I’ve had quite a few inquiries about the ending of the story, which I will attempt to explain here. When I was in college, my best friend since kindergarten had traveled to the campus to spend the weekend with me, and we found several parties to attend, all of which had cheap keg beer. My friend had always been a bit careless with his own safety, sometimes getting into fights. In a crowded house party, from across the room I could see he was flirting with someone’s girlfriend, and the guy, someone we all knew liked to fight, decided to beat up my friend. People scattered, and I rushed to help while others pulled the guy off my best friend. When I got a good look at him and helped him to the car, it was clear he’d need stitches.
After he got almost a dozen stitches above his right eye and lip, I took him home to my rundown apartment. He was in pain but slept a lot. I found myself angry, with that kind of deep-down need for revenge. But I’m Quaker, and that provided a conundrum. I stewed. By 4 a.m. I found out where the guy lived and drove there, knocked on the door. His roommates roused him. I told the guy that my friend he’d beaten was in a coma, on life support. I told him the cops had asked me for names of others at the party. I told him that my friend’s parents were bringing their lawyer, flying in from Chicago, arriving in the next hour. I told him he’d better run.
I’d struck him with lies, with fiction, with an invention. I made up a story in real life thirty years ago to get payback, then used the technique again as the closer for Shanty Falls. It feels true to me.
David Dean’s short stories have appeared regularly in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, as well as numerous anthologies, since 1990. His stories have been nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards, and “Ibrahim’s Eyes” won the EQMM Readers Award for 2007, as did “The Duelist” for 2019. His story “Tomorrow’s Dead” was a finalist for the Edgar for best short story of 2011. He is a retired chief of police in New Jersey and once served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. His novels, The Thirteenth Child, Starvation Cay, and The Purple Robe, are all available through Amazon.
• “The Duelist” is what’s called historical fiction, and yes, I do get the irony. I have written but a few, and I only wrote those because the stories wouldn’t have worked set in modern times. So, too, did “The Duelist” demand a historical context, because of its plot, its characters, and its language. In many ways the story is as much about language — what is being said, and how, as well as what is not said but lies beneath — as it is about the violence that serves to frame the story and provide its impetus.
What I can state is that the story is one about deception and truth, vengeance and justice, bravery and cowardice, love and loss. But it’s mostly about bullying, and that’s why I wrote it, though I didn’t think of it at the time. It was only later that I recognized my motivation. Most of us have experienced being bullied or made afraid by someone at some time in our lives. I am no exception. In fact, looking back on my life, I suspect that being bullied had a lot to do with my choosing to be a police officer for twenty-five years. I wanted to protect people. I don’t like bullies. My guess is that you don’t either. If that’s the case, “The Duelist” may satisfy you.
A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is a number-one bestselling author whose novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and have been translated into twenty-five languages. He has served two terms as the president of the Mystery Writers of America.
The author of forty-three novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he has received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association and the Nero Award. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. Solitude Creek and The Cold Moon were both given the number-one ranking by Kono Mystery Ga Sugoi! in Japan. The Cold Moon was also named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan.
Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy. The Strand Magazine also has presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Deaver has been nominated for eight Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony, a Shamus, and a Gumshoe.
• I’ve always had an affection for reading short fiction, and I’ve learned much about writing from the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Ray Bradbury, among many others. I also thoroughly enjoy writing short stories. I’ve always felt that all storytelling has as its most important goal emotionally engaging the audience to the greatest degree possible. I want to be captivated by art and entertainment, not merely intrigued or interested.
In long-form fiction this level of intensity is accomplished through creating complex, utterly real characters (good and bad) and intersecting, fast-paced plots. Without the luxury of length, however, how can short fiction achieve such emotional intensity?
“Security” is a perfect example of how I try to do just that: I grab readers with one device only: a shocking twist (or, ideally, two or three) at the end. I’m the illusionist, the sleight-of-hand artist, juggling props and displaying cards and keeping their eyes (in my case, minds) from seeing the truth — until, at the very end, it’s OMG, so that’s what was going on!
“Security” was part of an anthology called Odd Partners, in which we authors were asked to pair disparate protagonists, or antagonists, put them in a pressure cooker, and see what would happen. My story involves a streetwise woman security guard and a by-the-book law enforcer whose job is to protect an ambitious political candidate who doesn’t make their job very easy, to put it mildly.
I spent about a month outlining the story (I outline everything I write), getting the pieces to come together — especially making sure the ending would be completely unexpected yet completely fair. Only after it was planned out did I write the prose. I pounded out “Security” in two or three days. I’d write more here, but I’m hesitant to, for fear I’d give away some of the surprises.
Besides, as any illusionist will tell you, one doesn’t talk about a magic trick; one performs it. Enjoy!
John M. Floyd’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, the 2015 and 2018 editions of The Best American Mystery Stories, and many other publications. A former air force captain and IBM systems engineer, he is also an Edgar nominee, a three-time Derringer Award winner, a recipient of the Edward D. Hoch Memorial Golden Derringer Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the author of eight books. He and his wife, Carolyn, live in Mississippi.