MY PEOPLE and other crime stories , livre ebook
170
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English
Ebooks
2021
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170
pages
English
Ebook
2021
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
21 octobre 2021
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781662913129
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
Publié par
Date de parution
21 octobre 2021
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781662913129
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
1 Mo
OTHER BOOKS BY LIZA CODY
Anna Lee series
Dupe
Bad Company
Stalker
Headcase
Under Contract
Backhand
Bucket Nut Trilogy
Bucket Nut
Monkey Wrench
Musclebound
Lady Bag Double
Lady Bag
Crocodiles and Good Intentions
Other Crime Novels
Rift
Gimme More
Ballad of a Dead Nobody
Miss Terry
Gift or Theft
Short Stories
Lucky Dip and other stories
As Editor
1st Culprit (with Michael Z Lewin)
2nd Culprit (with Michael Z Lewin)
3rd Culprit (with Michael Z Lewin Peter Lovesey)
MY PEOPLE and other crime stories
Published by Gatekeeper Press
2167 Stringtown Rd, Suite 109
Columbus, OH 43123-2989
www.GatekeeperPress.com
Copyright 2021 Liza Cody.
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Cover Design Sam Camden-Smith and Olivia Rhodes
Turning It Round, (2003) BBC Radio Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Art, Marriage and Death, (2004) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
The Old Story, (2005) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Kali In Kensington Gardens, (2006) Crippen Landru
Mr Bo, (2009) Crippen Landru
Whole Life, (2009) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
I Am Not Fluffy, (2012) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
A Hand, ( 2012) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Day Or Night, (2013) Severn House
Ghost Station, (2016) Sphere
Health And Safety, (2017) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Life And Death In T-Shirts, (2017) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
My People, (2020) Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
When I'm Feeling Lucky, (2020) Hyakawa Mystery Magazine
Hard Hearts , (2021)
The cover design and editorial work for this book are entirely the product of the author. Gatekeeper Press did not participate in and is not responsible for any aspect of these elements.
ISBN (paperback): 9781662913112
eISBN: 9781662913129
CONTENTS
A foreword of warning
I Am Not Fluffy
The Old Story
Whole Life
Art, Marriage and Death
Mr Bo
Turning It Round
A Hand
Day Or Night
Ghost Station
Health And Safety
My People
Kali In Kensington Gardens
Life And Death In T-Shirts
When I m Feeling Lucky
Hard Hearts
Notes from an Untidy Desk
About the Author
A FOREWORD OF WARNING
I m writing this in the summer of 2021 when lockdown restrictions, such as they were, are being lifted in England.
Nearly all the stories included here were written before Covid forced us to change our lives. And I wonder how culture will be altered longterm. Will it be like the difference between pre- and post- World War II novels? Pre-War was, for instance, a world of toffs and servants. Post-War was far more utilitarian, and attitudes which had been taken for granted then strike us as horribly sexist, racist, and anti-Semitic. This left space for ordinary women, like me, to put women of all sorts at the centre of their work.
I don t yet know what a post-Covid world will look like. I ll have to wait and see how cultural norms will have changed.
One change I m already facing is a cultural revolution accelerated by the reliance we all placed on social media while we were isolated. I had seen it coming, but from a distance. I watched while people - professors, writers, journalists, media stars, sports men and women, etc. - lost their jobs, their reputations and their livelihoods: not just for real crimes but sometimes for voicing an unpopular opinion, or for something as simple as a joke or a careless word.
This can t apply to me, I thought - confident that I d always been on the side of the underdog and those who fight bigotry. But I was also scared, and thus wilfully blind to an assault on discussion, free thought and free speech. In retrospect it was there to be seen - a swelling atmosphere of criticism for anyone who disagreed with whatever was deemed acceptable by opinion-makers. At the time it seemed paranoid and fanciful to compare this trend to Mao s Cultural Revolution or Soviet Russia - where nothing but state-approved work would be published and writers could be imprisoned, re-educated or executed.
My blindness might have been caused by the fact that nowadays it is not the state that is responsible. It is ordinary people gathering on social media who are putting on the pressure. An unprecedented level of hate-speak , abuse, and on-line bullying is making people afraid to voice their opinions in case what they say is turned against them.
While I was looking the other way publishers, media outlets, schools, and universities were beginning to hire sensitivity experts to warn them of what the likely result would be of causing discomfort or offence to this or that group. Everyone, including those I rely on for my living, seems to be terrified of the punishment suffered by causing offence to anyone at all.
This is a toxic environment for those of us who think about ideas, characters, consequences and following a story where it wants to go rather than where a sensitivity expert says it ought to go.
What saddens me most is that a lot of this bullying has begun in support of just causes - those I ve supported all my life. But the fight against bigotry seems itself to have engendered bigotry.
If you want to live in a healthy society you do not want your creative people to be looking over their shoulders, terrified of the consequences of making a mistake: frightened that the next knock on the door may be for them.
So here are my stories, warts and all - about My People, warts and all. And I want to thank the people who were brave enough and free enough to publish them - warts and all.
Liza Cody, 2021
To Michael Z Lewin, Peter Lovesey and all the other wonderful short story writers who have been pathfinders for me.
I AM NOT FLUFFY
One night I decided to fight back.
I don t want to be a victim, I said to myself, so why am I always walking in other folks piss? This was literally true at the time: I was going down a steep flight of steps between Paragon Hill and Sharp Harbour. There s a pub at the top and a nightclub at the bottom and it s where all the drunks choose to empty their tiny bladders as they stagger between one venue and the other. Sadly it s on my way home from the nightshift.
I hopped and danced from one small dry patch to another.
These are my good shoes, I thought. Why should I contaminate the soles of my good shoes with drunken piss? Why should the soles of my shoes contaminate my carpet with drunken piss? Because evil never stops in one place. It corrupts whatever it touches. Once it has touched your sole or soul, you carry it with you wherever you go.
*
Mark paid me and when we were done I got out of the car. I call them all Mark, for the sake of confidentiality. This one offered to drive me home, but obviously I didn t want him to know where I lived.
He was a big guy who comforted himself with steak and potatoes. His third son weighed eleven and a half pounds when he was born, and after that his wife refused to have sex with him anymore. He thinks his wife s mean. He thinks she s made of latex.
He s a good bloke, Pearl said. He could of just got his self a girlfriend and left her and the kids with nothing - like my bastard Bobby did.
Don t worry, be happy, Bob Marley sang out of the chip shop speakers. Ev ry little thing gonna be alright.
*
I worked as a hostess and greeter at a bar-restaurant for six nights a week for five years while Harvey qualified to be a tax lawyer. And for two nights a week Harvey was going round to Alicia s flat to bounce on her bones. You were never there, he complained. What was I supposed to do all by myself every night?
You said you were revising, I shouted. I was supporting us and giving you time and space to study.
Alicia used to be a friend of mine. She didn t want him to move in with her until he was qualified and could support her . So that s why I didn t find out till five years later.
Now he s earning gazillions so she wants to get married.
The divorce papers came in the post months ago. He wants me to sign them and send them to the court. No contest divorce, I think they call it. Easy peasey. The papers are sitting on my glass coffee table. I can t seem to find a pen.
*
Mark is getting married next week. He s only nineteen and he told me that his mates said they didn t want him to die a virgin. So they all pitched in to corrupt him. He s sweet and simple. He couldn t understand what they meant by it, but he got interested anyway. He didn t seem to see it as corruption - more as further education. I cried, and he didn t understand that either.
*
Alicia will demand the theatrical white wedding me and Harvey couldn t afford when we went through our short, shabby, civil ceremony six years ago. She bought a MaxiMart chocolate cake for our wedding lunch. I was so grateful to her. She wore a scarlet silk dress for the occasion and looked way more sexy than the bride. I should have learned something from that. But I was in love so I learned, saw, heard, nothing. Love deletes obvious deductions from your brain and should be avoided.
The divorce papers, the proof of corruption, were sitting on my table, corrupting my home. So one night I decided to fight back.
I began passively by taking the papers and a box of matches outside and setting fire to them in the gutter. If asked, I would claim I d never received them.
But later that night I decided that if he wanted a no contest divorce, I would give him a contest. After all, what had behaving lovingly, helpfully and supportively ever done for me?
I might just as well have presented my arse to him with a sign stuck to it saying, Kick me here .
But contests require lawyers and cost cash. He had lots. I had little.
The very next night, my manager, Oliver D, asked me to do him a favour. He said, See that fat tart in the pink strappy number, chatting up those public school tossers at the bar? Get rid of her.
Why? I said. She isn t doing anything wrong.
She s a whore, he said.
How do you know?
Just do it.
But that s your job.
Do it! he said, and scuttled upstairs where the woman in
