Free Cold Bullets and Hot Babes: Dark Crime Stories by Arlette Lees

greenish glow from a street lamp.
    When he roused the grumbling condo manager from his sleep, Cash’s hair was a mess and he looked like a raving lunatic. There was no Carly Chase in his records and never had been. Condo 205 was owned by a couple who were vacationing in Europe for the last six month. Then the old goat accused him of being on drugs and went to call security.
    Cash stood in the dark parking lot, immobilized by shock and disbelief. For the first time in his life he didn’t know where to turn. Everything he’d worked so hard for was gone...the money...the diamond...the Porsche. How could this have possibly happened to him?
    In a flash of indignation he had the fleeting impulse to call the cops; then again, he was embarrassed at having been taken. It would also have been a little complicated to explain. What if they asked him a lot of questions? What if they came up with his real name?
    His best bet would be to make his way back to Tulsa. He turned his pockets inside out. He’d put through a call to the widow, but it would have to be collect.

AGAINST ALL ODDS
     
    The first rumble of thunder rolled over Little Ireland as I blasted through the front door like the F.B.I. on a midnight bust. Mama jumped a foot off the couch, the extent of her day’s exercise.
    “Holy shit, Rosemary! I thought the Russians were coming.” I tossed my books on a chair inside the door.
    “Guess what? I’m the best speller in the Hoover class of ’56. I get to compete in the countywide at Cooley next week. If I win, the cash award will cover my books at Community.”
    “With such big ideas you’ll need all the help you can get. It’s dark outside. Where the hell have you been?”
    “In the library. I only have a few days to prepare. Alexa Micheluzzi almost beat me today. This is serious stuff, Mama.”
    “That rich girl from Country Club drive?”
    “She’s really very nice once you get to know her, but she doesn’t need the money and I do.”
    “I’m surprised she didn’t rig it.”
    “The spelling bee? How do you rig a spelling bee?”
    “Rich people do whatever they want.”
    That’s the way Mama was, always thinking someone was going to pull one over on her. The rich. The Jews. The teller at the bank. We lived in the shadow of the factories on Lower Division Street where Mama kept the windows closed against the smoke and the doors locked against the undefined adversary in her head. A few feet to the east and our house would be in the center of the railroad tracks. Across the street was the Rescue Mission, the Thrift Store and the Tammany Hall Bar that used to belong to Old Da. We had money in those days, enough for center cuts and nice clothes.
    Now we make due on Mama’s disability checks.
    “So, what was your winning word?”
    I wanted so desperately to say verisimilitude, xylophone or mellifluous, words that sang with the color and music of language.
    “Diarrhea,” I said. “Miss Silverwein says it appears in almost every spelling bee.” I worshipped Miss Silverwein with her soft wool suits, cultured demeanor and mist of Blue Waltz perfume. I wanted to be just like her, teach English when I got out of college and smell as sweet as a new doll fresh out of the box.
    “Diarrhea,” said Mama. “D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A. That’s an easy one. It’s right on the label of the Pepto bottle.” Mama sometimes surprised me with all the things she knew. “I wouldn’t broadcast it though. It’s not a very ladylike word.”
    “At Countywide we have to come up with the spelling and the definition. It’s much harder than what I’m used to.”
    “What if they give you fair? That could be county or bus.”
    “They won’t. It wouldn’t be fair. Get it?”
    She’d lost interest in the subject and I found myself talking to the back of her head. She concentrated on her quiz show. The horizontal on the TV had been going crazy for two weeks and I was afraid she’d go blind if she didn’t stop squinting at it. Time to