All due respect 2020, p.1
All Due Respect 2020, page 1
ALL DUE RESPECT 2020
Chris Rhatigan and David Nemeth, editors
Collection Copyright © 2020 by Chris Rhatigan and David Nemeth
Individual Story Copyrights © 2020 by Respective Authors
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
All Due Respect
an imprint of Down & Out Books
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover design by Zach McCain
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
All Due Respect 2020
Editors’ Note
Mad Dog
Stephen D. Rogers
49,000 Ways to Die
Tom Leins
Everything’s Coming Up Duane
Michael Pool
Perennial
Andrew Davie
On the Edge
Sharon Diane King
The Woman from Florence
Preston Lang
What’s One More?
Jay Butkowski
The Gangster’s Game
Steven Berry
Donors
Craig Francis Coates
A Little Push
Bobby Mathews
The Last Supper
Michael Penncavage
Quaking in My Boots
BV Lawson
About the Editors
Preview from Blood by Choice by Rob Pierce
Preview from Loss by Tony Black
Preview from Below the Line by Steven Jankowski
EDITORS’ NOTE
The following stories represent each of All Due Respect’s twelve monthly issues presented in the order they appeared in 2020.
For more of today’s best crime fiction, check us out at all-due-respect.blogspot.com and AllDueRespectBooks.com.
MAD DOG
Stephen D. Rogers
I woke up with one end of a rifle in my mouth, Mad Dog at the other. Teach me to sleep on my back. Probably snored like a bastard.
Withdrawing the muzzle of the barrel, she stepped back, keeping the weapon aimed at my head. One thing about Mad Dog, she never let crazy get in the way.
I ran a tongue over my teeth to check for any new chips.
There seemed no need to call my dentist. Leave it to Mad Dog to be careful. “I don’t suppose you brought me a coffee.”
“Here’s the situation.” Mad Dog paused. “We’re going to take a drive.”
I didn’t want to die before I finished waking up. “Maybe you’re going for a drive, but I have other plans.”
“Then you’re going to break them.” Her cheek twitched. Better that muscle than one in her trigger finger.
“Sorry, but I can’t.” I swung my legs out of bed and planted my feet on the bare wood. “It’s first thing in the morning. I have to pee.”
“Not my problem.”
“Listen, Mad Dog, either I pee or I go back to bed, which I wouldn’t exactly mind, truth to tell. You don’t know this, but you woke me in a cliff-hanger of a dream. I want to see how everything turns out.”
“I knew you were dreaming. I watched your eyeballs moving under the lids.”
There was a creepy thought. “What I don’t understand is how you think you can march me down three flights of stairs with a rifle in my back.”
“Third floor means two flights.”
“Same problem.”
“You’re going to turn around, and I’m going to smash your head with the butt of this rifle. Then I’m going to dump you out the window. I doubt you’ll be able to crawl away by the time I get outside.”
“Where is it we’re going?” And how could I survive the trip?
“I was hired to deliver you to someone.”
I flexed my toes. I’d made so many enemies over the years, she hadn’t exactly narrowed the field of possibilities. “If my mother wanted me to visit more often, she could have just called.”
Mad Dog grinned. “You’re going to wish it was your mother.”
“Can I go the bathroom before you scare the piss out of me?”
“Slowly.” She took another step back and to her left, away from the bathroom, finally allowing me to see past the business end of the rifle.
Mad Dog wore a tailored blue-and-white striped shirt over jeans. No jacket. She probably sauntered from her vehicle to the lobby of the apartment building and up the stairs with the rifle carried on her shoulder.
I’d already lived longer than most people who woke to Mad Dog, but I wanted to beat my own record.
“Moving slowly.” I crossed to the bathroom and lifted the toilet lid and seat. Unsheathed myself.
“Put your arms back to your sides.”
“It’s going to get messy.”
“Not my problem.”
I followed orders before letting it rip. Pee splattered everywhere.
I raised my voice to mask the sound. “Remember that time we broke down on 41?”
“I’m not here to reminisce.”
“Right, you’re here to pick up a package.” I raised my arms higher, moving my left hand closer to the shaving kit on the edge of the sink. “Still, a little conversation never hurt anyone.”
“It will if it causes me to bash your brains out.”
I’d been crazy to even consider going for the razor. Mad Dog was a legend for a reason, and I didn’t want to die today.
“Point taken.” I queried my bladder. “Thanks for letting me drain the monster. Okay if I shake?”
“Slowly.”
“Kind of defeats the purpose.”
“Your choice.”
Again, I moved slowly. Made myself presentable and turned to face her. “See? That didn’t take long.”
“Now throw on some clothes.”
“Seriously? You’re worried about someone seeing me walking around in my undies when you’re carrying a long gun?”
“It would be disrespectful for you to stand in front of him this way.”
“We could stop. I could buy a tie.”
“We could simulate a red one when I crush your jaw.”
“Never did like how ties feel around my neck.”
“Shirt. Pants. Touch a weapon, and I’ll shoot you where you stand and deliver you unconscious.”
“Better that than screaming, I suppose.” I opened my closet and searched for something that wouldn’t clash with my captor. Green checked over chinos seemed to do the trick.
On the closet floor, assorted footwear. There was a knife in the loafers. I chose the sneakers.
Tossed the clothes on the bed and started dressing. “You could tell me where we’re going. Or if you want to keep that a surprise, you could tell me who’s paying the bill.”
“You are.”
I paused mid-button. Paying the bill? “Does this have anything to do with a certain jewelry job gone wrong? Mad Dog, I’m telling you right now: I don’t have the diamonds.”
Mad Dog wobbled the muzzle. “Finish getting dressed.”
The Colombian. I was dead.
Not yet, but soon.
I couldn’t overpower Mad Dog. Couldn’t escape her. Couldn’t catch her making a mistake.
I resumed buttoning.
The Colombian wasn’t going to kill her to keep her from talking. He wasn’t going to cheat her. He wasn’t going to give me a single angle to use against her.
“Instead of delivering me, you could go one better by bringing him the diamonds. He’d appreciate that. Probably reward you for your initiative.”
“He told me to bring you.”
“He doesn’t want me. He wants the jewels.”
“And he’ll get them.”
I didn’t doubt she was right. The Colombian specialized in bending people to his will.
My shaking hands kept messing up the laces. Back to the basics. Make two bunny ears. Cross the left bunny ear with the right to make an X. X marks the spot where you dig the hole.
I gave up before I panicked and rose to my feet. “You could keep the diamonds for yourself.”
“And then he’d send someone to deliver me.”
I scoffed. “Nobody would be able to take you.”
“We’re all meat.” Mad Dog tipped her head toward the door. “Time to go.”
My sight dimmed as tears welled. I didn’t bother to hide the fact I was crying. Least of my concerns. “Could I have a minute?”
“Now.”
What did it matter? There was nothing in the room that meant anything to me.
I straightened my back and marched.
Stepped on a lace and pitched forward, staggered to catch myself, tripped over my own foot and lost my balance, arms flailing.
My right hand connected with the barrel of the gun and I formed a fist around it. Dragged it down with me as I tumbled.
Mad Dog fired probably hoping for a lucky shot, and the barrel turned hot in my grip.
I might have screamed as I jumped at her but my ears still rang. Pulled the rifle toward me as I swung with my left, glancing off her shoulder.
She fired a second time.
Her collar clenched in my left hand, I let go of the scalding barrel to punch her in the face. Scraped her temple as she twisted away.
Mad Dog stamped my leading foot. Kneed me. Caught me in the neck with a hand that came out of nowhere.
I couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. Couldn’t taste anything but metallic red.
My senses gone, I let the room go dark as I kicked and punched and bit, pulling at clothes and hair and flaps of skin, an animal made savage by the alternative.
Blood I couldn’t see felt sticky, interfered with my ability to maintain a hold, while sweat stung my eyes, and legs—too many legs—sent me down again and again.
Falling and rising.
Slamming into walls.
Dancing drunkenly with more chairs than had been in the room the night before, a showroom of furniture that interfered with charges and cracked my spine as I rolled away to evade blows.
Fists and fingers and elbows.
On my back. On my knees. On my side. On my feet.
In the air until I landed with a resounding thud.
A head between my hands. I lifted and slammed. Lifted and slammed. Collapsed against an uneven softness and drew in deep, thundering gasps of air.
Lungs burning. Limbs jerking.
Stinking of sweat and fear.
I closed my eyes to concentrate on staying conscious.
Stretch and creak. Ride the waves of pain. Test to determine what still works.
Color the pain in angry hues to take my mind off the likelihood of internal bleeding.
Assuming enough still remained.
Deep breath. Wince. Roll off her to stare at the ceiling, the water stains chasing each other.
Count to ten, skipping the numbers I couldn’t remember.
Crawl to the bed and climb in it. Twist and drop into what could be mistaken for a sitting position.
A slow, faltering attempt to inhale the world.
Some time later, one eye closed, I went for a drive.
Stephen D. Rogers is the author of Shot To Death and more than 800 shorter works. His website, StephenDRogers.com, includes a list of new and upcoming titles as well as other timely information.
Back to TOC
49,000 WAYS TO DIE
Tom Leins
The meaty motherfucker with the leprous complexion is taking his Doberman for a shit on the grass when I hit him.
I’m wearing brass knuckles, so I rupture his ear and rip out his hooped earring in the process.
He’s wearing tracksuit bottoms and dress shoes, like an alcoholic on laundry day. He probes the ruined ear warily with calloused fingertips. To his credit he doesn’t whine, just looks up curiously, trying to work out who the fuck I am.
“I’m looking for your uncle.”
He wipes his bloody fingers on his trousers and reaches for the bottle of Lucozade he dropped when I hit him. He takes a swig and belches. Then he grins, revealing rotten, overlapping teeth.
“Fuck off, son.”
I drop my Slazenger kit bag on the dead grass at his feet and remove the nail gun, pointing it at his crotch.
“Let’s try that again shall we, mate? Where can I find Harold King?”
He glares up at me through jaundiced, piss-coloured eyes and spits on the dead grass.
“Try hell.”
Six Hours Earlier
I rinse my throat with a double vodka. Although it’s only eleven a.m., I feel no shame. This time last month my jaw was wired shut and my skin felt dead to the touch. One way or another, I think I’ve earned it.
I’m sitting in a swivel chair still greasy from its previous occupant, staring out of a small window that overlooks the back yard of the North Atlantic Video Lounge. Two Cantonese men are unloading soggy-looking cardboard boxes in preparation for one of Barry Balthazar’s notorious ‘Sunday Suppers’.
Worryingly, it’s only Thursday.
I help myself to another drink. Beer this time. They’ve started selling cut-price alcohol in the cramped basement of the video shop. Six feet under, like the minimart from hell. Unbranded, foreign, out-of-date booze—they keep the bottles and cans locked behind a fucking cage, and you point to the ones you want with a discarded hospital crutch that used to belong to Mr Balthazar. It’s a nice touch.
I inherited the office from a deranged ex-cop known as Wet-Look. Much like him, I’ve become a magnet for unbalanced souls. The doomed and the fragile. Misfits consumed by violence, anger and pain. Hopeless people looking for hope in a town already bled dry of optimism.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
I shrug.
Her accent is Eastern European, her voice choked with anger.
“Lady, I don’t remember half the shit I’ve done.”
She glares at me. Forty, or thereabouts. Ragged around the edges, but better preserved than me.
“People say you are a maniac. A fantasist. A degenerate. A drunk. I tell them the truth. I tell them you are a good man.”
“You shouldn’t have bothered.”
She removes a chain from her slender neck and wraps it around my wrist.
“Saint Andrzej Bobola. The hunter of souls. He was tortured to death during the Khmelnytsky Uprising. I suspect you need this more than I do, Mr Rey.”
I reach for my beer, spilling it as I shrug. “You’ll get no arguments from me, sweetheart.”
She reaches across the desk and caresses my face.
I flinch, in spite of myself.
“I want to hire you.”
I used to be a sucker for a damsel in distressed denim.
“I’m not taking on new work. The phone’s been ringing off the fucking hook…”
I gesture to the dusty telephone. It dawns on me that I don’t even know my own number.
She frowns, brown eyes burning with hurt.
“Anyway, you’re talking to the wrong man. I can’t even find my fucking bottle opener.”
I retrieve an unlabelled bottle from the carrier bag at my feet and hold it near the edge of the scarred desk. I slam the palm of my hand down on the bottle top, and it skitters across the desk, froth erupting from the mouth of the bottle.
“Mr Rey, I want to hire you to find my murderer.”
I laugh—in spite of myself.
I trail a finger through the spilled beer, then wipe away the puddle with my sleeve.
“I have money, if that is what you are worried about?”
She empties her handbag on the desk. A grubby roll of banknotes fastened with a plastic hairband tumbles out.
I shake my head. Enough talking for one day.
A tiny tear rolls down her face. She visibly deflates and has trouble lifting herself out of the orange plastic visitor’s chair.
I scramble out of my swivel chair and offer her my arm. She waves me aside, and groans as she gets to her feet.
I follow her down the rickety staircase to street-level, intending to lock the door behind her so I can get drunk in peace.
She turns to face me. I half expect her to shout at me, but instead she sounds calm.
“Goodbye, Mr Rey. I will see you in the next life.”
Then she steps backwards into the road—in front of a Poundland eighteen-wheeler—and her dainty body is mangled with a sick crunch.
I stoop down, clumsily fumbling at her throat to check for a pulse, but the thick torrents of blood oozing out of her ears convince me I’m wasting my time. I look down at her and her mouth seems to be curled into a half smile. Then I see the fucking photographs.
A handful of Polaroids have spilled out of the pockets of her denim jacket. I grab them, slipping them into my pocket before anyone notices. Then I melt into the crowd, the throat-ripping screams of the bystanders ringing in my rotten ears.
