Monday, January 16, 2012

"CRIME AT THE FIVE AND DIME" ~ Noir Haiku by Author Kevin j Mackey ... AT THE BIJOU

A star shines brightly / Lighting the darkness of noir / As Kevin scribbles:





CRIME AT THE FIVE AND DIME

A story told in Haiku-Noir
By ~ Kevin J Mackey



A dark Friday night
Lenny, looking for trouble
Didn't make it back

=========================

At the Five and Dime
Lenny - shakin' the place down
Word reaches the Boss

So Boss sends two goons
"I wanna talk to him - right?
Don't you kill him - yet"

------

They leave; she enters
"Sending guys? Send a woman"
She croons to the Boss

"If they don't work out
You go pick up the pieces"
He can hear her purr

------

The boys go in soft
Seems Lenny missed the memo
Unloads both barrels

"My turn now," she said
Lenny spun - he was too slow
He never saw her

------

The dame at the Dime? 
It's a crime, mistaken late.
Sorry sisters' fate

"So, how'd it work out?"
 She paces like a tiger
"Lenny? History"







"And that Five and Dime?"
"My sister," she said, "worked there
He did the wrong dame"

  
© 2012  NOIR Haiku Author ~ KEVIN J MACKEY
Cold crimes for  Jump-Jivin' January NOIR  ~ AT THE BIJOU
IMAGES: Vintage travel sign and 1940's Hairstyles


So one day, an author I admire tremendously mused how AT THE BIJOU shot out NOIR:


"Terrific post about Noir - I love the idea that it's a feeling rather than just a collection of words and scenes and characters.

As with all good writing, it's the sense of the place, the time, the situation that reaches the reader. And noir done well - well, what can I say that you ain't already heard?

Noir, here AT THE BIJOU - is how it's done."


I'm Absolutely*Kate and I challenged that lyrical Irishman, waxing eloquent in 'Frisco, to shadow his style to Our Noir.

He tendered me this note:



*Kate,

 The idea of Noir Haiku seemed very odd to me, but I resolved to give it a . . . shot, as it were.

The first below came shortly after a 3-hour drive to the Russian River, and seemed like fun. So, maybe a few more of these Noir Haiku were possible.

And then . . . the idea that the first was but a story in summary and the rest . . . the rest . . . they could be the whole story, told a piece at a time, in Haiku.

At which point I went to bed. Don't be silly, Kevin!

Thanksgiving day - and the story presented itself. It doesn't have a title. In the finest of traditions, I'll leave that up to the publisher. I'm not calling the first a prologue, for that might mandate an epilogue! So, it remains a blurb, a summary, an intro to the unfolded story below it.

I hope you enjoy,

-KjM


I DO enjoy what Kevin Mackey created, more so due to the inner spark I sense he's lit. He's like that, that way. And I like that. A lot.

Our notes continued:


My dear *Kate,

I've been enjoying your NOIR festival AT THE BIJOU. You've assembled quite a set of writers. My noir haiku are fun and will be a novelty in mix - but the stories you've collected are really good. I'm glad to read ('hear' even, the voices are so clear) such noir. It assures the style hasn't gone out of…style.

My best to you. You are a gift to the writers you showcase.

- KjM


I know he's customarily kind. I smiled. He got to me. I wished to know more. Wouldn't you?


Mr Mackey, what's the best gift YOU ever received?

- KjM:  A new group of, likely to be, lifelong friends almost two decades ago in the Midwest. That, for sure. And a second, if I may indulge, the memories conjured by the unexpected arrival of a re-published schoolbook, of poetry. I am fortunate in my siblings.


A*K: I believe many are fortunate, in the knowing of how you grace lives encountered. What then, good sir, is the best you ever gave?

- KjM:  Perhaps best I not say
 out loud in a crowded theatre.


A*K: Touche, man of depth and character. How then does one go about gifting KjM Writings for greater happiness in a world that needs more happiness gifted about?



- KjM:  A story for children: At Amazon, Ribbon in the Darkness also available as a Barnes & Noble Nook book

Five short stories - not for children: At Amazon, Sins of the Father - and other stories or as a Barnes & Noble Nook book. Five short stories digging through the darker sides of relationships - and the far-reaching impact we can have on one another.

Poetry and Photographs, hopefully in harmony: Haiku - Through a Lens at Amazon, or as a Barnes & Noble Nook book. Those who follow my tweets, or have seen my Facebook page, know that I am fond of haiku. The small, beautiful, Japanese poetry style forms the vast bulk of my Twitter activity. From time to time I have included photos of the world around me, pairing them with haiku.

These fine books may be found internationally as well at Amazon sites in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

Little by little some of my stories, and some of my poetry, have begun creeping out into the wider world. That they have done so is a source of great pleasure to me. That they bring pleasure to others, to readers, is an even greater source of pleasure.

The first of KjM's novels will be ready for the world in the first quarter of 2012. More to follow - news (and, perhaps, novels ... hmm, see below).

KjM - on the web

Writing keeps me awake - that's as much as one can ask
Other of my work can be found right here AT THE BIJOU and on the web at the links on my blog, KjM - on the web. My thanks to those who've been kind enough to feature my stories.


A*K: The following is a sneak preview co-authoring tour de force. I am fortunate to be writing with Mr Mackey a novel of social-political intrigue, spanning sensations of the deep South up to New York City's high life. Each chapter delights us the more as we listen to our characters, learning to decipher and discover their secrets...

A Duet in the Key of C

~ By Absolutely*Kate and Kevin J. Mackey

A*K: Looking forward to chaptering our Carolina Beatrice Templeton character and her cohorts the more with you Kevin -- but you're centerstage AT THE BIJOU now. You're looking uptown downright dapper ~

Will you tell our red-velvet seated audience what you would like them to remember about the Author you see yourself being?

KjM: A storyteller, from a land filled with storytellers and storytelling, in whose stories readers could get lost - and find themselves.


A*K:  Will you share something inside which you've never told a full-fledged audience of readers and fellow classy authors in a ritzy theatre, where the single spot holds you in a pool of light that just keeps glimmerin' . . .

KjM: Late at night, the time when all the big questions seem to get asked . . . sometimes there is an answer.


Absolutely*Kate:  There seems ever an answer when we surround ourselves with those who truly take our minds the higher. Kevin Mackey and AT THE BIJOU Authors of the Shadows of Our Noir do raise spirits and the bar, where words speak soft and whisper loud their own brands of excellence. Grace o'my thanks readers, friends, colleagues.
~ Absolutely*Kate 



My dear Ms. *Kate,

I don't know if you've ever run across this poem, or the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, but my sister sent me a column of poetry (actually, they've - strangely enough - recently republished the poetry book we used in High School, and that's what she sent me.)

Looking through it, and fondly remembering how I immersed myself in it while in school (one of the few school books I took real time with back then) I ran across "The Windhover" by the above mentioned poet.

Reading it, I was reminded of your playfulness/power with/over language.

See if you recognize yourself in this link.

My best to you, with much affection,

       - KjM



Oh Kevin, keep that breathless charm,
won't you please arrange it, for you recharge us?

~ Absolutely*Kate
and our ritzy staff
 
AT THE BIJOU 
"Where Writers' Raves are Readers' Faves"

 THE BIG SLEEP IS WIDE AWAKE AT THE BIJOU

 BOGIE:   Baby, tell the kids to stick around 
 BACALL:   Stick around Kids.

 BOGIE:   I love when you mess around with the script.
 BACALL:   Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

 BOGIE:   HERE'S LOOKIN' AT 
 NOIR, AT THE BIJOU 

   LINK delicious INFLUENCES of ~
                OUR NOIR AUTHORS' "JUST DESSERTS" ~


   LINKS TO OUR NOIR SO FAR ~
  
  






Sal Buttaci . . . and Absolutely*Kate so far . . . . 


   NOIRTORIOUS COMING ATTRACTIONS ~ 
                          Every-few-days, cold crimes . . . jump-jiving January's NEW NOIR


Paul Brazill ... Leon Jackson Davenport

BR Stateham ... Fiona Johnson ... Jack Bates 

Luca Veste, on the record OFF THE RECORD

 Julian Bramwell Slater ... Christina Vincent

Charlie Wade ... Darren Sant  ... 

Lily Childs ... Walter Conley

Carrie Clevenger ... Daniel Stine  ...  

Thomas Pluck and the Lost Children benefit show

New Year's new NOIR, Publisher BLASTED HEATH

editor John Kenyon, publisher of GRIFT magazine

with telling tales of GRIMM TALES' greats 

Rex Pickett picks a surprise ... 

plus . . . return of our pally, the great Randisi ... 

AT THE BIJOU'S Harry B Sanderford ... Matthew Magda ...  

& intermittent intermission intermezzo by masters of the ceremonious ~ 
Kevin MadDog Michaels and Absolutely*Kate ... 

Why ~ Who knows who's getting into the act? . . . 
RAYMOND CHANDLER may be channeled! 

  

ABSOLUTELY*KATE, BOGEY & PALLY PRODUCTIONS
Jump-Jivin' January's New Year, New NOIR ~ AT THE BIJOU


Posted by at 12 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,

Thursday, January 12, 2012

NOIR, AT THE BIJOU presents ~ "ONE FOR THE BOOKS" ~ By Salvatore Buttaci



O N E   F O R   T H E   B O O K S 
 
By ~ Salvatore Buttaci

Trying to keep both my eyes private, I let the nightmare I’m riding whinny in the gray fields of Dream Town. Nostrils flaring––mine or the mare’s?––I toss and turn till the damn phone in the real world punches holes in my sleep.

“Yeah,” says my cotton mouth.

“Crane, sorry about the time.”

You’ve been sorry before, Hotcakes.

“Your winning ticket’s dead.”

“Booth?”

“Booth. Dead as the proverbial doornail. One nasty hole through the temple.”

I scratch my forehead. Yawn.

“Hawkins gonna pay you a visit. He’ll want to know what you know about your client Booth. Which is pretty much nothing, so get your pants on.”

Walter Johnson Booth. President of Booth Industries. “Name your price, Mr. Crane.” That Booth. Only a week ago in my office he came to me looking grim. Desperate. I thought to myself, Okay, the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first World Series yesterday and he’s one pissed-off Yankees fan. I frame the smiling, game-winning pitcher Johnny Podres in my head and together we both toss back a scotch for Brooklyn. Then I give a quick look around at my dingy office, dress down my face into a scowl of disgust. The pastel-green peeling wall, the chipped desk, the very un-Persian rug fraying at our feet.

I throw a glance at Hotcakes, Betty-Grable gams crossed, dictation pad on her kneecaps. My price? What the hell.

“Thirty Big Ones, as in $30K’s,” I tell him. Maybe it’s the drink I toasted with Podres making me dumb-headed.

He ups the ante. “Forty, Mr. Crane,” then offers his hand to shake on it. I wait for that same hand to sign the check.

Booth walks to the door. “Find her,” he says without unlocking his stone jaw.

A week beating the bushes uncovering not even a hint of a rattler’s hiss and feeling damn guilty about the easy 40K, I get this wake-up call Booth is dead. Mrs. Crane––Ava Dell Crane––was still missing. Maybe at large. For a short second I miss the old days in the 40’s when I was Horvath Blatsmore, a Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime store manager in Hackensack, New Jersey. Bored to the bone. Hungry for the fireworks of a life on the edge. The cold-steel feel against my palm. But it was 1955 and the twinge of nostalgia was just that––a twinge. Horvath Blatsmore and I wave a mental goodbye in the Woolworth’s parking lot.

When the phone rings again minutes later, I pick it up. “Crane here.” I can hear someone breathing. “Crane here,” I repeat, then do a little breathing of my own as I inhale and exhale on my seventh Chesterfield of the new day.

I keep the phone plastered at my ear. If a private eye is anything, he’s patient. I hang in and wait. I light another from a nearly empty pack when I hear a voice soft as morning fog say, “I didn’t kill my husband.”

“Ava Dell,” I say without a question mark, like we’re old school chums from Hackensack High.

Now Booth’s widow sniffles back tears. Patience, Crane. Patience. Finally, in spurts and pauses, she lets it all out. “Mr. Crane, I know my husband hired you to track me down. He said if I ever ran off…Mr. Crane, my husband was a dreadful man!” Pause.

“Dreadful how?” I say, yanking us free of silence.

“Oh, he had money. Rockefeller? Walter could buy and sell ten Rockefellers! But I never saw a Mercury-dime of it. He paid me in black-and-blue. Bruises. All over me except where neighbors could see and wonder. Longer pause. “But they’ll fade. Someday.”

The gumshoe in me flashes “MOTIVE” in huge neon lights. Ava gets rid of Walter. No more beatings. Goodbye fear. A pocketbook the size of Fort Knox to help her forget.

Jump in, Crane. The water’s fine.

“Okay, you leave him. He hires me to find you and bring you back home. No luck there. Instead, you find me. Is that right, Mrs. Booth?”

Silence. Maybe Ava nods.

“Now the blue boys want answers. Who put the bullet in Booth’s head? Who was most likely to gain from a Booth stone-cold dead? Now I pause, then add, “Afraid that’d be you, Ava Dell.”

I return the dead receiver to its cradle. Case closed. Now Hawkins at the precinct can work his investigative magic, track down the elusive widow with a gun and give justice its due.

What the hell… Another round of rings. This time I wait for Mrs. Booth or Hotcakes or Hawkins to lead off. A little silence from me.

“Mr. Crane?”

“Don’t hang up on me again, Mrs. Booth. Where are you?” In my head I’ve been asking that question for a week now. “Where are you, Ava Dell? Make it easy for yourself.”

Outside my flat the morning sun pokes its yellow in between the blinds. The Irish fruit-and-vegetable vendor stands beside his truck and greets the new day with a hollering roll- call brogue of the new day’s specials. “Watermelons, peaches, Concord grapes, potatoes.”

“He was having an affair,” Mrs. Booth says, twice sidestepping my question of her whereabouts. “A big-eyed blond who wanted all his money.”

“How’s that?”

“I was hiding from Walter, but from her too. Me, dead, she marries him. Then Walter, dead, she gets it all.”

I’m confused. Booth paid me $40 G’s to find her. Why? So he can kill her?

“He wanted you back,” I tell her. “Could it be he loved you? I mean he paid me a bundle to…”

Ava Dell practically growls out, “They wanted me dead!”

“So why was your husband murdered? What you’re saying don’t make sense. Only you as his widow stood to rake in his millions. No contracts out there to say different. Come up with a scenario I can believe in.”

Ava Dell isn’t done. Now the two of us are puffing cigs into our mouthpieces. And speaking of mouthpieces, this dame was gonna need a damn good one.

“Maybe Walter missed beating up women,” Ava says. “Maybe his new punching bag wasn’t up to taking it, money or not.”

I scratch my forehead again. Lame-brain Crane. Where the hell was Hawkins?

We stop the chit-chat this time with quick goodbyes.

The phone’s gonna ring again, I convince myself. I frown and smile when it does.

“Crane.”

“Hawkins.”

“Yeah, I got the news already. Big Bucks Booth’s dead. The widow’s been calling me a few times since five this morning. We shot the bull. Says she ain’t the gun.”

“She’s not. We got witnesses. How easy this gonna be, Crane?

So Ava Dell was on the up and up. Brooklyn’s 66th Precinct wonder boy Burt Hawkins cleared her. He had the real deal down at headquarters.

“Who?”

“The killer?” Hawkins asks.

I nod.

“Booth’s new squeeze. Big-busted blond named Chrissy Lincoln.”

Crap this crazy never happened at Woolworth‘s. First the Dodgers upset the odds and take the Series from New York. Then my phone makes a play for most phone calls on a single Thursday in October for the Guinness Book of Records 1955. Now for the crowning kabosh: Lincoln shoots Booth! What the hell was next?

At last a quiet moment. A Chesterfield clamped between my lips, I think of the Bahamas. Bronze beauties strutting their assets on the hot sand. I think, “Crane, Private Eye” stenciled on the glass door of my new triple-sized office.

I tap the butt of my .38 Special sitting snug in my shoulder holster. It’s there to save my life. Then I reach into my side jacket pocket and run my fingers over my bank book, more than $40 Grand fat, and visions of sugarplums dance in my head.


© 2012  NOIR Author ~ SALVATORE BUTTACI
Cold crimes for  Jump-Jivin' January NOIR  ~ AT THE BIJOU

     

JUST WHO IS THIS JUBILANT SALVATORE,
AND WHY DO WE READ HIM?

Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci is a retired English teacher who has been writing since childhood. By his own jovial admission, Sal's an obsessive-compulsive writer, whose work continues to proliferate widely. His first published work, an essay entitled “Presidential Timber,” appeared in the Sunday New York News when he was sixteen. Since then his poems, letters, short stories, and articles have been widely published in The New York Times, Newsday, U.S.A. Today, The Writer, Writer's Digest, The National Enquirer, Christian Science Monitor, Cats Magazine, Thinking Ten, Pen 10, Six Sentences and elsewhere in America and overseas. 

Buttaci is the former editor of New Worlds Unlimited, and of Poetidings, the newsletter of the New Jersey Poetry Society, Inc. Along those stanzas, Sal was the 2007 recipient of the $500 Cyber-Wit Poetry Award. He has lectured on Sicilian-American pride and conducts poetry workshops and readings. I salute Sal heartily as the finest 'Godfather of Authors' aboard the soon sailing HARBINGER*33, manifesting destinies. His spirit and encouragement is the stuff of legends and laughter. One can see the twinkle in Sal's eye come through just in how he scribes a note your way. Inspirationally, romantically and oh so enjoyably, our bountiful Buttaci lives in West Virginia with his sweetheart of a wife, Sharon.


Ms Sophia Loren 
backstage AT THE BIJOU
when she heard her great
paison Salvatore was
selling books, sexy.
“I think the quality of sexiness comes from within. It is something that is in you or it isn't and it really doesn't have much to do with breasts or thighs or the pout of your lips.” 
                          ~ Sophia Loren, knowing sex sells
 . . . wishing to soar Sal's sales

Not sure what you'll say, if you judge Sal's book by its cover but the bountiful Buttaci will come right up to you on the streetcorner and ask you, "Say, why haven't you bought my book yet?" 


You can't have Sal's pride without having Sal's sensational successes with the manner words move soul:

Sal's latest collection of short-short fiction, 200 Shorts, is available in book and Kindle editions at Amazon.
   
In 2001, Pudding House Publications included his work in the Greatest Hits Series with his chapbook, Greatest Hits: 1970-2000. Buttaci's book, A Family of Sicilians … is available, where else? 
At the ever enterprising Buttaci Publishing.


SAL'S INFLUENCES?
 
Three authors who made an impression on what he calls
The Buttaci Writing Style are ~ 

Ray Bradbury . . . Frederic Brown . . . Philip Jose Farmer



Ciao, grazie mille Salvatore!
Ti voglio bene ~

~ Absolutemente*Katrina
and our ritzy staff
 
 
AT THE BIJOU 
"Where Writers' Raves are Readers' Faves"

 THE BIG SLEEP IS WIDE AWAKE AT THE BIJOU

 BOGIE:   Baby, tell the kids to stick around 
 BACALL:   Stick around Kids.

 BOGIE:   I love when you mess around with the script.
 BACALL:   Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

 BOGIE:   HERE'S LOOKIN' AT 
 NOIR, AT THE BIJOU 

   LINK delicious INFLUENCES of ~
                OUR NOIR AUTHORS' "JUST DESSERTS" ~


   LINKS TO OUR NOIR SO FAR ~
  
  






and Absolutely*Kate so far . . . . 


   NOIRTORIOUS COMING ATTRACTIONS ~ 
Every-other-day cold crimes . . . jump-jiving January's New*Year NEW NOIR


Paul Brazill ... Kevin J Mackey ... Leon Jackson Davenport

BR Stateham ... Fiona Johnson ... Jack Bates ...

Luca Veste, on the record OFF THE RECORD

 Julian Bramwell Slater ... Christina Vincent ... Charlie Wade ... 

Darren Sant ... Aidan Fritz ... Lily Childs ...  

Thomas Pluck and the Lost Children benefit show

New Year, new NOIR, Publisher BLASTED HEATH

editor John Kenyon, publisher of GRIFT magazine

with telling tales of GRIMM TALES' greats 

Rex Pickett picks a surprise ... 

plus . . . return of our pally, the great Randisi ... 

AT THE BIJOU'S Harry B Sanderford ... Matthew Magda ...  

plus intermittent intermission pizazz by masters of the ceremonious ~ 
Kevin MadDog Michaels and Absolutely*Kate ... 

Why ~ Who knows who's getting into the act? . . . 
RAYMOND CHANDLER may be channeled! 

  

ABSOLUTELY*KATE, BOGEY & PALLY PRODUCTIONS
Jump-Jivin' January's New Year, New NOIR AT THE BIJOU

Posted by at 14 comments:
Labels: , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)