Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 57, No. 1 & 1, January/February 2012
The Lineup
John H. Dirckx is the author of numerous stories for AHMM featuring Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn. “Calculus for Blondes” is his second story featuring Coroner Dr. Mary Deventer and her brainy daughter Ashleigh.
Loren D. Estleman is the author of Infernal Angels, his 21st novel to feature P.I. Amos Walker. He is also the author of Writing the Popular Novel (Writer’s Digest Books).
Wayne J. Gardiner is completing his crime novel Bottom Line. His first story for AHMM, “Lucille,” was published in the December 2010 issue.
Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and New York Post, among other places, and is the former mystery columnist for the Cincinnati Post.
An attorney in Minnesota, C. J. Harper is the author of a series of stories featuring 1950’s L.A. private eye Darrow Nash that appeared in EQMM. He is at work on a novel featuring this character.
D. A. McGuire is a retired high school science teacher living in Massachusetts. Her first story for AHMM, “Wicked Twist,” appeared in the October 1993 issue. “Old Cedar is her 24th story for the magazine.”
Tony Richards’s third book in the series of supernatural thrillers set in the fictitious town of Raine’s Landing, Massachusetts, Midnight’s Angels, was released in July from Dark Regions Press. His last story for AHMM, “Hamadryad,” appeared in the December 1991 issue.
James L. Ross is the author of the Washington-Hollywood thriller Long Pig (Perfect Crime Books).
Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s newest novel is Anniversary Day (WMG Publishing), in her Retrieval Artist series. As Kris Nelscott she is the author of the Smokey Dalton series of novels, the newest of which, The Day After (WMG Publishing), comes out in early 2012.
Joseph S. Walker’s play “Six Lights” won the 2010 Awarefest competition at Bloomington playwrights project. He is the author of Five Million Dollars and the Green-Eyed Girl.
James Lincoln Warren blogs at CriminalBrief.com in addition to writing the Treviscoe series featuring the 18th century indagator for Lloyd’s of London. His story “Ten Thousand Cold Nights” is featured in the new electronic anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents 13 Tales of New American Gothic.
Dan Warthman won the Robert L. Fish award for his AHMM story “A Dreadful Day” (January/February 2009). His last story for AHMM was “Comeday Ann” in the July/August 2011 issue.
Big Band
Loren D. Estleman
Shirley Grabowski had always been one of those women the tabloids called handsome, when a picture accompanied the story and they couldn’t smuggle “beauty” past the readers. Her jaw was too square, her nose mannish, and she could never find sunglasses to fit her wide-set eyes. But that was before the war, before she joined the Women’s Army Corps. The WAC uniform, with its tailored jacket and skirt and overseas cap set at a rakish angle on her strawberry blonde head, brought everything together. She was, Max Zagreb admitted to himself ruefully, a dish.
He told her as much. She rolled a padded shoulder and pumped the straw in her gin rickey. “It’s the government-issue frock: Makes men horny, like those Scarlett O’Hara costumes bridesmaids wear. It’d make Olive Oyl look like Lana Turner.”
“Now you’re just fishing.” The Racket Squad lieutenant waited until the 4-F sourpuss in the paper hat turned his back to the counter, then unscrewed his flask and freshened their Cokes. It was past curfew for everyone but cops and their companions. They were the only customers in the Rexall, and the man wanted to close. He’d switched off the radio in the middle of Lowell Thomas to hurry them on their way. “Speaking of bridesmaids, I’ve heard scuttlebutt.”
“You and your stoolies,” she said. “Let’s hold off on rice rations till the Axis goes belly up. If Jerry gets me in the family way I won’t get to see London.”
“Neighborhood’s gone downhill since the Luftwaffe moved in. How is old Jerry? I haven’t seen him since the three-legged sack race on Belle Isle.”
“Quit your kidding. You never met. You will, if you do me the eensy-weensy favor I dragged you down here to ask.”
“What’s my end?”
“Old times’ sake. You threw me over for a bottle blonde in the Club 666 right in the middle of ‘Five O’Clock Jump.’ The way I see it, you owe me a good turn.”
“The blonde nicked me for a fin to make change to tip the girl in the powder room and never came back. I figure I paid my debt to society.”
“Sap. There aren’t any restroom attendants in the 666.”
“So I found out when I went looking for her. Okay, I was a drip. How do I square myself?”
“I ship out next week. I want you to keep Jerry out of trouble while I’m away.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The musician kind.”
“Sour notes?”
“He never blows ’em. He plays second trumpet with Red Lot’s Red Hots, mixed group with a steady gig at the Ruby Lounge on Hastings.”
“I know Red. Vice pulled him in a muggles rap couple of months back.”
“Does that sort of thing bother you?”
“It bothers Vice. Those boys sit with their knees together just like their mamas told ’em. Me, I like hooch. I never get in the way of a fellow and his way to hell, so long as it doesn’t involve the rackets.”
“Drugs isn’t a racket?”
“Only the supply side. I don’t want to know what Satchmo sounds like on Juicy Fruit and orange Nehi.”
“I don’t mean that kind of trouble. Jerry’s a hothead, goes with the job: It takes a few hours to wind down from a good session, and when he gets a few drinks in him, he’d pick a fight with Patton’s Third Army.”
“I did my bit for Prohibition, Shirk I’ve got the lumps to prove it.”
“I don’t begrudge him a bender now and then. Two sets in the Ruby would turn a teetotaler like Henry Ford into a Class-A sot. I just don’t want him to catch a fist in the throat some night. He’s got his heart set on a slot with the Casa Loma Orchestra, and they aren’t hiring horn men with busted pipes.”
“If he likes to fight more than he likes to blow, he should enlist.”
“He tried. Glenn Miller said he’d give him an audition for his army band if he joined up, but a crummy doctor at the Light Guard armory said he had a heart murmur and washed him out.”
Zagreb had one of those, too: it kept murmuring Don’t go. Aloud he said, “I can’t babysit him for the duration. The commissioner won’t okay the cover charge.”
“Well, what can you do?”
“Give him an even break if he winds up in the tank.”
“Isn’t that just going by the book?”
“You know, I never saw a book. I thought they’d hand out copies with the shield, but there was a depression on and I guess they had to save on the printing bill.”
“You know what I think? There isn’t a book.”
“You’d make a good detective.”
She took out her straw and slurped liquid off the end. By then it was all gin. “I don’t even know if I’ll make a good WAC. I just didn’t want to pound sheet metal at Chrysler.”