knife | catsignal

Rocco had spent a lot of time in the dingy warehouse on the lake. He had done a lot of work here – messy work that few other people had the stomach for, even in these dangerous times.

He put down the newspaper, which was a little over his head, and picked up a deck of cards to play solitaire. This, too, was above his abilities, but it was better than pure boredom as he waited for the phone to ring.

“Red seven on the … red nine? No, that’s not right.”

As Rocco puzzled over the intricacies of the game, Pentz sat quietly in his chair and said nothing.

“Black queen on … nothin’. I got nowhere to put it.” He set the rest of the deck back on the desk. “The hell with it.” He looked at Pentz. “You sure haven’t had much to say.”

Pentz proved Rocco right.

Continue reading “Fiction: Two Games of Solitaire” →

With a respectful nod to the late, great Jim Croce for the title

The door to the bar opened, spilling a little fresh air and a gringo inside.

A few of the locals looked up from their beers and their cards to study the gringo. He was young but not a boy. He was nicely dressed but not expensively. He was clean but he had been sweating in the southwestern heat. He was not one of them, but the pain in his eyes made him an honorary citizen of their little bar so they left him alone.

The gringo took a stool at the bar, leaving a few polite open spaces between himself and the other man sitting there.

“Una cerveza, por favor,” the gringo said. The bartender nodded his graying head and produced a lightly chilled bottle of beer. The gringo stared at it for a long time. At last he spoke quietly: “All the time I have left is in this bottle.” He picked up the beer and downed half of it.

Continue reading “Fiction: Time in a Bottle” →