Tag Archives: Hard Boiled Fiction

Contents Vol. 3 No. 4

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

In this issue of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s steampunk Cheése Stands Alone, and Pierre Anton Taylor’s crime fighting Just Coincidence, combine to give the reader their dime’s worth of Serial Pulp Fiction!

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations. Volume Two’s 10 issues are available for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 4

Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

“Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.

Better Than Dead—26

In March of 1892, a Scotsman by the name of Arthur C. “Artie” Doyle was hanged by the neck until dead after being found guilty of a string of grisly murders of prostitutes in Whitechapel. At that moment, history veered off its presumed course and headed in a direction all its own in which the Great War never happened because the Kaiser was afraid of offending his grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose life has been prolonged by the wonders of biology. Her reign, known as the Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years maintaining as many Victorian airs as possible while making accommodations to rapid advances in bio technology. Cheése Stands Alone poses a steampunk question, can Captain Lydia Cheése (pronounced “Chase”) find her father, the antigovernment turncoat and radical, Commodore Jack “Wild Goose” Cheése. And furthermore, will her quest take her around the globe and through alternate world histories in the requisite 80 days or is it the beginning of a lifelong journey?

Cheése Stands Alone IX

In Just Coincidence, a privileged young man with the unremarkable name of Wayne Bruce returns to the site where his father once had his business, a battery manufacturing plant, and where he often spent his childhood days hanging around the factory and the neighborhood. His return is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding his father’s death and the vague feeling that his uncle is somehow involved. Appalled by the poverty and crime of the place he remembers fondly, he is moved to resolve the injustice of the socially marginalized and to wreak vengeance on those he believes are responsible for the death of his father. A personal coincidence brings together dark prince and dark knight joined in a fateful and tragic quest for justice.

Act Two, Scene 2, Part 1

Contents Vol. 3 No. 3

April 10, 2023Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Dime Pulp, Hard Boiled Fiction, Hard Boiled Myths, Just Coincidence, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

In this issue of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, hapless city rat Lackland Ask, hiding out from the mob in the country, runs into more trouble from a shotgun toting moonshiner and his star struck daughter, and has to wonder why everyone keeps mistaking him for a dead man.

In Lydia Cheése’s post axial shift world, the reader enters an unfamiliar historical realm peopled by historically familiar names. In Phyllis Huldarsdottir’s Cheése Stands Alone, biology takes the lead as the premier science and physics is just something engineers do. The world is steam powered and airships are the primary mode of intercontinental transport. The Pax Victoriana has lasted 180 years thanks to the machinations of the Admiralty and its intelligence network, IOTA.

In Act Two, Scene 1, part 3, of Pierre Anton Taylor’s Just Coincidence, a classic tale of vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature, Wayne Bruce is made an offer he shouldn’t refuse and meets his nemesis, Joe Kerr, in person for the first time. His response to being targeted in a drive-by is swift and original.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 3

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Better Than Dead—25

Cheése Stands Alone VIII

Act Two, Scene I, Part 3

Contents Vol. 3 No. 2

February 19, 2023Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Dime Pulp, Hard Boiled Fiction, Hard Boiled Myths, Just Coincidence, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Two of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

In Act Two, Scene 1, part 2, of Pierre Anton Taylor’s Just Coincidence, a classic tale of vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature, Wayne Bruce is made an offer he shouldn’t refuse and meets his nemesis in person for the first time.

FYI: Available for readers of Dime Pulp who may have missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial Dime Pulp Yearbook 21, featuring the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, is joined by Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring the complete pulp Western, On The Road To Las Cruces, continuing episodes of a detective story, Better Than Dead, the opening chapters of new serial novels, Just Coincidence and Cheése Stands Alone, the short fiction of Hard Boiled Myth and Polka Dot Dress, as well as Dropping A Dime’s pithy pulp observations of Volume Two’s 10 issues, and ready for perusal in their entirety by simply clicking on the links in this paragraph or on the menu bar above.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 2

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Better Than Dead—24

Cheése Stands Alone VII

Act Two, Scene I, Part 2

Better Than Dead—24

February 19, 2023Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction"Brother can you spare a dime?", A Detective Story, Better Than Dead, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Fedoras and Flatfoots, Hard Boiled Fiction, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

by Colin Deerwood

She was all over me like butter on scotch. I knew my next move would decide if I was going to be staring down the double barrel of a shotgun or not. I was torn by the urge to pull her in close or pushing her away. I looked at that young face and I saw Rebecca, innocence yet passion.

“Listen,” I said “you. . . .”

She was passing her young lips all over my face and my neck, whispering in my ear, “Oh, Ned, Ned, I knew you’d come back to me!”

So that was it. “Ok, kid, you gotta calm down. You got me mixed up with someone else.” I held her by by the shoulders and pushed her away. “I’m not Ned. And if I do look like him, it’s just the family resemblance.”

“Oh no, Ned, you’ve come back just like you said you would!”

“Ok, let’s get one thing straight. I ain’t no ghost and I’m certainly not Uncle Ned back from the dead.”

She tried to put her arms around my neck and I held her wrists.

“But you look so much like the picture of him when he was younger and I think it looks just like you do right now except you’re not wearing a uniform. And he told me that if he could be that young again he would come and get me and take me away with him! And that’s just what he, you did!”

Now I knew I was dealing with nutty and the only way to deal with nutty is to be nutty right back. “Sorry to disappoint you, Marie. I’m not Ned and I can’t be Ned for you either.”

She gave me a fierce pout and was about to answer me back.

“Let me explain why.” I put on my most serious and somber air. “You see I just lost a loved one, a girl, in fact, just a little older than you.”

“Was she your girlfriend?!” she demanded.

“Well, I was hoping to make her my girlfriend but then she died.”

Her mouth went sad but her eyes were smiling. “Oh,” she muttered, “I’m sorry.” And then, “What did she look like?”

“She looked like a movie star.”

Her eyes brightened. “Oh, which one, which one?”

Now she had me. I’d been to a lot of movies but I could never remember any of the names of the dames. “What’s her name, the blonde with the grapefruit?”

“Oh I know, Jean Harlow!”

“Yeah, but more of a brunette and kinda classy.”

“Mina Loy?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Carole Lombard?” She narrowed her eyes in frustration. “Katherine Hepburn!”

“Yeah, that’s it, but younger.”

I watched her picture the face of the actress. “What was her name?”

I was surprised that it was difficult to speak it. “Becky, Rebecca.” And the ledge four stories up where she took her fall was still very clear.

I got a look of sympathy. “How did she die?”

It took me a bit to form the words. “She fell. From a building.”

“Oh, a suicide.”

“No, she and I were running away from a gang of crooks when the radio bomb blew up and she lost her footing trying to reach the fire escape.”

By the look in her eyes, she was stunned by disbelief.

“You see, I’m a newspaper reporter and I was investigating a mob boss who turned out to belong to the Black Hand. Becky was a cub reporter following me around cause I was supposed to be showing her the ropes, but we got too close to the bad guys. And she died. It happened just a few days ago, not more than a week. And that’s why I’m up here. The cops are after me because they want to know what I uncovered. The mob is after me to keep me from revealing what I uncovered. And then there’s the Thieves of Bombay out for revenge.”

I might have overdone it. Her eyes were shining.

“I don’t care if you’re Ned or not, I’m in love with you!” she said advancing with a youthful ardor.

“Once when I was swimming naked like I do on a full moon night because I read about a movie star who did that, he saw me. And when he stood up to walk away, I saw that he had a stiffy.

I heard it, and she heard it too, a shuffling and heavy breathing. I thought maybe it was the bear and turned in that direction and when I turned back, she was gone. Then I saw him, lumbering up the path, red faced beneath the ragged straw hat. He was carrying a shotgun. He nodded to me as I stepped out onto the porch.

“Ifn I believed in ghosts I‘d say you was one. Marie said you was. I knowed him after he come back from the war n he looked a lot like you do now. You’re family I take it.” When I nodded, wary of the shotgun resting across his forearm, “Abner Wilson. I got the big cabin over yonder.” He cocked his head in the direction I made a note to avoid in the future. “Ned and me was fishing and drinking partners. He supplied the fish and I supplied the drink. It was a good trade. You fish?”

“I’ve been known to.”

“You don’t look like no country boy except for the dings on your face. You ain’t showing any laboring muscle. City boy?” He sent a squirt of tobacco juice into the berry bramble.

“I’m Stan Gardner,” I said, “I was a reporter working on a story about the mob and I got too close. That’s why the knuckle prints.” That got his interest.

“So this is your hideaway? That mean the gov’mint gonna come snooping around?”

“They won’t if nobody tells them I’m here.”

“You sure you ain’t a revenuer?”

“Do I look like one?”

“No, can’t say as you do.” Old Wilson glared with a squint eye. “You look like trouble. Stay offn my property.” He shifted the shotgun to the ready. “And stay away from my daughter.”

I found his daughter after the moonshiner had slouched away through the thicket separating the properties. She was propped up quite comfortably on granny’s bed reading movie magazines.

“Where’d you find those?” I asked flipping through the dusty stack at her side. There were copies of Screen Star, Film Fun, and Star Brite along with some more risqué covers and content from Gay Parisienne, Spicy, and Smart Set.

She looked up from her magazine, smiling mischievously. “Under the bed. Ned used to get them for me. Well, not all of them.” She flicked the cover of a Spicy with a particularly racy cover. “He would read me stories of Hollywood and all the movie stars. And after a while I caught on how to read and could read them by myself and he said he was real proud of me. Even the teacher over at the school was surprised I could figure out how to read and knew so much about Hollywood which she said was the den of devils but I didn’t believe her because if these are pictures of devils I want one and I want to be one.” She held up a full page spread of Hollywood dollies.

“Wait a minute. You and Ned were. . . ?”

“Intimate? Not once. He wouldn’t allow it. I read all about it in one of his magazines, all the different kinds of kisses, like the soul kiss and the vacuum kiss, the eyelash kiss, the nip, the taxi kiss, and there’s this book called the camera suiter with pictures of how to hold someone when you’re in love with them and. . . .”

“Ok, ok, I think I heard enough. So Ned never tried anything, you know, with his. . . ?”

“Once when I was swimming naked like I do on a full moon night because I read about a movie star who did that, he saw me. And when he stood up to walk away, I saw that he had a stiffy. I thought it was funny because I thought only the boys at school got them. And they’re always after me to touch them, but I won’t ever. Ned told me not to touch their toads, he called them that, cause I’d get warts on my hands and I want my hands to be perfect and white as a Hollywood starlet.”

The sirens were sounding in my head and I don’t mean the ones sitting on rocks calling out to sailors that my old man told me about. These were police sirens, tornado warning sirens, air raid sirens, draw bridge sirens, man overboard ship sirens all telling me one thing. I was looking at trouble. That was the last thing I needed. And the way she was looking at me spelled my doom.

“You’re going to get me killed. You heard your old man. He’d shoot me if he knew you were here.”

She pouted and gave me a sorrowful look. “But Ned. . . .”

“I’m not Ned and you know it!” It came out harsh and she drew back alarmed. I’d scared her. And I realized then that she could be a better ally than an adversary. “Listen, Marie, maybe you can help me.” That brightened her up. “There are some real bad men who would like nothing better than to get their hands on me. I need someone who knows their way around Little Lake, someone who knows hiding places in case they come looking for me, someone to keep their eyes and ears open so someone don’t come sneaking up on me.”

Her eyes opened almost as wide as her pert little mouth and she nodded her head vigorously. “Oh, yes, yes, I can do that, Ned, er, I mean. . . ?”

“You can call me Stan for now. When I get to know you better, I’ll tell you my real name.” I held out my hand because I could tell she wanted to throw her arms around me to seal our compact. “Shake?”

I could have passed a hand over my brow to signify that I dodged a close one. Now she was all smiles as she paused at the door to the cabin. “You can count on me, Stan. And don’t worry about pa, by the time the sun goes down he’s usually drunker than a skunk on sour mash. And that shotgun ain’t loaded. It’s mostly for show when summer folk takes a wrong turn and wander onto his property..”

He had a smile like a mouthful of soda crackers. They turned to crumbs and he had to swallow them dry when he saw me. I saw him first, coming up behind him snooping around the cabin.

Earlier that day I’d set out with my list of items I’d need if I wanted to eat more than fish and drink moonshine, not that I objected to either of them. I fired up the Scout and rode down to the farm stand and picked up a sack of potatoes and a sack of onions, the foundation of any hearty meal. The farmer wanted two bits for a half dozen eggs. I might have paid that if he made me an omelet and served it to me on a silver platter. He was a thin rail topped by a bushy beard under a floppy felt hat. Under the overalls the sleeves of his long undershirt didn’t reach his wrists and he was missing two fingers on his left hand, pinky and ring. He’d given me the hard eye when I rode up. Maybe it was the sunglasses. I’d taken to wearing them as my eyes were sensitive to the bright country sunshine and the dark lenses helped ease the watery squint. I probably looked like a mobster or a Hollywood movie star to him. His scarecrow of a wife could only gape a toothless stare. The early corn was cheap and I picked up half a dozen ears for a nickel.

I had to go into Big Lake and the mercantile store to pick up canned goods including a couple bricks of spam and a two pound can of Hillsborough coffee. I ducked into the pharmacy and soda shop next door with a handful of nickels and found the bank of phonebooths at the back. I pulled the door shut, deposited a nickel and gave the operator the number to the shared phone by Alice’s studio. The operator instructed me to deposit two more nickels because it was a long distance call.

The phone rang about five times before a gruff voice answered. “Ya!”

“Hey Linkov!” I shouted into the handset, “Get Alice on the horn! It’s me, Lackland Ask!”

I heard him grumble something and then a loud knock and him shouting, “Alice! You have telephone!”

The operator had me deposit another slug before Alice answered. She was happy and happy to hear from me. I didn’t want to waste another dime and got straight to the point. Had she found anyone interested in buying Ted’s art piece?

But she was bubbling with her own news. First of all she was moving up to the loft that her friend Lee had occupied, and where Rebecca and I had spent the night, and who was going to move in with her boyfriend in a larger loft on Ninth Street. And the attack on her had come with a silver lining. An art dealer had read the story about her being a victim of a violent crime in the paper. Now he was working with an uptown art gallery to get her a show of her own. He’d even sold a few of her watercolors to some rich swells so all of a sudden she had money and prospects for more.

Right about then the operator said I needed to deposit another nickel if I wanted to continue the call. “What about the art piece!” I shouted casting a glance through the glass of the booth door to see if anyone had heard me.

Alice said knew a retired doctor from New Jersey who might be interested and that she was in touch with him to make arrangements. I had just enough time give her the address in Ridley, Stan Gardner, care of Ruth Walker, before my supply of nickels ran out.

Herr Moustache’s army was advancing on Paris, Mister Loony was raising a fuss in North Africa, and Union Jack was in tatters. I didn’t even bother to read what Uncle Joe was up to because it all added up to war, and the battle field is no place for a coward like me.

I was about to clamber back on the old Indian when I caught a whiff of what was being wafted out of the exhaust fan at the Sleepy Waters Café across the street. It made my stomach rumble and I thought, what the heck, I’d just splurged six bits on a long distance call, I might as well treat myself to something that wasn’t fish or moldy preserves.

The sign on the window said Breakfast All Day Every Day. I caught a look at myself in the glass door going in. I was past needing a shave, hair mussed from the ride, and dark glasses I probably looked like a fugitive in some B movie.

But the waitress greeted me friendly enough and showed me to a booth and handed me a menu. “Are you with the movie people staying over at the Big Lake Lodge?” She took my hesitance as confirmation. She beamed a big smile, “Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone. One of the actresses was in here the other day and said their being here was all hush-hush.”

She set a cup of steaming java in front of me while I examined the menu. I had a choice of stewed prunes, apple sauce, or figs with toast and coffee for two bits which seemed a mite high for such a light repast. Or I could get one egg and two strips of bacon or a slice of ham, toast and coffee included, for the same price. Two eggs any style with a compliment of toast and coffee, the same. If I really wanted to splurge I could get a full portion of ham and eggs or bacon, potatoes, fried any style, marmalade on my toast, and coffee for just shy of four bits. I let my eyes wander down to the bottom of the menu and knew right away that the next item of half a dozen eggs, ham steak, potatoes, half a loaf of bread, toasted, and all the coffee I could drink bumping two whole dollars was beyond my budget.

When the waitress came by again I ordered the number 4. She refilled my cup and handed me a copy of the daily blat. “Coming right up,” she said, “You can read the funny papers while you’re waiting.”

To get to the latest in the lives of Maggie and Jiggs, Dagwood and Blondie, and Popeye and Olive Oyl, I had to cross a minefield of depressing headlines. Herr Moustache’s army was advancing on Paris, Mister Loony was raising a fuss in North Africa, and Union Jack was in tatters. I didn’t even bother to read what Uncle Joe was up to because it all added up to war, and the battle field is no place for a coward like me. To top it off, the local Army Corps had to recruit a hundred thousand men by the end of August otherwise the government was going to institute the draft. My appetite was spoiled even before I got to Joe Palooka and Kobby Walsh.

Beside the prospect of being drafted, the death of Becky, the cops and the mob being after me, not to mention the Thieves of Bombay, a trigger happy moonshining neighbor and his star struck oversexed teenage daughter were occupying my mind on my return to Little Lake so I didn’t think too much of the battered ‘31 Ford ragtop parked off to the side where Little Road goes from two ruts to one rut. And when I pushed the bike down the grade toward the cabin, I spotted him, a pear-shaped man with a peaked cap sporting some official insignia, a loose fitting green shirt with a badge clinging to the front pocket, and a wide belt and holster holding up a pair of oversized herringbone trousers. I was almost up on him when he must have heard me, whirling around and clutching at the pistol in the holster before pointing it at me. If I’d been given a guess, I’d say I had just met Thorny.

Next Time: The Graveyard

Contents Vol. 3 No. 1

January 7, 2023Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Dime Pulp, Hard Boiled Fiction, Hard Boiled Myths, Just Coincidence, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Three, Number One of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

In the first issue of 2023, Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine celebrates Colin Deerwood’s long running 40’s pulp detective serial, Better Than Dead, at the beginning of its third year! According to author Deerwood, he had not started out to write a serial fiction but was merely writing descriptions of the actions portrayed on the covers of old pulp magazines. “They began as sketches, no more than a couple of paragraphs,” he said in a recent interview, “With few exceptions, never longer than a page.” Deerwood would be the first to admit that what had started out as an idle exercise has taken on a life of its own.

For Phyllis Hularsdottir, Cheése Stands Alone was a chance to make imaginative use of her degree in the Psychology of Speculative History and her interest in the multiverse theory of cosmology. “I wanted to posit a shift in the science world at a point in history where biology takes the lead as the premier science and physics is just something engineers do,” she replied recently to a query. In Lydia Cheése’s post axial shift world, the reader enters an unfamiliar historical realm peopled by historically familiar names.

Pierre Anton Taylor, known around the office as ‘Pete,’ revealed at a recent writers meeting that he thought that the post-war pulp heroes were unrealistic and had gotten too big for their spandex. “There is never a good reason for revenge, no matter what ghosts are haunting you.” His Just Coincidence is a classic tale of just such vengeance gone wrong with overtones and correspondences from popular illustrated hero literature.

Patton D’Arque made his debut in Dime Pulp with his two-part short story, Gone Missing (Dime Pulp, Vol. 1, Nos 2,3) about a couple of grumpy and dangerous ex-cops turned investigators. He returns with the conclusion of his two part short story, Polka Dot Dress, a tale of conspiracy, assassination, hypnosis, and a mysterious woman in a polka dot dress. “I had no idea how it was going to end until I got there because I actually thought I was going someplace else with it,” he wrote in a recent email. But as a famous poet once said, “Speculation is the brain’s bread and butter.”

FYI: Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues, available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up. Dime Pulp Yearbook 22, featuring all the fantastic serial stories from Volume 2 in their entirety, will be available before too long.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Three, Number 1

Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to about once every forty-five days. Thus Volume Three will consist of eight issues (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Better Than Dead—23

The violent event that occurred more than half a century ago is brought into focus in an assisted living home for an elderly woman whose memory of that time is blocked much to the frustration of an academic researcher and her partner who who see the old woman as the key to uncovering who was behind the conspiracy that changed the course of history.

Polka Dot Dress II

Cheése Stands Alone VI

Act Two, Scene 1, Part 1

Better Than Dead—23

January 7, 2023Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western Fiction"Brother can you spare a dime?", A Detective Story, Better Than Dead, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Fedoras and Flatfoots, Hard Boiled Fiction, Lackland Ask, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

by Colin Deerwood

I felt like a house had fallen on me. A dead house by the stink. And by the taste, like I had a mouth full of rotten eggs. It took a few tries to crack open an eye. I slammed it shut immediately. The light was too bright and heavy, and the weight of it hurt my head which seemed larger than I remembered it. I didn’t remember being a pretzel either but my arms and legs told me otherwise. My groan sounded faraway but maybe that was because of the ringing in my ears. I put my hands over my face and tried the eyes again, and encountered the same blast of white light and the space it occupied. I managed to get myself upright and sitting once I untangled my legs from under me and slowly pieced together what I was seeing.

I was in the cabin on Little Lake. Uncle Ned’s Indian was parked in the middle of the floor, the bright light streaming in through the one window casting unflattering rays on the rest of the tumbledown cobwebbed furnishings. I felt like I had broken my back on what could have been a bed of nails but was actually a crude cot that was much harder. The reason I hadn’t felt anything until I opened my eyes was on the floor next to the bed, a half pint of Uncle Ned’s high-octane joy juice.

The stink got my attention again and made me gag. I bolted to my feet and yanked open the door only to be blinded by the intense brightness of an otherwise welcoming morning. I stumbled up to the pump platform, shading my eyes while little birds made annoying high pitched squeaks like they were either happy to see me or happy to torture me, and tried my luck.

I almost broke my arm trying to bring the pump handle down. It was frozen. I tried again as if the first time hadn’t hurt enough. This time I wrenched my back. I sat down on the pump platform and looked out over the dark blue scintillating waters of Little Lake. It was like an apparition, a story book picture, and of the times I’d visited as a kid, I don’t think I ever saw it that way.

What made it worse was that she was a beaut, blond hair cascading down to her shoulders and a figure like a young sapling, a shapely young sapling.

The sun had been up for a while judging from the slant of rays through the trees, but there was an after the rain freshness to the air. In the distance swimmers frolicked on a float set out from the shore near a collection of green and white summer cabins. A green canoe creased the waves paddled by two women with a third in a large sunhat lounging between them, dragging a hand in the water. Maybe I wasn’t the only one with a hangover. And the sounds of joyful shrieks and laughter of bathers on the docks of the resort around the bow of the lake reached me like a long ago memory of my own delight at being here.

I grabbed a tin pot from the clutter among the washtubs and picked my way carefully down the overgrown path to the dilapidated dock at water’s edge. I’d watched granny do it before. Sometimes the pump needed priming.

I bent over the lapping waters and reached down, got a handful of water and threw it on my face. The shock of the cold wet helped a little. I cleared more of the tadpole scum from the surface and dipped in the pot, filling it to the top and straightened up to get my bearings. That’s when I saw her.

I’d caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. About fifty yards down the shore a sleek silhouette emerged and pulled itself effortlessly up to the top of the large boulder. She shook her hair out of a bathing cap, water dripping off of her in sheets and extended both arms out from her body, arching her back, resembling a little T.

And T always stands for trouble as far as I’m concerned. Just what I’d come up to the country to avoid. What made it worse was that she was a beaut, blond hair cascading down to her shoulders and a figure like a young sapling, a shapely young sapling.

I may have been hungover and groggy but my better instincts kicked in. I held my breath until she turned and walked up the cut in the bank and disappeared behind a stand of birch trees. My luck with women hadn’t been all that great of late. Now not only did I have the thought of Becky gnawing at me and pointing an accusing finger of guilt, but I had a water nymph tormenting me with the prospect of moonlight swims. My goose was cook. I could almost taste the sauce.

I didn’t have a man named Friday, but I went about fixing up the place like a man on a desert island anyway.

The pump wasn’t broke, just dry from lack of use. It took a couple pots of water poured down the gullet but I got it to squeak, working the handle slowly down and up and down until I heard the slurp of the uptake and a spurt of rusty water sloshed out into the trough. A couple more hearty pumps and it gushed out clear and cold onto my upturned face and mouth and splashing across my chest. It was a tasty quenching drink with a mineral tang that I remembered fondly, and it revived me.

If I was going to live in the cabin I was going to have to get rid of the rotting stench of the dead. My nose told me that the stink was strongest near the stove and the chimney pipe up through the roof. And as I suspected whatever it was, possum or coon, had crawled up in there, got stuck and died. I shucked my soggy clothes and borrowed the greasy coveralls hanging on a hook on the wall near the toolbox. They fit loosely. Ned was a bigger man. Dismantling the stovepipe was nasty work but I got it done and dumped the remains in the heap behind the cabin. By then I realized that I was famished and set about devouring much of the grub the cook had packed for me.

I watched the sunlight play over the expanse of Little Lake from the front porch of the cabin and knew that I had to put Becky’s death aside and concentrating on my plan. It had been a good idea to drop out of sight as quickly as I did. It might look like I’d been knocked off and was feeding the eels at the bottom of the East River. But I couldn’t count on it for certain. I had to get as far away as possible from the cops and the mob as I could and stay there. The threats to my life from the Thieves of Bombay were not something I was too concerned about yet. The news of an upcoming draft, on the other hand, made me nervous.

The bruises on my face were starting to fade but dark enough around the eyes to resemble a black mask like on some pulp magazine character.

The fly in my ointment was my lack of the do-re-mi. My broken C note would eventually play out to its last nickel and I’d end up sawing a violin on a street corner. My best bet to get some traveling cash was the art piece that Ted had left me. If Alice could find a buyer then I’d have enough money to leave all my troubles behind. Now that the diamonds and Rebecca were out of the picture, my plans of expanding my confidential investigation business and going upscale were nothing more than coal dust.

For the time being I had to make like a hermit hiding in a cave, not get friendly with anyone, especially nubile young girls and their shotgun toting fathers, and stay out of sight. But it wasn’t in my nature to skulk around in the shadows—except when I was on a case, of course. I had to keep busy.

I set about taking inventory of the old cabin and figuring out how I could make it livable. The cobwebs met the old broom as did the floor. Granny’s room, the forbidding sanctum, smelled moldy and I figure that it was probably due to a leak in the roof. The water stains along the far wall confirmed my suspicion. Otherwise, it was just a jumble of old furniture and boxes full of musty old clothes. A bedframe held a lumpy feather mattress that the mice had chewed through. A set of drawers had a mottled discolored mirror propped above it. I opened the only other window in the cabin and let in some air and light. A shaded kerosene lamp sat in front of the mirror and when I reached for it I gave a start. The face in the mirror was mine but I almost didn’t recognize it, smudged with soot, hair uncombed and standing straight up. The bruises on my face were starting to fade but dark enough around the eyes to resemble a black mask like on some pulp magazine character.

I took my time rooting around, getting a feel for what was there and might come in handy, accompanied by the pleasant memories of the previous stays of my younger days. I visited the outhouse, the door hanging on one hinge and not offering much privacy. I knocked down an old hornet’s nest above the plank seat and swept away a thicket of spiderwebs and egg sacs. Mice had nibbled most of what was left of an old Sears Roebucks catalogue. The old red lime bucket was still there, the lime as solid as a rock with the large kitchen ladle lodged in it. The memory came to me of Ruthie showing the younger boys how girls pee and how it seemed pretty disgusting and shocking at the time and someone had gone to tattle to one of the adults and how Ruthie got in trouble for it but it was one of the most talked about events that summer.

And that reminded me that there was a root cellar set in the downslope of the cabin’s foundation. The rough wooden double doors were still intact. When I yanked them open, I heard something scuttle away. Critters were living in there, maybe relatives of whatever it was that had died in the stove pipe. There were shelves set against the back and the gleam of glass, a wooden egg box with something growing out of it and a huddle of burlap bags with tiny pale sprouts poking through. The glass on closer inspection were mason jars. Some appeared to be empty and others were dark and mottled, green and white. I pulled a few out to get a better idea of what had been tucked away all this time. Much of it looked like it might have gone bad, some were preserves, loganberry jam I guessed as that was granny’s specialty. And to my surprise, the empty jars were not empty but contained a clear liquid. A twist of the lid and a sniff told me I’d stumbled on Uncle Ned’s emergency supply. As if I needed any more trouble.

A pair of old dungarees chopped off just above the knees made passable swim shorts if I was of a mind to engage in bathing frolic. Mainly I’d just jump in the lake to cool off after I’d swung the axe and made myself a nice pile of fire wood to feed to the stove. The early summer heat was sweltering, thunderstorms booming regularly on the horizon. By the time evening arrived so had the mosquitoes, but it was also the best time for fishing. I braved a few evenings to be able to feast on lake trout. No one had fished off the end of the old dock in a while and they and the insects were biting. Good as it is, fish will only do you for so long and I had a craving for some variety. I knew to stay away from the berry patch after I’d stepped in what a bear had left there. I had to take in supplies and that meant the farm stand down Lake Road or firing up the Indian to go into Big Lake and the Big Lake Market.

I was sitting at the table with a stub of pencil making up a list when I heard a tapping on the door frame and got an eyeful of trouble.

I had figured right, she was the girl I’d seen swimming the morning after I got here, the moonshiner’s daughter.

She stood about five foot four, her blonde hair tied up in pigtails that dangled down to just below the collarbone, a pert little nose and pouty lips, and a playful sparkle to her predatory blue eyes. The rest of her looked like it belonged on a pinup calendar: a pair of overalls, patched at the knees, over a thin undershirt. Barefooted, all that was missing was a piece of straw to chew on and a come hither look. I had to blink. She was a stunner.

While I untied my tongue to find something to say, even “hello” or “come in,” she stepped into the cabin and glanced around like she’d been there before. “You look just like him.” It wasn’t an unpleasant voice, young, in the upper register. Lips set serious, she said, “Except younger.”

When I didn’t respond, she offered, “Ned, old Ned. And a little worse for the wear.” She meant the bruises on my face.

“Maybe, I’m his ghost.” I thought I’d be cute.

She shook her pigtails and threw me a smile that hurt. “No, I saw you use the outhouse and I don’t think ghosts do that.”

“You’ve been spying on me?” I tried to sound grave although I was amused.

“This old cabin been almost abandoned after old Ned died. Maybe once in a while some of the cousins will come up and get drunk and even that don’t seem to happen as much anymore. I used to come round when I was younger, when Ned was up fishing and trading pa fresh caught for shine.”

I had figured right, she was the girl I’d seen swimming the morning after I got here, the moonshiner’s daughter. It was like a bomb with a lit fuse had just stepped into my life. And for obvious reasons, I didn’t want to stand up and shake her hand..

She smiled at my discomfort. “My name’s Marie. I live on the property over yonder. My pa is Abner Wilson though most know him as Crazy Man Wilson on account he’ll shoot at you if you come round uninvited. But as long as I can recall, he ain’t never shot nobody, scared them mostly.” She went on like she’d missed talking to anyone who’d listen. “If you’re one of the cousins, I ain’t ever seen a one of them look as much like the old man as you do. And you got his old Indian setting on the porch. He never lent his cycle to nobody, let alone let them ride it.” She cast a wistful gaze in the direction of the porch. “’Cept maybe for me. He would let me ride it on the old dam road out over by Middle Lake. Ride fast enough and the skeeters won’t get ya, he’d say.” She gave a nervous little laugh, worried that she might have said too much.

“Yeah, I’m one of the cousins.” I remembered the alias I’d given Ruthie, “Stan Gardner. Ruthie’s the one let me borrow the motorcycle. Me and her used to vacation up here when we were kids. Probably about your age. How old are you?”

I could tell by the way she shifted her eyes she was going to lie.

“Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in another month.” And when I didn’t respond. “Honest.”

“So Marie, is this just a neighborly visit or did you come by to borrow a cup of sugar?”

Next Time: Hiding Out At Little Lake

Contents Vol. 2 No. 10

November 15, 2022Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, A Serial Fiction Magazine, Better Than Dead, Cheese Stands Alone, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Dime Pulp, Hard Boiled Fiction, Hard Boiled Myths, Just Coincidence, Phyllis Huldarsdottir, Pierre Anton Taylor, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

Welcome to Volume Two, Number Ten of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Issue Ten of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine, continues its crime spree with two new pulp fiction serializations, Cheése Stands Alone, a steampunk adventure by Phyllis Haldursdottir, and Just Coincidence, Pierre Anton Taylor’s play of brooding vengeance, as well as the continuing serialization of Better Than Dead, A Detective Story, by Colin Deerwood. And last but not least, Patton D’Arque returns with Polka Dot Dress, a dark tale of a lost memory whose recovery could point to a deadly conspiracy put into play half a century ago.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume Two, Number 10

Special Note: Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine has changed its posting schedule from monthly issues to once every forty-five days. Thus Issue Ten will be the last issue of Volume Two for the year 2022. Volume Three will consist of eight issues, the first of which will post at the beginning of 2023 (much to the relief of the overworked writers and production staff). Thank you for your understanding.

—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

Better Than Dead—22

Polka Dot Dress I

Cheése Stands Alone V

Act One, Scene 5

Better Than Dead—22

November 15, 2022Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionA Detective Story, Better Than Dead, can you spare a dime?” 1940, Colin Deerwood, Crime Fiction, Fedoras and Flatfoots, Hard Boiled Fiction, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

by Colin Deerwood

The cook handed me the steaming java and looked me up and down in the daylight spreading through the kitchen window. “You ain’t like the other ones, but I doubt miz Ruth knows the difference. You don’t want to be here when Thorny come around. You smart to get out to Lil Lake, far enough he won’t pay no mind when he finds out another man been here.”

“Thorny? Who’s Thorny?”

“The Constable.”

Just about then Ruthie sauntered through the door tightening the sash on her bathrobe giving me the lowered sultry lashes and then flashing a mind-your-own-business frown at the cook.

Before she could say good morning, I said, “Hey Ruthie, I noticed Uncle Ned’s old motorcycle under the tarp in the shed. Do you know if that old Indian is still working?”

She sipped at the cup the cook had handed her and slid in the chair across the table from me. “Whadya want with that old thing?”

“Well, if I’m going to be staying out at Little Lake I’m gonna need some way of getting around. That would save me walking the five miles just to get a soda pop or scare up some grub.”

“He was always taking that thing apart and putting back together again. If he wasn’t tying fly, or drinking, always a lot of that.” A little cloud crossed her brow. “Funny. Old Ned sure liked the fishing up at Little Lake. That’s where he spent most of the summers toward the end.”

“Moonshiner on the property next to yourn was probably a good part of it, too, I’d say,” the cook interjected.

“Oh, Crazy Wilson, he doesn’t believe repeal happened. He and Ned had a deal, fish for hootch. You’ll have to watch out for him if you’re out there.”

The cook nodded emphatically, “Shoot you soon as look at you.”

“Ok, I’ll remember that.” I stood up and pushed back the chair to go see if the old Indian would kick over.

Ruthie fixed me with a regretful gaze that I wasn’t going to stick around to chat and sigh. “He also has a daughter who lives out there sometimes. She’s just a little older than Paul.”

“All the more reason to watch where you step,” the old cook said, “Might be a bear trap. Lose your leg.”

A quick once over told me that Uncle Ned and his old Indian Scout had had two things in common, they were both battered and well oiled. The tires were in need of some air, and something had been nibbling the edges of the leather seat. I rolled the motorcycle out into the backyard with a little effort. I throttled up and gave it a kick. I got a chuckle from the pistons. At least they weren’t frozen or screaming. Now that I had its attention, I gave it another go and it sputtered like it might do better next time. I goosed the gas and it caught with a loud shot and then a roar. But it didn’t last long, a cough and a shudder, and it was dead. I knew I would have to be poking around in places I wasn’t too comfortable in. But other than that, the motorcycle had definite possibilities.

I rummaged around in the shed and uncovered a pair of saddlebags that fit over the rear wheel. They were outfitted to carry fishing gear, one rod still attached under canvas straps. In one of the pockets I found the tire pump and a repair tin. And a half pint of clear liquid. I unscrewed the top and took a whiff. I drew my head back in a hurry. It hadn’t gone bad, it had started bad.

Uncle Ned, a bachelor all his life, kept his space orderly for the things that meant something to him, mostly fishing, his machine, and his booze. The tools I was going to need were rolled up neatly in a canvas tool bag. I figured I could poke and prod the best I knew how, and if worse came to worse, the Ridley Livery advertised a mechanic.

I spent a couple of hours fiddling with the iron pony, taking one thing off and putting another thing on, I’d spent enough time in the old neighborhood watching curbside mechanics make a machine behave. It is slow, methodical work, and I finally got it running, roughly, but running.

When I was about done and admiring my work, cook came down to the shed and handed me a bag. “Preserves, apple butter, pickles, cow’s tongue, and such until you get yourself set up out there. After a while you be eating fish and berries.” She smiled a wide smile, “Just like a bear.”

I pulled up to the pump in front of Ridley Livery and shut the engine off. A lanky gent in blue coveralls squeezed through the gap in the barn door wiping his hands on a greasy rag and sauntered over, eying me and eyeing the motorcycle.

“Gimme fifty cents worth, Ace.” I dismounted and moved the goggles up onto my forehead, thinking again as I had when I’d first found them in a pocket of the saddle bag, the guys that had attacked Alice had worn similar pairs, and the crew that shot up Rabbi Joe’s place, they had, too, and that made me think of Becky, and thinking of Becky only made me hurt.

“This old Indian is Ned’s, ain’t it.” He unscrewed the gas cap and inserted the pump nozzle. “You buy it?” and he gave me the skeptical eye.

Adjusting the strap holding my satchel in place, I met his eye. “Just borrowing. Ruthie Walker is my cousin, you can ask her.” I fished out the change and handed it to him. “Heading up to Little Lake.”

“Yeah, Ned liked to go up to the cabin.” He held up a finger as if a thought had just struck him “You look something like him, but younger. My pop has pictures of a fishing trip up in Canada, of him and Ned. You’re an Ask, then?”

I put a finger to my lips, “Yeah, but keep it on the QT. I got in a bit of trouble and now I need to lie low.”

He drew his head back a bit. “You don’t say?” And squinted an eye again, “Rob a bank?”

I laughed, “Naw, nothing like that. I was having some fun with this young gal and her husband didn’t appreciate it.”

“That why you look like a raccoon?”

“It coulda been worse if she hadn’t beaned him with a frying pan.”

I’d impressed him, “Now that’s something!”

“So if anybody gets to wondering, just tell them my name is uh. . .Dick Sales.”

“Dick.. .Sales,” he repeated and nodded not knowing what to think. He pointed at the motorcycle. “Sounded kinda rough when you pulled up. Ned always had it purring like a pussy cat. Start ‘er up, might just be a valve adjustment. It can be tricky.”

I did as he said and he reached under the tank and fiddled with something and the rough sputter of the engine turned to a throaty growl. He stood up, proud of himself, “That should do it. You tell Ruthie Walker if she ever wants to sell this old Scout, I’ll give her a fair price for it.”

“Why don’t you tell her yourself? She lives right down the road.”

He shook his head. “No, Thorny found out I’d been round to see her, I’d get nothing but grief.”

Thorny again. I thanked him and handed him another two bits for his trouble. I got some advice in exchange.

“Stay wide of the Wilsons. He’s the old coot with the still and the shotgun, ready to shoot, on the property next to Ned’s family cabin .”

“So I’ve heard. Thanks for the tip.”

“Oh, the old guy ain’t so bad so longs you don’t set foot on his property. It’s his daughter you got to watch out for.”

“His daughter? I heard she was just a kid.”

“Not any more. One day she was just this skinny little tomboy and the next thing you know she’s fully equipped and anxious to put it in gear. Only problem is that Crazy Wilson’s property line goes all around her. You set foot or any other part of yourself on her and you got a problem that’s more than just a angry husband.”

About half a mile out of town a large billboard advertising Big Lake Resorts, Sandy Beaches, Motor Boating, Shoreline Cabins, Fine Dining, Night Club Entertainment punctuated with a martini glass and a large arrow pointed the way. On a post nearby a smaller white plank shaped like an arrow with a crudely printed Little Lake indicated the rough dirt road branching off.

The road was familiar in that I recognized the climb toward the rolling hills across the wide open farmland dotted on either side by towering elms or stately oaks. Wild grasses and cattails, pollywogs and frogs ran wild in the ditches I liked to remember. Fields of young corn and rows of walnut trees glimmered in the sunlight. Towering white clouds edged with gray on the horizon added to the mugginess. I noticed a few flashes of lightning in the direction I was headed and figured the chances of my getting wet were pretty good. I had to get out of the open before the storm reached me. I gunned the Scout and it leapt forward like a good pony.

By the time I reached where the road butted into Lake Rd and Little Rd, I could smell the rain in the air and my skin was itchy with sweat. Both roads followed the lake shore around where the summer cabins were located in groves of sycamores and birch and the scattering of pines and firs. No one lived at the far end of the lake where the dam marked the beginning of the wide mosquito marsh and swamp known as Middle Lake.

Lake Rd was a well-travelled double track with only a stubble of weeds growing up the center. It got a lot more use because most of the summer cabins were on east side of the lake, and that down the road a bit a farmer had a stand selling local produce to the summer vacationers. Little Rd was rougher and overgrown, the double rut not as clearly visible. Granny’s cabin was off Little Rd, about a mile down.

Thunder was rolling overhead as I set off and a large raindrop splashed on my cheek. About the time the overgrown ruts had turned into a single trail, the clouds let loose and I was drenched to the skin in less than a minute. The dirt track had turned to mud just as quickly. I had to dismount and push the motorcycle ahead of me. It felt was like I was swimming underwater through the white haze of heavy downpour. I could barely see two feet ahead of me but I trudged blindly forward. At that point I realized that I had no idea where I was or how far down the road it was to the entrance of Granny’s property.

Eventually I saw a parting in the weeds alongside the road and realized that it was a narrow dirt scar of a clearing crossed with a gushing rivulet wending its way down to the lake. I set out to follow it. The white of the streaming rain changed to a few shades darker as immense black clouds moved overhead. The stands of trees and clutter of underbrush added their own shadows and limited my vision even more. In my memory the track to Granny’s cabin took a similar turn and I was looking for the shelter of the shanty around the next bend. Just then a flash of lightning lit up the entire understory of whipped and moaning trees and illuminated for just a brief second a sign that had been tacked to a tree. It was immediately imprinted on my brain.

NO ???? I WILL SHOOT U.

I believed every word and did an about face back toward the road. I had to assume that it was Wilson’s place so Granny’s couldn’t be much further. The intensity of the rain slowly changed to a steady insistent pelting instead of the sheets of white water disgorged from buckets of clouds. I plodded through the mud until I found a less obvious track through the undergrowth but one that now was much more familiar and lifted my spirits so that I found the extra energy to slog through the stream cutting grooves in the path to the lake and the cabin. Partway down I found the proof positive that I was on the right path. There was the little sign that Granny had Ned carve for her. It read ASK N U (picture of a shell) B (picture of a wishing well plus a comb). Granny always loved her word puzzles and rebuses.

Another flash of lightning revealed the old cabin as clear as if it were daylight and the thunder let out with an earsplitting bang before rolling away in a series of less loud concussions. I could smell the fried air as I hurried the motorcycle onto the shelter of the tiny front veranda. I stood there for a minute catching my breath and watching the rain wildly leaping off the eaves. The accompanying wind battered the tarpaper sides of the small cabin, blowing swirls of tree debris in every direction. Then the chill of being soaked through caught up with me and I pushed open the door to the shelter of the cabin.

Something had died. Not recently. But the stink of decay took up a lot of the air I was breathing. I had to step back out onto the porch. I left the door open and the stench streaked out like a flock of smelly ghosts in need of laundering. I waited a while, gazing through the steady rain to where I could see the dark waters of the lake agitated with tiny whitecaps. I would have to move everything into the cabin as day got darker I realized, including the Scout. I reached into my inside jacket pocket and carefully extracted my half pack of Luckies praying they weren’t soaked. I was in luck, the pack was wet but the inside foil had managed to keep them pretty dry. I fired up my trusty Ronson and filled my mouth with smoke. I figure that a nose full of tobacco smoke might help with some of the reek.

The Scout was a tight fit getting in through the narrow door. The one double window, given the circumstances, was letting in as much light as it could,. Most of it fell on a tabletop covered by a ratty oilcloth and barely illuminating a variety of indistinguishable objects. The corners were deep in shadows. I switched on the headlight and that helped some. I could make out what looked like a cot against one wall. Across from it was the shape of an old tin stove with the pipe snaking up and through the roof.

I steered the handlebars in a wide arc, memory filling in what I couldn’t completely make out. The narrow ladder I remembered led to the loft where us kids used to sleep, packed together on thin mattresses. Granny had her room at the far back and the dark rectangle of the doorway reminded me that we were not allowed in there. If we did get to curious, there was always a switch to remedy that. I felt a kind of excitement course through me, like the kind I used to feel when I was a kid. When I was going to do something daring. Or foolish. Or dangerous. And I could feel myself smiling.

Looking behind me at the back of the door, it was where I thought it would be, the old kerosene lamp, hung on a nail next to a greasy leather apron. It was what us kids used to call the “outhouse lantern” in case it was the middle of the night and more than the spirit was moving you to unload your bad conscious and you didn’t want to be stepping on anything that might be out there crawling around in the dark. Mostly it was the adults that used it, the kids were no strangers to wetting the bed. And to my unbelievable luck, there was a handful of wood matches in the apron pocket, just like they’d always been. I carried the lantern over to the table and held it up to my ear. I heard a faint slosh. I lifted the glass chimney and sniffed the wick. There were enough fumes that it might catch. I scratched a match on the window sill and it burst to life like a sulfur flare. I rolled the flame carefully along the wick, adjusting the length. The flame leapt alive just as the match was about to burn my fingers. I lowered the chimney and the dark cabin held a warm amber light.

I didn’t waste any time reorienting myself and getting a better idea of my situation, memory now rushing in to fill in the gaps. The old footlocker that Uncle Ned had brought home from when he served in the Great War and in which he kept his tools, an axe and a couple of types of saws, among other things was where it always was behind the door. And the red kerosene can with the capped spout at the top. A good shake revealed that it would refill the lamp a couple times or more. Leaning on the wall next to it was the old portable stove with its legs folded up. I remembered that the well and the pump were on the up side of the cabin along with the washtubs, and on the down side, the rickety old outhouse. I was in no hurry to use it, not with the rain still pouring down and the thunder rolling through the clouds. I was looking out the window in the direction of the outhouse, outside now much darker and shadowed than when I had arrived. I heard another loud crack and immediately fingers of lightning crackled up from the ground on a further shore of the lake. I’d forgotten how spectacular they could be. I figured the way things were going I’d soon see another one.

That wasn’t what surprised me. The next lightning strike was right outside the window, multiple tines of blinding light illuminating the entire landscape, outhouse and all. I jumped back instinctively. In the dark the lamp had illuminated my reflection on the warped glass pane, but as the white flash of electricity lit up the outside, I saw a face staring back at me, and it was not mine. And just like that it was gone. The face of a young girl. My mind leapt to the only person it could be, the person who had been on my mind almost constantly the last few days. It was Rebecca.

But it wasn’t. I raced out the door and around the side of the cabin where the warm glow of the lamp shined out onto the empty blackness of rainswept trees. I could have sworn it was her. My mind was playing tricks on me and I hadn’t even had a drink. But I knew where I could get one. I took the half pint of everclear out of the saddle bag and gave it another sniff. It wasn’t nearly as bad as whatever it was that had died. It even had a smell you could get used to, the tang of oblivion.

Next Time: Lady On The Lake

Polka Dot Dress I

November 15, 2022Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionConspiracies, Crime Fiction, Hard Boiled Fiction, Hypnotism, June 1968, Patton D'Arque, Polka Dot Dress, Pulp Fiction, Recovered MemoryNuallain House, Publishers

By Patton D’Arque

They showed her a blowup of a blurry black and white photo and wanted to know if she recognized the polka dot dress.

“I’d never wear something like that.”

The woman in the robin breast red pants suit brought the high heels of her black pumps together and looked down at her notes. A professor at a small college upstate, she had a grant to do archive research, and that had brought her to All Soul’s Care Home. The man with her was large boned, long limbed, square faced with the pale eyes of a northerner. He wore a dark blue suit that was not his, or one he had outgrown many years ago. His scuffed brown oxfords were massive. The professor had introduced his instantly forgettable foreign name which he acknowledged with an expressionless nod. He didn’t say what he did.

The window onto the small patio porch let in a muted gray light. A lamp was switched on over in one corner of the private room by the bedside table but not much use where they were, seated crowded together on the settee across from her armchair. A polished wood coffee table sat between them. Among the piles of mail, the TV remote, and next to a struggling underwatered potted violet, the professor had placed her smart phone on a tiny tripod and was recording the interview.

She wanted to know about the letters. The pictures and the letters, and what the letters said, and what the pictures showed. There was a picture she said that looked like her in a polka dot dress although the young girl had a different name. Yet their body signatures were the same, the DNA matched that of a Connecticut woman born Mary Ellias Anders.

She waited for what the professor would say next. Yes, there was a picture of young woman in a polka dot dress if it was her as they claimed. She appeared young, very young, with a crooked mischievous smile. It could be, but she had no supporting memory of that being her. There was a block as solid as if it had been made of granite when it came to remembering a certain time in her life, the time the professor was interested in, and, presumably, the man. The other picture, not posed, was of what appeared to be the same dress. A glare of streetlight overhead, silhouette of a narrow brimmed hat and dark masculine profile, a fall of blond hair over the shoulder of a black and white polka dot dress blurred by the couple’s movement. She couldn’t imagine herself in such a dress. She favored pastels and florals, something that made her feel anonymous and unnoticed. And besides, her name was Sharon, Sharon Salton.

The professor, Pam Pearson, was asking questions that she didn’t know the answers to although they made her feel vaguely uncomfortable, almost as if by not remembering she was deliberately lying.

The things she did remember they didn’t seem interested hearing about. She did suffer from memory lapses, but that wasn’t unusual at her age. And she had only a dim recollection of her life over fifty years ago.

She had been in an accident, a car accident, maybe. She remembered being told that, repeatedly, by the man who raped her, also repeatedly, and that she should be repeatedly grateful that he had saved her life and had not left her to die in a dry arroyo full of snakes, rats, and coyotes. She had suffered broken ribs and a broken leg. The man, Luke, she recalled, had applied basic first aid and kept her immobile. The pain was just a vague memory. He had acquired pain killers and while they helped, they also left her confused. She was kept in a drugged stupor, and only dimly aware of her surroundings. The smell, she would always remember. A cool dankness mixed with a rancid clammy sweat, his. But also bacon, and burned beans, and bitter coffee. In a lucid moment, tied to the wooden bedframe, she realized that she was underground, and sometime later, that she was being kept in an abandoned mine.

In one of the letters the professor claimed she had written she announced her arrival in Los Angeles. It was dated December 12^th, 1967, and addressed to the Honorable Mark Edwards Anders of Sharon, Connecticut. The professor said that Judge Anders was a controversial political figure, a staunch anti-communist and John Bircher, in Western Connecticut with an estate on the outskirts of Sharon near the border with New York State, and that he was her uncle.

She could tell by the professor’s questioning look that this revelation was supposed to light up some dark corner of her memory and substantiate her identity as this other person, Mary. They had reached this point before, on the professor’s previous visits, and all she could express was bewilderment because she really had no memory of her past before her imprisonment in the abandoned mine. Amnesia was a likely diagnosis. And when she forced herself to go back further in her memory an uncontrollable fear shook her, as if she were poised to hurtle down a deep dark hole like the mineshaft that Luke had threatened to throw her down when she didn’t act the way he thought she should. It always made her tremble. Her eyes would water, she would stutter gibberish as if she were having a fit.

At that point Angel Baby would rise from her chair in the darkness by the door to the room, shake her head, and inform the professor that they were done for the day. The professor, eyes flashing with exasperation, would gather her notes and smart phone before rising and following the care center director out of the room.

Angel Baby wasn’t her real name. She was Doctor Babba Angeli, an East Indian woman, and the director of the psychiatric care home. Most of the residents just called her that. Not to her person, but she was probably aware of it. It was an affectionate turn. She had reluctantly agreed to allow the interviews on the condition that she could end them if she thought they were becoming disruptive. She hadn’t wanted to allow it at all but there were considerations. The trust fund paying for Sharon’s care had been impounded by the Justice Department. She might have to be moved to assistance and shared housing. And she didn’t want that, did she?

The professor had a grant that might guarantee her continued level of care if she agreed to the interviews. She always felt that Angel Baby had her best interests at heart. A lot of the residents felt that way about her.

They did not feel that way about Mr. Chowdray, or Mr. Ray, or to some, evil Ray. He was vice president of operations for the corporation that owned All Souls as well as many other care and assisted living facilities. When he was around, every one became agitated, from the director to the janitor. The overworked aides were pushed by their own scheduling conflicts as well as the emotional disturbance of the man’s presence. Extra meds were then doled out.

Then Angel Baby became ill. Everyone was getting sick. Not a few residents and staff died. Angel Baby was one of them. They were made to wear masks and were not allowed visitors. And the aides stopped coming to work because members of their family were getting sick or dying. It was always on the TV, pictures of helpless men pretending to be doing something. And Mr. Ray was appointed the director of All Souls, something he made sure that everyone knew he wasn’t happy about, at all. And because the care home was not getting any new referrals, only the most desperate cases, it was floundering financially.

Sharon was forced into a three bed living space with no private patio or any of the amenities her single private room had afforded her. She had two roommates, a woman who was borderline catatonic and Karen, someone who felt that she had to voice her opinion about everything, and when she didn’t have an opinion, she had a complaint. And she smoked, which was against policy but she did it anyway, standing by the outside window open a crack even in the coldest weather. One of the night duty aides sold her the cigarettes. She never wore her mask and claimed they would have to kill her before she allowed them to vaccinate her.

Sharon did get the shots, and got sick, but her symptoms were mild compared to some. She’d got the booster, too. Karen got very sick and they had to take her to the hospital. She hadn’t returned and for a while Sharon had the room to herself and the vegetating woman addled by treatment and medicine. May, as the aides called her, as she was at any one time May Be or May Be Not.

And she now had full control of the remote and didn’t have to always give in to Karen’s choices, silly crime dramas or twenty four hour news infusion, nothing that actually represented real life. Her own preferences were cooking shows and outdoors living. She only checked the news channel for the weather forecasts. No matter that she didn’t go anywhere and was hardly allowed outside. Because of staffing shortages, the number of hours residents could be supervised safely outdoors had been cut back. But weather reports were her one abiding interest. It punctuated with regularity her days.

Then Mr. Chowdray informed her that he was allowing the interviews with the professor and her associate, once a large boned man in an ill-fitting suit now apparently a woman in an ill-fitting wig, to continue. The professor herself had put on a few pounds and her Kelly green pants suit strained in places. And they both wore masks. The professor’s was a custom brocade design and the large boned associate wore an out of the box blue surgical mask that struggled to contain all of her nose and large jaw. All she could see of their faces was their eyes, the professors more expertly done up then her associate’s.

“Call me Pam” wanted to review some of what they had covered in the previous sessions, and pointedly asked Mr. Ray for permission, bypassing Sharon and assuming she was compliant. Mr. Ray nodded in agreement and then looked at his watch and announced that he had pressing business to resume.

They told her again who they thought she was. They asked her questions she didn’t know the answers to, again. She had no clear memory of long ago events, especially around the dates they were interested in, June of 1968. It was all a blur. However, during the lockdown and travel restrictions, Pam explained, she’d been busy with additional research.

For instance, the trust fund that was paying for her residence was one set up by her uncle, Judge Anders, something that had already been established. Pam had traced the credit lines to an offshore account that was on a watchlist of foreign government sponsored assets used either for money laundering or funding intelligence operations or both. Because of the ongoing investigations the trust fund had stopped paying into the account. And which explained why Mr. Ray was eager to allow the interviews to go forward. Her cooperation might mean a return to the comfort of a private room he’d intimated.

They wanted to clarify some points that they had covered before. How she had come to be committed to All Souls. Why the attorney and doctor named in the court documents committing her to psychiatric care were untraceable and had been employed by a firm that was no longer in existence, and may have been a dummy front funded by the same trust fund set up by her uncle, leaving only the barest of records.

Sharon couldn’t answer those questions. She had told them before, a lawyer, an associate of the private detective who had contacted her, came and made her sign some papers and told her that by doing so she would be set for life. It was part of her husband’s insurance policy they said. When she thought of her husband, it made her sad and she would blubber and lose composure. Usually that would end the interview, at Angel Baby’s insistence. But Angel Baby wasn’t there anymore and the professor and the large man dressed as a woman simply waited until she stopped.

Her husband was a plant mechanic for one of the big casinos in Reno. He died in a vehicle accident on his way to work the night shift just a few weeks before his retirement. She met him while she waitressed at the restaurant that was part of the casino, kind of an upscale Denny’s. Up until then her life had been a careening pinball bouncing from bumper to flipper with no hope and no future.

Hikers had found her chained to the bed in the abandoned mine tunnel. She didn’t remember how long she’d been there without food or water. Luke had just stopped coming back to abuse her and yell at her and rant his antigovernmental conspiracies. The hikers had called the sheriff who had called the ambulance who’d called for the helicopter. The hospital, after determining she was indigent but with no serious health problems other than a poorly healed femur that caused her to limp, contacted the county welfare department who put her in a home for abused women after they’d heard her story. She didn’t remember her name and that was a problem for the case workers because they told her that she could only remain a Jane Doe for so long. If she could remember her name, they could begin a search for relatives and process her package. They had fingerprinted her only to learn that she had never been in jail or in the military. She was not on any national missing persons roster as far as they could tell.

A name had come to her, out of the blue fog that consisted of her memory, Sharon. It was a start. And she remembered the green road sign they’d passed when they were driving her to the shelter. She told them her name was Sharon Salton. And they gave her a temporary ID card with that name on it. To get a driver’s license she would need a birth certificate. But in the meantime she would be able to find work which she did in a soup kitchen in Bakersfield but that did not last long because they sometimes served kidney beans and she hated kidney beans. Just the thought of them sent her into hysterics. Then she met a woman who told her she could make good money in Vegas as a cocktail waitress and she would never have to see a kidney bean again.

What she did see however was a parade of handsome ugly men and ugly handsome men all with one thing in mind, possession of her body for a short time or longer, none, after a while any different than Luke, the man who had chained her to his bed. She understood she was damaged goods, besides the slight off kilter gait to her walk. Some men said that’s what they liked about her, and her smile, she had a nice smile, even after all she had been through.

When Vegas got to be too much and the man she had been living with was arrested for murder in the course of an armed robbery, she left for Reno, taking the bus upstate, all that she owned in one suitcase. Her impression of the biggest little city in the world was that it was a gritty bleaker version of Vegas, that the glitter and neon was hardly bright enough to hide the desperation of so many of its inhabitants.

She’d found a job in housekeeping in one of the downtown hotels, and then waitressing in a couple of chain restaurants. She didn’t mind the winters, they reassured her for some unfathomable reason, and she loved to ski which she did on occasion with the new friends she had made. And in the summers she hiked the mountain trails of the Sierras. There, camping in the rough desolate wilderness, she found relief from the anxieties of not being able to recall anything of her life before her rescue from captivity in the mine tunnel. With the exception of bouts of sleeplessness and the occasional nightmare that had her waking in sweats, her life had settled into a predictable routine and slowly remade itself as if the first twenty or so years were incidental and not worth the worry.

Then she met Mack, Bill McKensie, an older man whose kindness provided her with a sort of refuge. He was easy to like, undemanding, with a sense of humor and a hearty laugh, ex-Navy so he liked to drink and only occasionally to excess. Everyone has their demons he’d told her and they have to be let out every once in a while. The last time she remembered was at the turn of the century, the eve of the year two thousand. They’d been together that long. How time flies was a cliché that never grew old. But they had grown old, together, and Mack was due for retirement although he dreaded the thought of it because he knew he would go stir crazy without a job to go to. They’d often talked of getting a fifth wheel and hitting the road and seeing some of the country, looking up some of his long lost relatives in the Midwest. He had long ago stopped asking her about her kin, knowing how much it upset her and caused her sleepless nights. She’d been prescribed pills but she hated the way they made her feel.

One Christmas he’d surprised her with a genealogy test that might trace her heritage and perhaps lead to some long lost relative. At first she had been angry, and fearful. The great unknown of her past after all that time might be waiting to reveal who she really was. But she was content with who she was, those two decades conveniently erased were nothing to the more than three decades she could remember. But Mack had insisted and so they had sent her spit off to be tested.

The results must have come back around the time of Mack’s death. It sat on the tiny writing desk in the front room along with all the other unopened mail, bills, and such, nothing that she could bring herself to look at or deal with. And she was taking more pills and sleeping whole days away, not answering phone calls, stumbling out into the late night to the 24 hour supermarkets for more of the same frozen dinners. She was slowly letting herself die. I’ll be dead by the time I’m sixty she’d told herself. As if it had been a promise. And then a man who said he was a private detective showed up at her door.

Next Time: Under Hypnosis

Cheése Stands Alone V

November 15, 2022Crime Fiction, Pulp Fiction, Steampunk Fiction, Western FictionAirship Commander, Airships, Cheese Stands Alone, Crime Fiction, Hard Boiled Fiction, IOTA, Lighter-Than-Air, Lydia Cheése, Pax Victoriana, Pulp FictionNuallain House, Publishers

by Phyllis Huldarsdottir

Chapter Eleven

Startled, at first Lydia didn’t quite understand the request, the policeman’s accent being of a rough sort. She was still struggling with the image she had of Vlady, but he was not known as Vlady then, he was Samson Trismegistus, the circus strongman who had carried her on his broad shoulder as if she were nothing but a sparrow, a three year old sparrow, and even then only offered silent protection to her, her mother, and the acrobat troupe from their rivals, the clowns and the carnival attractions. That was the reason behind Vlady’s mystifying and knowing smiles.

The short policeman emphasized his demand by speaking it louder and adding contempt to the twist of his mouth. “Your papers!”

Lydia stood, and realizing that she was in danger of being found out, echoed him questioningly, “My papers?”

The taller one leaned his narrow head toward her, “Are you under the influence of controlled substances?” Now they were both on alert. The short one had his hand out.

Lydia held up her own hand signaling she would comply and fumbled for her shoulder bag. There were only two of them, with her training and the element of surprised she could render them unconscious. She didn’t want to have to kill them, the viper stiletto nudging against her ribs. But that would only complicate things. Her Aerosud Executive Airship Pilot’s ID identified her as Lydia Cheése, Airship Commander, and if Doctor Serre-Pain’s words were true, the authorities within IOTA’s sphere of influence, as Oldest Orleans was, would be alerted to her fugitive status.

“I’m afraid that I don’t have them with me. How foolish of me,” she said appeasingly and gestured toward Place D’Arc, “but I’m with. . . .”

Now the tall one’s eyes narrowed, “A vendor? Where is your vendor’s permit?” And he nodded to his companion. “You will have to accompany us to headquarters so we can verify your identity. We have a plasmoviz there that will verify who you say you are.” The shorter one emphasized, “It is unlawful to be in public without proof of identity.” They each moved to encircle her to ensure her compliance.

Lydia had to act, and damn the consequences.

A voice hailed them. “Ah, there you are, Louise!”

The gendarmes pivoted, annoyed. A rotund man in an elaborate topcoat and purple gray tuglemust was approaching with his hand raised. “Louise, there you are. We thought we’d lost you!” He had the jolly confident smile of man who often got his way, the latest gasket frame eyewear giving him an almost comical appearance.

The tall officer gave a nod of recognition, “Lord mayor.”

The other one looked perplexed. “Do you know this person, your honor?”

“Of course! Don’t you recognize her? This is Louise Bouchdor. An honored guest of the Victoriannasence Festival.”

The policemen looked at each other and then at Lydia and then back at the mayor. “You mean the Louise. . . ,” said the one. “Bouchdor?” said the other.

“Of course,” said the mayor, “the porn box courtesan, nothing to be ashamed of. Her voice has titillated men the world over. I would ask her to give you a little trill but that would be very unprofessional.”

“So she is with you, your honor?”

“My party of guests. We were returning from viewing the entertainment by Madame Ophelia,” and he gave her a knowing look, “when she must have wandered off. The newly released bio-vintage is particularly pleasant this year, and perhaps unusually strong.” The mayor inclined his head conspiratorially to the officers, “Especially for fairer constitutions,” and they agreed with knowing smiles.

“Very well, lord mayor, if you vouch for her then we will be on your way,” the short one said magnanimously. He saluted Lydia with a little bow and a smirk, “Madame Bouchdor, always a pleasure.”

When the two patrolmen left to return to their rounds, the roly-poly man’s face angrily confronted her. “Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve jeopardized the entire plan!” He seized her by the arm with a surprisingly strong grip. “We must hurry!”

Lydia resisted, ready with a defense move. “Wait! Who are you? The mayor? Did I hear correct? You said I was a porn box courtesan?”

The mayor turned to her fiercely, “A mere diversion, I assure you. My apologizes if you are offended. That is of no matter now. Serre-Pain, and transporting he and his skills, is what is important. I am Leon. With the League Bousculier Francaise Du Sud. We are charged with getting the good doctor and his wagons to a rendezvous with an airship for which you are the pilot, if I am not mistaken. Lydia Cheése. daughter of the infamous Commodore Jack. A pleasure to meet you despite the circumstances. But we must hurry. They will have to report their encounter and will learn that Louise Bouchdor left Oldest Orleans a few days ago.” He led the reluctant airship commander down a narrow path between the towering walls of the old town. “This way,” he hissed.

A shadow separated itself from the stone wall around the next turn. Lydia recognized him as the money changer at the boot stall. He was clearly a confederate. Leon instructed him, “Take her to the cellar until we are ready to leave.” He gave Lydia a meaningful look. “I will return, with Serre-Pain.”

The young man motioned to her to follow unaware that she was looking for an opportunity to bolt. She was on her last nerve, and didn’t like the feeling of desperation that was creeping up on her. She took a breath, she would have to bide her time. The guide proceeded down steps under a narrow stone arch and to a large wooden door. When he shouldered it open, she could tell it was a wine cellar from the sour fetid air that escaped. He activated a small bacsodium lamp from inside and set it on a shelf by the rank of barrels. Lydia saw her chance and turned to leap back through the doorway. A large shadow crossed the threshold and a hand reached in to slam the door shut in her face.

Chapter Twelve

Lydia had the money changer by the throat, the viper stiletto to the point of his chin. “Open this door!” she growled through her gritted teeth.

The young man caught by surprise held his arms up in surrender. “Please, the door locks from the outside, there is nothing I can do!”

“You have the key! Give it to me!” she insisted, scanning his alarmed expression.

“No! No! The door is barred from the outside! I am in the same fix as you. This is what Leon wants.”

“To hold me prisoner? Why are you here?” Lydia had not let loose of his collar nor toned down her vehemence.

“To keep you company. You are not a prisoner. More of a guest of the LBFDS. And to keep you safe while Leon and the snake doctor come up with a new plan. The local security force works closely with IOTA. I have been shown a plasmovid bulletin with a description and a biosketch with a striking resemblance to you.” The money changer caught his breath staring down at the tip of the viper blade. “You are Airship Commander Lydia Cheése. I am a great admirer of your father, Commadore Jack. All my life I have wanted to be an airship pilot. Please, I mean you no harm, but we are here together until Leon returns.”

Lydia relaxed her grip and pulled the stiletto back but ready to strike. “You expect me to believe you?” She took in the low ceilinged cellar in the amber glow of the bacso lamp and saw that there was no other exit, merely rows of wine casks, a low bench and a crude table set against a stone wall.

“I can offer you a drink,” he pleaded, “Dried fruit, dates?”

Lydia released him and pushed him away, sheathing the viper blade. “Well, this is awkward,” she admitted, eyes still alert for any means of escape. She fixed his awkward smile with a hard stare and resigned herself to the situation. She was locked in a wine cellar with a not unhandsome young man who was offering her wine and dates. It was almost comical. She was going to have to make the best of it. And not let down her guard. Any drink might be drugged, any food tainted. “Sit over there,” she motioned to the bench, “Where I can keep an eye on you. And I should warn you I have been trained in combat martial arts and can disable you with one blow. What’s your name?”

The young man let a relieved amused smile cross his face. “Pyare. And I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain Cheése, I much admire airship pilots. I myself have applied to the Admiralty Air Academy under the Affiliated States quota but unfortunately I did not pass the examination. I have studied aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, my understanding of reproductive drives is not great but I don’t want to be a drive engineer. I want to be a pilot!”

Lydia was disarmed by his earnestness. She remembered her own enthusiasm in the pursuit of a berth at the triple A. Becoming an airship commander had been her singular goal, and she came from a long family line associated with the Crown and the Admiralty. “You can retake the exam,” she offered and remembered that she had passed the exam on her first attempt.

Pyare shook his head. “I didn’t realize how heavily the historiopolitical weighed toward the final grade. I don’t understand what any of that has to do with piloting a double hulled luxury liner.”

Lydia had heard that complaint often, especially among the quota candidates, and especially those without a sponsor. As a citizen of the Commonwealth and sponsorship from Aerosud, her own appointment had been assured. The reason for the grievance had been explained to her by a young Panafrika officer, a woman like herself, who was quite cynical about it. “They want to make certain that you believe what they want you to believe, their version of history, the Succession, the myth of Pax Victoriana!” It was all nonsense as far as she was concerned. She had no patience with conspiracy theories. The irony was that her father was one of the leading theorists of conspiracies

“The Admiralty takes history and politics very seriously. Piloting a luxury liner requires more than just knowledge of the ferro-mechanics. Comportment toward the passengers, the crew, and ancillaries is also part of an airship commander’s job, and that is accomplished by a good working knowledge the politics of history.”

“I’ll bet you aced the WorldPol section of the exam,” Pyare said sullenly.

Lydia could have admitted that she actually had. “Just the fact that you say you admire my father is a strike against you. Even if you had passed the exam, you would have likely failed the IOTA background check with opinions like yours.”

“You don’t know what my opinions are!”

“If I’d venture a guess, I’d say you dispute the Succession, and judication of the GSC, the Global Supreme Council.”

“I don’t care about any of that!” Pyare was getting red around the collar. “Politics doesn’t mean anything to me. Piloting is what I want to do!”

“You could always get a commercial license,” Lydia offered by way of appeasement.

“No, no,” the young man shook his head, “No rigs or semirigs for me, nothing less than full flex certified dirigible!”

“Navair companies will not hire you without Admiralty approved training.”

“Why would an airship company care if I could name all the Slave State Republics in the USSR? Aren’t they all under sanctions as rogue states? ”

Lydia remembered an old history professor’s comment that the Northern Hemisphere’ west was a puzzle whose pieces were always changing shape. While the world was fracturing into numerous hostile states in the early years of the Pax Victoriana, the London Berlin Moscow Accords had forged a stable alliance that eventually became the foundation of the Clockwork Commonwealth. The old academic was well known for his pronouncements, particularly, “The Past will always revenge itself on the Future.”

“I speak Standard well enough,” Pyare continued his complaint, “I have skills, ambition. I would be a good airship captain! Just because I did not make the distinction between the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Tennessee. And what of the Panam Wars? Those border hostilities have been going on forever. Who can keep up? These are things in which I have no interest!”

Lydia nodded her understanding. “Yes, ROT and ROTN are two distinct entities withing the United Slave State Republics and I can see how they might be confusing. Nomenclature is political, it is the ownership of boundaries and superstructure. It is as necessary as knowing Euler’s Equation, or the workings of Bénard Cells or Fourier’s Theorem if you are to navigate the GCC, Greater Commonwealth Cooperative and prove your citizenship to the Crown and Pax Victoriana.”

Pyare snorted his contempt, “Pax Victoriana is a sham! There are still parts of the globe that have no intention of complying with the Jubilee Calendar Reset and resist the Crown’s Global Recalibration. As for peace, the wars may be smaller but there are more of them.”

“You have obviously been listening to ICER box propaganda and anti-globalists like my father. The JCR and the CGR are the basis for the Cooperative of Nations in which all geopolitical entities signed on as partners and that would include the APT, Artisan Protection Treaty of 55 PV, the CET, the Carbon Emission Treaty of 75 PV, the Hydrogen Helium Concorde, the H²C of the same year, the AFSP, the Antiseptic Food Safety Provisions of 80, The FAC, Famine Alleviating Commission formed in 90, and ACSA, the Admiralty Commonwealth Security Accords which were finally signed in 100 PV. The world is a much better place for the many. The few who have to suffer will always complain.”

Lydia was surprised by the irony that she had just parroted something spoken by the Lord High Admiral at her graduation from Admiralty’s Airship Officers Academy. She had accepted it without question. Why did it seem so hollow when she spoke it herself? “There are those who would willingly undermine the protection that the Pax provides for its global citizenry, whether it’s in the Empire of Brazil and its African Colonies or the unaffiliated Western Pacific polystates that run like a backbone from the Aleutians to the Isthmus, predators and thieves sheltered by rouge states who would fatten themselves on the spoils of a fractured Commonwealth if they could.”

“Ha!” Pyare replied accusingly, “You sound just like one of those police kiosk plasmovids. Spreading a biowashed version of history. If I can’t be a lithairian, I’ll settle for being a heavairian.”

Lydia shook her head. “You would be a heathen? You must be contemplating suicide. What if your noisy contraption runs out of petrol, and who can afford black gold but bandits and the super-rich, you will plummet like a large odiferous stone. Flight in a lighter-than-air is dignified transport whereas the noisome roar of internal combustion would vibrate you to a jellied mass. The internal combustion engine is an ICER invention that was never sanctioned by the Crown, especially after bioclean reproductive drives were developed. Even if eradication after the first global Black Mold Infestation led to the unexpected mutation of the biocide used to control it into a petrophage that essentially turned all the oil reserves in the Northern Hemisphere to ash, the wasteful application of the precious resources to an inefficient technology goes against everything the RCA, the Resource Conservation Act of 60 PV, stands for.”

“All that’s ancient history as far as I’m concerned. And who is to say that the BMI actually happened, that it was not a ploy by the Admiralty to extend its dominion over the dissident and defiant masses? No one is allowed into the Blank Forest Zones, the BFZ as you would have it. There are parts of the Northern Hemisphere that are still highly toxic, especially along the Baltic Estuary, and the North American Outback. Everything there has turned into a depolarized particulate cement landscape allowing no regeneration of any sort up from under its crust. It is uninhabitable and only fools and adventurers dare stray into the fringes with their wind driven sail trollies. The Lords of the Admiralty control all information and entry to the Access Restricted Zones. Yet where are the multitudes coming from? The north, the majority from above the 48^th parallel. And no one is talking about this migration. Is it like the ICERs say, the world is cooling at its poles and if we don’t do something soon, the globe will be encased in ice?”

Lydia sighed, put her fists to her hips and gave her predicament another once over. What had started as an inquiry into her father’s whereabouts had turned into a kidnaping by a carnival snake doctor to have her pilot a humanitarian mission to non-aligned HOAR, the Horn Of Africa Republic, in exchange for a way to connect with the elusive and controversial anti-globalist, Commadore Jack, someone IOTA would very much like to get in their grasp, and the reason why she was wanted for questioning. And now she was trapped in a musty damp wine cellar with one of her father’s disciples, an ignorant country boy and ICER sympathizer. Men are such idiots. Was she going to have to set him straight?

“I’ll have some of that wine after all.”

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Four of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Three of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Two of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Next Time: The Graveyard

Welcome to Volume Three, Number One of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Next Time: Hiding Out At Little Lake

Welcome to Volume Two, Number Ten of Dime Pulp, A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Next Time: Lady On The Lake

Next Time: Under Hypnosis

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Next Time: Lydia Heads For The Hills

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Three of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Three, Number Two of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Three, Number One of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.

Welcome to Volume Two, Number Ten of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.