Well I returned from my Alaska vacation and am trying to get caught up and back in business. Today's guest is new to me and our blog and brought to us from Class Act Books so please give Mr. Robb T White a huge welcome!
Under the names Terry White, Robert White, and Robb T. White, Robert White has published dozens of crime, noir, and hardboiled short stories, and three hardboiled private-eye novels. A lifelong reader of crime fiction, he published his first story in Gary Lovisi's Hardboiled magazine. Since then, he has published several dozen crime stories, and a collection of mainstream stories in 2013. An ebook crime novel, "Special Collections," won the New Rivers Electronic Book Competition in 2014.
White was born, raised, and continues to live in Ashtabula, Ohio.
Weaker sex? Not hardly!
The female is definitely
deadlier than the mail. Short stories
about ladies who can hold their own.
Excerpt:
Be careful
what you wish for, Regina.
Her mother’s words. Sometimes she could hear her
mother’s voice in the house.
The Vindicator
piece on Bodycomb’s death was two paragraphs.
He was found floating in Lake Milton, a popular
summer resort area for fisherman seventeen miles east of Austintown just off
the Interstate 80 overpass. Shot by a small-caliber weapon in the back of the
head. The important information was in the second paragraph: Bodycomb, it
noted, was running a dog-fighting network among three states: Ohio,
Pennsylvania, and West Virginia for a loose-knit West Virginia crime family
connected to the Pittsburgh LaRizzo family.
Damn you,
Leo.
She was blowing through caution lights, ignoring
the honking of cars, as she beelined for the office on Market.
Like a script from a cheap thriller, he was
there, wearing the same clothes and unshaven, big jowls dark with stubble, pong
of body odor in the overheated single room.
“You promised me full disclosure, total honesty,”
she said.
She threw the paper across his desk.
“Here it is in case you missed it.”
Be calm, Regina,
she told herself. She wasn’t going to lose her temper and a new job in that
order.
“I did and I meant it, Baby,” Leo said.
He glanced at the paper sideways and pushed it
back to her. He’d obviously read it.
“You asked me—no, you demanded I call somebody. I did,” he said.
He disgusted her with those wagging jowls and big
stomach. She noticed his belt was undone and a patch of curly belly hair
exposed.
Probably
jerking off in here, the freak.
“I suppose you’ll tell me when the mood strikes.”
“I meant the second
case—your next case,” Leo said. “Full disclosure, just like you want.”
Her indignation petered out at the prospect. “So
tell me about it,” she said.
Bodycomb was moving in on Donnie Bracca’s
territory with his dog-fighting, Leo said.
“He can kill all the dogs he wants in West
Virginia,” Leo said. “But Donnie B. controls gambling around here.”
“Donnie Bracca was your real client all the
time,” Baby said.
“It’s like this, kid. They don’t blow each other
up in cars no more. Gentlemen’s agreements, all nice and polite. But rules have
to be followed. Bodycomb went rogue.”
She bit back a retort: You mean, like your own father?
Leo went on, waxing large, a hopeless Mafioso
lover, although a real mafia man, a made man, could see Leo couldn’t be trusted.
But even the Aryan Brotherhood used outside associates to get things done. Leo
could be useful if you couldn’t buy a cop or scare off an investigative
reporter snooping in shady politics or business deals.
She didn’t feel bad about Bodycomb’s death. After
all, she'd wanted to kill the guy herself.
“Damn it, Leo,” she said. “You should have told
me this in the beginning.”Baby moved in the direction Bodycomb’s vehicle had
taken. After A couple of hundred yards through meadow grass up to her knees,
she stopped and listened. Moving on, she dodged stunted bushes that popped up
out of nowhere to snag her clothing. The foliage grew less dense. She found the
parallel ruts of the Road Runner’s tracks and kept moving, straining her eyes
to see light ahead. If Bodycomb was hiding assets from his soon-to-be ex-wife,
he was taking a lot of trouble over it.
After five minutes of faster walking in the
grooves, she heard barking coming from the right. She saw the first glimmer of
light in the distance. The terrain was sparse but small slopes refracted the
light source so it appeared and disappeared with every rise of the ground. A
single dog barking became two, then three and finally a pack. Beneath their
howls, men’s voices.
When she got close enough to make out words, she
lay flat on her belly and put the binoculars on a cluster of men beside a
ramshackle barn surrounded by cages of dogs in the beds of trucks beside a
squared string of light bulbs a dozen feet from the ground. It looked like a
crude boxing ring for backyard brawlers.
Its purpose became clear in the next few minutes.
It was a dog-fighting pit.
Hope you enjoyed today's post and that you'll check back often for Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlight.
Until next time, take care and God bless.
PamT
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