Mrs. Barstow tugged the material from beneath Amy’s forearm. “You’re dusty, hon,” she said apologetically.
“Your hubby round back like usual?” asked Amy.
Mrs. Barstow firmly eyed the material as she wound it back onto the bolt. “I ’spect. Always doin’ the books; don’t know why it takes him so long. Why?”
“Got a question for him, ma’am. You mind?”
Mrs. Barstow looked at Amy for a long moment. Then she looked again at the bolt of material and took a deep breath. She shook her head and turned her back on Amy.
Amy pulled reluctantly away from the counter. “Gonna be okay?” she asked.
Mrs. Barstow glanced over her shoulder at Amy, eyes glistening. “Was fine before. Got Wendy now. ’N’ the grandbaby’s coinin’ soon. I’ll be fine again.” Amy squeezed the woman’s round arm quickly, then rushed for the back door. Mr. Barstow wasn’t there, but the outside door stood ajar, so she pulled it open. Mr. Barstow was in his old brown Buick, slowly edging it backward, spinning the big steering wheel to back and turn the huge car down the alley toward the road.
Amy just walked over and stood in front of the old car’s front bumper. He turned his head to put the gear into forward, then saw her. Mr. Barstow slammed on brakes. They looked at each other. Amy could see his left hand, high on the steering wheel, illumined in a glare of sun through the windshield. A big scar disfigured the hand. A scar that ended in a point over his middle finger. Amy’d known about the scar for years, never thought a thing about it before. Lots of people have scars. Of all kinds.
Amy pointed. Mr. Barstow, without a word or nod, rolled the car back into its parking place. The back seat was piled with boxes and clothes wadded into bundles. Not a good packer, Amy thought. A black, rectangular nylon case poked up through some shirts. Tyree’s goods might’ve pawned into enough to stake a man to a modest new start in life.
When he opened the Buick’s door, it creaked. Dust and old age had worn down the hinges. He slowly emerged from behind die wheel. Amy took his right hand in hers. “Kizzy wants to see you.”
He nodded.
Contributors’ Notes
Jeff Abbott has written seven novels of mystery and suspense. He is a three-time nominee for the Edgar Allan Poe Award (including a Best Short Story nomination for “Bet on Red”) and a two-time nominee for the Anthony Award. His first novel, Do Unto Others, won both the Agatha and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. He is the author of the Whit Mosley suspense series (A Kiss Gone Bad and Black Jack Point): his latest novel is Cut and Run. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two sons.
• When I was approached to write a gambling-themed short story, I wanted to draw on the hip mythos of Las Vegas: cool criminals, beautiful and world-wise women, and enormous stakes that go way beyond what’s being wagered at the tables. I also wanted to bring that feeling of high-stakes staredown to the relationship between Scan and Red, to lead up to a moment between them where one of them must blink and change a life forever. From the opening line, I wanted to create the feeling for the reader of watching a roulette ball in an extended spin: anticipating that delicious yet awful moment when the ball tumbles to rest and someone wins and someone loses. Sudden reversals in fortune are the engine for both gambling addictions and suspense stories. That was the central idea I wanted to explore in “Bet on Red” — what happens if an unexpected downturn in our fortunes creates a new and dangerous opportunity. And mostly, I wanted to entertain the reader. I had a great deal of fun writing “Bet on Red,” and I’m adapting it into a screenplay for a short film.
Jeffrey Robert Bowman was born in 1979 and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. After attending Tufts University for three years, he graduated with a B.A. in literature and history. Currently, he divides his time between the United States and South America, where he works as a freelance writer and English teacher.
“Stonewalls” has remained a favorite of mine ever since I first conceived of the idea ages ago. While I do not consider the story a classic mystery story in the tradition of Chesterton or Doyle, there is a certain element to the lone I associate with my having read far too much Poe in too short a period of time. Poe was, to a great degree, the creator of the mystery genre, and it is his influence to which I am indebted for “Stonewalls.”
William J. Carroll, Jr., was born in Marlboro, Massachusetts, in 1947. He served in the army in Vietnam, Thailand, and Korea, and settled in Hawaii. He has a B.S. from Chaminade University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii. He lives and works in Honolulu.
• The Virginiak stories, of which “Height Advantage” is one, were born of my military service, a love of the northwest, where many of the stories are situated, and a lifelong need to write. They also emerge from a desire to emulate the styles of the American greats of mystery fiction. Hammett and Chandler in particular; but, as Ross Macdonald accomplished in his long, wonderful Archer series, they are also born of a need to project what I consider the best of us — qualities of value — into a character who faces stressful, trying, and desperate circumstances. Which makes Virginiak not me by any means, despite the first-person narrative, but he is the best of me, mirroring qualities I like about myself and others; and seeing those qualities personified and under challenge is the real kick of this whole thing.
Benjamin Cavell was born in Boston and is a graduate of Harvard College, where he was a boxer and an editor for the Crimson. His first book, Rumble, Young Man, Rumble, a collection of stories in which “Evolution” appears, was published by Knopf and named an Esquire Magazine Best Book of 2003.
• I don’t like to tell stories. I’m sure this is not a proper thing for a writer to admit, but I’m annoyed when I read interviews with novelists in which they say, “I write because I want to tell stories,” or (worse). “I just had a story that needed to be told.” I resent feeling obligated to make something happen. I’d rather just have my characters yap at each other.
I’ve always been attracted to the idea of writing mysteries, in part because a mystery supplies its own momentum. I think part of the reason I’ve never really been able to write a mystery is that I can’t figure out how to do it without forcing my characters into situations they would never put themselves in, which in turn shakes my conviction in the reality of the story and makes everything feel false. My first attempts at writing (when I was eleven, twelve years old) were super-hardboiled detective stories that featured hip, wisecracking, Marlowe-style narrators who talked out of the sides of their mouths. My problem, even then, was that I couldn’t quite make myself believe in the world I was creating.
While I was writing “Evolution,” I never thought of it as a mystery (in fact, I’m still not sure that it is). I wrote it from beginning to end, without jumping around, without ever really knowing what was going to happen until it happened. Looking at it now, three years after I wrote it, I see a few things that bother me, things I might do differently if I were writing the story today. But I’m happy to see that the writing is not safe or polite, is in fact right where I want it — on the brink of out-of-control, pulling the story behind it toward the edge of the cliff.
Christopher Coake was born in Indiana, and raised there and in Colorado. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he has just finished an M.F.A. at the Ohio State University; prior to that he received an М.A. in creative writing at Miami University of Ohio. Chris’s short fiction has appeared in the Journal; the late, lamented Central Ohio Writing; the Gettysburg Review; and Epoch. His first book, a collection of stories entitled We’re in Trouble, is forthcoming from Harcourt in the spring of 2005. In January 2005 Chris will begin teaching creative writing at the University of Nevada-Reno; in the meantime he’s hard at work on a novel.