Smoke ‘em, If You Got ‘em!

Meet Joe Smoke, a hardboiled detective with a penchant for trouble. From chasing suspects to dodging street thugs, Joe's day takes a turn when he's approached by a strange client who needs help disposing of a body. With twists at every turn and a cast of eccentric personalities, this noir tale takes readers into the underbelly of Blackout City.

By Mark Slade

I was having one of those days. 

You know: Chasing a suspect across Duluth and Broad street, got hit by a car, my face kicked in by street thugs, and nearly raped by an uber-fan of that silly Blackout City Confidential magazine, and worst of all, lost a dead body. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. It started like this:

“Joe, there’s a guy out there who wants to hire you to get rid of a body,” Lilly said hysterically as she burst into my office, jiggling all over the place. “That’s not even the weird part!”

I was busy drinking Five Alive—lemonade, grapefruit, orange juice, coconut juice and Tequila; and playing a few hands of blackjack. I looked up at her, my new face resembling Hank Fonda and gave her that easy smile. 

“Joe!” She stamped her feet, exasperated. “Are you listenin’ to me?!”

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Some guy wants me to get rid of a body for him. So what’s the weird part?” I slapped down a ten to go along with my king of hearts and Lilly held my hand over the cards and leaned in. Her eyebrows narrowed down and I saw a soft ember in her eyes grow into a raging wildfire.

“The man has half a face that looks like a fuckin’ lizard, Joe Smoke! That’s the weird part!”

“Is that right, sugar? Tell ‘em I’ll think about it for six hundred credit chips.” I pulled my hand away and began to deal another hand.

“I can’t do anything with you, can I?” She cried out to the Gods above us.

“Nope,” I sniffed. “I guess not.”

“Okay,” she turned on her heels and walked swiftly to the office door, her stockings making a swishing noise rubbing against her skirt. She turned back to me quickly, but gracefully, pointed a finger at me. “If you get yourself in any trouble, Joe Smoke, I am not going to get you out of it! Understand!”

I chuckled. “I hear you loud and clear, Angel. Before you go out there, how’s about comin’ over here and sittin’ on old Joe’s lap?”

She flashed a smile. ‘I’m afraid, Old Joe, that game has become as redundant as your troublemaking. In other words,” Lilly threw the office door open. “I’m bored with it!” Her high heels danced along the linoleum floor to her desk and I heard her say as sweet as molasses, “Go right in Mr. Pitt, Joe will see you.”

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at that one. Lilly’s a pistol, that’s for sure. Ah, I’ll just show up at her apartment later with a bottle of wine and a box of Oreo’s. She’s probably mad because I stood her up the other night. Wasn’t my fault. Lt. Flagg of B.C. Police department detained me until one A.M. Apparently some guy claimed I killed his wife on his avocado farm. I couldn’t have killed his soul-eating -child-murdering wife, I was with Lilly all night the previous day going over receipts for my taxes. Well, naturally Lilly backed up my story. My hands still hurt from electrocuting that that child-killing-soul-eating monster….she wasn’t too bad looking when she wasn’t taken over by the ghost of child murder.

Lionel Pitt stepped into my office, fumbling with his hat, his yellow eyes nervously hopping around inside that scaly head of his. He was dressed nicely for a lizard man. He was created in a laboratory by a crazed scientist. Lionel and twenty other brothers and sisters staged a revolt, killed the scientist and his lab assistant. They had a gun fight with B.C. PD, a fire broke out in the lab. Lionel’s face was badly burned, eighteen of his brothers and sisters died that night. Lionel and his brother, Dan, served four years in Goro for the murder. Seeing as they were not actually citizens of anywhere, their lawyer, Jonathan Grey, got them out, saying they were victims of the government. Public outcry backed him up, and…..well, here we are in my office.

 The suit just a little too small, the tie a little too long. Still, he was dressed a lot smarter than Morti had ever been. He limped over to a chair and sat gingerly, squeezing the life out of that hat. His eyes focused on me, and God-awful forked tongue kept slipping in and out between his white, charred lips.

“Mr. Smoke,” he said softly. “I am Lionel Pitt, and I am in a pickle.”

I grunted, looked down at my cards. Looked back up at him and nodded. “So my secretary said.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “She told you the story.”

“No, Mr. Pitt,” I said. “She just said you needed to get rid of a body.”

“Oh,” he struggled with the word, that God-awful forked tongue was pointed at me now. I winced and Lionel sucked it back into his mouth, cleared his throat.

“I’ll do it for two thousand money chips.” I told him, swiping the whole deck of cards into a partially open desk drawer by my knees.

“Fine,” he giggled nervously. “That’s wonderful. Thank you.”

I thought that would discourage the conversation from going any further and he would leave my office. No dice. “Okay, Mr. Pitt. Whose body is it?”

He coughed into his hat. “Mine.”

“Okay, asshole. You’re wasting my time! Get out!” I jumped from my chair screaming, pointed at the door.

“Please,’ his voice cracked. “Mr. Smoke….I-I need your help. I can’t go back to Goro Island for killing myself!”

I stared at him. The needle on my bullshit meter was indicating to “Truth”. I reluctantly sat back down, gave myself a minute to calm down. “Tell me the story,” I said.

“I seemed to have developed a problem,” he whispered.

“Uh-huh.”

“Being genetically created in a lab, I can clone myself. It’s been a few years since I’ve cloned myself. I thought that part of me had went away…you know it’s been ten years. Well, a week ago I come home from the bullet factory and I find my wife in bed with…my clone. I went nuts. I beat him to death with a frying pan. My wife screamed, furious at me, she left and I haven’t heard from her since.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I asked for his forgiveness, he nodded, embarrassed, he averted my eyes. I couldn’t help it. Who in the hell loses his wife to his own clone? It was some sick joke. Lenny Bruce couldn’t have written a better gag.

“Look,” I wiped tears from my eyes, barely recovered. “Lionel. Why would she prefer your clone to you? How long had you guys been married?”

“I…uh…” he didn’t want to say it, but I had to hear it from him. “I…no longer have a penis.”

I stared at him, blinked once, maybe twice. Okay, this was not a funny gag anymore. I felt sorry for this guy. Sure, blank out the thought of what woman in her right mind would be with a lizard man? Further wipe out the thought, why even a lizard man with half a face? This guy, Lionel Pitt, was a walking, talking hard luck story.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could say. What could anyone say after hearing that?

“Maria, was the best thing to ever happen to me. We met five years ago at the bullet factory. Somehow…some reason…she started talking to me at lunch. From there, the relationship developed. I’d never been with a woman before. She’d been a wayward girl, runaway, had two children taken away from her. We felt sorry for each other. Four years of devotion. Doting on each other. One day, I was in the shower, and I noticed…it was in the tub. Just lying there. 

“I told her after a month of not touching her. She said she understood. Then she started cheating on me with Hubert Humphrey. Some photographer who talked her into doing nudie pics for one of those scummy magazines. He dumped her right before he died. She was distraught. Quit the factory. I took a second job driving a cab. Now…you’re all caught up.” 

“Whatever happened to your brother?”

“He died from alcohol poisoning a few years ago.”

“I just wanted to make sure no one was pegging me a dope,” I said.

“Oh, Mr. Smoke,” Lionel shook his head. I would never do that to you. You’re helping me out.”

“Where’s the body?”

“At my house. In the basement.” He said, ringing that hat pretty good. He was really nervous for some reason.

I wasn’t sure if taking his case was a good idea or not. I was bored and I need to get in some trouble. And boy, did I get into trouble!

I clicked on the monitor and spoke into the mic. “Lilly?”

“Yes, Mr. Smoke?” She was still mad at me. Geez, women are a mystery that can’t be solved. What was she so sore at me for?

“Lilly, call Morti, tell him to get a car of some sort. Preferably one with a huge trunk.”

“You can’t call him yourself?” She shot back.

“No,” I said.  “I am not paying myself to be my own secretary.”

“You’re not paying me either, at the moment.”

“Stop smart mouthin’ me and call him!”

“You gotta phone! Do it yerself!”

Huh. That sounded final. I didn’t want to push it any further. I got on the horn and told Morti to get hold of a car. I said we needed to take a ride. Might be going Ellison, at the Beaumont Beach on Palisades. He laughed asked if we were ditching a body. I just gave him Lionel’s address and hung up.

Morti arrived in a ’61 Galaxy, a trunk big enough to fit in the whole front line of the Chicago Bears. It was long, square, with back fins from an oversized shark. A beautiful machine. The only problem was the color of the car. Apple red.

“Mort!” I screamed when he drove up in front of the office building at nine p.m. The night sky was black, no twinkling eyes and the moon hidden by sarcastic dark clouds. The street lights on that street were mostly blown, so any witnesses come out of the woods couldn’t identify the car, unless they shined a flashlight. But if any witnesses on Lionel’s street comes out, they would definitely make the car and color. I told Morti on the phone to get some neutral color. Beige is all the rage now. No, Morti had to get red!

“What? It’s all Happy had, Joe!” Morti said.

“Bullshit,” I climbed into the backseat. Lionel followed in the front. “Happy Jackson owns a used car lot, Morti. He’s got beige!”

“Not a ‘61 Galaxy, Joe,” Morti chuckled. Then he stared at Lionel Pitt. Eyes bugged out of his pasty white face. “What’s with this fella?”

“This is Lionel. We’re helping him get rid of a dead body.”

Morti gasped and turned to me “The hell you say! I am not transportin’ nothin’ illegal in this vehicle, let alone a dead body! I promised Hap.” 

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Morti gave me a definite.

“Well, I’ll just have to call the cops to tell ‘em about the 16 millimeter films you been selling of the latest Hollywood releases.” I told him, lit a cigarette.

Morti thought a minute. His eyes kept shifting between Lionel and the image of me in the rearview mirror. “I hate you, Joe Smoke!” He proclaimed.

“Good,” I laughed, blew out a cloud of smoke in Morti’s face. He coughed incessantly.  I said, “That makes you and the rest of the world.”

Lionel called it a house. It was more like a two bedroom shack. It was so rundown, the two by fours were becoming transparent. The ceiling was bowing and all the windows that had plastic wrap covering them was barely held on by masking tape. Inside was even more of mess. Whoever it, Lionel or his wife were hoarders big time. Twenty or so TVS littered the front room, one of which was already on, showing the Milton Berle show. To the left was all kinds of radios piled up. Some were like the old floor models my parents had, some had the radio/HI-FI combo, and a few were transistors. At least thirty or so of those were missing parts. Then there were the newspapers in two rows stacked to the ceiling. Magazines of all kinds from several past decades—pulps, slicks, women’s, men’s, children’s. You name it!  Time magazine, Coilers, All-Story—-even Playboy.

Morti and I were looking at the radios and Lionel said, “Oh, I work on those for side money.”

“Is that so?” Morti chuckled. “Who do you sell ‘em back to?” 

“Oh,” Lionel cleared his throat. “Whoever asks for one. Usually people from work.”

“Well, uh, why don’t we go into business…?” Morti left it as open question and I jumped all over his ass for it.

“Morti, we don’t have time for you to make board decisions for the black-market!” I said, motioned for him to cut the conversation. He trotted behind me, looked down at his shoes. “Take us to the body, will ya Lionel?”

“This way,” Lionel nervously jerked his head toward the kitchen. We went through a double door and into a roach-infested hell. Morti gagged, almost spewed his lunch everywhere. He turned to the door and tried jet. I grabbed him by his threadbare raincoat pointed him back in the right direction. 

“Joe!” He screamed through his coat lapel covering his mouth. “It smells some kind of awful in here!”

“Yeah and it ain’t Megan’s Muffins on fourteenth street, is it?” I screamed back. 

He was right. There was an odor worse than the B.C. city morgue, and I wasn’t too sure it was the body in the basement. There were empty packets everywhere, and dirty pots and pans on the counter and in the sink. Leftover food—looked like spaghetti—covered the walls behind the stove. Bread crumbs had turned to dust started to move. Then I realized it wasn’t dust but thousands of tiny black roaches fighting over the remaining bread crumbs.

I hurried behind Morti and Lionel down a small flight of stairs, maybe about six thin boards that made up the steps. I was creeped out by the bugs. I don’t fault, nor judge anyone’s living quarters, I just don’t like bugs.

I slapped Morti on the elbow and he got out his flashlight. The beam of light cut through the darkness and suddenly we a path to walk to, avoiding more electronics and tools; a work area cleaner than his living area. Still, I’m not judging, just commenting.

“Can you find the light, fella,’ Morti pleaded with Lionel. His hand fumbled around, knocked over a mason jar of oil. I thought it was odd he didn’t know his own way around the basement or the disgusted look on his face when we entered his kitchen. But he did take us over the body that was lying face down in a makeshift shower that I was pretty sure that was not used in years. I turned the knobs and saw no water ran from the shower head. Hell, there wasn’t even any water pressure.

I gave Lionel a steady gaze. Something was up.

He chuckled nervously. “Shower hasn’t worked in months,” he wiped beads of sweat from his brow.

“By the looks of it your cleaning lady hasn’t been down here in years,” I told him. He chuckled nervously. Morti and I exchanged glances. Our way of letting the other to be aware of the situation. “Get that tarp over there and let’s roll the body up.” I barked at Lionel. He hopped to it, brought the dusty plastic covering, and dropped it on the floor. We stared at each other a second. I shook my head at him. “You first buddy. Since you committed the crime.”

“I hired you to get rid of the body, Mr. Smoke,” his tone was different. No longer was this lizard man with a burned face kind, gentle and in need of help. He was smug, overconfident.

I noticed his skin started to sag from the heat that netted the whole basement. I could see dark skin underneath a paler, scaly skin on one side and that charred powder skin on the other. The charred lips had disappeared and a much affluent, prominent bottom lips with a hint of pink was coming through.

“You didn’t pay me to put my prints all over this dead man, just discard him.” I told Lionel. The air had become thick and tense. Morti was shaking in his three dollar shoes. He should’ve gotten a shine before his kidneys released water all over them. “Morti?”

“Yeah, Joe?” 

“Take your flashlight and turn our dead friend over. I want to see what he looks like.”

“Sure-sure thing, Joe.”

 Morti did it.  Funny how the body was a woman dressed like a man. Her features didn’t even resemble a man’s. A small round face with wide dark eyes, her dark hair chopped rather savagely. She was placed haphazardly in a suit too big for her anorexic body.

Alright, asshole!” I reached for him and tore part of his mask from his real face. “What’s your game?!” 

He jerked away, the fake skin flapped as he reared back and hit me with a right cross. The punch didn’t just stun me, it sent me flying into Morti, who just happened to come down on top of me. I heard him run up the short flight of steps leading into the kitchen. I pushed Morti off of me and trotted up the steps. I unsheathed my gun, my thumb clicked off the safety and the battery began to whirl and charge the laser bullets.

Lionel, or whoever he really was, had sprinted out the door, leaving a trail of the foam latex mask. My shoes flattened an ear on the stairs, barely missed a cheek in the kitchen, stepped a nose at the front door. He left the rest of him in the driveway.

I saw him rush across Deluth and Broad Street. My legs were pumping furiously when some hard and metal struck me. It was a fuckin’ baby blue,’61 Ford Falcon. All I could do was lay there, my gun a few inches from my hand. I couldn’t move because the pain was so great. Three men got out of the car, flaunting their gang colors, a red kerchief hanging from their blue jean back pockets and warrior patches on jean jackets. Two of them were as big as skyscrapers and one as small as a child and as round.

The one with curly dark hair and prominent Greek nose spoke first. “Look what he did to yer front end, Mickey!”

The short, child-like man waddled over, gold chains chimed with each step he took. “Muther-fuckah better have life insurance for his old lady!” He bellowed. “She’s goin’ need it for his funeral!”

“If they find all his parts after we tear him limb from limb, that is!” The third, darker skinned, more muscled one, added.

For some reason, they thought it would be funny to kick the living shit out of me. I tasted rubber and shoe lace for a solid ninety seconds before I heard the battery on my laser pistol charge up and fire. 

Good old Morti! I thought. But it wasn’t Morti. I heard a female voice slice up the sky with a screeching tirade.

“Get the fuck away from him!” she panted. “I swear to God I’ll drill a hole in all three of you fucking scum buckets!”

Was it…Lilly? Naw, her voice isn’t as shrill. Plus, I could tell this lady wasn’t used to using such language. Scum bucket and fuck got caught in her larynx when she said them.

Who the hell was she? 

A passerby? A good citizen? In Blackout City? Could be…but they sure are far and few living in this part of town.

“Heyyy….look baby,” I heard the fat one say. He must have taken a few steps toward because I head those gold chains clanging together. “Gimmee the gun and I’ll make sure when we rape yer ass, we will be gentle…”

Smooth operator. A threat as a promise in the top tier of hell instead of the depths.

I heard the laser pistol fire, and a body fell. I heard the fat gang member scream. I heard him scream that she was a crazy bitch and she had shot him in the shoulder. Then he burst into tears. The other two probably grabbed him and helped him to his feet. I heard a ruffling of clothing and one of them urging the fat one to come on. There were quick footsteps and jogging to their car.

My vision blurred even more. I saw a wavy version of a woman loom over top of me. “Come with me, honey,” she said. “Everything is going to be fine!” 

After that, I passed out.

When I came to, I noticed not just hours had past, but almost a day. 

I was in a very nice house, lying on silk sheets and a handmade comforter with patches of different colors. My head was reeling and the bedroom was swirling, antiques and all kinds of knick-knacks was shoved in every corner of the room, decorated what would be a very drab area if they were not present. There was a lingering scent, what I had smelled when I was lying in the street.  Smelled like honeysuckle with a hint of jasmine. 

Lilly used to wear that perfume. This was not Lilly’s bedroom. I know that for sure.

My whole body hurt even when I thought about moving. My face was tightening. That was a sign I needed Morphidil. I was probably ready to go faceless. I pushed the comforter off of me, rose from the bed gingerly. I just sat there, letting my eyes refocus, the drumming in my head to ease up. When I tried to leave the bed, my legs wouldn’t let me.

Strange, I noticed the button on my trousers was undone and my underwear wasn’t pulled over my crotch. 

What the hell?

I heard two voices from another room. One female, the other male—that is when he would speak, and it wasn’t much. His voice sounded familiar. So did the woman’s voice; and that horrible shrill that invaded every other syllable, it came to me in quick flashes that it was the woman from the street. The one who saved me from the gangbangers. The man’s voice was definitely Lionel’s. Or whatever he called himself. I heard him call her Darlene.

They weren’t exactly arguing. I mean it was obvious the woman was in control of things. Lionel did a lot of sighing and had a lot of pleading in his voice.

“We can’t give up now!” Darlene exclaimed. “Oh baby, you did it! You got me the best birthday present ever!”

“I’m pretty sure that old man has been to the cops,” Lionel said.

The bedroom door was cracked open. I saw a dumpy, younger black man talking to an older glitzy blond white woman.  He was wearing a turtle neck and slacks, but his hands was covered with a latex glove. Some sort of gook dripped from the fingertips. The woman was in an evening gown, low cut, and wearing open-toed heels I’d seen advertised in a magazine that cost more than Morti’s false teeth. Her earrings didn’t look real, but they hung down to her shoulders. Her hair was neatly styled, held up in a bun by a butterfly clip. 

I had a few more quick flashes and I remembered where I saw him. Last year I was brainwashed to star in a TV show. I remember seeing this man working on special effects, like remote controlled miniature cars that explode with contact of other miniature cars and buildings. I saw him applying a mask to an actor who was made up to be an older man—-possibly portraying Morti or Doberman Diggs—I’m not really sure of those incidents, everything feels fuzzy now as it did when it was happening. What I do remember with crystal clear clarity is that everyone called him Lionel.

Can you believe that? At first I thought: What an idiot! He couldn’t create another alias? Then I saw some magazines lying at the foot of the canopy bed. Blackout City was the title. On several issues I was on the cover, with different faces, of course, but the paintings depicted cases I had worked on or had been told by Lilly I had worked on them. One of the magazines was left open. An article about a half-man, half-lizard had been burned up along with eighteen or so brothers and sisters. He was the only one to survive. His face had been badly burned. 

His name was Lionel Pitt.

Holy shit. Weird coincident? Or did he change his name to Lionel? And what was the best birthday gift—-

I saw the posters on the wall. The framed pictures standing on Darlene’s vanity. The cameo and it chain hanging on the bedpost. All of it featuring me. Joe Smoke. Me. I was the best birthday present ever!

Holy shit…..

“I thought you loved me,” I heard Lionel say, hurt in his voice.

“I do love you, baby,” Darlene backed it up with a kiss. She sighed and shook her head. “But you know I love Joe more. That was our deal,” she added. “That you would understand more than Carol. Joe is not just my fantasy, he’s everything to me. My everything.”

Damn.

What a bullet to the heart!

So cold, calculated when she said that. Carol must have been the dead body in the basement. They did all of this just to get me? People sure are weird.

“You love me more than you did Carol?” Lionel said, swallowing the heartbreak halfway through.

“You know I do,” Darlene reassured him.

“So….I can kill him after you’re done with what you have to do?”

“Of course, baby. Just let me keep his face…his new one. I think this the most handsome he’s ever been.”

Okay…..I gotta get out of here. But my legs won’t move. Every time I try—-

The door swung open.

Lionel stood in the doorway, gleaming at me. He didn’t have that “I’m going to let you go” hunky-dory look on his face. He genuinely pissed, and not at the whole world, just me. Darlene stood beside him, smiling hugely, bearing her teeth like a damn vampire. To be fair, Darlene wasn’t bad looking at all. She had a nice shape, her legs were pretty good. Her face…looked like twenty miles of road kill. 

“Has he figured it out?” She asked, gleefully.

“Yeah,” Lionel breathed heavily through incensed nostrils. “Look at his face. Smug bastard.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Who am I? Where am I?” I wanted to fake amnesia or some sort of head trauma. Maybe they’d take pity on me—

“Ohhhhh my Godddddd!” Darlene squealed. “Can you believe it?!” She smacked Lionel’s arm repeatedly. “Just like in Story # 66!”

“Excuse me?” I asked. Nope. I was wrong.

“Story #66! I have written over a hundred stories featuring you and Morti….sometimes that tramp Lilly….but yes! I send them to Blackout City magazine, and for some reason they keep coming back. I told them in several letters that what I write comes true. This is proof!”

Ohhhh boy…..I’m screwed. These two are demented.

At first, I thought Darlene was hyperventilating. I saw how embarrassed Lionel became and realized she was sexually excited. Her breasts were heaving and her lips parted in an o. Her hands trembled slightly.

“Lionel…..baby,” she cooed. “I’m going to need some alone time with Joe,” she pushed past Lionel, who immediately balled up his fists, disdain infiltrated his dark eyes. 

Darlene closed the bedroom door hard, sashayed toward me. I can safely say I have never been more afraid when a woman entered a bedroom with me sitting on her bed.

“We are going to have a lot of fun, darlin’,” she proclaimed as she stepped out of her slip to reveal a corset attached to a garter belt and stockings. The corset was bulging, and was the reason she didn’t have a bad shape. She removed her blouse and I saw her breasts were like long ice cream cones in that Howard Hughes design.  Then she stepped out of her high heels, thought she was being sexy, when really she was just awkward.

I tried to get up again. I fell back on the bed. The pain surged all over my body. I noticed there was a giant brown eye peeping through the keyhole. Oh crap. This keeps getting weirder and weirder. What other strange games had these two played in the past. 

Darlene rushed toward me and pushed me hard on my back. I cringed under her weight as she sat on my groin. I saw a Walther PPK hanging out of the stocking top on her right leg.  I felt a slight movement at my crotch. All I kept thinking was, no, no, no! Not now! Don’t excited! This could be the worst experience of your life—

I heard a gunshot and a loud clanging against the door simultaneous with a body falling to the floor. Darlene gasped, turned. She was quick to draw the pistol from her stocking top. The door swung open and Lily and Morti were ta the door.

“No!” Darlene screamed and fired once. “Not now, Lionel!” 

Morti dropped to the floor and covered his head with his hands and arms. Lilly crouched, held the laser pistol firmly in both hands and fired twice. The battery whirled and two beams of blue-yellow electricity hurried from the barrel of the gun. The first beam sliced through Darlene’s arm at the elbow. The severed arm and the pistol fell to the bed. 

Darlene let out a scream on par with any wounded animal.

The second beam struck her in the face, obliterating all features and skin. She fell sideways, rolled off the bed. She was motionless.  

I saw Lionel lying beside Morti, he too was dead, a hatchet beside him.

“Good thing you taught me how to use this thing, Joe,” Lilly said, straightened her body and slowly approached me. “Or else you’d be dead right now.”

Morti picked himself and trotted into the bedroom, watching to make sure Lionel doesn’t suddenly find new life. “Joe! We’re glad yer okay,” he said. “We tried to go the cops, but Flagg said for you to get stuffed!”

I laughed wildly, mumble incoherent words. I burst into tears and Lilly held me close. I tried to find my composure, it was nowhere to be found. In between blubbering I had to ask. “Are you still mad at me, Angel?”

Lilly chuckled. “If I was, I wouldn’t have rescued you.”

****

This story will appear in Blackout City Confidential, will be available on lulu.com Sept. 29^th.  As well as audio scripts, with art by Lissanne Lake. You can listen to the audio series here https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/animalmother1676358  and buy the short story collection Blackout City here http://www.lulu.com/shop/horrified-press/blackout-city/paperback/product-22129628.html