65 Proof (32 page)

Little Louie stood over him, holding the pocket watch. “That was only seven seconds.”

Hutson’s scream could have woken the dead. It was full of heart-wrenching agony and fear and disgust and pity. It was the scream of the man being interrogated by the Gestapo. The scream of the woman having a Caesarean without anesthetic. The scream of a father in a burning, wrecked car turning to see his baby on fire.

The scream of a man without hope.

“Don’t get upset.” Little Louie offered him a big grin. “I’ll let you try it again.”

The thugs hauled Hutson to his feet, and he whimpered and passed out. He woke up on the floor again, choking. Water had been thrown in his face.

Little Louie shook his head, sadly. “Come on Mr. Hutson. I haven’t got all day. I’m a busy man. If you want to back out, the boys can do their job. I want to warn you though, a thirty grand job means we’ll put your face on one of these burners, and that would just be the beginning. Make your decision.”

Hutson got to his feet, knees barely able to support him, breath shallow, hand hurting worse than any pain he had ever felt. He didn’t want to look at it, found himself doing it anyway, and stared at the black, inflamed flesh in a circular pattern on his palm. Hardly any blood. Just raw, exposed, gooey cooked muscle where the skin had fried away.

Hutson bent over and threw up.

“Come on, Mr. Hutson. You can do it. You came so close, I’d hate to have to cripple you permanently.”

Hutson tried to stagger to the door to get away, but was held back before he took two steps.

“The stove is over here, Mr. Hutson.” Little Louie’s black rat eyes sparkled like polished onyx.

Rocko steered Hutson back to the stove. Hutson stared down at the orange glowing burner, blackened in several places where parts of his palm had stuck and cooked to cinder. The pain was pounding. He was dazed and on the verge of passing out again. He lifted his left hand over the burner.

“Nope. Sorry Mr. Hutson. I specifically said it had to be your right hand. You have to use your right hand, please.”

Could he put his right hand on that burner again? Hutson didn’t think he could, in his muddied, agony-spiked brain. He was sweating and cold at the same time, and the air swam around him. His body shook and trembled. If he were familiar with the symptoms, Hutson might have known he was going into shock. But he wasn’t a doctor, and he couldn’t think straight anyway, and the pain, oh jesus, the awful pain, and he remembered being five years old and afraid of dogs, and his grandfather had a dog and made him pet it, and he was scared, so scared that it would bite, and his grandfather grabbed his hand and put it toward the dog’s head…

Hutson put his hand back on the burner.

“One……………two……………”

Hutson screamed again, searing pain bringing him out of shock. His hand reflexively grabbed the burner, pushing down harder, muscles squeezing, the old burns set aflame again, blistering, popping…

“……………three……………”

Take it off! Take it off! Screaming, eyes squeezed tight, shaking his head like a hound with a fox in his teeth, sounds of cracking skin and sizzling meat…

“……………four……………five……………”

Black smoke, rising, a burning smell, that’s me cooking, muscle melting and searing away, nerves exposed, screaming even louder, pull it away!, using the other hand to hold it down…

“……………six……………seven……………”

Agony so exquisite, so absolute, unending, entire arm shaking, falling to knees, keeping hand on burner, opening eyes and seeing it sear at eye level, turning grey like a well-done steak, meat charring…

“Smells pretty good,” says one of the thugs.

“Like a hamburger.”

“A hand-burger.”

Laughter.

“……………eight……………nine……………”

No flesh left, orange burner searing bone, scorching, blood pumping onto heating coils, beading and evaporating like fat on a griddle, veins and arteries searing…

“……………ten!”

Take it off! Take it off!

It’s stuck.

“Look boss, he’s stuck!”

Air whistled out of Hutson’s lungs like a horse whimpering. His hand continued to fry away. He pulled feebly, pain at a peak, all nerves exposed–pull dammit! –blacking out, everything fading…

Hutson awoke on the floor, shaking, with more water in his face.

“Nice job Mr. Hutson.” Little Louie stared down at him. “You followed the agreement. To the letter. You’re off the hook.”

Hutson squinted up at the mobster. The little man seemed very far away.

“Since you’ve been such a sport, I’ve even called an ambulance for you. They’re on their way. Unfortunately, the boys and I won’t be here when it arrives.”

Hutson tried to say something. His mouth wouldn’t form words.

“I hope we can gamble again soon, Mr. Hutson. Maybe we could play a hand or two. Get it? A hand?”

The thugs tittered. Little Louie bent down, close enough for Hutson to smell his cigar breath.

“Oh, there’s one more thing, Mr. Hutson. Looking back on our agreement, I said you had to hold your right hand on the burner for ten seconds. I said you had to follow that request to the letter. But, you know what? I just realized something pretty funny. I never said you had to turn the burner on.”

Little Louie left, followed by his body guards, and Bernard Hutson screamed and screamed and just couldn’t stop.

Satire, written for the webzine ShotsMag.uk at their request. This pokes gentle fun at the sub-genre of zero-violence cozy mysteries, with their quirky but spunky amateur sleuths.

“T
his is simply dreadful!”

Mrs. Agnes Victoria Mugilicuddy blanched under a thick layer of rouge. Her oversized beach hat, adorned with plastic grapes and lemons, perched askew atop her pink-hued quaff.

Barlow, her graying manservant, placed a hand on her pointy elbow to steady her.

“Indeed, Madam. I’ll call the police.”

“The police? Why, Barlow, think of the scandal! Imagine what Imogene Rumbottom, that busy-body who writes the Society Column, will say in her muck-raking rag when she discovers the Viscount de Pouissant dead on my foyer floor.”

“I understand, Madam. Will you be solving this murder yourself, then?”

“I have no other choice, Barlow! Though I’m a simple dowager of advancing years and high social standing, my feisty determination and keen eye for detail will no doubt flush out this dastardly murderer. Where is Miss Foo-Foo, the Mystery Cat?”

“She’s in her litter box, burying some evidence.”

“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes’s voice had the pitch and timbre of an opera soprano. “Come immediately and help Mumsy solve this heinous crime!”

Miss Foo-Foo trotted into the foyer, her pendulous belly dragging along the oriental rug. Bits of smoked salmon clung to her whiskers.

“Barlow!” Agnes commanded, clapping her liver-spotted hands together.

Barlow bent down and picked up the cat. He was five years Mrs. Agnes’s senior, and his back cracked liked kindling with the weight of Miss Foo-Foo.

Agnes patted the cat on the head as Barlow held it. Miss Foo-Foo purred, a sound not unlike a belch.

“We have a mystery to solve, my dearest puss-puss. If we’re to catch the scoundrel, we must be quick of mind and fleet of foot. Barlow!”

“Yes, Madam?”

“Fetch the Mystery Kit!”

“Right away, Madam.”

Barlow turned on his heels.

“Barlow!”

Barlow turned back.

“Yes, Madam?”

“First release Miss Foo-Foo.”

“Of course, Madam.”

Barlow bent at the waist, his spine making Rice Krispie sounds. Miss Foo-Foo padded over to Agnes and allowed herself to be patted on the head.

Straightening up was a painful affair, but Barlow managed without a grunt. He nodded at Mrs. Agnes and left the room.

“To think,” Agnes mused, “only ten minutes ago the Viscount was sipping tawny port and regaling us with ribald tales of the gooseberry industry. Just a waste, Miss Foo-Foo.”

Agnes’s eyes remained dry, but she removed a handkerchief from the side pocket on her jacket and dabbed at them nonetheless.

Barlow returned lugging a satchel, its black leather cracked with age. He undid the tarnished clasps and held it open for Mrs. Agnes. She removed a large, Sherlock Holmes-style magnifying glass.

“The first order of business is to establish the cause of death.” Mrs. Agnes spoke to the cat, not to Barlow. “It’s merely a hunch, but I’m compelled to suggest that perhaps the lovely port the Viscount had been sipping may have been tampered with.”

“An interesting hypothesis, Madam, but perhaps instead it has something to do with that letter opener?”

“The letter opener, Barlow?”

“The one sticking in the Viscount’s chest, Madam.”

Agnes squinted one heavily mascaraed eye and peered through the glass with the other.

“Miss Foo-Foo, your hunch proved incorrect. The poor, dear Viscount appears to be impaled through the heart with some kind of silver object. But what can it be, puss-puss?”

“A letter opener, Madam?”

“Could it be a knife, Miss Foo-Foo? Perchance some rapscallion gained entry to the den though the window, intent on robbing the rich Viscount? Perhaps a fight ensued, resulting in the bloodthirsty criminal tragically ending the Viscount’s life with this vaguely Freudian symbol of male power?”

Barlow peered at the body.

“It appears to be the letter opener you bought me for my anniversary, Madam. The gift you presented to me for fifty years of loyal service.”

“Miss Foo-Foo!” Agnes bent over the fallen Viscount and lightly touched the handle of the protruding object. “Why, this is no knife! It’s Barlow’s letter opener! I can see the engraving.”

“‘How lucky you must feel to have served me for so many years.’” Barlow intoned.

“This changes everything!” Mrs. Agnes placed the magnifying glass back into the satchel, her gnarled fingers latching onto a tin of fingerprint powder. “Some heathen must have stolen Barlow’s lovely gift—”

“Sterling silver plated,” Barlow said.

“—with the intent to frame our loyal manservant! Barlow!”

“Yes, Madam?”

“Open this tin so I may dust the offending weapon!”

“Yes, Madam.”

Mrs. Agnes used the tiny brush to liberally apply a basecoat of powder to the letter opener’s handle.

“Why, look, puss-puss! There’s nary a print to be found! The handle has been wiped clean!”

“Perhaps the murderer wore gloves, Madam?” Barlow reached for the powder tin with a gloved-hand.

“Or perhaps, Miss Foo-Foo, the killer wore gloves! This fiend is no mere street malcontent. This seems premeditated, the result of a careful and calculating plot. But why the Viscount?”

“Perhaps he was a witness, Madam? To another murder?”

Mrs. Agnes squinted at her manservant.

“That’s daft, Barlow. Even for a lowly servant such as yourself. Do you see another victim in this room?”

“Indeed I do, Madam.”

Barlow removed the cheese grater from his vest pocket, a gift from Mrs. Agnes for his forty year anniversary, and spent forty minutes grating off the old dowager’s face.

The old bat still had some life left in her after that, so he worked on her a bit with his thirtieth-year-anniversary nutcracker, his twentieth-year-anniversary potato peeler, and finally the fireplace poker, which wasn’t a gift, but was handy.

When she finally expired, he flipped the gory side face-down and spent a leisurely hour violating her corpse—something he couldn’t have managed if she were alive and yapping. Sated, Barlow stood on creaky knees and picked up the bored Miss Foo-Foo.

“You have a date with the microwave, puss-puss. And then I’m the sole heir to Madam’s fortune.”

Miss Foo-Foo purred, making a sound like a belch.

Three minutes and thirteen seconds later, she made a different kind of sound. More like a pop.

“T
here’s a line.”

A long line, too. Thirty people, maybe more.

Aaron cleared his throat and spat the result onto a rock. He could feel the desert heat rising up through the leather of his sandals. An unforgiving sun blew waves of heat into their faces.

“It seems to be moving.”

Aaron squinted at Rebekah, fat and grimy. The wrap around her head was soaked with sweat and clung to her scalp in dark patches. Her eyes were submissive, dim. A bruise yellowed on her left cheek.