could see the smudge better, too. There was no doubt about it now.

The man was face-down in the mouth of his driveway, clutching a snow shovel. Kurt rolled him over and pressed two fingers against the neck. No pulse. After trying again with the same result, he sat back on his heels and took in the fella’s appearance. He was paunchy and pale, with lank wisps of silver falling out of his hunter’s cap. Horn-rimmed glasses dangled from his nose and two-day stubble dotted the chin. Kurt put him at about sixty.

His attention shifted to the farmhouse. It was on a steep incline, and the icy distance between himself and that hilltop made him want to get in the car and keep driving. Then he remembered the monsignor’s constant admonition to him: Think of the other person. Try to walk in her shoes. More than likely, the old codger had a wife waiting for him up that hill.

Alright, he thought, I’ll do my good deed.

He swung the Plymouth back toward the driveway. After hauling the old man into the backseat, Kurt covered him with a blanket. Then he got behind the wheel and gunned it up the drive.

The approaching farmhouse was lean and made of stone. A rusted-out pickup truck guarded the porticoed entrance. Kurt parked behind it, pulled the handbrake, and spied the residence. There was no sign of life. He killed the engine and left the car.

By the time he reached the front door, the biting cold had numbed his lips. He knocked, waited, and knocked again before trying the knob. It didn’t budge.

Perplexed, he surveyed the pallid farmland that stretched in every direction. How many folks living out here locked their doors for any reason, let alone to shovel snow? He returned to the Plymouth and rummaged under the blanket until he heard the man’s coat jingle. Keys in hand, he circled back to the house and unlocked the door.

The first thing that struck him as he entered the parlor was the absence of a woman’s touch. The television sat directly in front of a threadbare recliner. Don Knotts was mugging onscreen. Beside the recliner, a table console groaned under the weight of soiled dishes and empty beer bottles. A stale funk tickled his nostrils.

“Anyone home?” he called out. “Anyone?”

There must be a telephone, he thought. He gave the parlor a good once-over but found nothing.

The mystery of the odor was solved the moment he entered the kitchen. Several trash bags were piled against the door leading out to the backyard. He paced the room until he found a telephone jack embedded in the baseboard. A jack, but no phone.

He knelt to inspect the socket. Broken pins were lodged in the slots, indicating the plug had been snapped off. He ran a finger along the jagged edges and considered his next move. There was a roadside exit about ten miles back. A little town—Corman, Corinth, something like that. He could call the police from there.

Feeling a headache coming on, Kurt groaned. He didn’t have time for this. Looking after some dead hermit wasn’t his responsibility. Anyway, didn’t he have enough of his own? He’d have to call Fred when he got home, tell him the convention was a bust. Make another appointment with the bank. What kind of mood would Margaret be in? The cold fish. Why he ever bothered to—

Shhhhhkkt.

He froze.

Whatever it was, it sounded metallic—like tin cans dragging on a string. He remained still, waiting for it to reoccur, but heard nothing.

Kurt got to his feet. He retrieved a pack of smokes from his overcoat and popped a cigarette in his mouth. Then, fumbling with the lighter, he heard it again.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkkt.

He tried to locate the source but it kept changing direction. Maybe a critter in the crawl space. Maybe.

“Anybody there?” he called.

Suddenly it halted.

Then came something else. A woman’s voice, edged with strain and sorrow.

“Please—please help.”

Kurt tossed his cigarette in the sink. “Where are you, lady?”

“I’m trapped in the cellar.”

He scanned the kitchen. There was nothing resembling a cellar door. The voice called again, more desperate now. He was about to respond when he noticed something peculiar about the icebox. It sat on a pallet with wheels. He heaved it to one side.

There it was—a floor hatch. As his gaze landed on the sliding bolt, his breath hitched. It was locked from the kitchen side.

In an instant, everything odd about this place—the secured front door, the busted jack—began to make sense. His hands shook as he retracted the bolt, opened the hatch, and called down into the cellar.

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“Did the old man do this to you?”

“Wachter. His name is Edwin Wachter.”

“How long have you been down there?”

The response, when it finally came, tumbled out in sobs.

“Two years.”

 

* * *

 

Corinth, Pennsylvania consisted of a bank, a lunch counter, a filling station, and a few shops that were closed early on account of the weather. Kurt was almost at the end of the main drag when something else caught his attentiona low-slung saloon with a neon Budweiser ribbon flickering in the window. A pay phone sat just outside.

After ejecting the old codger from the Plymouth, his first concern had been getting back on the road and finding a telephone. Now his mouth watered. He parked the car, bypassed the phone booth, and went in for a drink.

Two hours later, he was still drinking.

“Another whiskey?” the barkeep asked.

Kurt nodded, keeping his eyes on his hands. For a moment he was aware of the distant clink of ice. After that, the merry-go-round in his head started to whirl again.

So much like Maddie—

He stopped himself. It wouldn’t help anything, going down that road for the hundredth time. A new glass replaced the old. It was his fifth or sixth. He drained it in one pull, then reached for his ashtray. The cigarette trembled on the way to his lips.

Her hair was Maddie’s shade. Copper. She was in her twenties, as Maddie had been, with the same raw cheekbones and nervy limbs.

There was one difference, though. Maddie had been raised by city folks who had money and influence with the authorities—a fact that had plagued him for years. This one spoke in a country accent. Sue Ellen Aiken was the name she’d given him.

After negotiating the cellar stairs, he’d found her kneeling on a patch of concrete and struggling to cover herself with a blanket. Her ankle was tethered to a steel ring embedded in the floor, and the connecting chain hissed with her every movement. That explained the noise he’d heard in the kitchen. She had a toilet, a faucet, and a bare lightbulb to keep her company. There were no scars or bruises that he could see. Whatever the old codger had got up to, it wasn’t rough.

He took another drag and stared into the bottom of his glass. News of her captor’s demise had done nothing to dispel her panic. Kurt shook his head, remembering how she’d behaved toward him in that cellar. As if he were the one who’d locked her down there.

He’d promised to get help, hadn’t he? And so he would. That wasn’t in question. All he expected in return was a little civility.

“You got a ride home, mister?”

Kurt’s head jerked up. He was plenty tight now, but he caught the bartender’s meaning. His patronage wasn’t worth enough to keep this dive open in a snowstorm. Well, that was alright. A man didn’t get too many chances to play the hero in this lifetime. Might as well get it over with.

“I’m fine,” he said, laying four bucks on the wood. The barkeep collected the money with a servile nod, unstrapped his apron, and started locking up. Kurt threw on his overcoat and went out to the frozen pay phone.

Inside the booth, he picked up the receiver and stared down the keypad. He let a minute pass, then two, before returning it to the hook. He had to think this through.

He hated cops. Part of him thought it foolhardy to get involved in something like this. He knew the ones back home were still watching him, and the scrutiny had cost him business on more than one occasion. But that was the point, wasn’t it? Why not make the call and drum up some good publicity for a change? A headline in The Chronicle, a few photos. Play up the model-citizen thing. Maybe the stench of innuendo would lift.

He released a long breath and slouched against the glass. Truth was, he didn’t know what to do. Being respectable was a complicated game. He missed his past sometimes. Missed doing what he wanted, when a thousand eyes weren’t on him. At this thought, the blood in his ears began to pound.

He delved into his pockets and found six quarters and a dime. Enough for a call to Rochester. He plunged fifty cents into the slot and told the operator to put him through to the monsignor’s residence.

A reedy voice came over the line.

“Hello?”

“Father, it’s Kurt Reinhardt.” He didn’t know where to start, but the monsignor was good about that, always filling the silences with questions about Margaret, the business, his health. The conversation went on like that for a minute—warm, convivial. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t.

“You sound like you’ve been drinking.”

Kurt was about to deny it, but he swallowed the words. Maybe it was alright, he thought. It gave them a way into the discussion.

“How long, Kurt?”

“Just today. I guess—well, I guess that’s why I’m calling.”

“What brought it about?”

“I dunno. Sales have been down. We were really counting on Silver Springs, but there wasn’t much of a turnout. The group from Atlanta didn’t even show.”

He awaited the priest’s reply.

“Kurt.”

“Yeah.”

“You know this doesn’t work unless you’re completely forthright with me.”

Kurt winced. The throbbing in his ears was migrating to his temples, his eyes, his whole head.

“Alright,” he said. “It was during the convention. I was taking lunch downtown and—well, I saw someone.”

“Someone who reminded you of Maddie?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t speak with her?”

“No, I—I restrained myself, just like we discussed.” Kurt wondered if the monsignor was buying any of it.

The priest exhaled, his weariness palpable. “This is your cross to bear, Kurt. These impure thoughts—they may be with you always.”

Kurt straightened. When the monsignor spoke of impure thoughts, his language tended toward the optimistic. They would lessen with time, had been the suggestion, so long as doctrine was followed. This sounded different. As if he could never be normal.

“But—”

“As always, the important thing is to move forward with God, from here and now.” The priest seemed intent on getting off the line. “You have a wife, a going concern, a place in the community. And many other blessings besides.”

“I know it.”

“Alright, just remember that. God be with you.”

“Father—”

But the click had already sounded. The coins tumbled into the cashbox.

Now it was time for the big one. There was nothing left to drink, no one else to call. He removed a business card from his wallet. It was given to him by the head of a staffing agency at the convention. Leaving the farmhouse, he’d scribbled a note on the blank side:

 

Sue Ellen Aiken

Location: 239 Ridge Valley Road

Farmhouse. Grey stone.

 

He lifted the receiver. When an operator came on the line, he asked for the nearest police station. After two rings, a woman said, “Police Department.”

“Yeah. I was, uh—”

“Is this an emergency, sir?”

There was a sharpness in her voice. He didn’t like that. He already dealt with too many sharp women. Margaret, Judy down at the office—

“Sir?”

“Yes. I mean, maybe. Look, I’m not from around here, so—”

“You’re in Corinth, Pennsylvania. You’re calling the Corinth Police Department.”

“Right. But see, that’s the problem. The incident I’m reporting didn’t happen here. It’s a ways up the road.”

“Do you have the address?”

Kurt stared at the card. The words were right there, in black and white. But he couldn’t form them on his lips. And the longer he stared at them, the fainter they became, as if they were dissolving into the paper.

“Sir? The address?”

“No, no. I don’t have it.”

“Do you know which direction it was? Or anything else that might help—”

As she went on, he noticed a store across the street. “A&S Hardware” was painted on the shingle. A light was on inside.

That was it, he thought. He could do this himself. The police needn’t be any part of it.

“Sir? Are you there?”

He dropped the receiver on the hook and left the booth.

 

* * *

 

The rattle of the shopkeeper’s bell drew the cashier’s eyes to him immediately. She was a heavyset gal draped in a flannel shirt and apron. A cloud of salt-and-pepper hair gathered around her face and a cigarette dangled from her lips. 

“How can I help you?” she asked. Judging from the husky voice, she was a two-packs-a-day sort.

“You got something that’ll cut through steel?” Kurt replied.

“Any type in particular? Bolt? Lock?”

“Chain-link.”

She gave him a hard look. “You visiting someone here in Corinth?”

Kurt stiffened, realizing his mistake. He should have found the bolt cutters himself rather than allow this woman to nose into his business.

“Just passing through.” He rounded into the first aisle without awaiting further conversation. He was striding past the plumbing supplies when the cashier spoke up again, her voice carrying over the shelves.

“If you’re after bolt cutters, you won’t find them there.”

Kurt’s wingtips squeaked as he came to a stop. “Where, then?” he shouted.

“Fourth aisle, left.”

He started moving again, breaking left at the endcap and ticking off the aisles as he went. Just before he arrived at number four, he stopped.

It was something in his peripheral vision. Not the bolt cutters, but something else. Something that made him relinquish any thought of bolt cutters, newspaper headlines, or clearing his name.

He took them off the pegboard. As a glare from the store lights rolled off the metal, a heavy sensation unfurled in his belly. They were the same make he’d kept in his work shed all those years ago. The ones he’d—

The ones he’d buried after all that bad business came out. They weren’t healthy to have around, the monsignor had said. They’d lead him back to his worst thoughts. But the thoughts were always there, weren’t they? There wasn’t much point in denying it. For the rest of his life, he would be shackled to the memory of those four days with Maddie. To the humidity of that shed, the smell of balsam and blood. The screaming.

He worked the pliers with his fingers. At first the grip was cold to the touch. Then it began to soften and warm, like skin. He pressed a thumbnail into it and watched the dimple fade as the rubber reconstituted.

“Those won’t help you much.”

Kurt flinched. He hadn’t noticed the woman sidle up. Turning to face her, he heard something clatter on the floor.

She knelt to retrieve the pliers, which had struck her on the leg. “You alright?” she asked.

“Fine, I’m fine.”

She eyed him for a moment. “Anyways, like I was saying. These won’t be much use. You’re gonna need at least a twenty-four-inch cutter, assuming the chain’s cargo strength. Is it?”

Kurt turned the question over in his mind, but answering it proved difficult. A decade of built-up tension was zigzagging from every nerve ending, blocking all but one idea.

“It’s not big,” he said. “More like a purse chain. Those will do fine.”

Still scrutinizing the pliers, the cashier asked him whether he needed anything else. Kurt thought about it.

“Yeah,” he said. “A rope, a rag, and some electric tape.”

The woman collected the requested items and met Kurt at the register, where she rang up his purchases. He knew how reckless he was being, laying out his intentions so obviously. But he pushed on.

“That’ll be nine-seventy-five,” the cashier said. She grabbed a paper sack from behind the counter, her eyes never leaving Kurt’s. “You sure you’re alright?”

Kurt hadn’t noticed it, but he was misting up. He withdrew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and dried his eyes. “Looks like I shouldn’t have had that drink earlier,” he said. “My first in ten years.”

He didn’t know why he’d said it, why he would confess such a thing to a stranger. Maybe because all other confessions were impossible.

She placed the last item in the sack and handed it over, nodding sympathetically. “I can relate. My husband was on the wagon nineteen years. Now it’s seventeen months.”

“Yeah?” Kurt said, tucking the package under his arm. “What happened seventeen months ago?”

“Our daughter went missing.”

Suddenly the floor seemed to tilt. Kurt’s stomach lurched.

“Holding onto that pain,” she continued. “It nearly ruined us. Finally, we had to accept we weren’t never gonna see her again—”

Kurt averted his gaze, trying to imagine he was anywhere else. It didn’t work. She kept talking, her words grinding through his skull as if propelled by a drill. He fished out his wallet, trying to move the transaction along, but his hands jittered as he opened the flaps. The woman noticed it.

“You are in bad shape,” she said. “Listen, there’s a coffee maker and a place to sit, back of the store. Whatever’s bothering you, we could talk it through. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

Kurt shook his head. “I just need some air.”

“A feller in your condition shouldn’t be out roaming—”

“Did you say nine-seventy-five?”

Finally taking the hint, she nodded and Kurt hastily withdrew the cash from his wallet. Too hastily, it turned out.

As the money hit the counter, so did the business card. For a torturous moment, Kurt watched it cartwheel across the wood, knowing with the certainty of the damned that the girl’s name would land face-up. And so it did.

He considered telling the woman everything. That her daughter was a few miles up the road, that he’d written down her name and location for the police. Then panic seized him. Why hadn’t he said anything before the card popped out? How would he explain those purchases? In one deft motion, he swept the card back into his wallet and pushed the money toward the register, telling her to keep the change. Then he turned toward the exit.

How long had it been on the counter, anyway? A second, maybe two? Nobody could decipher his scrawl that fast. The buzzing of his nerves ebbed as he approached the door, which shook with the persistent belting of the wind. It was so close now. He could almost feel the cold on his face.

But as he reached for the handle, he heard something from behind that bolted him to the spot. The unmistakable clik-clak of a shotgun.

Afterward, there was a teasing silence. A moment’s reprieve that left Kurt wondering if he’d heard wrong. It was broken, finally, by the husky voice.

“On second thought, we might need to have that talk after all.”

 

 

 

Frank Vatel is a writer, freelance illustrator, and noir enthusiast whose work has appeared in Bristol Noir and Reckon Review. He spends far too much time discussing crime fiction and old movies on social media and is currently penning a noir novel set during the Depression. He lives with his wife in a rapidly deteriorating apartment in Chicago. His handle on Bluesky is @frankvatel312.bsky.social.