Fast brutal fiction from: Hi there!

Welcome to issue four of Bullet—the

Delphine Lecompte ONLY magazine publishing rock’n’roll noir.
Pete McAdam
Laird Long We’re proud to present another actionpacked is-
TK Dan sue featuring 15 brand new stories including 2 by
Milky Wilberforce and many, many more…... Delphine Lecompte. Yeah she is that good. We
think she’s a star in the making.

Another name on the rise is Al Guthrie, well

known to Bullet readers but now with 2 amazing
new novels under his belt. Check out our reviews.

Al has also put together a list of the greatest noir

novels of all time, 100 of ’em, count ’em. Let us
know who he missed out at our website bullet-
magazine.co.uk.

And of course there’s the Bullet Heroes club to

which we now welcome the monster talent of Jim
Thompson. The man is a constant inspiration to
The bleak Bullet, find out why in our appreciation.
and cruel Original, power packed fiction, noir and hard
world of assed rock’n’roll. What more could you
want?
Jim Thompson
Hope you like Bullet 4 and remember….keep
on rockin’.

Keith Jeffrey
Editor

PLUS!!!
Al Guthrie’s Top100
Noir Novels
Music and Fiction Reviews

Issue 4 - £3.00
bulletmagazine.co.uk
Bullet No 46
and that’s why I’m limping today
Delphine Lecompte (Belgium)
there's a screwdriver stuck up my
arse,that's why i'm standing in the
bus,rather than sitting,if i sit
down,guts will be pierced and per-
forated,and i'll die a ludicrous
death,i'm on my way to wee
andy,he's gonna pull the screwdriver
out of my arse,he's used to pulling
sharp implements and gigantic egg-
plants out of my arse,it was my
neighbour who shoved a screwdriver
up my arse,who shoved it too
deeply,it's not his screwdriver
though,i don't know whose screw-
driver it is,but it feels very much
mine at this moment,last night i vis-
ited my dodgy neighbour,cos i
needed someone to break my nose
for me,i was too drunk to do it my-
self,and i also needed shots of flem-
ish gin,and i'd run out of rum and
port,i'd even run out of detergent
and turpentine;my dodgy neighbour
was thrilled to see me,he put on cliff
richard,broke my nose and a few
ribs,bit off my clit and thumb and
then he got bored of me,but i man-
aged to convince him to take me to
a derelict warehouse and fuck me
between the used syringes and shit-
stained sleeping bags,so he drove
me to the derelict warehouse,in the
car i rambled about my sheffielder
angel and how i miss licking those
wee black balls and how i hope he
chokes on his yolk-soaked aspara-
gus tips and his cognac-drenched
baby oysters or whatever it is the
unimaginative overprivileged stingy
middle class cunt is stuffing his face
with tonight until my dodgy
neighbour smashed my collar bone
against the dashboard and said he'd
crush my windpipe and rip out all
my hair and eat my toenails,but not
necessarily in that order,if i didn't
stop moaning about other men,i
asked him if i could moan about
liam gallagher,cos it's not like i know
him personally,but my neighbour
stopped the car,started slapping my
chest,bit off my nipples and fed
them to the cows who were so
gracefully grazing in their wee pas-
ture by the motorway,and he
shouted in my ear: "NO,YOU CAN-
NOT MOAN ABOUT LIAM GALLA-
GHER,STUPID WHORE",but i al-
ready knew that the minute he
started slapping my chest,i was quiet
after that,we got out of the car and
entered the derelict warehouse,it
was there that we found the screw-
driver with the yellow handle that
was gnawed at,by a crack-crazed
doberman presumably,my
neighbour's eyes twinkled when he
studied the screwdriver,he said: "it's
a piece of beauty,bitch,and beauty
lies in the eye of the beholder,slut",i
nodded,he ripped of my
clothes,kissed my broken collar
bone and shoved the screwdriver up my arse,but
with all his middle-aged fervour he shoved it too
deeply,he said: "it's stuck!!" and ran out of the ware-
house,i tried to pull it out,but there were so many
parts of my body broken that i had to give up and
take a nap against a piss-soaked pillar,when i woke
up there were a crack-crazed alsatian and a skinny
junkie with wild rolling eyes licking my cunt,i said:
"good morning,there's a screwdriver stuck up my
arse,could you please help me pull it out?",but the
dog and the junkie just hissed at me and crawled
away,i left the derelict warehouse and took the
bus,that's the short version,there's a longer,more te-
dious one that i won't bore you with;i get off the
bus,there are french kids laughing behind my back
cos i walk so awkwardly,i turn around and tell them
that i'm only just learning how to use this artificial
left leg,i was in rwanda you see,i was there to vacci-
nate sturdy black geezers against clap and small-
pox,then one unfortunate day as i was on my way to
church to say my novenas and rub myself against
the candelabra i treaded on a landmine,and
WOOSH POW SPLATTER BAM my left leg and right
buttock were gone,the french kids apologise and ac-
company me to wee andy's place,we exchange tele-
phone numbers and handshakes,and then i knock
on wee andy's window,he opens the door,"good
morning,delphine" he says,"there's a screwdriver
stuck up my arse" i say,"i see" wee andy says,he lets
me in,pulls the screwdriver out of my arse and after-
wards we down two bottles of brazilian whisky and
watch apocalypse now to overcome the embarrass-
ment and my sore arse respectively.
Bullet No 47
Burning Car Blues tion, vinyl oldies a few Robbie Williams CD’s, I
look at him in disgust. “It’s Samantha’s” he ex-
say with gusto, from some B Movie gangster flick I
heard at the corner of my ear, somewhere, some-
Peter McAdam (Washington CD) plains day. I hope it was Edward G. my favourite, he
“Kinda ironic...Escapology” always looks like he’s been eating tomato
I put on one of his, the Mona Lisa of the vi- ketchup.
I part the dirty net curtains and wipe the condensation using it, besides I’ve a temporary cash flow problem. nyl...Gene Vincent’s Be Bop A Lula.
off the window. Looking down through the drips of Mind you if she brings anyone back with her I’ll fuck- “I’ll give you this old Benny boy, you’ve got some I shoot him right in the flaky bit on his forehead,
water I see the kids emptying a skip all over the street ing gut her. good taste, but you can tell the generation gap... where I scratched earlier, the blood sprays up like
jumping up and down on a busted settee, dogs snap- Eddie Cochran vs. Beyonce” a geyser from the back of his head. “Wooh!! That
ping at their heels. He’s struggling to talk so I whip off the tape from his was cool” the record sticks sounding like a STCH,
mouth to give him some talk-space; “AHHH” he “BE BOP A LULA SHE’S MY BABY” I take in this cool montage...Samantha lying like a
Looking to my right I see the sunset between the screams I’ve just taken half his fucking beard off. Af- crumpled handkerchief...STCH…The uninvited
tower blocks then I catch sight of a burning car sail- ter a barrage of expletives he calms down and asks The chug a chug groove rings in my ears and it’s guest and his tomato head… STCH... Benny look-
ing down the grassy bank - red and orange flames for his inhaler, “Nahhh!! It’s all in the mind, you got my toes a tapping. Now I feel good, I take out ing up to a dead mans lampshade...STCH... A
lapping in the air like an infernal cavalcade followed should try meditation not medication”. a few bullets, if you look closely it has the words spray of blood on the back wall like a Jackson
by a bunch of 7-10 year olds screaming their fucking “Fuck off” he replies with venom, “Don’t Take It Personally” inscribed in Times ital- Pollock... STCH... LP cover showing Gene Vincent
heads off. “Ever see Father Ted? You remind me...” ics. I do it for all my victims they make nice orna- throwing his leg over a Microphone stand...STCH
“I’m not religious” ments when not in use. I’m a sucker for detail. A The Humour Bullet laughing all the way to his
Welcome to Benwell, Newcastle, a Class A Utopia full “Forget it” I finish my tea stand up and stretch. I look Swiss guy did it for me via the internet. brains... STCH and that BEAUTIFUL BURNING
of dead end kids and cars that go nowhere. out the window again and then turn to face him. CAR... STCH
I turn down the record slightly, don’t want to get
I’m in a flat above a Takeaway, it’s a little bland but “Know what I’ve just seen? A bloody burning car, carried away. I bend down beside Samantha, grab the £200,
he has it nice. Benjamin Smith aka Benny Benzedrine, waltzing down the hill, some kids must have torched it well £180, bitch spent £20 on fags and choco-
a top pill pusher... them kids playing trampoline and pushed it on its way”. I hear the metallic grind of the key turning. I move late. I nick them an’all.
down there are probably his next customers being “They should be at school” he quips nervously and to the living room door, ready for unexpected visi-
groomed for Prison or the Afterlife. Benny is a first looks at his lo-fi bondage of gaffa tape and electrical tors. There’s a pause then she bangs the door like I go for the door and turn to see my hosts scat-
class scumbag, a bearded big broad guy, a tuft of flex. someone has come in with her, I know that delay tered and inert, like the furniture outside.
ginger hair hinting at a residue of a quiff and one of “They’re your future customers” in time, when someone follows you in before you “Well it’s been a nice party, some good music
those clumsy Indian ink swallow tattoo’s on his lower “I don’t do kids” says Mr Beelzebub. Fucking liar. The close the door, she’s fucking brought someone and a bit of excitement, but if I could speak truth-
thumb, hangover from his teddy boy days. “Yeah I reason why I’m here is my client wants some vindica- else. Benny looks up, his eyes are like saucers, fully, the company’s been shite..Adios”.
can just see you in your rock n roll drag, flick knife tion for his dead and gone heirs. he’s speechless, he’s shaking his head as though
fights, Benny and the Jets eh?” “You pushed some amphetamines onto two little kids. he knows about my deduction. Clunk-clunk up the
You know who their father was? I can’t figure out if stairs like really heavy, she’s a slim lass, unless
I’ve got Old Benny gaffa taped to a red velvet arm- you’re fucking dumb or you did it for revenge?” she’s gained weight at Barclays.. The door parts
chair, and his dirty mouth taped up, he looks like a He grunts and looks to his left; a photo of Saman- open, she comes in and says a nervous “hiya”.
Tracy Emin installation. I should get a fucking Arts tha’s absent kids, pauses and turns to look me in the
Council grant for this, this is real art. His face looks eyes. She moves over to Benny’s side like she’s choreo-
like he’s going to explode, a big red ball puffing and “I didn’t know, honest” graphed her position, she points at me holding
panting, he signals me to scratch something. “Ahh! Shit happens” Fucking academic to me. the money.
He sighs and drops his head.
I sit back on the settee sip from a Happy Birthday “You know it’s sticking in my mind...the burning car, I drop to the floor seconds before a fucking gun
Benny mug. He mumbles and struggles to lift his it’s kind of majestic but at the same time destructive - peeks around the corner. He fires where I should
arms. I lean over nonchalantly and scratch his fore- bit like me” have been standing, quickly he lowers his gun as
head, his eyeballs move to the extreme right; I scratch “Fucking big head” he sees me lying on the floor, then I shoot, rip-
it and look at my fingernails... “You’re fucking flaking I lean over and menacingly speak into his ear. ping his fucking ankle off. He falls holding his
you old bastard”. I lean back and observe his Living “Another fucking word from you and I’ll spoon your busted leg. Then I give him one in the head.
Room. This looks like he’s only here temporarily, the fucking eyes out”. Samantha starts screaming and coming for me, I
girl, Samantha, is probably one of his many custom- Now he looks pissed. shoot her between the tits and she falls like a bun-
ers doing a freebie for an ounce. She’s a kappa dle of laundry.
slappa, two failed marriages, four kids in care, I saunter around the room, it’s kind of a mix of taste
blonde snake hair and a white tracksuit that’s seen and tat; 70’s wallpaper, Ikea furniture half assem- I turn the record up. Benny is shouting over the
better days. If the soap powder guy from the TV ad- bled, a quaint collection of charity shop knick fucking “She’s my Baby” line with all kinds of curses.
vert knocked on her door she would chin him. knacks, a well worn floral Axminster with carefully I put my little special bullet in the chamber twirl it
positioned tab burn holes, a DVD system and an old around and do a Russian Roulette on the ginger
This Samantha has been gone 20 minutes; I’ve sent gram from the 50’s. Bit of a mix but it works. I give fucker.
her to a hole-in-the-wall to get me some money. Well him a nod of approval but he thinks I’m taking the
it’s a perk of the job, after all he’s not going to be piss. I crouch down and flip through his record collec- “You’re dead lumber coz life’s inherently unfair” I
Bullet No 48
Pinstripes & Leather……Kate Frost (Bristol, UK)
Zero seconds...
Deliciously rouged lips poke through bala-
clavas. Cameron looks svelte in
black leather trousers. Drew clasps the cash
to her bouncing chest as they run; their heels
pound the pavement. Lucy fires the ignition
of the van; an ear splitting alarm splices the
air with a shriek.
BANG: Zero minus two minutes...
Lucy leads as they storm the bank, a shot gun
gripped in her slender hand.
“Everyone, hit the floor!” she screams. A grey
haired man in a dark blue suit
and a twenty-something mother with love
handles and a screaming kid dive onto the
cold tiles.
“You too,” Lucy says, motioning the barrel of
the gun towards the bank clerks.. Pasty faced
the two female clerks comply. Cameron dou-
ble-takes when she spots the mum and kid.
"Lucy," she whispers. Her heart is in her stom-
ach.
Lucy glares, "Shut it, are you mad?" She mo-
tions to the customers and staff.
"Keep them quiet."
Zero minus 80 seconds...
“Fill us up,” Lucy says while Drew clasps their
black holdall open. The bank manager fum-
bles with the keys. Damp patches darken his
light blue shirt. Sweat dribbles down his pale
face, the bags ringing his eyes emphasised
beneath the bright lights. Lucy wedges the
gun in the small of his back. “Move it, unless
you want a hole in your chest big enough to
see through.”
Fingers move faster, sweat runs quicker.
Meanwhile...
Cameron's alone out front. Her heart thumps her balaclava and turns to Cam. "You could-
while her eyes flit from the glass doors to the n't keep your mouth shut."
woman cowering on the floor. Cameron
prays she doesn't look up. Suddenly love-
handle woman screams, "Mandy, no!" Cam- "Your kid? What d'you mean, your kid?"
eron looks down at the little girl.
"Why you dressed like that?" she asks.
"Go back to mummy and no-one gets hurt,"
Cameron hisses.
"You sound just like my daddy."
Love-handle woman is on her feet, eyes fixed
on Cameron. Her hand reaches out for
Mandy. Cameron pleads with her eyes, mo-
tions with the barrel of the gun for them to sit.
Wide-eyed the woman steps closer. "Cam?"
Zero minus 40 seconds...
There’s a lot of money, thick wads of crisp
notes. Drew wraps wire around
the bank manager’s wrists, tapes his mouth
while Lucy stuffs the holdall full. They zip it
closed and Drew slings it over her shoulder.
Voices sound from out the front. Their feet
pound back towards Cameron.
Zero minus 30 seconds...
"You're not supposed to be here," Cameron
whispers.. Love-handle woman stares wide
eyed." I'm cashing in your mum's Christmas
cheque. What about you? You're supposed to
be at work."
"I am at work."
Lucy and Drew storm in brandishing guns.
One of the cashiers screams.
Love-handle woman stares. Cameron shakes
her head.
"Lady, take your kid and sit back down," Lucy
says. She presses the gun
against the woman's head.
"No Lucy, please no," Cameron says.
"You bastard." The woman spits at Cameron
before she drops to the floor, pulling the girl
with her.
Zero plus 10 seconds...
Lucy fires the ignition and they skid off, rub-
ber burning tarmac. She pulls off
"What did you want me to do? Shoot my own
kid?"
"Ah, we're fucked," says Drew.
Zero plus four minutes...
Police flood the bank. The clerks are hysteri-
cal. The bank manager is
distraught. “Three women, youngish... hap-
pened so quickly...”
“Suspects are three females, approximately
late twenties, dressed in pinstripe suits and
leather,” the police detective says into his ra-
dio.
The bank manager interrupts. “There is just
one other thing, it’s probably
nothing, just the one who tied me up; I swear
she was wearing aftershave.”
Zero plus four minutes 15 seconds...
Cam pulls two flabby chicken fillet replica’s
from down his black top. He
squeezes them before chucking them on top
of the bag of twenty pound notes. “Man I
have to un-tuck my bits,” Dave, aka Drew
says, sticking his hand
down his pinstripe trousers and freeing his
prized possessions from between his legs.
Lucy slams the van into fifth gear and slips
onto the motorway.
Zero plus six minutes...
"What's your name, love?" a police officer
asks love-handle woman.
Mandy tugs at her top. "Mum, where's daddy
gone?"
The woman turns to the officer. "I so knew
something was up. He's been
acting strange for a while; thought he was
having an affair."
"I'm sorry?" the officer's pen hovers over his
notepad. "Who was?"
"And he nicked me bleedin' leather trousers."
The officer frowns. "One of the clerks said you
seemed to know one of the
women?"
"Oh please, fake boobs and lipstick didn't
even fool my five-year old."
"So you knew him?"
"Course I bloody knew him." She covers
Mandy's ears. "Kim Sanders - been
married to the bastard for seven years."
Bullet No 49
Flesh & Blood…..Laird Long (Winnipeg, Canada)
The old man was slumming, and he and I both
knew it. His thin frame was swaddled in a pin-
striped, tailor-made suit, and a chauffer waited
patiently for him on the curb outside. My rates
were rock-bottom, my office a dusty cubbyhole in
a semi-abandoned building. So the question
was: what the hell was he doing here?
“You’re going to find my daughter, Mr.
Dirk,” he stated, then covered his thin, blue lips
with a monogrammed handkerchief and hacked
up a lung.
I glanced at the gold-framed photo of the
little girl with the blonde curls that occupied a
prominent place on my battered desk, then
asked at the end of his coughing fit, “Tried the
cops?”
“No cops!” he gasped. “Are you for hire, or
aren’t you?”
He had me there.
His name was Chalmers Carrington, and
he looked every bit of it. He pulled a leather bill-
fold out of his jacket pocket, then a picture out of
the billfold. “Michelle went missing just over a
week ago,” he said, tossing the picture on my
desk, gazing at me through watery, brown eyes.
“She associates with the wrong crowd; I’ll provide
you with some names.”
I picked up the photo and looked at the
pretty, young girl looking back at me. She could-
n’t have been more than eighteen. Her face was
a perfect oval, with a cute, little nose in the cen-
ter, her eyes cornflower blue, her strawberry-
blonde hair long and wavy.
I glanced from the photo to bald, long-
jawed, hook-nosed Chalmers Carrington. “Not
much of a family resemblance,” I commented.
“You’re wasting time, Mr. Dirk – my time!”
he shot back.
He gave me a list of the girl’s known asso-
ciates, descriptions, and the names of the places
where Michelle was known to hang out. Then he
handed me five one-hundred dollar bills and a
vow of silence, and I was on the case.
The first name on old man Carrington’s list
was Flash Escobar, a hippy poet/photog with no
fixed address. Apparently, he hung around the
seedy coffee bars and hash houses that were
popping up all over the Haight Ashbury District
like blackheads. ‘Frisco was being flooded with
refugees from the ‘60’s, turning whole sections of
the City by the Bay into sordid havens for dopers
and doggy-stylers. The year might be 1972, but
my attitude, and haircut, were strictly ‘50’s.
I had to ask around at five different tea-
rooms before I got a line on Flash, so by the time
I finally found him toking up with another bum-
boy in an alley off Broderick Street, my head was
buzzing with a contact high. I scared the bud-
buddy off with a boot to the ass, then showed
Flash the missing girl’s picture. “Know where she
is?”
“Hey, man, I haven’t seen that chick in
days,” he exhaled, running a twitching set of yel-
low-stained digits through a greasy, black beard.
His Black Panther shades and olive-colored
beret with red star were the first things I slapped
off his head – the beard’d be next. “Either you
got the heebie-jeebies, asswipe, or you know
where she is!” I snarled, slamming him up
against the brick wall, shaking him like my dick
after pissing. “Start talking!”
“Peace, man, peace!” he wailed. “Last time
I saw the lady she was crashing with the Horowitz
brothers,” Flash gabbed.
“Who and where are the Horowitz broth-
ers!?” I thundered.
“The H brothers, man – they make blue
movies …”
“Where!?” I bellowed.
“At their pad on Ashbury, man! 794
Ashbury!”
I loosened my grip on the bum’s chest
hairs.
Flash straightened his tie-dye and grinned.
“You wanna score some blues, man? Or maybe-
” pulled the girl free. “You’re goin’ home,” I grit-
I banged my left sledge against his jaw and
his head bounced off the brick. He looked right
at home sleeping in that trash-strewn alleyway.
I splintered the weathered green door at
794 Ashbury Street with a size-twelve steel-toed
and barreled inside, my .45 in the upright and
cocked position.
A fat slob with stringy, blonde hair dropped
a dirty comic book, slid off a ratty couch, and
shouted, “What the fuck!?”
“Horowitz!?” I hissed.
He half-nodded, his glazed eyes and brain
struggling to comprehend the viciousness on my
face. But his senses failed him miserably, be-
cause he made the mistake of a lifetime by low-
ering his head, letting out a bellow, and charg-
ing. I cracked the butt of the .45 down over top
of his greasy head. My gun was hard and heavy,
his head soft and empty. Fatso took a nosedive
into the dirty carpet and lay motionless.
A door flew open on my right and a
shaggy head peeked out. Frightened, filmed
eyes found me, and the door slammed shut
again. I took it full-speed, knocking the flimsy
portal clean off its hinges with a cinder-block
shoulder.
“Fuck you, asshole!” Shaggy yelled, blaz-
ing away with a pint-sized .22.
A bullet seared my left shoulder, another
dug into the wall behind me. I opened up with
my cannon, blasting off three rounds in split-
second succession. The room shook with the
concussions, and Shaggy did a jig like a puppet
with some of its strings cut. Then he flopped
over backwards onto a bed already packed
with human flesh.
Gunsmoke and girlish screams filled the
air, and I stared at the blonde, brunette, and
redheaded dolls who were entwined on the bed
with Shaggy’s bullet-ridden corpse. The three
girls were as naked and damning as the truth,
arranged in a daisy-chain, camera-ready for
blue movie action.
A 16-millimeter sat on a tripod, wedged
against the foot of the fuck platform, and on a
table next to the recording device was enough
heroin, hashish, and hallucinogens to keep the
‘Frisco hippy movement airborne for weeks. I
carefully surveyed the blonde-in-the-raw. It was
my blonde, all right – Michelle Carrington. Her
eyes were as dull as jukebox slugs, but her
body was the stuff that jack-off dreams are
made from.
I reached into the pile of used flesh and
ted.
I found a towel in a festering bathroom
and wrapped Michelle in it. She thanked me by
passing out. Then I slapped some sense back
into sleeping ugly on the floor. Fatso wasn’t
dead, but he was sure as hell headed there.
And he used his last few minutes on earth to
confess to his sins.
He told me that he and his brother had
made it their business to dope up pretty, young,
wayward girls and then star them in porn flics.
And when more fresh, white meat appeared on
the scene, the two joy-boys would sell the stale-
dated female flesh on the foreign markets,
where a busty, blue-eyed, All-American blonde
could garner as much fifty G’s.
I ended Larry Horowitz’s tale of forced,
filmed sex and white slavery with a crushing
right hand to the pimply face, speeding him on
his downward spiral. Then I carried Michelle
down to my heap, drove the poor little girl
home to her mansion in the hills.
Chalmers Carrington was putting pen to
paperwork in his book-lined study, signing the
foreclosure notice on an orphanage, or the
eviction order for a nunnery, no doubt. “So, you
found her,” he stated dryly, looking up at me
and my bundle from behind his massive, ma-
hogany desk.
“Don’t shoot off any fireworks,” I grunted,
placing Michelle’s limp body into a leather
chair.
Carrington stood up, walked around his
desk, and stared down his nose at Michelle.
Then he grabbed the girl’s hair at the back and
jerked her head up.
Her eyes fluttered open. “D-don’t be mad
at me, daddy!” she gasped, fumbling for the
old man’s belt. “I’ll suck you, daddy, I’ll-”
“Quiet, you little slut!” Carrington barked,
smacking Michelle across the face.
“She isn’t your daughter, is she?” I
growled at the old man. “She’s your lover.”
“Both, mister!” Michelle shrieked, gig-
gling hysterically. “He’s both!”
Carrington licked his quivering, blue lips
with a grey tongue, eyes spilling from me to the
girl, and back again. He pulled out his billfold,
flung five more one-hundred dollar bills in my
direction. “Your job is done, Dirk,” he rasped.
“Get out!”
I watched the rectangular, green pieces of
paper flutter to the floor, then balled my huge
hands into fists. I advanced on Carrington like
a storm, memories of my own long-lost little girl
filling my head, feeding my hate.
 Bullet No 50

My Best Friend’s Girl

“But I saw—”
Anthony Neil Smith (Allendale, USA)
Cut to Pascha alone, drunken smile, a fruity drink in
Then I realized that I hadn’t seen much. Gene had
front of her. “Everything okay?” Gene said. She interrupted me. “I don’t know what I saw. What
shrugged. “You know Rick. No fun sometimes.” happened?”
Gene wanted to get rich on porn like the Girls Gone Wild I crashed their party, instantly regretting it, and said, “What happened?” “We went back to his apartment. I was drunk, you
geniuses. “Pascha, let’s go.” The guys had been hoping for this— “He wouldn’t dance. That’s all I wanted.” Babydoll know. He turned on some music, asked me to
“Christian Girls on Their Wedding Nights. I mean, the hiking their shoulders, muttering, “S’up?” Pascha said, sad face. dance, be flirty. I just undid a couple buttons when
sex isn’t a sin then, plus it’s something the Bible wants “I’m having fun. It’s early. You’re a pooper.” “You heard he reached for me. Said it had to be dirty if I wanted
people to do, have sex with their spouses” the lady,” said goatee boy #1. “Back off.” The bartender Cut to Pascha walking on the sidewalk, Gene beside revenge. He wanted to film himself going down on
I said, “It’s still a sin to watch other people have sex.” snapped his fingers at the bouncer, motioned our way. I her asking, “Think about it. He doesn’t want you to me. I stopped him. " I stumbled back.
leaned towards Pascha, whispered, “I don’t want trou- have fun, so show him how much fun you can have.” She said, “I told him I was in love with you. Even
Gene managed an electronics store in New Orleans and ble.”She said, “Not right now, please. Go home, I’ll stop Pascha waved him off. “Come on, Gene.” now, I’m still crazy about you. I don’t care what he
often borrowed video cameras, computers, Blackberries, by later.” “Imagine, he sees you on tape, he’ll make goddamn said. I’m telling you the truth.”
“trying them out”. I preferred stereos—surround-sound in “If you’re not leaving with me now, don’t bother.” sure to dance with you anytime you want.”
the bedroom. My girl Pascha loved it. Too bad she loved The bouncer’s shadow dimmed the light. The frat boys She looked agitated. “Jesus, Gene, you’re his best Another step back for me.
Matchbox Twenty. Gene let me borrow CDs from his shrank—“It’s cool.” friend.”
store. Pascha didn’t look me in the eye. “I’ll stop by later.” “He would understand. I’m doing it to help him.” She looked holy and I was the snake. I croaked,
“Baby—” My angel, arms crossed, a little unsteady. “He didn’t tell me anything. I…didn’t watch it all. I
Gene kept it up while I rifled through the store’s new re- “I need a drink.” She walked to the bar. With Hulk the C’mon, baby, tell him to go to hell. Just walk just assumed.” I held my palm to my temple.
leases—Rilo Kiley, Low, The Delgados. I held up a Bright Doorman inches away, I didn’t follow. Left the club, away…
Eyes disc. Gene nodded. drove home, and kicked my couch until the leg splintered Pascha nodded and said, “I’ll hear you out.” Pascha said, “Rick, what did you do?” She said it
“Why the Christian stuff anyway?” I said. off. I passed out face down on the cushions. End of disc. Blue screen. Later, I turned and stared again, her voice tightening.
“Just trying to tap into a new audience.” at the camera.
“The tried and true keeps bringing them back.” She stopped by at three in the morning. We fucked, not “Call the police,” I whispered. “That Gene, he’s a
Gene said, “How about My Best Friend’s Girl? Like after make-up sex, but a grudge fuck. She was all worked up It took me a few minutes to figure out how to work funny guy.”
a big fight or when he was flirting with some slut, swoop from dancing, while I needed to hit something hard other the camera and watch the footage. It was silent.
in, tell her it’s great revenge.” than my couch. Pascha’s face, close-up. Pulled back to reveal her
“You’re sick.” kneeling on Gene’s futon. She was dancing from
“If she’s on tape, he’ll be all pissed but I bet he won’t do The next day, she was gone. All quiet til afternoon, when the waist up. She reached for the top button of her
it again. I can sell it, make her sign some contract she I saw Gene. I couldn’t shake his comment, though. No blouse—
can’t understand.” way he knew Pascha and I had fought, and no way he’d
How would I feel about Pascha with Gene? Murderous. mention something like a porn tape featuring girlfriends The front door swung open. Gene. Already nine-
out for revenge if he had gone through with it. I didn’t fifteen. Time had gotten away from me.
The previous night, Pascha and I hit a French Quarter think Pascha and Gene liked each other at all. Still, I had “What are you doing?” He glanced at the blue
club. The band was dull, trying to do serious tunes in a to satisfy the nagging in my head. screen, then me standing at the camera. “No, wait.”
town that liked its music party-soaked— zydeco, blues, “Best friend’s girl, Gene? You think telling me about
cheesy brass jazz. Gene couldn’t have known that I was Gene was working until nine, so I let myself into his apart- it was a smart move?”
moody and Pascha was tanked. Been that way between ment the hard way—shoulder to the door. Inside, his fu- “Let me explain.”
us for months. She said, “This is boring.” ton was flat, the sheets scattered. Stale sweat and sex “Trying to help me again?”
“Why’d you come if you’re bored?” odors. There was a digital video camera on a tripod at “Rick—”
“I didn’t know I’d be bored until right now.” She was sexy, the corner. DVDs lined a shelf on the far side of the front One hand tightened on the tripod. Decision made.
but bitterly so. Her straight black hair covered half her room. I ran my fingers along the rows, handwritten I lifted it like a sledgehammer and swung hard at
face like thick paint, and her eyes burned. She wanted a names—“Rhiannon”, “Lucy”, “Drama Queen”, “Pascha, Gene’s head. The camera exploded, bits of plastic
fight. Drama. She lusted for it. The house speakers— Part I”. Son of a bitch. and blood spraying the entertainment center. Gene
Jesus—“Don’t Mess with My Toot-toot”. Pascha snapped was down. I waited for him to get up again. He
her fingers, grooved. I took the DVD to his entertainment center and slid it in, didn’t. I checked him for breath. I didn’t get past
“Don’t,” I said. “This weekend, I promise, but not to- sat on the futon and worked the remote. First scene, his wide-open eyes. I threw up on his body. Blood,
night—” Gene’s aiming the camera from a moving car. Gene’s puke, diodes. One more stop to make.
She was past caring what I had to say. Her hips swayed. voice: “Let’s see who we find, rejected and looking for ******
Her ass invited. Pascha wanted to be center-stage. She revenge.” The car he was following—it was mine. Pascha was in a bathrobe. “Rick, I feel terrible.
knew where to aim her scent. I wished I could cool out Please, no fighting.” I stepped in and closed her
and let her dance without thinking she intended to humili- He caught us parking and walking. He waited until we door. “Not a fight. An explanation. Maybe some
ate me. were a block ahead to follow. Terrible camera work, all acting you did last night?”
shaky with loud breathing. Her mouth made an “O”. “What did Gene tell you?
Two frat boys crowded around. I swear she knew they Don’t believe what he said.”
were there but waited until one came up and touched her Cut to the front of the club. He caught me storming out “Not what he said, darlin’. What you did. I saw it
waist before she looked up, wagged her finger and later. Gene said, “Trouble in Paradise? Let’s find out.” I myself.”
pointed at me. She pushed his hands away but let him wondered how he knew to follow us. Or had he been She clutched her robe together at her neck. “It was
stay right on her, skinwidth’s separation between them. following for longer? Sure, I’d told him Pascha and I wrong.”
The other guy did a little bump on her backside. weren’t on the best of terms. But who follows a couple on “Goddamn right it was.”
dates hoping for a blowout? “That’s why I didn’t go through with it. He didn’t tell
you, did he?”
Bullet No 51
Funtime
TK Dan (Newcastle, UK)
Pasty has his forehead against mine. His Ne-
anderthal brow rocking from side to side as
he stares into my eyes. I think of Doug
McClure in the Land that Time Forgot and a
programme on the making of it I saw when I
was a kid. The cavemen had their brows built
up by gluing potato peelings just above their
eyes, but Pasty’s brow is hard, solid bone
waiting and wanting to crunch into my face.
“You were fucking seen man, yer think I’m
fucking daft. You were fucking seen!” he
hisses, chemical fumes from the poppers he’s
been sniffing washing over my face. He
draws back slowly, his pupils tiny pin pricks in
the steely blue of his eyes. I take a breath, grit
my teeth, exhale slowly.
“Yer’ve seen Reservoir dogs haven’t yer,” he
chortles as if we were in the pub discussing
favourite movie moments. I nod.
“What’s that fucking song he sings?” I shrug
as best I can. “Haway college boy, divven’t
play it dumb with me, ah knaa yer knaa.”
I clear my throat, “Stuck in the middle with
you,” I mumble. A slow easy grin comes
across his face, “That’s it,” he says, “Stuck in
the middle with ye.” He begins to hum to
himself, doing a grotesque little jig, imitating
Mad Michael Madsen. I shift uncomfortably in
the chair; the parcel tape binding me, rus-
tling, twisting and turning as I do. Pasty goes
behind me. I hear a drawer open and close.
His hand appears from behind holding a
Stanley knife.
“Haway, man Pasty, this is fucking daft,” I
hear the quiver and terror in my own voice.
“’Haway man Pasty’” he mimics coming
round in front of me. He slides the blade out
of the knife and examines it. “Blunt. Rusty.”
He shrugs, “Could put a new one in ah sup-
pose. But yer wouldn’t feel a fucking thing
then.”
“Pasty, man!”
“Did ah ever tell yer, aboot the time at
St.James’s. Been to see the toon. Came oot
the match and ah felt something sticky run-
ning doon me back. Thought some fucker
ously incongruous domestic sound of the kettle being filled and
put on to boil, the chinking of cups and teaspoons. He reap-
pears in the doorway two mugs of steaming tea in his hands.
“Yer divven’t take sugar dee yer?” he says, almost politely, as if
had spilt their Bovril ower us. Then ah felt
I’m the vicar calling in for a chat. Then he hurls the tea, mug
and me fingers were covered in blood. Now
and all, across the room, I manage to swing the chair to one
that was a sharp Stanley knife, through me
side and go crashing to the floor as the mug explodes against
trackie top and shirt and ah never felt a
the wall behind me.
thing.” He seems to drift off, almost nostal-
“Aww, look what yer’ve done now yer messy cunt,” he strides
gic. “Took them a fuckin’ age to stitch us up
across the room and pulls the chair back upright “yer worse than
mind.”
a fucking bairn.” He stands hands on his hips surveying the
I try to reason with him, “Pasty man, why the
damage. Despite myself I feel a traitor tear begin to course
fuck would I rip you off…”
down my face. Pasty notices, “Aww, there, there ….” he mocks
“Shut the fuck up!” he snarls coming back
ruffling my hair before going back into the kitchen. When he re-
into my face, holding the tip of the knife be-
emerges, he has the knife. “Tell yer what, being as yer upset,
low my left eye, “Aye, yer a sharp shite ye.
ah’ll sing yer a lullaby, help yer gan to sleep.”
Coming down to live with us common peo-
He slides the blade out of the knife and advances across the
ple. Yer sit there fucking smirking the whole
room, gently singing, “Baa, baa, black sheep have yer any
time, like nae fucker’s got the joke but ye. All
wool? Yes sir, yes sir three bags full”
one big fucking laugh. Well ah’m warning
He straddles me on the chair.
yer college boy yer better start fucking talking
“One for the master,”
or mammy and daddy are going to start get-
A cut above the left eye.
ting pieces of yer in the fucking post! What
“And one for the maid,”
were yer talking to Dogger aboot?”
Above the right eye.
“Nowt man, Pasty, nowt!”
“And one for the little boy….”
“You were fucking seen man! You were fuck-
I feel the tension in his arm, see the pure venom in his eyes as
ing seen! Outside the Cluny you were fucking
he places the blade inside my left nostril.
seen!”
There’s a sound. The living room door scrapes open. The blade
“Like I said man Pasty he was just there and
stays where it is but Pasty looks up.
then the fucking cops turned up and I had to
“Well?”
dump the stuff.”
Billy appears; he puts a Morrisons carrier down on the table,
“Dogger’s got it hasn’t he!”
lights up a cigarette and nods. Pasty laughs, just once “Ha!”
“No man Pasty! No! The coppers saw Dogger
Slowly, he takes the blade away from my nostril and stands up.
and stopped, I knew they’d want a word with
He retracts the blade and crosses his arms. Billy, still dragging
him, so I walked. Then one of them shouted
on his fag, comes to stand beside him. They both look at me,
of me back. I pretended not to hear, got up
smirking.
Stepney bank a bit, made out like I was doing
“Whaddya reckon?” says Pasty.
up me shoe laces and pushed the stuff under
Billy shrugs. Pasty leans towards me. I swallow hard, feeling the
one of the garage doors before the copper
blood trickle down either side of my face. He stares me out for a
saw.”
couple of seconds that feel like hours, then he lunges forward
“Yer lying!” he roars and pushes the chair
and shouts “Boo!”. I recoil and tip the chair over again. Him and
backwards, my head hits a radiator and
Billy laugh fit to bust a gut. He picks me up, sets me straight and
there’s a comedy clanging noise, and then
starts cutting at the parcel tape.
just pain, pure and undiluted, shooting
“Haway man! Nowt to worry about,” he says chuckling and wip-
through my head. He jolts the chair back up
ing some of the blood away. “Couple of nicks. That’s all. Get
and draws back his arm.
cleaned up, we’ll gan for a pint. Ah was only funning.”
“Pasty man! Just give us a chance, wait till
Billy gets back at least.”
“That useless cunt!” he growls, but backs off
and skulks into the kitchen. There’s the curi-
 Bullet No 52
How to defuse a terrorist
Ed Lynskey (Annandale, USA)
“Frank, you’ve been awfully closed-mouth,” said the
big man behind the steering wheel.
“Just thinking, Gerald.”
“Solid,” said Gerald.
Solid? I mused. Well, that was Gerald Peyton for
you -- Shaft on steroids. I’d asked him along to be
more than a sidekick -- he had my back. For now,
we cruised down a desolate stretch. Why did Inter-
states always take the butt-ugliest path? We’d flown
by toxic waste dumps all colors of the rainbow,
blasted out phosphate quarries, and a farm of rust-
ing junk cars. America the Beautiful? Yeah.
“This lady, Mrs. Saxon, you say her son died,” said
Gerald. “I’m vague on the details. What killed
him?”
“He was Quincy Saxon, age 23,” I said. “Exposure
to radioactivity killed him. His morgue photos
showed third-degree burns smothering his body. He
looked like rotisseried chicken.”
Gerald whistled through his teeth. “Bad news. The
lady wants answers and we’re her answer men.”
“Solid,” I parroted back to him.
Gerald’s grin broadened. “Okay, what about
Quincy’s boss? Is he some sort of a whack job sci-
entist on a mountaintop playing with fire?”
“That pretty much covers it,” I said. “The investigat-
ing authorities accepted his explanation that
Quincy’s death was a work-related accident. Shit
happens, right? His mom didn’t sign off on it.”
“I don’t blame her,” said Gerald. “Don’t sweat it.
We’ll get to the bottom of things.”
Gerald’s reassurance didn’t quell my queasiness.
Appalachia was a third-world nation stuck up in the
leafy hills. The smart young folks counted off the
days until they could eject from it. Many enlisted to
go wage our holy oil wars. Our destination there
was an old, defunct dam condemned by the TVA.
The last worker leaving it ages ago had switched off
the lights and padlocked its gate shut.
“Hey, are you packing heat?” Gerald asked me.
“No, my mama told me to leave my guns at home,”
I said. “But I bet you brought along some pyrotech-
nics in your duffel bag.”
“Yep,” said Gerald. “Cause, you see, my mama
told me just the opposite.”
After a while we approached a pale blue limestone
cliff. Pointing at it, I asked for Gerald’s opinion. He
squinted to look through the dirty windshield and
agreed. It did appear to be a half-finished portrait
of Mr. Reagan, our fortieth president, carved into the
cliff.
“What a monumental waste of limestone,” Gerald
rald’s face took on a wild, crazed look. I didn’t like I caught a certain sly tone in Gerald’s voice to play
seeing it there. along. “Sure. I’ve been meaning to get rid of this
pasty Irish look. Where do I lay down, doc?” Dr.
We soon reached the dam’s bottom, we were Ames beamed at us. “Take any one you’d like.
breathless but too amped on adrenaline to notice. Meantime, I’ll go fetch the cobalt.” He strutted the
said. “How do we get started at the dam?”
The facility’s locked steel doors didn’t deter Ge- opposite way through an arched doorway.
“Nothing to it,” I said. “We do some snooping
rald. He blew away all the offending hardware. “The lead container must be inside that hidey
around.”
Cordite stung our eyes. My ears screamed in pro- hole,” Gerald side mouthed to me. “What now?”
“Solid. Now, tell me about this asshole doctor.”
test. I coughed, waving away acrid gun smoke. “Send Ames to the happy hunting grounds,” I said.
“Dr. Ames, a nuclear physicist educated at Yale no
“Gerald, hold up a second.” “Before he sends us there. I don’t see any other
less, took the facility out of mothballs,” I said. “His
“Man, it’s creepy inside this concrete tomb,” said exit out of this shit-storm.”
experiments with radioactive stuff centered on how to
Gerald. “Where’s the fucking lab?” “Solid.”
counteract bad guys with a hard-on for Americans.”
“Mrs. Saxon told me it’s in a large room near the
“Things got out of hand and he nuked this Saxon
front.” Gerald thumbed more shells into his shot- We hoofed it at a snappy pace ducking through
kid,” said Gerald.
gun, then pointed. “I see lights up ahead behind where Dr. Ames had disappeared. We heard his
“Hell, you must’ve been there,” I said. “At least
that concrete column.” spectral voice rattling off something excited and
that’s the official version.”
“Man, we need a Geiger counter,” I said, as we demented. Death permeated the oxygen-starved
“Where is Dr. Ames nowadays?”
advanced into the musty gloom. “Who knows how air. Our scuffing shoes alerted Dr. Ames to gaze
“Probably lounging on a beach in the Azores,” I
hot the radioactivity is in here?” up as we invaded his Inner Sanctum.
said. “He was exonerated of all criminal negli-
“I thought you said this Ames skipped the country, “Doc, step away from that box,” said Gerald.
gence.”
Frank.” Defying our wishes, he unsnapped the clasps.
“Yeah, he’s about as harmless as a goddamn box-
“That’s what I heard.” “Oh put up your shotguns,” he said. “You’ll only
cutter,” Gerald said, his grim tone sending an icy
“Well, I hear somebody or something talking.” scare the other customers.”
chill up my spine. We sidled up a series of
“Probably the dead souls your shotgun blasts woke “He’s starting to crack the fucking lid.”
switchbacks climbing the face to a jagged mountain.
up,” I said. “No way that can happen,” said Gerald. “No
My ears popped twice. Gerald let off the gas pedal
“Man, I love teaming up with you, Frank. Never a other choice now. Let’s rock-and-roll, Frank.”
and geared down. A lift in power got us to the top.
dull moment.” Our 12-gauge shotguns flamed out blasts like a
At the last dogleg turn in the narrow lane, we braked
“Shut it up. Keep moving.” double-necked electric guitar’s first riff.
to a standstill. Below us in a shallow crater, a con-
In single file, we prowled deeper into the cavern-
crete monolithic dam bottled up a deep lake I
ous space. Some electrical source lit the way. The
judged as arsenic green in color.
smell of charred human flesh grew sweet and op-
The tallest spiral staircase in the world went down to
pressive. We swung around a corner, shotguns
the crackerbox buildings. It was our only way in and
hoisted at the ready.
out. Recent rockslides from a hurricane had blocked
“Gentlemen,” said the nasal, reedy voice. “You’re
the road. I half-expected to see a crack in the con-
here in time for your tanning session. Most excel-
crete dam and a dutiful Hans Brinker with his thumb
lent.”
stuck in it. After unbuckling, Gerald and I hauled out
“What the hell?” said Gerald.
of my car. He notched his nuts and I spat.
“Just keep your weapon fixed on the crazy bas-
“I guess we have to snake down that staircase,” said
tard,” I said. My eyes cut back and forth. Four
Gerald.
tanning beds lay open, awaiting their next victims.
“You’re a good guesser.”
“Who will go first?” the man asked. I blinked at a
“All right then, wait up.” Mumbling dark obscenities,
tall, lanky man with a swatch of jet hair combed
Gerald stalked around to key open the trunk. I ig-
back off a bulbous forehead. Gerald growled.
nored him until he returned brandishing two sawed-
“Mister, keep your hands where I can see them.
off 12-gauge riot shotguns and bandoleers heavy
Any funny moves and -- ”
with fresh shells, buckshot load. “Here,” he said.
“ -- we’ll blow your shit away,” I said to complete
“Take this. Stay sharp.”
Gerald’s thought.
I accepted his martial gifts. At the stairhead, I didn’t
The gaunt madman frowned at us. “I’m Dr. Ames.
look down until vertigo hit me. My mouth went dry
Aren’t you my one-thirty appointment?”
and my heart hammered. Gerald came after me,
“Appointment for what?”
one-handing a loaded pump shotgun. We started
“Why, to soak up a tan,” said Dr. Ames.
down the staircase.
“Where do you stash the cobalt?” I asked.
“Any idea what we’re after down here?” asked Ge-
“Why, in its lead container, of course,” Dr. Ames
rald.
said. “Now, which of you will go first?”
“Any bad shit,” I said. “We’ll know it when we smell
“Frank, I believe I’m satisfied with my pigmenta-
it.”
tion,” said Gerald. “Why don’t you hop on one of
“Right. I got a nose for sniffing it out, dawg.” Ge-
those tanning beds, boy? "
Bullet No 53

Job Done plastic seats and idly flicked through an old As I entered the men’s dressing room I fished
Tony Lagosh (Cambridge, UK) car magazine. A couple of minutes later he out the locker key from my pocket and
was back. opened number 672. A pound coin dropped
“Renault Clio was it sir?” endlessly polite and as I swivelled the key. I quickly undressed, and
efficient too, there was no hope for the man. roughly shoved the Burton’s suit into the bin-
Cambridge, 6.13am Work starts early scattering of the dog’s claws and the faint rustle
“Yes, it’s parked out front.” I stood and tossed bag. I tied a knot in the neck and chucked it
I thumped the knife into Schroeder and carried of the man’s newspaper fade away. I sat up and
the keys on to the chest high counter and in the locker and changed into my Adidas kit.
on running, leaving it, proud , protruding from sneaked a look. He was heading towards the
leaned on it, my left arm supporting my chin.
his rib cage. Behind me I heard his breathless, River, he gave no glance backwards but I let him
“I’ll need to pay for some extra valeting, I’m This is never a good time, this is when the
middle aged running, slow, then stop as blood turn the corner before I twisted the key to start the
afraid I’ve made a bit of a mess of the car. Fear hits in a second tsunami. This is when
filled his heart. I span round and saw him slump engine. I pulled away. I’d have to get changed
Stood in some mud and it got everywhere. It’ll the nerves come on, the regret, the panic, the
to the ground, his back sinking into the mud of somewhere else.
need a thorough cleaning, will that be extra?” cold blind terror of being caught. But I have
Parker’s Piece, hands waving in the air like a
“Oh don’t worry about that sir, I’m sure it’s my routine and that helps me cope, it stops
mad raver. There was surprise on his face, sur- Fifteen miles out of Cambridge I found it. A Little
not too bad.” the panic, helps me think. Activity is the only
prise at the kitchen knife in his chest and at the Chef set into a clump of trees. Keeping my head
“No really, I would like it to be cleaned thor- cure so I always end up here, at the gym,
way the crimson spread across his grey tracksuit. down to avoid the CCTV I pulled in and headed
oughly. Before anybody else uses it.” pounding away on the running machine,
Weakening, his head lolled and he stared for the restaurant. I pushed open the fake
“It’s all part of the service sir. No bumps or burning off the hormones, trying to bring me
straight at me, green eyes in a sun tanned face, wooden door and was hit by the smell of frying
anything?” back down to a level where I can think
tough leather skin, framed by a mess of grey bacon. The sheer normality was shocking, it woke
“No, as I say, just a bit dirty.” straight and rationally. Inactivity would mean
white hair. I watched a vigorous life ebb away. me up quicker than a cold shower. In the grimly
Colin whisked round the counter, file in hand thought and that would drive me insane. The
functional, white light toilets, I found an empty sit
and went out to check the car. I could see him only way is to lose myself in mindless distrac-
Job done. down, filled with the smell of stale piss and inef-
through the window, creeping and dancing tion. Repetitive exercise, loud blaring dance
fective bleach. Shutting the door behind me I got
round the Clio, meticulously examining for music and cable TV to keep my eyes occu-
I kept on running. Shades bounced irritatingly on changed, peeling the layers off like an onion.
damage, circling it in an effeminate war pied. Fitness Forever, it’s the only way.
my nose, and the sweat top hood was tied tightly, Pulling the suit out of the bin bag, I hung it up on
dance. With a balletic leap he jumped up and
contorting my face into a mess of rubbery wrin- the door and smoothed out the creases. I
returned, slightly flushed from the cold air, full An hour later, I was walking out of the gym
kles. I was hot and sweaty, bulked out with six dropped the tracksuits into the bag and re-tied
of brisk efficiency. towards my car I’d left overnight in the gym’s
sweat tops and three tracksuit bottoms. It made the knot in its neck. Unhooking the suit from its
“Oh there’s nothing to worry about there sir, car park. I was calmer, more relaxed, thinking
me look overweight, unrecognisable, but boy was hanger I squeezed into it and a cheap blue shirt
could hardly see a thing, quick hoover with straight again. Amazing what a good work
it uncomfortable and it put me on edge. and matching tie set. Then I slipped on plastic
the hand vac and it’ll be as good as new.” out can do for you. I bleeped the car open
black shoes and opened the cubicle door,
I didn’t push it. Colin shoved a form at me and cocooned myself in the black leather up-
It was touching seven by the time I got back to checked there was no one around and left.
and I signed it. He let me call a cab and holstery. I turned the key and imperceptibly
the car. The sun was fully risen in a watery glow-
twenty minutes later I was outside Fitness For- the engine started, I released the hand brake
ing white that was burning off the early morning Two hours later, I was walking into Mertz Rental
ever, the only club I ever felt comfortable join- as the Cream CD kicked in and revved away.
chill. In the homes that lined the avenue, lights and being irritated by the ringing of a bell. It
ing, clutching the incriminating bin bag.
were being switched on as families woke to a brought out a young man, smart in a red uni-
On the Fulham Road I noticed a slim black
new day. Street lamps were clicking off like met- form, beaming a disturbingly happy smile, full of
It was late morning but there were already alley. I pulled over, parked across the double
ronomes, loud sharp and echoing in the morning teeth and vivacity. He had to be a fake, a student
fifty or sixty sweating middle aged women yellows and put my lights on hazard. I hauled
silence. It was spooky, nerve jangling and it re- of all those self help courses that tell you it takes
pounding away on running and rowing ma- out the bin bag and nervously entered. It
ignited the Fear. 300 muscles to frown but only three to smile. All
chines. Their faces were bright pink and dark turned sharply to the left behind a kebab
technique and no honesty. It oozed from his shiny
patches of sweat were collecting round their shop. There was a bin there, half full of rot-
I got in the car and began to get changed. Then I red skin, the bright green eyes and the fashiona-
arse crack and arm pits. It was not a pretty ting food and discarded packaging. It stank
saw him. An old man walking a black and tan bly tousled, dyed blonde hair that crowned a
sight. If anybody tells you that gyms are a like a rotting body. I hurled the bag into the
collie. He was reading a paper, idly flicking the short, slim frame. He reeked of cloying, disinfec-
good place to pull, don’t believe ‘em, there is open top and left its metallic crash echoing
pages over whilst his dog strained energetically at tant after-shave.
nothing attractive about over weight bodies behind me. I returned to the car, slipped in
the leash. I dropped on to the passenger seat, the “Good morning sir, my name is Colin, how can I
sweating in stretch fabric leotards, built up and pulled away into traffic. Now I could
gear stick pushing sharply into my ribs. I shifted help you.?” His voice was sharp and Estuary
into mountains and valleys by piles of un- really relax, now I could go home, now it was
myself off the stick and lay motionless. Time singsong. "The name’s Fletcher, just returning the
wanted flesh. I shuddered as I weaved my over.
slowed down, waiting, waiting, expecting the po- car”
fully dressed way through them, avoiding the
lite tap on the window; my mind was racing, pre- “If you’d like to take a seat I’ll get your file.” With
occasional flirtatious smile that was flicked my At least till next time.
paring an answer, an explanation. I stuck my a theatrical flourish he twirled like Anthea and
way.
hand into the glove compartment. I heard the returned to the back office. I sat in one of the red
 Bullet No 54
Swinging Like Tiger
Kev Martin (Carlisle, UK)
Nothing like a nine iron.
The rubber grip felt good in my hand, the club
felt heavy, satisfying. I swung it, the swoop in
the air was deep and booming, the connection
with Stevie’s head solid and clean.
He fell into the water, moans mixed with bub-
bles, it was too dark to see the blood. I turned
away from him and walked back up the beach.
I heard Stevie claw his way up through shallow
surf, coughing and spluttering at water and
blood and seaweed getting where it shouldn’t.
“Jeeze! Bry! What the fuck was that for?”
Over his head, just to the right, the moon was
rising from the North Sea. It was a Daz blue
white, its broken reflections rippled in the eager “I’m going to die?”
horse heads rolling up the beach, it was beauti- “Yeah, course you fucking are.”
ful, calming, atmospheric. Stevie was ruining it
though, swaying like an idiot, non-plussed, feel- I thumped the iron into his head again like I was
ing his head with surprise like he couldn’t quite Phil Mickelson. Left handed, I know my golfers. I
believe what was going. This was going to take wondered what Tiger would make of my swing.
a bit more work.
I looked at the iron’s head and made out a bit reckoned not, this was all too much for him; the
of bone and hair, I fussily removed it like an
over-proud house wife. I let the head drop into
the water swilling it till it was clean, then I swung “No, I can’t fucking see anything.”
it in a baseball curve and connected with Stevie “Gone blind have you?”
again. The ribs this time, got him in the ribs,
wanted to see what that was like.
Stevie gasped, he didn’t cry or scream he
gasped, every atom of air expelled from his
lungs. I imagined them deflating like balloons.
“Bry man! what the fuck are you doing?”
“What the fuck does it look like?”
“Why man Bry? Why? What the fuck have I
done?”
“Fuck all, absolutely fuck all.”
“So why you doing it then?”
“Lovely night innit?”
“Bry?”
“Good spot for it an’ all.”
“Stop it man, Bry, stop it.”
“Can’t Stevie. You know that. Started so I fin-
simile of Stevie, him but not him if you know flashed it the fingers, the cheeky fucker.
what I mean. The outside was still there but
the spirit, the life force, had gone some- I took one last heave and pushed them into
where else. The blood had gone from his the inky black void. There was a second of
ish.”
face leaving his skin a deep chalk white but silence then a splash. I dusted off my hands
“Don’t man, please god don’t. I don’t deserve
it was now outside, streaming in watery rivu- and checked my watch. Gone midnight, just
this, not from you at least.”
lets down his forehead and cheeks. gone. I wondered what that mean, would
“What’s going on in there Stevie? In that thick
that mean he’d be stuck in limbo forever
skull of yours, what you thinking?”
I pulled the camera out, one of them tiny not sure if he’d died one day or the next? I
“I’m thinking what the fuck are you doing? Any-
digital things that hangs from a key ring. laughed, like god or the devil or even Stevie
way, it ain’t so thick now, you must have taken
Comes in handy now and then. I took a would care about a couple of fucking min-
an inch out.”
couple of quick snaps for later. I wasn’t sure utes here and there.
We laughed, like only good mates can in times
if they’d come out but hey, if they did then
of trouble.
they’d be worth looking at. Last few seconds I turned and headed back to the hotel. As I
of a man’s life, might be able to learn did so I slipped in my iPod earphones. The
“Can you see the tunnel yet?”
something, see his spirit leave, see if there is shuffle was on loop and I got “Folsom
“The tunnel? What the fuck you mean? The
peace right at the end, see if inevitability Prison Blues” over and over and over again.
Tyne Tunnel?”
can be met with rich acceptance, might help
“Naw you twat, the tunnel of death, the one with
me when it’s my turn.
the white light shining at the other end and St
Peter welcoming you on. The one you see when
A small guttural groan bubbled up; poor
you’re going to die.”
fucker was still hanging on. I decided to try
it another way, might help him along, I was
starting to feel sorry for the poor fucker. I
drove the top of the club into his head, thin
edge down. It caved into his skull and stuck
there, I levered it free with a squelching tug
that snapped like a cork. Stevie stopped
Stevie slumped to his knees, hands clutched to
moving, the hands twitched, the ribs
his head. I wondered if he’d have a go at me, I
heaved, only the blood kept on moving out-
wards and downwards and out there to-
surprise would have done for him.
wards continental Europe. Then a few bub-
“See it now?”
bles of the last bit of oxygen escaping from
his lungs and that was it. Stevie was gone.
“No! What? Yes, I mean I don’t know. Fuck! The
I stood there a few minutes and wondered
pain!”
what to do next. I looked up the beach and
saw a discarded shopping trolley. I heaved
Stevie tried to stand up like a man but he
Stevie up and on to my shoulders, a dead
swayed like a dumb clown, legs flashed up-
weight soaking with water and staggered
wards and he collapsed backwards into the wa-
though sinking sand and slippery seaweed
ter. He was like a cow with an advanced case of
to the trolley. I dropped him on the sand
BSE, uncoordinated, legs everywhere. The sand
and pushed the trolley up on to the cause-
shifting beneath his feet, the disintegrating nerv-
way. I went back and picked Stevie up, stag-
ous system, nothing was helping his limbs get
gered to the trolley and dropped him in the
him erect again. He splashed in the water, arms
basket with a metallic shivering. I began
flailing eddies of foam into the bleak night air,
pushing him up the concrete road and
very atmospheric. I let him calm down, let the
along the pier, it took half an hour and I
splashing cease then I went in.
was fucked when I got to the lighthouse, its
blinking eye balefully disapproving. I
I pulled out a maglite and shone a beam right
into his face. It was fixed, still and pale, a fac-
 Bullet No 55
No More the Blues
Joel Lane (Birmingham, UK)
Another classic night at the Robin 2 club
in Bilston. You wouldn’t expect it. Bilston’s
one of the worst living dead towns in the
Black Country. The snafu capital of Brit-
ain. There’s something appropriate in
the fact that it has the best rhythm &
blues club in the country. I swear, people
fly over from Holland to go to the Robin
2. And when they finally let you in, not
long before the gig starts, there are signs
telling you to shut up while the bands are
playing. You don’t see that very often.
The crowd tonight are mostly in their
forties, and there’s a lot of couples. A
vibe of togetherness. Nine Below Zero
are back in town. A better band now
than they ever were back in their
younger days. The blues needs maturity,
the bitter taste of experience. They’ve
seen it all and they still feel something.
Maybe I do too.
The support band are edgy and
paranoid; they remind me of stuff I want
to leave outside. I drink two Diamond
Whites quickly, then take a third down to
the floor in front of the stage. The place
is filling up slowly. By the time Nine Be-
low come on there’s hardly room to
move. They have a new keyboard player.
‘We’re gonna play some tracks from our
new album, Hats Off. It’s a blues al-
bum.’ And there we were expecting a
new direction.
As Mark Feltham’s harmonica
bleeds through the slow grind of the gui-
tars, I remember my dream from the
night before. British planes dropping
bombs over China, a strange interval of
calm before all hell breaks loose. My
dreams are always impossible corridors
between a violent event and its conse-
quences. The new songs are grimy,
smeared with desire and disappoint-
ment. The album’s clearly a strong one.
In front of me a middle-aged couple are
dancing together, his arms around her
thick waist. The only distraction is that my
weak bladder is playing up and I’m al-
ready aching for a piss. Have to wait un-
til the end.
After five new songs, they go
straight into a set of their best material
since the 1995 reunion. Singer Dennis
Greaves almost gets booed off stage for
calling the audience Brummies. Fucking
hell, wrong thing to do in Bilston. Then
Mark Feltham takes over and sings ‘No
More the Blues’. There’s so much in that:
the band getting back together,
Feltham’s recovery from serious illness.
It’s in his voice, but really it’s in his har-
monica. He looks like a little rabbi in his
black suit and skull-cap.
During a pleasant but not essential
bass solo, I struggle through the crowd
to the Gents’. It’s up a flight of stairs by
the door. A row of off-white urinals. I let
the pain and tension flow out of me like
a bad dream. Then I hear the thin voice
behind my back. ‘Gary.’ I finish my piss
and turn around slowly.
Dec is sitting in a cubicle with the
door open. His nose is running; his eyes
are like a dying man’s in a hospital bed.
He’ll need a taxi back to Wolverhampton
to find his contact. ‘I need fifty,’ he says.
‘Don’t let me down, Gary.’
‘I haven’t got it. And I’m not going
out to a fucking cashpoint.’ What do I
have to do to get that bunch of losers out
of my life? They’re worse than old drink-
ing buddies. This is just a trick to get me
back with them, I know it. The song crashes to a stop. The
‘Come on, lend me some money. band wave goodbye and leave the
That’s what you bastards do, isn’t it?’ stage, all except Feltham. He’s play-
‘Smart one.’ For the first time I ing a blues version of ‘Amazing
realise how much Dec looks like the Grace’. Then something else, a faster
man my wife left me for. The poker- tempo. Will he finish his solo before
playing shit with a degree in Applied the shit hits the fan? Knowing this
Fuckery who played around so much could end at any moment makes this
she was phoning me for sympathy. the most precious music I’ve ever
Me. heard. Great music always feels like
I consider kicking the crap out of that.
Dec, but my good mood and the dis- There’s some noise behind me. I
tant rumble of Nine Below prompt me turn and see two goons pushing
to help him. I pull out my wallet and through the crowd. Tight suits, dark
look for my last tenner. His pale hand glasses. Gangster chic. So it wasn’t
moves so fast I hardly see it, grabbing the police who found him. I can tell
the leather and yanking it open. it’s me they’re heading for. So I do
Credit cards and train tickets spill the only thing I can. I turn my back to
onto the hard floor. them and watch Mark Feltham finish
His reflexes are quick, but mine his harp solo as the rest of Nine Be-
are quicker. I’m not a junkie. Before I low Zero slip back onto the stage.
really have time to think about it, my He’s playing like a fallen angel in a
penknife is open in my hand and my blind alley. I can’t see his eyes behind
hand is pressed to his throat. Like a his shades. I wish him long life.
knee-trembler, how quickly you reach
the point of no return. I push him
back into the cubicle and shut the
door, then wash my hands. There’s
blood on the floor, but not much.
Could be a nosebleed. I wonder what
to do.
In the end I go back to the con-
cert room. It’s a place to hide. And I
want to hear the rest of the gig.
There’s blood on my sleeve, I hope
no-one notices. Lights are burning
above the stage, the audience are
huddled together. The blues is bigger
than they are. Greaves moans his way
through a slow guitar solo, the drum-
mer shakes the place apart. I wonder
if the police will block the exits and
search everyone, even the band.
 Bullet No 56
let me in
Delphine Lecompte (Belgium)
i am sitting at my sheffielder angel's
kitchen table,i'm trying to write a slander-
ous story,but it's hard,cos i'm so bloody
randy,and my sheffielder angel is skinning
rabbits above his sink,and he's talking to
them,comforting them,or actually he's just
humming an insipid swedish pop song,but
it's arousing me all the same,so i snap my
pencil in two,go over to that sheffielder
middle class cunt,unzip his pants and start
stroking his ridiculously small but never-
theless very endearing boner,i suck it till it
spunks in my face and hair,i wipe the
spunk away with a checkered kitchen towel
and sit myself in front of his flemish stove,i
open the wee door,rip out some of my
hair,throw it in the flames and sniff up the
awkward sobering scent,it's just what i
needed,but then my sheffielder angel
yanks my arm and drags me to his bed-
room,he rips off my jeans and knickers
and enters me,he pulls away,cums on my
belly and falls asleep,i poke my fingers in
all his
orifices,bang my fists against his cheek
bones and soles,but he doesn't wake
up,he's smugly smiling and snoring,and
he'll probably sleep till dawn,it's lonely
without him,not as lonely as when he's
awake and being dour and conceited,but
still too fucking lonely,noone to bare my
soul and flash my wounds to,not even the
rabbits in the sink,cos they look dead with-
out their coats and eyes,they are dead ac-
tually,his tropical fish aren't dead,but
they're mute and autistic,that's even
worse,this place is stuffed with cold smug
middle class gadgets and they're not about
to take pity on a fucked-up manipulative
orphan girl,i sweep the bottles and shot
hurts when he arsefucks me cos his boner
is as big as a cocker spaniel,but not as
fluffy and good-natured,and it swells when
glasses and cutlery and jars off the kitchen it's inside me,right now it must be as big
table,i cut my wrists with the broken as a rocky mountain goat,i scream out in
glass,but i'm way too randy and hungover pain,sand fills my mouth and lungs,i try to
to kill myself,i get dressed and leave the pull myself free but he's lying on top of me
apartment,i sit myself on a piss-soaked and his fists are punching my shoulder
bench opposite the nuthouse, smoke some blades,but then he grabs my hair and
fags,carve a few slanderous stories into the pulls my head out of the sand,i throw the
bench,down a bottle of spanish rum,carve whisky and the smoked kippers that my
some more venom into the bench and dodgy neighbour fed me last week up on
rudely play with myself;around six am the my blouse,the kinky nightnurse kicks me in
kinky nightnurse walks out of the nut- the back,spits on me and walks away,i put
house,i call his ugly flemish name and he on my knickers and jeans and stagger to
comes over to me,we share a bottle of the sea,but i'm way too randy and hun-
cheap dutch tequila and he tells me about gover to kill myself.
all the new underage anorexic traumatised
assets to the nuthouse,i tell him about all
the dour german accountants i've fucked
and ripped off last week,and then i moan
for a while about my sheffielder angel and
about wee andy and about my dodgy
neighbour and about my nefarious scottish
pimp,and then i stop moaning,unzip his
pants and jerk him off,afterwards he buys
me breakfast in a seedy coastal pub that's
full of old boisterous swedish whores and
cocky mancunian heroin pushers and
handsome french porn directors and their
hostile slavonic crew,breakfast is irish cof-
fee and fried mackerels,i give my break-
fast to an obese english setter that's lying
in front of the jukebox,after breakfast we
order stellas and shots of whisky,we down
them and leave the pub,we walk to the
dunes,the kinky nightnurse is rambling
about all the skinny doe-eyed flemish or-
phan boys who bared their souls and wee
underage genitals to him last night,i put
my hands to my ears and bury my head in
the sand,the kinky nightnurse rips off my
jeans and knickers and arsefucks me,it
 Bullet No 57
Super Size Her
Gary6 (Weston Super Mare, UK)
It never really bothered me, all that
banging and moaning and desperation
seeping through the walls. I guess it
should have done but it didn’t. Not even
when the knocking started which turned
into pawing, scraping, scratching and
finally the crying of desperate realisa-
tion that the only person who could help
wouldn’t. It was simply something that
had to be done, if she wanted to
achieve her ideal weight.
Eventually though, I had to do some-
thing, go in make sure she was okay
that she was er well functional.
Me and Marlene had been together
about four months by that time. Met on
the Internet as us BBW lovers usually do.
Yeah there’s parties but the Internet is
the best, you get to be more personal
that way, get to know each other first.
Personality’s important. We met in a few
pubs had a few dates, got on really
well, only trouble was she wasn’t big
enough, didn’t have enough flesh on
her but I liked her, I really liked her, I
didn’t want to give her up.
We started to have, you know, relations, scaffolding I’d set up over her bed.
be proper girlfriend and boyfriend and
she said she was in love but she knew
she could tell there was something
gnawing away at the back of my mind. it. The pipe in her mouth and the needle
“What’s the matter love, you can tell
Marlene.”
”You know I love you don’t you?”
”Of course, darling, we’ve made love
haven’t we? You wouldn’t do that if you I ignored her, I had to, she needed to
didn’t love me would you?” Her eyes
and filled it with the fat and left it winched her back on to the bed and
over her mouth. She’d drink it, got her on her back again, at least
widened and her arm caressed mine.
she’d have to. that way she could breathe more
She was beautiful. Straight black hair,
easily.
big wide blue eyes and a face like a cir-
Three months she was like that. I’d
cular cherub. Innocent, bulbous, per-
fill the cylinder up every night when I looked at her, small face at apex of
fect. Marlene’s body was a size twenty
she was asleep and I had my night a blubber mountain. Big round eyes
and her breasts sagged just nicely, she
goggles on. Didn’t want to see her, pupils dilated in the dim dusk nether
was maybe five foot tall and an outgo-
didn’t want to talk. Had to be new. world she’d lived in these last three
ing bubbly personality but underneath
Everything had to be new. Born months. Her hair was greasy and
she wasn’t as confident as she made
again. After a while though I had to lank and stuck in lumps to her
out, she’s been made too much fun of
do something. head. Bulbous layers of flat were
over the years. Too fat people said, not
stuck like kids plasticine all over.
for me she wasn’t.
I went in and disconnected the drip Some of the outer extremities were
“Look I’ve got an idea.”
and saw what had to be done. I going grey where the skin had died
went out and then came backing and turned hard like elephant flesh.
So I showed her the apparatus and she
again, this time dragging a bucket
said okay. Honest she did she really did.
of hot watery disinfectant and a She was done to perfection, then I
sponge form the shower. I began to looked into her eyes and you know,
At first she wasn’t too sure about the
wash her down. something was missing. That look of
pulleys, about being strapped up like
“Please, I don’t feel well, I can’t innocent pleasure she’d once taken
that, legs and arms in the air but I reas-
breathe.” in my attentions was gone. I’d done
sured her.
all this for her and now she resented
I kept on washing. me. I could tell. The magic was
“You’ll have space to grow, darling
“I thought you loved me.” gone. I got up and left.
Marlene.” And she believed me, she
trusted me.
I hooked her feet into one of the Left her to it.
stirrups and using the pulley pulled
I slipped the cradle underneath her and
her legs up. Helped me get to her
pulled the ropes through the pulleys
arse. I scraped and sponged the shit
and winches that were held up by the
away. It stank and I gagged but I
was sure it was going to be worth it.
“I’ll look after you, darling I really will”,
The water was getting filthy and I
pecked her on the cheek and left her to
needed a new batch so I left here
again. While I was out there was a
in her arm. Every day for three weeks I
thump. I ran back and there she
came in and attended to her ablutions
was on the floor.
then I’d go out and leave the telly on.
“Help me, help me” she wheezed.
“Michael wont you talk to me?”
Didn’t have much time left so I
be a new person. I connected the pipe
 Bullet No 58

The Zone
Mary MacKenzie (Christchurch, New Zealand)
Hate drives out fear. Simon had placed it there so
far back it now defined me but as my hands
squeezed tightly around his neck, I realised the
terror was gone. I released my grip and his body
collapsed to the floor. Simon lay there in a foetal
heap and for the first time in his life he looked like
a nobody. His Armani suit was wrinkled, dishev-
elled, bereft of its billowing insouciance, his fash-
ionable hairstyle, flecked with grey distinction,
flopped untidily on the carpet. All his power had
gone, all that had defined him, his charm, his elo-
quence, gone. Now he was nothing.
My hands retained the shape of the stranglehold
for seconds afterwards. Utter, utter disbelief set in,
no thoughts, no feelings, only a sensation of dull
uncertainty pervaded. Then, rising, like a billowing
of bubbles, came the questions.
What had I done? That much was plain to see. I’d
placed my hands round Simon’s neck and
squeezed until there was not a drop of life left.
Why had I done it? That was easy, this time he’d
gone too far, this time he’d misjudged me, this
time I’d gone right over the edge. What a mistake
that had been. For him certainly, maybe for me.
What do I do now? It was getting harder to answer I closed the door on his resting-place, the phone
these answers.
Would I get away with it? Even then I was intrigued hind my desk quickly flicking the mouser to lose
that I could ask such a question. To think of only
myself at such a time and with such diamond clar- There was a file open, Simon’s account. I closed it.
ity was probably the most shocking thing that had Ready, back to normal.
ever happened to me. I never knew I had it in me.
consider a loan application?
Stop asking questions, think move do.
There is a place that athletes go to when years of
training has left them able to turn pure thought
into action. They visualise an action and their body
just does it, faster than a speeding thought. The
ability to enter this zone is the difference between a
medal and nowhere. It’s going on the b of the
bang.
Something clicked and right then I entered the
zone myself. My mind was clear of self knowing,
my thoughts translated into actions so instantane-
ously it was as if I was pure electricity.
His body was lighter than I anticipated as I carried
him to the cupboard in the corner of my office.
Simon nestled like a baby in my arms, his body still
warm, his head flapped and lolled, his tongue
protruded purple in a way I thought only hap-
pened in cartoons. His skin was no longer apo-
plectic puce and his acquired tan had resumed its
glowing bronze.
Simon folded easily into the bottom of the cup-
board amongst the files, folders and stationery. As
rang, Andrea my secretary calling through my
10.20. I replaced the receiver and sat down be-
the screen saver, give an impression of work.
tainty, playing on my nerves. was no return to be had from such an invest-
ment, one look at Wyvern told me that. In this
What if he was alive? business you back people, you get a gut feeling
What if he was gone? and you go with that. You can always make the
What if I was caught? figures work if you have to but if you have no
Is there anybody watching? faith in the man behind the business, it’s all
As I opened the door, my hands began to pointless. This man was too close, it was his
shake, sweat gathered in beads all over my life, he couldn’t make redundant those he
body and a buzzing gnawed at my joints. The viewed as family, that would have been a be-
office, bathed in the blue whiteness of trayal. Wyvern still kept horses for god’s sake.
moonlight, was filled with an eerie stillness. I A decent man but out of his time and on his
checked momentarily, maybe it was the way out. There was nothing I could do.
strangeness of the light or creeping madness
but for a second I wondered if this was even my However, here in my office at midnight, with a
own office. Surely I couldn’t have made that corpse on the floor I looked at things a little
stupid a mistake, I carried on, my mind was differently. I picked up the phone and Wyvern
playing tricks but I had to get a grip. There was agreed to come straight away. We struck a
my desk, my spare suit hanging in the corner deal.
and directly ahead of me, the cupboard. A
split second later I was putting the key in the Of course it changed me that thing I did, but
lock and feeling Simon’s arm brush gently not in the way you’d think. It released me, set
against my trouser leg as it flopped out, life- me free. Till then I’d been like a diver clumping
less. Relief surged through me and immediately around at the bottom of the sea, but with
I was back in the Zone. Simon’s death, the weights had been taken off
and I’d risen to the top with a flurry of bubbles
I hauled Simon out. He seemed heavier some- and excitement. Power, money, respect, it all
how. Delicately and diligently I laid him on his came to me. I’d even had an affair with a
back on the floor. I straightened out the lines of woman half my age – a minor revenge, but it
his suit, brushed hair from his eyes and but- further enhanced my reputation. Harris? With
toned up his jacket. No doubt about it, he had her?
been a good-looking man, few women could
resist when he turned on the charm, Sue in- Sometimes though when I get a little down and
cluded. Still I wanted him to look good. Dignity need a pick me up I go back to my own little
is important, especially in death. It’s your final piece of paradise, a small one bedroom flat
statement, you have to get things right. It was just up Market Street. There, in a comfortable
imperative I paid him respect. After all nobody leather chair sits Simon, glassy eyed in his fa-
else would have the chance to. vourite Armani suit. There I can tell him of my
latest triumphs, achievements and conquests.
I thought back to my 10.20. Wyvern’s Funeral Most especially I like to tell him how happy I
Parlour, Mr Wyvern at his wits end, 3 genera- am, how the kids are growing up, how much
rd

I often work late so the security guard wasn’t sur- tion company going bust. Strange to think a money I’m making and how my hair seems to
Would I get away with it? prised to see me check in just before midnight. business as basic as that could lose money. My be growing back. It recharges the batteries.
That question stayed when all others had gone, “Evening Mr Harris” Wyvern though was from another more hon-
residual, heavy black, cold. It forced me outside “Evening Bob.” ourable time. He was steeped in sombre cere- Seeing Simon sitting there, solitary, not sleep-
myself and I began to think like I’d never thought “Late start tonight?” mony and I thought I detected a checked bow ing with my wife, not stealing my money, not
before. In that zone of icy certainty I saw only facts, “Yes, end of quarter figures. Head office need when we shook hands. I saw immediately why holding my career back with blackmail and
conclusions and plans. them by the end of the week.” they were going bust. People don’t want old extortion, I feel my powers return. He makes
“They’re nothing but slavedrivers, Mr Harris.” fashioned quality like Wyvern could offer, me happy. It’s what brothers are for.
Those cold calculations surprised me. I’m a hum- “It’s my own fault, I should have had them done by speed and efficiency are what counts these
ble bank manager, member of the Chamber of now” days.
Commerce, masonic nights every other month, “Fancy a cup of tea? I’ve got a brew on, help keep
married with two kids about to do their A levels. you awake?” Wyvern was respectful in his plea for money
I’m a pillar of the establishment, not a criminal, a “That’s okay, I’m not planning to be long” and I refused just as gracefully. I took no pleas-
murderer. Why was I now planning to dispose of I was nervous as I turned the door handle. Those ure in it but I had to think of the Bank. There
my brother’s body as dispassionately as I would questions came racing back, spreading uncer-
Bullet No 59

Sparkies I shrugged my shoulders and dabbed the cable on

Gareth Hall (Cardiff, Wales) You see these rich fuckers like to protect their hard- hand. The buzz convulsed me and I collapsed to
ware. So sometimes they get these laser guns that the ground. The cable fell.
shoot massive bolts of electricity right at you. The
game was this. Then you know what that fucking bitch went and
I and Tony put the crow bar to the lamp post and nothing. All we could do was have a little fun now did, she only went and shoved that cable right up
levered open the panel. In there were the cables. and then. Three twats have bin lids and they attract the fire my arse and fucking held it there. Fucking agony. I
Tony had the shears in his hands ready to snip the from the laser guns. The bolts hit the bin lids and burned to a fucking crisp. Dead as a fucking dodo
wires as I held them out like a sacrificial lamb. On my way back from the cop pod I felt a tingle in bounce off our way. If you wanted a shot of leccy in five seconds flat.
my back. I turned and saw a punchie behind me. you had to dive for it, catch the laser. Top blast.
Blue sparks threw, serious. Saliva dropped from Fuck! I ran, hard as fuck but the bastard was on me. I floated out over everything and saw her run away.
Tony’s mouth. I got a hard on just thinking about it. Had no fucken chance, got me to the ground, kept Joey and Tweedy headed off for the light show and Saw her get back to her three up two down, her
kicking me in the head and the arms till a hover car I was about to do the same when I saw a flash of homely little husband and two kids.
Tony looked at me. I looked at him and nodded. pulled up. Just as the fat cop got out, we both got blonde hair. That woman again, running away
Tony stabbed the juice and the current flew through up, running, mad maniac laughter bursting out of from the light show. Fuck it I thought, she had to be What did she fucking do that for eh? Everything
me. I bounced back three yards and staggered into a our lungs. more interesting than a bunch of forty year old vir- thing in the world she had and she had to do
wall. Dazed, I looked up and saw Tony close his eyes gins getting their kicks from shots of blue and something like that.
and touch the cut cable to his crotch. His pants went Ten minutes and I was at the barbed wire gates of green light. I followed her up the ramp and out the
up in a blue flame. I blacked out. the hostel, easing myself through, hoping nobody car park. I fucking well went to see her in spirit form like and
would see me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed confronted her; I mean I wasn’t going to let her get
When I came to, there was the warden, hands slap- something move, something blond. She turned and saw me and she nodded towards a away with it.
ping my face, waking me up. yellow fed skip. It was dark behind there; I could
“Hey you, boyo. Wake yourself up there lad.” I I turned. A woman. I stared and I knew she knew I feel spunk start to drip. Was this me going to pop I floated down in front of her and after she recov-
flashed a look towards Tony. He wasn't there. The was staring at her. I must have spooked her as she my cherry? Before the age of 40? I’d heard of birds ered from the surprise she said this:
warden saw me look for my mukka. His black mous- averted her eyes and moved on hurriedly. I forgot like her, they liked a quick bit of rough, spiced up
tache on an up turned lip flickered. about her, I had better things to think about. I had to their lives. I was bored, I needed to do something extreme,
“Aw laddie, he’s gone.” get myself cleaned up and in bed by curfew. It was a “You a sparkie?” for once in my life, put myself in danger. And I
I laughed. Only way to go. special day tomorrow, didn’t want to ruin it. Tomor- “Yeah?” knew nobody would miss scum like you.”
row I was going to be thirty eight. “What’s it like?”
The warden shoved me in the hover car and took me It was a bad night’s sleep like they usually are but “What’s what like?” Fucking cheeky bitch.
in. The police pod was a click away. They frisked me the bracelet buzzed me awake at the normal time. “The electricity.”
down, checked my id tab and let me go, several The vid flickered into action listing stuff they wanted “Oh that. Alright I suppose.”
credits down on the plastic. It was worth it, despite me to do today. I ignored it. “Is that all? Why do you do it then?”
Tony. “Gareth you fat fucker!” “Nothing else to do I suppose.”
Tweedy's voice boomed from the screen. “But it hurts doesn’t it?”
I walked home; the warm bland air was just what I “Heard about Tony?” “Fills in the time.”
needed. “Forget about it Gareth, move on boyo. He went the “Can….can I try some?” She was looking coy now
Cardiff had been like this for fifty years. Told us way all of us want to.” and I started to lose interest. Shag looked well out
about it at school. Global warming meant every day “He’s the lucky one. I don’t wanna be on this earth of the question now. But you never know.
was exactly the same as the last cept maybe in Feb- till I’m sixty.”
ruary when we got a little bit of rain. Boy that was “Saw a tart yesterday.” She didn’t look anything like them girls in the vids.
big time for us sparkies, we’d all get out there on our “No!” They were all thin and tanned and long legs. She
bikes and splash around till the wardens eventually “Yeah, gorgeous she was too. Blonde hair.” was stumpy with frizzed up blonde hair. Christ she
rounded us up or chased us back to our hostels. “You lucky bastard. All I get are fat old bints you looked even older than me. Her skin was all pock
wouldn’t fuck if you were being paid.” marked and layered in make up. Black roots came
But they stopped us like they always do. Can’t have “I would, me I’d fuck anything.” through the bottom of her hair. If I hadn’t been so
any fun these days without it impinging on some “So’d I. What do you reckon it’s like Gareth? You desperate I wouldn’t’ve fancied her at all, quite
other fuckers rights. As for having a laugh? Fucken reckon it’s like in those porno vids?” plain she was really.
forget it. That was frowned upon. Big time. Joey’s name came up on the liquid crystal. “Come on then.”
“Yo bwanas! There’s madness on down the under- She followed me to the lamp post in the street out-
Most everybody was happy see, had everything they ground garage. Someone’s installed one of those side the car park. I dropped the crow bar from my
wanted in their little lives. Plenty of money, plenty of anti vandal guns down there. sleeve and levered open the cover. I nipped
holidays, plenty of gadgets. Maybe that’s why the I was down there ten minutes later. through a cable and held it out to her. She backed
men have been firing blanks these last twenty years. away.
No sense of danger, nothing to give them a hard on. The beams were flashing as me, Joey and Tweedy “What’s the matter like?”
Everyone had everything ‘cept us Sparkies and climbed through the battered metal fencing and “You first.”
Punchies. We had fuck all. No jobs, no respect, no watched the light show.
Bullet No 60
Sadie
Lauren Frenz (Manchester, UK)
Big Dave Malheureuse walked into the café
wearing a huge black Paul Smith overcoat and
an exasperated expression. He found Sadie’s
table, sat down and spread fat banana hands
on the Formica. Dave sighed. It couldn’t carry
on like this.
“Sadie doll, what the fuck you playing at?” Sym-
pathetic was not what he did well.
“What’s the matter? Not got the balls to kill a
woman?” Sadie bored cold angry eyes hard at
Dave.
“A woman yes, you no.”
“I’ve paid you.”
“Here.”
Dave handed back his fee wrapped up in a
Tesco carrier bag. She pushed it right back at
him.
“You doing refunds now?”
“Just for you. Only for you.” He smiled sheep-
ishly and the conversation stopped. Neither had
a clue what to say or do. Dave got up and
walked. Sadie sat staring at the bag.
FLASH
Sadie’s walking down the street. She’s out shop-
ping, spending that fee, the cold hard cash she’s
blowing on herself, trying to make herself feel
that somehow she’s worth it; but it isn’t working.
There still lurks that dread, that wondering why
she bothers and if living is nothing more than
just wading through treacle then what is the
point?
It’s a quiet day at the shopping mall, but people
still bustle, carrier bags in hand, oblivious to
everything but themselves. Shopping malls aren’t
healthy places for Sadie right now so she heads
to the railway station, a vague notion of travel in
her mind. Down the street she walks, takes a
short cut down an alley.
She stops, there’s a guy there and he ain’t look-
ing good. The blood has gone from his flesh,
black encircles his eyes, and crack twitches his
bones. He sees the bag and somehow senses
what’s in there. In an extravagant arc, he pulls
out a knife, and waves it like a hypnotist. It looks
right for him, broken down, no handle, serrated
edge, rusty. It barely works, but it does, just
enough.
“Money, fucking money.” It’s like he’s had a jolt
of electricity whacked through him and he stag-
gers forward. Sadie spots her opportunity, smiles
and falls forward.
FLASH
Big Dave Malheureuse walks into the ward, still
wearing his black Paul Smith overcoat and carry-
ing a big bunch of yellow carnations in his hand.
His fat face, red with panic and burst capillaries
is twitching nervously. He’s terrified of what he’s
about to see.
He lets out a deep wheezing sigh as he sees
Sadie, seemingly okay. There’s a drip attached
to her arm and she’s drugged to the eye balls.
Still she’s breathing and functional despite that
bandage on her shoulder.
Dave sits in the chair beside her bed, clutching
the garage bought flowers like a nervous date.
He waits for her to notice he’s there. Minutes
turn to hours but he stays there, motionless fo-
cused on her, mind blank, meditating on Sadie
and what he can do for her. Given his line of
work there is only one thing he can do but he
ain’t going to do it.
Eventually she begins to surface. She moves and
then realises someone’s there. She rolls towards
him and Dave puts his arms out to catch her.
Sadie smiles blearily at him.
Embarrassed, Dave gets up and begins to ar-
range the flowers as delicately as fat, clumsy,
killing hands will allow.
“This is your fault Dave. Leave it to an amateur
and look what happens.”
Dave sits down and takes her hand.
“Like I said Sadie, I don’t do friends.”
“Friends help out, do things for people. I need
help Dave, you can help me. Only you can “Guess I’m all out on that one.”
help me.” “You got other things going on. But I don’t
wanna marry you or shit like that.”
Exhausted by the effort she falls back in her “Then what you doing all this for?”
bed and stares glumly at the ceiling. Dave ”Friends do what they think is right for their
shifts uncomfortably, he feels the need to friends.”
justify himself. "Rich coming from you."
“If I was an accountant, I’d do your books. “I ain’t done right in my life except for this,
If I was a solicitor, I’d write your will. If I was Sadie. Except for this. Come on gimme a
a priest I’d take your confession. If I was break.”
anything else I’d do anything else for you.
But I am what I am and I cannot do this FLASH
Sadie. Sadie, this is too much.” Sadie’s back home now standing at a For-
“Mr. Soft guy huh?” mica work surface in her kitchen. Brown
He squeezes her hand. glass bottles are open and spread in front
“Don’t tell anybody.” of her. At least Dave didn’t take her back to
the hospital but now she’s angry, she’ll
FLASH show him.
Sadie’s finally made it to the railway station. “Fat bastard telling me what to do.”
Felt the need to move, go somewhere, do She opens a bottle of whisky and pours half
something, take control. There’s a train into a glass. Then she takes one of those
coming and the platform is packed. She’s pestle and mortars she got one year when
wearing Dave’s overcoat on top of her hos- she fancied herself a serious cook. Into it
pital bed clothes. Dave went for a coffee she pours all the pills she can find. Hang-
and she took his precious Paul Smith over- over cures, paracetamol, those pink and
coat while he was away. Her ribs are burn- yellow things she got on prescription for her
ing from the knife wound and she feels a depression. She grinds them all up into a
dampness begin to grow as the blood seeps lumpy grey powder and pours it into the
through the bandage. Her bare feet are whisky.
stinging from the inadvertent tramplings
she’s getting in the crush. She gulps it down in five or six coughing,
gasping drafts. The doorbell rings, there’s a
The train comes banging into the station, banging on the door. A smile spreads
she closes her eyes and falls forward and across her face.
then…… “Too late fat boy.”
A hand grabs the belt and pulls her back. FLASH
She turns and sees Dave. Her heart sinks,
quickly replaced by a rising anger.
“Dave please, let me go.”
“Nope Sadie. You can’t just give it away like
that.”
“My God what are you doing this for? Are
you in love with me?”
“In general yes, romantically no.”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you fancy me?”
“Nah. You’re not my type.”
“You got a type?”
“We all got types.”
“What’s your type?”
“Women who ain’t nuts.”
 BULLET HEROES
No 7—Jim Thompson
well developed tendency to self-destruct was his life. Stroke after stroke attacked him till
only exacerbated by this affliction. The one finally he’d had enough. Sick of hospitals
time he did manage to make it big (with his and maybe of life, he starved himself to
novel “Nothing More Than Murder”) he death, it was the only dignified self controlled
It’s a bleak and cruel world…. palatable, how much it hurts, is what gives
managed to blow it all on booze, leaving action left to him
Thompson’s writing its power. I cannot read a
him back where he started. But this was just
Hell yeah! Jim Thompson, writer of “The Grifters”, novel of his without feeling dirty, like he’s taking
one setback amongst many and through it Jim Thompson never compromised, he stuck
“The Killer Inside Me” and a whole whole lot the slime of whatever criminal he’s talking about
all he didn’t stop writing, he couldn’t. The it through to the end; his dying said every-
more. Welcome to the hallowed ranks of the Bul- and he’s spreading it all over me as I read. The
man redefined the term prolific and in one thing about the man. That is the lesson for us
let Heroes. Man you deserve it. dirt just oozes from the page, at once enthralling
spectacular 18 month burst in the fifties pro- at Bullet, be hard, be uncompromising be-
with the lean speedy splendour of his style and
duced 12 novels. cause there are some things worth believing
Jim is the archetypal noir writer, well known and sickening you that you belong to the same human
in some things you cannot betray no matter
beloved amongst the ranks of crime aficionados race as this low life he’s describing.
Thompson had joined the Communist party the cost.
but mysteriously overlooked outside. This is a
in the thirties and that was to do him no fa-
shame given the power and longevity of his work, Take “The Killer Inside Me”. A tight short book
vours in the fifties. He was blacklisted by Jim Thompson is a Bullet Hero and we hope
but then nothing much ever did work for Jim. De- about a psychopathic Sheriff. It’s a great set-up.
McCarthy and work was hard to come by. he’s up there laughing his pants off at the
spite the classics and the brushes with celebrity Just think of the perks of this particular job if
However, Kubrick came to his rescue and success and acclaim that should have been
the guy is not held in the sort of esteem Chandler you’re a serial killer, think of the low lifes you can
commissioned him to write “The Killing”, a due to him when he was alive.
and Hammett are, and he should be, oh yes, he do away with when the mood takes you. The
seminal piece of work that was subsequently
really is that good. Sheriff is so down home so ordinary and above
to influence Scorsese, Ellroy and Tarantino. Jimmy my boy, welcome to the club.
all a cop that he is able to, literally, get away with
But, as usual, that mild success didn’t last
Thompson published prolifically throughout his murder.
long and he was back to pounding out
career, he worked with Kubrick and wrote one of
cheap novels to whoever would pay him to
the all time classic noir films “The Killing”. But Probably the most well known of his books is “The
do so. Eventually his health gave way to the
when he died he was stony broke, all his books Grifters” turned by Stephen Frears into a high
murderous battering his alcohol intake had
were out of his print and he was forgotten, no quality film starring Angelica Huston and John
subjected it to. In 1960 he had a stroke and
more than a literary footprint, disregarded, a Cusack. It’s all about a low life con artist stuck in
his health would be a constant hindrance for
mere writer of pulp. Yet on his dying bed he pro- an oedipal fixation with his Mom. She clearly has
the rest of his life.
claimed to his wife that one day his true recogni- no instincts, maternal or otherwise, other than
tion would come, such was his own unbreakable self-preservation and the denouements in the film
He continued to write though, what else
belief in his own abilities. And lo it has come to and book are stark and brutal, qualities that are
could he do? Anything as it happens. He did
pass. Jim is now beginning to be recognized by absolute hallmarks of Thompson’s work.
anything for a buck. Scripts for Dr Kildare
the eggheads as one of the great American writ-
and Ironside, but in the sixties he produced
ers. The guy is proving himself right and if he’s Like all Thompson’s characters, glamour doesn’t
maybe his finest novels “Pop 1280” and
not already in the pantheon of American writers rank high. His protagonists are weak cowardly
“The Grifters.”
that include Faulkner, Chandler, Steinbeck and individuals looking for a short cut that always
Hammett then he very shortly will be. goes wrong. Just like you and me eh?
By the seventies he was finished, health wise
and creatively. There was the odd novel and
Jim Thompson was the ultimate outsider, born to It was his time working as a bell hop in the twen-
he worked up a script for Sam Peckinpah’s
an immigrant family and part Cherokee, he rev- ties that gave him his unique insight into the
“The Getaway”, based on Thompson’s novel.
elled in his distance from decent WASP society. shadier side of life. There he saw the Grift at first
Peckinpah hated the script and brought in
Maybe that was the source of his literary power; hand and the libidinous greed that drives men
Walter Hill to sort it out.
being that distant from everybody meant he could and women. Working at the Hotel Texas he made
observe what ordinary people did to each other a few bucks on the side procuring booze, women
Thompson had one last hurrah. Dick Rich-
their motives crystal clear revealing the common- and occasionally drugs for the low lifes that
ards was directing “Farewell My Lovely” with
place evils that lurk within us all. needed a cheap thrill to get them through the
Robert Mitchum. Fan that he was, he asked
night.
Thompson to make an appearance as Judge
That forensic dissection of guilt and evil, the unre-
Grayle. He did a good job and he enjoyed it
lenting, unremitting hardness of his pursuit of the It was here he first had a drink and it was a rela-
but the good times didn’t last long as they
wrong doer, the unwillingness, inability to shy tionship that haunted him for the rest of his life.
wouldn't in a Thompson novel, never mind
away from the truth no matter how hard, how un- Alcoholism dogged him all his life, his already
REVIEWS - NOIR
“Kiss Her Goodbye” – Al Guthrie (HardCase)
“Two Way Split” – Al Guthrie (PointBlank)
“Grifter’s Game” – Lawrence Block (Hard Case)
“Fade to Blonde” – Max Phillips (Hard Case)
“Sleep with the Devil” – Day Keene (Noir Originals)
Here’s the thing, why does Al Guthrie
have to go all the way to America to get
his stuff published? What’s wrong with the
UK that Ian Rankine gets all the kudos
and this guy; writing about the same Ed-
inburgh; gets such short shrift in his
homeland. Here he has 2 books, virtually
at the same time, by two different Ameri-
can imprints. Nuts. I guess that says it all
about UK publishing, for them crime is
still about cops solving crimes, good guys
and bad guys. Truth is; the world is irritat-
ingly painted in delicate shades of grey
and that’s a wee bit complicated. Maybe
it doesn’t sell, maybe it hasn’t had a
chance to sell but we need real writers
who tell the truth. Writers like Al Guthrie.
Al is special, but then you’ll know that
from the stories we’ve had the privilege of
publishing in previous issues of Bullet. But
here’s the news, he’s getting better, he’s
getting major.
Al writes about the rough end of Edin-
burgh, a grim place but one you’ll imme-
diately recognize because it also exists just
down the road from you. A place where
ASBO’s are a badge of honour and nasty
neighbours outweigh the law-abiding two
to one. Drugs and loan sharks loom large
in this world and the cops are noticeable
by their absence.
“Kiss Her Goodbye” published by the
hugely exciting Hard Case Crime imprint
is Al’s second novel. It tells the story of an
Edinburgh debt collector who suffers the
loss of his daughter by suicide and then is
framed for the murder of his wife. He’s a
bad man but not as bad as his associates,
he won’t kill no one but he doesn’t mind
taking his beloved baseball bat to miscre-
ants late on their debt repayments. By the
middle of the book it’s fairly apparent
who did what to whom but that doesn’t
matter. We become more concerned
about the revenge the guy is desperate to
wreak on the people who’ve fucked up his
life than the whodunnit that drives the plot
forward. This is a good solid slice of gritty
urban noir and well worth forking out for.
So there I was thinking hey, well done Al,
good stuff but you know nothing earth
shattering. Then I read “Two Way Split”
and I gotta say it’s a stone cold classic.
Elsewhere you will see Al’s top 100 noir
novels, say hello to No 101. “Two Way
Split” is the most exciting novel I’ve read
since Ellroy put out “White Jazz” all those
years ago. It has everything, great charac-
ters, a cute little guessing game and a
sharp immensely satisfying cut up ap-
proach to the structure.
At its heart is the story of a post office
hold up gone wrong but this is simply the
catalyst to an unfolding horror show
driven by greed jealousy and hatred. Bul-
let fans get out there NOW and buy this
thing, it really is that good. The only thing
Al has to worry about now is how he’s go-
ing to top this one. the Devil” by Day Keene, a great,
sexy, if dated blast from the past. Al’s
Hard Case Crime is a beautiful doing great work for noir, get out
throw back in that they publish new there and support him.
and classic noir in a set of covers that
shriek pulp. Only available in the US www.allanguthrie.co.uk
but check out their website, you might www.hardcasecrime.com
get lucky. They’ve re-issued an old www.pointblankpress.com
Lawrence Block novel “Grifter’s
Game” aka “Mona”. The problem
I’ve always had with Block is that for
me he’s of the second rank, not to be
sniffed at of course but he ain’t no
Hammett or Chandler. Then again
not many people are. He is, though
able to churn out highly enjoyable
and satisfying crime novels that fill the
gaps between the big stuff. “Grifter’s
Game” is a good example. Basically
it’s “Double Indemnity” with highly
effective noir stylings. What sets it
apart though, is the ending. Dark,
brutal and vicious, taking the story to
a place JM Cain never knew existed.
A new novel from Hard Case is
“Fade to Blonde” by Max Phillips, a
highly competent stroll through the
usual noir clichés. I don’t mean that
as an insult but it’s all there, the
smart guy hero down on his luck, a
two faced damsel in distress, the bru-
tal gangsters, but it’s done with a
pleasing style and panache that is al-
ways satisfying. Check the Hardcase
website to see how you can get hold
of their stuff.
Back to Al Guthrie again. You want
great noir? Check out his Noir Origi-
nals website where you can buy and
download a range of long lost noir
classics. Great books like “Sleep with
 REVIEWS - ROCK’N’ROLL
No Wow – The Kills Senor Smoke – Electric Six
Little Steven’s Underground Garage Sympathetic Sounds of Montreal There’s the occasional flash of wit and hu- prove is that rock’n’roll didn’t begin in the fif-
le Nouveau Rock’n’roll Francais – Various Carbon Silicon mour but it doesn’t last long, its just too stiff, ties with some white guy in Memphis, hell no,
I’ve Been a Bad, Bad, Bad Girl – Various too well produced and, worst of all, there ain't remember this is a black music of the forties
no attitude. Valentine has it in him to be a and you can begin to see just how rich the
great rock singer, he just has to get a decent tapestry is.
Man! I’m gonna move me to Montreal!” greater sense of commercial nous with bright band together and remember he ain’t god’s
That’s where it’s happening if the Sympathetic synths and pretty tunes that no doubt will see gift. Talking of the forties, Mick Jones has teamed
Sounds of Montreal is anything to go by. Sympa- some of them break out. We ain’t got anything up with Tony James to form a new band
thy for the Record Industry have hit upon one of against anybody making a buck though and this is These two albums depressed me, not because called Carbon Silicon. I got really excited
the most happening scenes in the world and have a pretty good album, worth picking up if you can they’re poor (No Wow is pretty listenable, cer- about this. Tony James is probably
presented it in all its glory in a fantastic new com- get it cheap. tainly compared to Senor Smoke) but because rock’n’roll’s last great theoretician and from
pilation. Now I’m always a bit suspicious about it left me in a quandary, these guys were the the website this kinda looked like his band
round ups of local scenes, as they tend to focus on If there were two bands that woke me up to the standard bearers totemic almost, so if these with Mick Jones along for the ride. How
the label’s favourites at the expense of other less possibility of rock’n’roll heaving itself from out of guy’s were fucking up who could you turn to wrong can you be. This is Mick Jones’s band
well managed or promoted bands. This however, the grave, brushing off the grimy clay and picking next? in every way, he’s the singer and main song
feels different. For a start there’s 11 bands here up a guitar and a side order of attitude then it has writer. Wanna know what they sound like?
each with their own sound yet all heading in the to be the Kills and the Electric Six. The Kills espe- Until only a few months ago the place you Big Audio Dynamite without the hip hop influ-
same direction, like they’ve been brought up lis- cially were of interest to Bullet. Their m.o. was dirty turned to was John Peel and of course he’s ence.
tening to exactly the same records. They specialise grunge blues with an iconography based on gone so where to now? Well you could do
in a whiny, scratchy, bratty, trashy rock’n’roll aes- Bonny and Clyde. They even had a couple of de- worse than Little Steven’s Underground Ga-
thetic big on energy and attitude which after all is cent songs which is always a bonus. “No Wow” rage show. Yep that bloke out of Bruce
what it’s all about. There really isn’t a bad track pretty much carries on where the first album left, Springsteens’ band that’s also in the So-
on here, but the stand outs are the Cut Offs who which is kinda disappointing, almost as disap- pranos and who covers up his baldness with a
sound like a young and punky, the Scat Rag pointing as their recent shows in fact. Something bandana. For some years, he’s been champi-
Boosters who play degenerate blues and the needs to happen with these two, something that oning a garage sound which on closer exami-
Cheating Hearts who well, just rock your pants off. shakes ‘em up, addresses the dour meanness of nation is down and dirty, classic rock and roll.
Montreal, whodda thunk it. their music. It’s their strength and their Achilles He’s a great presenter dripping with presence
heel. What they’re missing is abandon, everything and a sense of having been there. The music
Sort of ploughing the same territory is the album is too controlled, too full of menace and suspense. covers rock’n’roll from the fifties to the mod-
compiled by ex-Subway Sect and Joboxer Sean My guess is they’d write a great novel, trouble is ern day and although his modern day taste is
McLusky. Le Nouveau Rock’n’roll Francais tries to that’s not the game they’re in. Still they’re interest- a little suspect, it all works within a historical
make the argument that the best rock’n’roll bands ing and always worth coming back to in a nag- context. The Underground shows are often
are coming out of France right now. Well they ging kinda way. thematic, those celebrating the release of
ain’t, they’re coming out of Montreal as I’ve just “Chronicles” and the Stones’ “Rock and Roll
explained and there ain’t nobody on this album The Kills have addressed the second album rea- Circus” were especially invigorating. If you
who can get anywhere near the Thermals or the sonably adroitly, the next one should be great if got broadband, check him out there’s over
Little Killers or Guitar Wolf but there are some they can get a real band together and drop the 150 shows to plough through.
gems on here and it’s a welcome calling card for drum machine and learn to let go a little more.
some interesting bands emerging out of a very The next few years look like being a great
healthy French scene. Stand out tracks are “The Whilst “No Wow” doesn’t quite hit the heights at time for the rock’n’roll aficionado as a slew of
Cheeraks” with a distorted punk rock Iggy-esque least they haven’t fucked it up as badly as Electric stuff from the forties and fifties being hurled
track, Blutt with a convincing Wire meets Dick Dale Six have with their new album “Senor Smoke”. I at us in every direction. Classic recordings are
Boy in Brazil, Barth, Volt and Electronic mine the mean “Radio Ga Ga” for fuck’s sake. The album now emerging from copyright and being re-
Suicide approach to rock’n’roll and Lili Z just majors on the second rate fillers that stopped the packaged into compilations that redefine the
sound real sexy. Plus there’s a track by the Proto- first becoming the stone cold classic it could have word value. Take “I’m a Bad Bad Girl” a su-
types that sounds like I’ve known it all my life, it been. I should have realised what was going on perbly packaged compilation of “seven dozen
ain't rock’n’roll as Bullet likes it but it should be when Valentine sacked his band just as they hit the dusky divas”. 87 songs that you can pick up
huge. charts, looks like he lost the talent as well as his from Amazon for only £11.99. Get moving,
shot at the big time. What is revealed is a mid- and fill yer boots.
In stark comparison to Montreal, the French scene west 70’s rock aesthetic, a world where Styx and
has one eye on making it big. There is a far the Alan Parsons Project are top of the tree. Of course the other thing these compilations
REVIEWS - FICTION
Who the Hell is Frank Wilson? – Pete McKenna
21 songs – Nick Hornby
LitRiffs – Various: ed Malcolm Miele
The Punk – Gideon Sams
There is one huge enormous truth right
at the beginning of Who the Hell is Frank
Wilson. It is revealed when the northern
soul loving “hero” of the novel goes to
his lock up and opens it up to reveal pic-
tures of sixties soul stars and box upon
box upon box of records. There, right in
the centre, given pride of place in this
tatty little storage space is his bright and
shiny scooter. It is then, there in that
place with all his acquired cultural arte-
facts around him that he feels truly
deeply and most recognizably himself. It
is the music, the culture, the scooter that
defines him and best articulates who he
is.
I guess that works for all of us who love
music, literature, films, art, whatever. It is
those things we choose to do or enjoy
that best express who we are that allow
us complete self realisation. I’ve never
seen it better articulated than in this
book, in fact “Frank Wilson” may be the
only book to reveal this truth for so much
of popular music is taken up with stars
myth and legend, drugs, music and
glamour that we forget that the true
power lies in its ability for the inarticulate
to have a vehicle that inherently ex-
presses themselves. Music isn’t for those
who make it; it’s for those who choose to
become part of it.
It’s a wonderful thing to express; sadly
it’s the only wonderful thing about this
novel. The style, the plotting, the charac-
terization, is bad, inept and sadly in need
of a decent editor. I suspect the book is
self-published and you can see why no-
body else would publish it. Publishers
must get this sort of thing piling through
their letter boxes by the hundred every-
day. It feels like a poor third draft and in
need of a total re-write. The plot (an ex-
pensive rare soul record goes missing
chaos ensues) is flimsy. I won’t bore you
any further. Steer well clear.
“Frank Wilson” is just one of a spate of
books inspired by music that have hit the
shelves in the last few months. I guess
they were kicked off by Nick Hornby’s 21
Songs, which if you don’t know by now,
is a list of some of his favourite and not
so favourite songs. It’s written in the
usual self-deprecatory style that’s
brought him millions but you gotta be
suspicious of anybody who gets quite
that excited over Nelly Furtado or Bruce
Springsteen. His big give away is his dis-
missal of Suicide’s Frankie Teardrop. His
argument is that as he’s in his forties
now, he doesn’t have to listen to music as
unpleasant as this. It’s a book dedicated
to a man announcing he’s giving up and
settling for the easy life, where
sonic/intellectual challenges are no
longer on the agenda. All he wants to do
his settle into a groove, carry on with his
writing and listen to nice bits of music
now and then. Depressing isn’t it?
Walking in the same territory is “Lit Riffs”,
a collection of short stories “inspired” by
songs. I use the quotation marks advis-
edly. A lot of them have the feel of some-
thing they’d previously knocked off for
some other purpose, now crow view in Mojo last year. Having now
barred the story into the brief. Check read it the mythology around it baf-
out the story apparently inspired by fles me. It was written by a 14 year
“Highway to Hell”. Others such as “I old and was not meant for publica-
shot the Sheriff” by Toure are almost tion and in fact was sitting in the bun
literal interpretations of the song when Sams’ alert mother hauled it
they’re drawn from. out, dusted it down and persuaded
someone to publish it. The best thing
The idea is a great one, literature in- to be said about it is that for a four-
spired by music, it is after all what teen year old, it’s excellent, as a
Bullet is about, the trick that Matthew grown up novel, its painful. It does
Miele has missed is in challenging work on one level, though and that
his writers to really address the aes- is as a swift glimpse into what it was
thetic being expressed by the song. like to live in the seventies. It gives
There is no attempt to take inspira- you a gritty and pungent reminder of
tion from the spirit, rhythm, sonic as- why punk rock happened, so from
sault expressed within the songs. It’s that respect it is an invaluable docu-
a real opportunity missed. ment, but approach with caution
and low expectations.
The book was inspired by Lester
Bangs “Maggie May” which frankly
was never his greatest moment.
You’d be better off getting
“Carburettor Dung” where this story
first featured.
Nelson George’s piece is inspired by
James Brown works but you feel
there’s a lot more where that came
from, the rest is well you may well
get more enjoyment out of it than I
ever could, approach with caution.
The other music inspired piece of fic-
tion to emerge lately is “The Punk”
by Gideon Sams. This “legendary”
piece of fiction was published at the
height of punk fervour in 1977 and
its myth has grown with each pass-
ing year. To be honest, speaking as
someone with a passionate addic-
tion to classic punk rock I’d never
heard of the thing until I saw a re-
 AUTHOR! AUTHOR! - Al Guthrie 1959 WILD TO POSSESS Gil Brewer
1959 THE REAL COOL KILLERS Chester Himes
1960 THE THREE-WAY SPLIT Gil Brewer
“So Al,” we said “you’ve just written 2 fantastic novels, how about telling us what your top 5 1960 THE SYNDICATE Clarence Cooper
novels and rock’n’roll records are” . So Al said “How about I send you a list of 100 of the great- 1960 THE MERCENARIES Donald Westlake
est noir novels of all time?” “That’ll do us” we said. 1961 FELONY TANK Malcolm Braly
1929 RED HARVEST Dashiell Hammett 1961 SLOW BURN Jack Ehrlich
1931 THE GLASS KEY Dashiell Hammett 1962 THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH Dan Marlowe
1931 BODIES ARE DUST P J Wolfson 1962 THE BOX Peter Rabe
1933 MISS LONELYHEARTS Nathanael West 1963 DEAD CALM Charles Williams
1934 THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE James M Cain 1964 POP. 1280 Jim Thompson
1935 DOUBLE INDEMNITY James M Cain 1967 ON THE YARD Malcolm Braly
1935 THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY? Horace McCoy 1967 TRICK BABY Iceberg Slim
1937 THIEVES LIKE US Edward Anderson 1967 PICK-UP Charles Willeford
1938 NIGHT AND THE CITY Gerald Kersh 1968 THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN Mai Sjowall&Par Wahloo
1939 NO ORCHIDS FOR MISS BLANDISH James Hadley Chase 1969 MONA (aka GRIFTER’S GAME) Lawrence Block
1940 FAREWELL, MY LOVELY Raymond Chandler 1969 SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS Paul Kavanagh
1940 THEY DON'T DANCE MUCH James Ross 1976 GUNS Ed McBain
1940 THE BRIDE WORE BLACK Cornell Woolrich 1978 FALLING ANGEL William Hjortsberg
1946 THE DEADLY PERCHERON John Franklin Bardin 1978 THE SWITCH Elmore Leonard
1946 THE BUTTERFLY James M Cain 1980 THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Marc Behm
1946 BUILD MY GALLOWS HIGH Geoffrey Holmes 1981 THE PRONE GUNMAN Jean-Patrick Manchette
1947 PRELUDE TO A CERTAIN MIDNIGHT Gerald Kersh 1984 HE DIED WITH HIS EYES OPEN Derek Raymond
1948 KISS TOMORROW GOODBYE Horace McCoy 1985 THE DEVIL'S HOME ON LEAVE Derek Raymond
1949 THE DEAD STAY DUMB James Hadley Chase 1990 I WAS DORA SUAREZ Derek Raymond
1951 PORTRAIT IN SMOKE Bill Ballinger 1991 PAYBACK Russell James
1951 13 FRENCH STREET Gil Brewer 1994 SLAUGHTER MUSIC Russell James
1951 CASSIDY'S GIRL David Goodis 1996 GIVE US A KISS Daniel Woodrell
1952 OF TENDER SIN David Goodis 1997 THE HACKMAN BLUES Ken Bruen
1952 HOME IS THE SAILOR Day Keene 1997 THE AX Donald E Westlake
1952 THE DAMNED John D MacDonald 1998 HER LAST CALL TO LOUIS MACNEICE Ken Bruen
1952 YOU'LL GET YOURS Thomas Wills 2000 NINETEEN SEVENTY-SEVEN David Peace
1953 THE MOON IN THE GUTTER David Goodis 2000 RUN Douglas E Winter
1953 HARDMAN David Karp 2001 THE GUARDS Ken Bruen
1953 A KISS BEFORE DYING Ira Levin 2001 SENSELESS Stona Fitch
1953 THE BIG HEAT William McGivern 2001 GUN MONKEYS Victor Gischler
1953 SAVAGE NIGHT Jim Thompson 2001 THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER Daniel Woodrell
1953 HELL HATH NO FURY Charles Williams 2002 BLITZ Ken Bruen
1953 A TOUCH OF DEATH Charles Williams 2002 WALKING BONES Charlotte Carter
1954 A KILLER IS LOOSE Gil Brewer 2002 MATCHSTICK MEN Eric Garcia
1954 SLEEP WITH THE DEVIL Day Keene 2002 HARD FEELINGS Jason Starr
1954 NOTORIOUS Day Keene 2003 TOUGH LUCK Jason Starr
1954 THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN Day Keene 2003 CHARLIE OPERA Charlie Stella
1954 A HELL OF A WOMAN Jim Thompson 2004 LITTLE GIRL LOST Richard Aleas
1955 THE BIG CAPER Lionel White 2004 THE BIG BLIND Ray Banks
1955 CLEAN BREAK Lionel White 2004 DISPATCHING BAUDELAIRE Ken Bruen
1956 DOWN THERE David Goodis 2004 POTSDAMER PLATZ Buddy Giovinazzo
1956 THE DIAMOND BIKINI Charles Williams 2004 FADE TO BLONDE Max Phillips
1958 THE RED SCARF Gil Brewer 2004 THE CONFESSION Domenic Stansberry
1958 WHISPERS OF THE FLESH Fletcher Flora 2004 DEADFOLK Charlie Williams
1958 SOFT TOUCH John D MacDonald 2004 FAST LANE Dave Zeltserman
1958 THE GETAWAY Jim Thompson 2005 CHEAPSKATES Charlie Stella
1958 WEB OF MURDER Harry Whittington 2005 SECRET DEAD MEN Duane Swierczynski
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