Free Cuts Through Bone by Alaric Hunt

shrugged. “I knew a vet like him, before—bright, funny, when he was sober,” he said. “‘Big Tom,’ that’s what everybody called him. Before the war, he was a boxer. Silver, gold gloves—he looked good. After the war he ain’t had no legs, but he still had a fist like a ham. The VA put him to work making prosthetic arms and legs.
    â€œBig Tom kept extra legs. He had one he drank beer from, and another he made special, he said, just a bit longer, so he could kick somebody’s ass from farther away. Tom drank a lot after the war. He would get so drunk as to lay in bed and shoot holes in the walls with a Colt. He always said he was shooting at cockroaches, but I guess he was shooting at the ghosts he saw at night.” Guthrie fell quiet and started brooding again. He looked old, hiding under the brim of his brown fedora.
    â€œSo what happened to him?” Vasquez asked.
    â€œHe shot himself in the head in 1975.”
    *   *   *
    The night before, Guthrie had read the NYPD reports, but only found one witness he wanted to interview. He considered the file to be surprisingly thin. The detectives had done little work before pegging Olsen. A passerby had found Camille Bowman’s cell phone on the sidewalk outside the Long Morning After, a dance club on 124th Street. The detectives talked to the bartender, and the interview impressed the detective enough that he included it in the daily report. Incidental interviews didn’t usually cross over to the reports.
    They walked over, after parking on 123rd, and Guthrie took a look at the exterior of Long Morning After. The windows were blocked out with lemon and orange floral designs, thickly painted on the inside of the glass. The neighboring frontage was boarded, and past that, an alleyway pierced through from the street. Bass notes thrummed the windows like a badly timed blinker. Guthrie watched two young men go inside, noting a locked-in vestibule with a concessions window. The little detective studied the sign like it was missing something.
    â€œPretty sure this was a pub,” he muttered. “Some Irish place.”
    Vasquez grinned. “Back in the day?”
    â€œMaybe,” Guthrie replied. “These kids are drifting this way to get off campus. Them two boys ain’t looked twenty-one, but they went on in. Let’s see how they treat you.”
    The young Puerto Rican pushed up the cuffs of her red windbreaker and opened the street door. The man at the window gave her an appraising look, then waved her through. Guthrie had to pay a cover. He pushed into the darkened interior, where she was waiting, muttering about a pretty pass. House music stuttered from hanging speakers. The Long Morning After was warming up, the same way a bar spends its early hours slowly winding down. An old-style pub bar lined the right-hand wall, looking out onto stools and a narrow strip of dance floor. The wall connecting the streetfront to its neighbor was stripped out to piers, for more dance floor, sandwiched on the far side and end by a line of shadowy booths. Cheap paintwork and dim lighting covered the rawness of the reconstruction. Lights above the bar, reflecting from the mirror and glasswork, provided most of the illumination.
    The bar was empty of customers when they came inside. The bartender was polishing the top and waiting. She seemed small behind the heavy bar. Her dark hair was cut short, and her lip and brow winked with silver piercings. She scowled at Guthrie when he approached the bar.
    â€œYou’re who called my boss?” she barked, glancing briefly at Vasquez.
    â€œSure, if you’re Sand Whitten.”
    She shrugged, glancing at Vasquez again. “That’s me. But I’m not taking my break to talk to you,” she said. “The party rooms is up the stairs, unless you want a drink?” She pointed with her chin at the back wall.
    Vasquez paused to turn her Yankees cap