“Is a second murder easier to commit than the first?” Dr. Fiscus strolled across the front of the classroom, stroking his chest as if smoothing an invisible tie.
No one spoke up. The early spring sun poured through the rain-blotched windows, and it was an effort to keep one’s head up, let alone think. Brian held absolutely still, afraid to be singled out.
I saw everything and yet I saw nothing.
I spotted La Strada in the distance. The rectangle of bright white light sucked me in, as it had every weekday night for weeks. As I left work at the university police station on the Cal campus in Berkeley, the evening was singularly dark, high clouds hiding moon and stars. A nip in the air. A storm in the making. It was midnight and I had just gotten off my second shift tour of the campus. My job was to break up an occasional drunken brawl at a dorm, be there for the co-ed walking home alone from an evening seminar, chase the sleeping homeless out of the bushes.
I was only a baby when she first told me about Geoffrey.
The story goes that, two weeks after my father left, I dropped my dummy on to the kitchen floor. When I reached down for it and attempted to put it back between my lips, Mother slapped my hand away and delivered to me these words, the words that would become the soundtrack of my morality.
‘Geoffrey says only bad boys put dirty things in their mouths.’
“I’m not sure I want to do this.”
“You’ll do it.”
“You’re so sure.”
“Aye, son. I’m sure. You know how I’m so fuckin’ sure? A lad rents his arse for shitty money, he’d jump at the chance to do a lot less for a lot more. So how’s about you stow the negotiations and just admit I’m the best deal you’ve had in a long time?”
Temple Beth Shalom
The synagogue was my first stop. I hadn’t been to church in donkey’s years and tended to distrust all institutions on principle, but this old boy had been feeling pretty empty and disconnected for a long time, so I thought I’d give the spirituality thing a try.
Why the temple? Something of a whim, I guess. I definitely wanted as far away from Mother’s bible-thumping Baptists as possible. And while I didn’t know much about Jews, I figured that a religion that had endured so much grief must offer something to fortify a hungry soul.
There I was, and there they were. Game on. A row of plastic packets of Gilette razor blades on a display stand in front of me. I use an electric razor, don’t need razor blades, but as soon as the thought had entered my head it was a challenge, and I never avoid a challenge. That’s weakness, and I avoid weakness because that means becoming like the rest of the herd. So, game on. I took the blades from the shelf, studied them for a moment as if I were really interested in the moisturising properties of the special lubricating strip, and then I slipped them into my coat pocket and wandered away to get on with the rest of my shopping.
I’ve been published previously, both short stories and novels, primarily in the genre of mystery. (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, St. Martin’s Press, and my current publisher, Deadly Alibi Press.)
Homepage: http://www.timwohlforth.com
Tim Wohlforth is a 2003 Pushcart Prize Nominee. He has received a Certificate of Excellence from the Dana Literary Society. Wohlforth has had forty-five short stories accepted for publication. These have appeared in Futures Magazine, Detective Mystery Magazine, Crimestalker Casebook, Storyteller, Orchard Press, Hand Held Crime, Plots With Guns, Mysterical-e, Hardluck Stories, Without A Clue, SDO Detective, StoryOne, Dana On Line, Echelon, CyberPulp, and Writers Hood.
His writings also appear in eight anthologies, including Cyber Pulp’s Down These Dark Streets and
A contemporary noir novel, No Time To Mourn, was published by Quiet Storm in April, 2004. Cyber Pulp has just published DYNAMITE!, a novella, as part of its new Dollar Chapbook series. It is simultaneously releasing the story as a print book. He co-authored the non-fiction book, On The Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, published by M.E. Sharpe.
Wohlforth moderated the short story panels at LCC Portland and Monterey, and has appeared on short story panels at LCC Pasadena, Bouchercon D.C. and Las Vegas. He is a member of The Short Mystery Fiction Society, Mystery Writers of America, Private Eye Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.
“Wohlforth is always worth the time.” — James R. Winter in Thrilling Detective
“Like a great twelve-bar blues–the comfort of a familiar form jazzed by a fresh key and an exciting new voice — Lee Child
Iain Rowan lives in the north-east of England, near the sea but not near enough. He’s had short stories published in a number of magazines and anthologies including Postscripts, Ellery Queen’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s, Polyphony, Black Gate, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, and others. Iain can be contacted via his website, www.iainrowan.com.