Country Noir

A B-girl with sleepy, mud-colored eyes slipped onto the stool next to mine. “I am here to entertain you,” she said and then added as a tease, “but only during my shift.” At least she wasn’t the kind of woman who would refer to poetry as “verse.” I conspicuously returned my attention to the ball game on the TV over the bar. She leaned in closer and started to stay something. I cut her off. It’s not that I wasn’t tempted; it’s just that I’m cautious. Prison workshops and small rural cemeteries are filled with men who should have been.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication this summer.

The Gardener, In The Pool House, With A Rake

I stared at my client, debating internally how to respond. It wasn't the first time I'd been asked to perform a questionable task in my line of work. Normally I would refuse, but she was offering 50,000 dollars.

"You're putting me at risk here."

"If you don't want to do it, there's plenty of people who could use the money."

She was bluffing. The fact that she was asking me to murder her husband said that she didn't have anywhere else to turn. But then again, where else was I going to make 50,000 dollars as a gardener?

The Hard-Boiled Dental Practitioner

When Nora walked into my office, I knew I was headed for trouble, the way a mosquito heads straight for an albino. Her brother was missing, and she wanted me to learn who was responsible. If I could find the 100,000 dollars he stole from her, all the better.

Her brother was the kind of scum that spat in your prescription bottles when he looked in your medicine cabinet. He was wanted by the police, by the mob, by the FBI, by everyone except the U.S. Army.

I told her no thanks. She needed a private dick, not a dentist.

Genre: Noir