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  Copyright ©2008 by Dell Magazines

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cover painting by Norman Saunders from Black Mask Magazine, Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed, and assigned to Keith Alan Deutsch. Used by permission.

  CONTENTS

  Fiction: MICHELLE by Marilyn Todd

  Black Mask: SMART-ALECK KILL by Raymond Chandler

  Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen

  Black Mask: The Sleepless Soul by C. J. Harper

  Fiction: FOUR HUNDRED RABBITS by Simon Levack

  Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider

  Fiction: POOR OLD FRANKIE by Barbara Nadel

  Fiction: TURKISH DELIGHT by Edward D. Hoch

  Passport to Crime: A MAN IS KNOCKING AT THE DOOR by Rodolfo Pérez Valero

  Fiction: THE WISDOM OF SERPENTS David Dean

  Fiction: SAFE AND LOFT by John Lutz

  Department of First Stories: DIRT by Kate Barsotti

  Fiction: AN APPOINTMENT UP THE MOUNTAIN by Robert S. Levinson

  Fiction: ON THE SAFE SIDE by Priscilla Masters

  Fiction: EXPOSURE by Tim L. Williams

  Fiction: TOM WASP AND THE DOLLYSHOP by Amy Myers

  Fiction: THE PIG PARTY by Doug Allyn

  Fiction: SUCH RAGE OF HONEY by Cheryl Rogers

  Fiction: THE BLUE PLATE SPECIAL by Brendan DuBois

  NEXT ISSUE...

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  Fiction: MICHELLE by Marilyn Todd

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  Art by Laurie Harden

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  Marilyn Todd writes mysteries set in various historical periods; one of them, a short story entitled “Distilling the Truth,” set in 1950s France (and published in EQMM), was recently selected for the Best British Mysteries 2006. Ms. Todd has also been dazzling readers with her new series set in Ancient Greece. A first novel-length entry in that series, Blind Eye, is just out from Severn House.

  * * * *

  What struck Wilfie was the silence. That incredible, beautiful, absolute silence, and, as he lay on his back, his face and torso swaddled beneath a stiff cocoon of bandages with his left foot up in traction, he wallowed in its splendour. This was the first time in weeks—months—when he could hear nothing but the sound of his own blood pounding through his temples. Could actually listen to his own voice for once, humming in his ears.

  Mademoiselle from Armentiéres, parlez-vous—

  He was out of tune (as usual), but who cared? There was only him to criticize.

  —inky, pinky, parlez-vous.

  What did that mean, he wondered? That inky pinky stuff? Maybe if he'd been in France for more than a few months he'd understand, but right now Wilfie was happy to overlook the harness that bound him flat and bask in the luxury of painkillers and silence.

  Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile—

  Who wouldn't smile, he thought. Ever since Lord Kitchener's finger pointed at him from that poster, telling Wilfie “Your country needs YOU!” his eardrums had been bombarded with the din from the barrack room, the clack of rifle practice, the clatter of the trains that carried him to war. And then, if it wasn't the blast of the artillery or the pounding of the grenades, it was screaming, groaning, sobbing, praying, or else it was the rain. The endless bloody freezing rain that turned the fields of Flanders into mud. Rancid, slippery, endless, dripping off the barbed wire, dripping off his nose. Night or day, the racket never stopped. The bark of orders. The whistle of gas canisters fizzing through the air. The whinnies of a thousand terrified horses...

  It's a long way to Tipperary—

  But now. Now Wilfie could enjoy the quietude, safe in the knowledge that he wasn't being shot at. Wasn't having to walk upright through a hail of bullets, stumbling over twitching bodies, slipping on someone's guts and trying not to cry. Here he could relax. Lie still. Drink in every silent second—

  "Wilfie?"

  Jerked from his indulgence, Wilfie tried to place the voice.

  "Wilfie Baines, by God, it is you inside that white marshmallow!"

  "Ron?"

  Nah. Ron had had a leg blown off when the ammunitions store went up, and that must have been—ooh, a month ago at least. That's right, he remembered now. That was a name from the past, he had thought, hearing how they'd carted him off to some posh joint that had been turned into a field hospital. Some chateau well clear of the front, where the seriously injured could be cared for, until they were fit enough to be sent back home to Engl ... Shit.

  "Now, you behave yourself, Ron Tyler,” a female voice castigated, except there was no malice in her Irish lilt. To Wilfie's ears, it sounded more like laughter. “Anything you need, you ring the bell this time, you understand?"

  "Yes, Sister."

  "And don't you patronise me, either. I won't have you careering round these corridors by yourself. You're dangerous on wheels."

  "No, Sister."

  "Oh, you!” With a good-humoured tut, her stout nursing shoes clacked off. “And mind you don't tire my patient, either,” she called out. “The boy needs rest!"

  "I'm blind, aren't I?” Wilfie said.

  Ron cleared his throat. “Your face is burned up pretty bad and the blast from the explosion knocked you back so hard you broke your leg and fractured a few ribs, but otherwise it's not too serious."

  "No?” Trust Ron to play it down. “Then what am I doing here?"

  "You're alive, Wilf. That has to count for something."

  Did it? Did it really? Suddenly, silence was no longer Wilfie's friend.

  "Here, on your medical chart I see it reads Corporal Baines,” Ron said. “Well done, mate!"

  Wilfie grunted. He was burned, blind, might never walk again, and then only with a limp, so what the hell did making corporal matter? Especially since Ron had made lieutenant, and you didn't make that simply from being the last man in your unit left alive.

  "How come they haven't shipped you home?” he asked.

  "Ach, you know how it is.” Ron clucked his tongue. “They took my left leg off at the knee after the accident, but then gangrene set in, so they've taken my right foot away to join it. Still.” He let out a wry chuckle. “Never was much of a dancer, me."

  Not true, Wilfie thought. Ron had always been a smooth mover, the sort who could glide effortlessly across a ballroom. Whereas he was always stepping on some poor girl or other's toe, making her snap at him and glower. But no girls ever jumped down Ronald Tyler's throat, Wilfie remembered enviously. Not on the dance floor, not anywhere else.

  "It must bother you, though. Not being able to—y'know."

  "Walk? Not really.” Ron's knuckles cracked. “I mean, obviously I'd rather I had both my legs, who wouldn't? But war's war, isn't it? My lungs haven't been scoured with mustard gas so bad that I can barely breathe, and I could have lost my hands—"

  "No, I meant ... attracting women."

  Just look at him. I mean, who'd want to take on a soldier invalided home with a limp, crinkled skin, and who couldn't bloody see?

  "Well, the way I look at it is this.” Ron rolled and lit a cigarette, then pressed it between Wilfie's lips. “With every bloke under thirty over here in uniform, there'll be thousands of jobs just begging to be filled back home. Being disabled won't matter with a desk job, and you know what I've been thinking of doing, Wilf? Teaching."

  "You? A teacher?” Wilfie laughed, even though he knew Ron would make a good one. He had the patience, him. When they were kids, kicking a football up and down the same street of terraced houses and climbing trees together on the common, Ron was the one who always took the younger ones aside and showed them how to bake their conkers, roll their marbles, how to learn from their mistakes.

  "If not, I'll try the banks,” Ron was saying, “because either way, the money's good, they're respectable positions, and—well, let's just say you don't need to worry about me not being able to find myself a wife and raising a batch of screaming nippers."

  No, he wouldn't, Wilfie thought. But he was thinking of his own chances.

  "Lieutenant Tyler, I swear by Almighty God you'll be the death of me!” The cigarette was whisked out of Wilfie's mouth by a hand that smelled of disinfectant. “If Dr. Mallory finds you two have been smoking in the rooms, he'll have my guts for garters, so he will!"

  "Sorry, Sister."

  "Aye, you sound it, too,” she laughed, and although she was plumping Wilfie's pillows, he knew it was Ron those Irish eyes were smiling at. “You said you were wanting to cheer the patient up, Ron Tyler, not set fire to his bed, now away with you and let the poor boy sleep."

  Patient? Boy? To her, Wilfie was nothing more than another brick baking in the kiln of convalescence and she hadn't even bothered to learn his bloody name. He could understand it, he supposed. Hundreds of wounded soldiers passed through these disinfected portals, but even so. She'd not only called Ron by his full name, she'd used his rank as well—

  "Help, somebody help,” Ron cried, as Sister wheeled his chair away. “I'm being kidnapped!"

  "Fat lot of
good it'd do me, holding you to ransom,” she joked back. “Your family's as poor as blooming church mice!"

  As their banter faded, Wilfie felt the emptiness creep up on him. Slowly, silently, it began pressing on his bandages, crushing down his spirit and suffocating his hopes.

  And the worst part was, he couldn't even cry.

  * * * *

  "So what's it like, this chateau, then?” he asked, as Ron sneaked him another cigarette. “Is it all slate roofs, lakes, and turrets, like the one we saw outside that village where we were billeted the first few nights after we arrived? Ven—Verr—'” He could never pronounce these flaming words.

  "Véziéres,” Ron said, without stumbling. “And it's not only like that chateau, mate, it is that chateau. All crystal candelabra, the sort of place where you can't see the wood panelling for tapestries and the ceilings are so high, giraffes wouldn't brush against them. You know, I bet these paintings cost a pretty penny, too."

  "Stuff ‘em,” Wilfie said. “Stuff the sodding lot of them."

  What use was posh furniture when he couldn't bloody see it? So what if the silk hangings could be removed, washed, and then rehung again? And who bloody cared whether the bed was Louis ex-one-vee or ex-vee-one when you were strapped to it night and bloody day?

  The length of the pause suggested he'd put his foot in it again, and Wilfie felt bad about it, he really did. Apart from Ron's visits, time hung and wouldn't pass. The doctor's calls were brief and far too impersonal for Wilfie's liking, and worse, the snotty sod talked over him, as though Wilfie was deaf, as well as swaddled like a mummy. Even the nurses who flittered in and out to change his dressings and refresh his bedpans were too busy to stop and chat. There were far worse injuries than his, they'd tell him briskly, and remind him that he could at least feel the discomfort, which was more than could be said for those poor souls down there in the morgue. The trouble was, Wilfie was too proud to say outright that he was grateful to Ron for wheeling himself along when Sister's back was turned. But truly, if it hadn't been for him, he'd have gone stark, staring mad, and in any case, the poor sod was only trying to cheer him up. And it wasn't exactly a picnic for him, either. Losing one leg, then a foot, what a bugger that was. The trouble was, Wilfie wasn't the type who could just say “Sorry” and forget it, and, unlike Ron, he wasn't good at making conversation. Never knew what to say that didn't come out wrong.

  "Hey, Wilf, guess what?” He should have remembered. Ron never took offence. “You know that girl we used to see cycling round Véziéres?” There was genuine excitement in his voice. “The one that fancied you?"

  "The ginger one with fat thighs?” Wilfie said, because to the best of his recollection none of them had looked twice at him, not even the fat one.

  "No, no, no. The little blonde who worked in the baker's."

  "Think so,” Wilfie lied. “Wore glasses, didn't she?"

  "If she did, I never saw them, but the point is, she's outside, my old mucker. Feeding the sparrows on the lawn not fifty feet from your bedroom window."

  Oh. For some reason Wilfie imagined he'd be on one of the upper stories, floating in the air in his fairytale castle. Not wedged like a sack of coals in some dark corner on the ground floor. But yeah, it made sense, he supposed. They'd want to protect his lower-class blood from staining their precious oak parquet, or make sure his working-class vowels didn't shock the ghosts that drifted so genteelly round the West Wing.

  "Here, are you listening, Prince Charming? I said, she's waving at you. Not that I can make out what she's saying through the glass—"

  "Then open the bloody window,” Wilfie snapped.

  "Ah, but then I'd need a jemmy and they're not hospital issue,” Ron laughed. “All the windows have been nailed shut. Keeps the germs out, apparently."

  More likely to keep the burglars out, Wilfie thought sourly.

  "But let's see if we can't improve on the situation, shall we.” The wheels on Ron's chair proclaimed a desperate need for grease as he scraped his way across the room towards the window. “That's better. We're talking with our hands and reading one another's lips. She says her name's Michelle. She's asking how you're doing, so I said you're feeling a bit down in the dumps—"

  "What the bloody hell did you tell her that for?"

  "—so she said she'll drop by again tomorrow, if that's all right with you.” There was a pause. “Well, is it?"

  Was it! “Suppose so,” Wilfie said.

  And all night he couldn't sleep for trying to picture the baker's shop with the petite blonde behind the counter who may or may not have been wearing glasses, but for the life of him he just couldn't place her face. By the time dawn was glowing warm through his pyjamas, he realised he'd been picturing the wrong flaming baker's shop, hadn't he! It would have been the other one she worked in. The one behind the ironmonger's, not the one opposite the church!

  Wilfie was always getting things bloody wrong.

  * * * *

  In fact, that's what got him in this mess in the first place. He was sloppy. Always had been. He'd lose concentration at a critical moment, and that's when mistakes happened. He didn't mean them to, of course. But somehow his mind would get distracted, or he couldn't quite remember, especially when he was under pressure, just what it was that he was supposed to do. Was it that you had to press this lever, or not ever press the flaming thing? Clockwise or counter-clockwise to twizzle that red knob?

  All that drilling, all that training, and he still got things back to front.

  Like that sodding grenade. Hung on to it too long, it blew up as he was throwing it. He was lucky. It could have literally blown up in his face. And even luckier that there was no one else around. He could have killed someone with his carelessness that time. But of course, if there was no one else around, there was no one else to blame, and now Wilfie'd be a laughingstock again, he really would. So he supposed that was at least something to be grateful for. Not having to go back and face his regiment.

  Watch out, boys, here comes Butterfingers Baines,

  Drops his blooming ammo box time and time again.

  Don't stand behind him, boys, when he's pointing a gun,

  You're better off standing right in front and take your chances with the Hun.

  Ha-bloody-ha, very funny, too. But it wasn't simply the humiliation. He'd got used to that. No, the thing was, Wilfie'd really like to get things right for once. To not screw up.

  And this Michelle...

  It was such a pretty name.

  * * * *

  "Describe her to me, Ron."

  "Again?"

  "I want to get the picture right inside my head.” Before the memories of real life faded, and before colours turned to black.

  "Well, it's hard to tell exactly, but I reckon she'd come up to about here on you.” Ron drew a line at the top of Wilfie's shoulder. “She's slim, but not too skinny. Blonde, like I said, with curls piled up on top that catch the sunlight when she turns, and very fresh looking, with big blue eyes and a lovely smile, and I'll bet her skin's as soft as silk, you lucky dog."

  "Michelle.” Wilfie rolled her name around on his tongue. Michelle. Michelle. Michelle. “And it's been how many days now she's come to see me?"

  "Six."

  "Including Sunday.” Wilfie had heard the church bells. Faint, but unmistakable. “So we can safely say she's not the religious type.” He smiled. “That's encouraging."

  "So's seeing a grin on that face of yours—hey, what's the matter?"

  "Well, that's the trouble, isn't it. My face.” The smile had dropped as quickly as it appeared. “Right now, this Michelle feels sorry for me. Stuck in hospital, wrapped in bandages, it brings out the best in girls like her. But she won't want me once I've been discharged, Ron. Blind, limping—” (Say it, Wilfie. Say it!) “—ugly."

  "Give over, you've always been ugly,” Ron shot back, and Wilfie laughed as well. “But I reckon you're wrong about Michelle. She doesn't strike me as the sorry-for-you type. I mean, remember how she used to glance over her shoulder at you as she cycled through the village?"

  "She did?"

  "Oh, come on, don't tell me you've forgotten how she used to suddenly have this urgent need to adjust her heels every time you passed her in the street? Or drop her handkerchief, or walk that silly dog of hers just when you happened to be in the neighbourhood."