But they’re not the whispers I used to hear eight months ago, before the collapse, whispers of hopes and dreams.
What I hear now are whispers of silence.
Whispers of trouble.
I have to fix it.
I have to move the shrine and see what damage lies inside...
Icarus has come for me...
I found him in the silence of the piano...
In the silence of the cruel subconscious...
Was’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.
Who does it, then?
2:28 a.m.
Phelps didn’t answer. His phone was off.
I left a message. Told him where he would find Icarus.
The last one:
The body will lie within the confines of Hennepin Island Park, at the base of the fourth abutment of the Stone Arch Bridge. Time of death will be 3:28 a.m.
The body will be on its back, legs splayed, face turned to the side, arms encircling the head like a broken halo. His back will be broken. The wrists will be bleeding, still tied with a D string from an old Baldwin Acrosonic piano. Icarus will have left the string tied on because there will be no reason to hide any more evidence. Now that his identity has been uncovered.
A Schwinn mountain bike will be resting against the railing on the bridge decking directly above the body. The piano strings used by Icarus — a C, an A, a G, and an E — to bind the wrists of the other victims will be dangling from the handlebars next to a fanny pack. Inside the fanny pack will be a.38 caliber Smith and Wesson, the gun Icarus used to persuade his victims to submit.
Revelations from inside the heart of a silent spinet piano.
There you go, Phelps. I saw one before it happened. Like Auden’s expensive delicate ship, I saw Icarus fall.
And like that ship, I had somewhere to get to and — stepping from the railing of a bridge that did not collapse — sailed calmly on...
“Musée des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden, currently collected in Collected Poems by W. H. Auden. Copyright ©1938 by W. H. Auden, published in print throughout North America and electronically by permission of the Wylie Agency L.L.C.
Copyright © 2011 by C. J. Harper
The Jury Box
by Jon L. Breen
Short story collections have always been considered a dubious commercial proposition. Even when magazine markets were numerous and lucrative, single-author mystery collections were relatively rare. Ironically, today, with the number of major markets shrinking and mainstream publishing offering fewer slots of any kind for non- blockbuster writers, the rise of independent publishers and print-on-demand self-publishing has delight- fully increased the availability of single-author collections. Note that not one of the volumes considered below is from a major New York publisher.
**** Clayton Emery: Mandrake and Murder: The Robin and Marian Mysteries, Merry Man, $12.95. Eight of these dozen adventures for Robin Hood and the former Maid Marian first appeared in EQMM, the rest in original anthologies. A density of historical lore remarkable in such brief tales is combined with picturesque prose, well-described physical action, and sound detection. The sense of period authenticity is greater than in most historical detective fiction; wise though they are, the married sleuths respect and often share the attitudes and superstitions of their time. “Shriving the Scarecrow” is a fine example of the series.
**** Ed Gorman, Noir 13, Perfect Crime, $14.95. Of these 13 tales by a short-story master, over half are previously uncollected and apparently new to print. Especially chilling are “The Baby Store,” science fictional crime about designer children, and “Flying Solo,” about two cancer patients turned vigilante do-gooders. “A Little Something to Believe In,” written with Larry Segriff, examines religious belief through urban fantasy. Gorman goes for the gut and always hits his target.
**** Jonathan Woods: Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, New Pulp, $15. These 19 tales of erotic or absurdist noir are lively, imaginative, sometimes parodic, often darkly funny, accurately likened on the back-cover blurb to opium dreams and Quentin Tarantino. The final novella, “No Way, José,” is especially reminiscent in style and mood of Pulp Fiction. Exotic backgrounds abound, with “Incident in the Tropics,” equally damning of the Ugly American and the unscrupulous local, a strong example. Not my usual cup of tea, but it’s all executed with enormous skill by a writer of formidable talent.
*** Ennis Willie: Sand’s Game, Ramble House, $32 hardcover, $20 trade paper. Two novellas and three stories about ex-mobster turned avenging detective Sand, written for the 1960s sleaze market, represent an unfairly obscure writer highly regarded by crime-fiction pros like Max Allan Collins, who contributes an introduction; editors Lynn F. Myers, Jr., and Stephen Mertz; and introducers of individual stories Wayne D. Dundee, Bill Crider, Bill Pronzini, James Reasoner, and Gary Lovisi. Willie is most often compared to Mickey Spillane. For me at least, he’s better.
*** Arthur Porges: The Curious Cases of Cyriack Skinner Grey, Richard Simms, $20.95. Paraplegic scientist Grey plays wheelchair detective on a variety of bizarre cases, usually of the locked-room or impossible-crime variety. The fourteen (six from EQMM in the 1960s, five from AHMM in the 1970s, three new to print) are mostly very brief, with few developed characters apart from Grey, his genius teenage son, and police detective Trask, but they are full of ingenuity, humor, and learned allusions to science, literature, and music.
*** L. Ron Hubbard: The Trail of the Red Diamonds, Galaxy, $9.95 for book or dramatized CD set. Two novella-length adventure cum mystery stories based in 1930s China offer further evidence of Hubbard’s pulp-action mastery. The title tale recounts the search for Kubla Khan’s treasure, while “Hurricane’s Roar” concerns the unconventional and mysterious flying peacemaker known as Wind-Gone-Mad, met in an earlier collection.
*** Stephen D. Rogers: Shot to Death: 31 Stories of Nefarious New England, Mainly Murder, $14.95. The sometime EQMM poet is so smoothly readable, explores such a variety of inventive situations, and is so ambitious in structure and theme, even the stories that don’t quite hit the mark make enjoyable reading. Especially good ones include “A Dog Named Mule,” “A Friendly Game,” “Discharged,” and “Last Call.” Offbeat pure crime stories appear alongside unconventional private eye tales like “Sidewalk,” with its black-comedy punch line.
** William F. Nolan: Dark Dimensions, Darkwood, $17.99. The latest from one of the great masters of popular fiction, all previously uncollected and first published between 1995 and 2010, is a mixed bag. Making up for some minor items are the lead novella, “Horror at Winchester House,” an occult detective story about a real San Jose tourist attraction; a Hollywood private eye tale, “Vampire Dollars”; and a moving non-criminous autobiographical piece on loss and aging, “Getting Along Just Fine.” Nolan completists will want this; others should try earlier collections first.
** Gary Lovisi: Ultra-Boiled: Hard-Hitting Crime Fiction, Ramble House, $19.99 trade paper, $35 hardcover. Small-press publisher Lovisi’s tough crime stories are highly variable in quality. Good examples of his inventive plotting are “Love Kills” and “Not Much Joy in Prison,” while “Political Year” is a deeply cynical account of American politics that may be more accurate than we would hope. Seven of these 23 have been previously collected; five are new; the others appeared in various print and online publications.