David Drake - Balefires

The truth-as this volume proves-is that I started out writing fantasy. After I got back from Southeast Asia in 1971 I had first-hand knowledge of war and the military. I used that background in science fiction stories which eventually (and I mean eventually) got me a name for writing military SF; but I love fantasy, and I've never stopped writing it.

A British writer and editor, Michel Parry, edited a number of interesting original (or partly original) horror and fantasy anthologies in the 1970s. These didn't pay a lot-I believe everything I sold Michel was at a penny a word-but they were sales (and to real publishers like Mayflower and Star) at a time when there were very few outlets in the US for fantasy. (More places in the US would buy SF. For the most part I got rejections from them, but there were at least magazines to which I could send my stories.)

One of Michel's odder endeavors was to edit Devil's Kisses and More Devil's Kisses, anthologies of erotic horror stories, under the name Linda Lovecraft-the trademark of a chain of British sex shops. My understanding is that Linda Lovecraft, like Juan Valdez, was the figment of a marketing weasel's imagination; I recall Michel saying that he'd wondered if he was going to have to appear in court in drag and a blond wig after the raid.

We'll get to the raid later.

Michel asked me to submit to the second volume; I wrote "Smokie Joe." (The idiosyncratic spelling "smokie" seemed right for the character. I don't know why.) There's sex in it, but I don't want to meet the person who gets an erotic thrill from this one.

"Smokie Joe" is a deal-with-the-Devil story (set in Joliet, Illinois, though the setting isn't crucial to the plot). My problem with most of the genre is that the Devil doesn't come through as really evil. My Devil is evil; and I don't trivialize evil, especially since I came back from Viet Nam.

Michel sent me a copy of More Devil's Kisses hot off the presses. That was a good thing, because no sooner had the book hit the newsstands than the police impounded all copies on an obscenity complaint and briefly locked up the in-house editor. The charges were dropped when the publisher (Corgi) pulped the whole edition.

Because the matter didn't go to trial, there's no certainty as to which precise matters were the subject of the complaint. The best bet is that the Chris Miller piece had caused the problem, but that was a reprint from a magazine which had been sold in Britain without objection. The only other evidence is that when the book was brought out in Germany, two stories were dropped; Miller's and "Smokie Joe."

I've not only been banned in Britain, I've been banned in Germany too.

It was Saturday night but Tom Mullens' numbers parlor was as still as the morgue Big Tom expected to grace the next day. He was sweating. He pretended not to, thinking that it would be read as fear by the three sets of eyes trained on him across the counting table; but the drops runneled out of his still-dark curls and down his beefy face. He had always bragged that his two knobbly fists made him a match for any cheap gunman. Tullio's boys didn't work cheap, and Big Tom's throat had clogged with the old boast when he saw the cratered offal their Uzis had left of seven of his runners.

Lod Mahoney couldn't have cared less about Mullens' sweat: his eyes were blind and staring with his own fear. Lod was a paunchy, balding fifty-five, the armpits and long sleeves of his white shirt moist but his bow tie still a neat dark band of respectability. He had stayed this final, terrible week with Big Tom not out of loyalty but because he was only the bookkeeper he appeared to be. Criminal in his associations, not his instincts, Lod did not know how to run.

If Big Tom looked a boar at bay, his son Danny had the sulky nervousness of a well-whipped dog. His eyes darted back and forth among the others in the room, excited to be where he had never before been allowed, but pettish to know that it was only because his father did not trust him loose. Danny's adolescent face was an armature for the conflicting emotions his mind threw on it. On Monday gunshots had called him to a window. Memory of what he had seen in the street now dolloped occasional terror onto his expression.

Across from Big Tom, his hands delicate but almost as dark as the scarred maple on which they lay, smiled Smokie Joe. His goatee bobbled in a humor that no one with him in the room could see. "I can find a couple hard boys," he said in a honey-golden voice, "who can get you out of this yet, Big Tom."

"What?" Mullens snarled, clenching a fist to wipe away the smirk he was sure underlay the words. But Smokie Joe's calm belied a joke. The black eyes were placid, the perfect features composed beneath the slick black hair."Iceman," Big Tom muttered, but aloud he demanded, "All right, what's the hitch? What does anybody out of a funny farm want to get mixed up with me now?"

"Oh, well," his slim lieutenant said with the same suave ease that had taken him to the top of Mullens' organization in the brief months since he had appeared. He spread his palms upward. "They'll want a piece of the action, sure. Half of anything they generate after things get straightened around."

"That's nothing!" Big Tom said, astounded.

"Tom, they'll be Syndicate-" blurted Mahoney, a new fear stamping itself across his face.

"Do you think I care?" Mullens shouted. He stood, his eyes flicking to the blinds drawn across windows in which bullet-proof Lexan had replaced the glass. He rolled his arms as if lifting a huge weight to his chest. "I won't look at where help comes from now if it'll take out Tullio," he said. "My grandmother always said she was a witch, you know? When I saw this coming six months ago I opened her spell-book and prayed to the Devil he should help me. And I meant it, by God."

"Thought it was that simple?" smiled Smokie Joe as he, too, rose to his feet. "One thing, though," he added, leaning forward a little so that his knuckles rested on the table."You've got a choice, Big Tom. But after you choose, there's no going back… Do you understand?"

"I won't go back on my word," Mullens said. He took a deep breath because Smokie Joe seemed to have grown, to bulk huge in the artificial light. "I swear on my mother's grave."

"On your soul, Tom Mullens," demanded the honeyed voice.

"I swear on my soul."

"What the Hell do you think-" Danny Mullens began, but Smokie Joe's contempt froze him at his father's side.

"Hold your tongue when men talk, boy," Joe sneered. Then, to the entrance-way door that should have been guarded by slack-faced Rudy Luscher, he called, "Come on in, boys."

The door opened. Both the figures standing there were tall and dressed with the greasy casualness of back-yard mechanics. One was thin and pale, the other a squat giant whose stumpy legs gave him the build of a dwarf twice magnified. "Nick, Angelo; meet Big Tom Mullens, your new employer," said Joe, his hand indicating the newcomers with the grace of an emcee bringing on the star turn.

"Where the fuck is Rudy?" Big Tom asked. "Drunk, asleep…" the giant shrugged.

"If yourpeoplewereanygood, youwouldn'tneedus."Hisvoicewasincongruously as sweet as a chapel bell. "You want us to take out Tullio, Mr. Mullens?"

"Goddamned right," Mullens agreed with an angry nod. "Any way you can."

"And we're part of your organization afterwards," the corpse-pale newcomer added. Neither of them had any expression in their eyes."We get half of anything we bring in, and you give us a free hand."

"I already said so!"Big Tom blazed."Now, do you stand here all night waiting for Tullio to set up one last hit?"

Smokie Joe broke in with a laugh that chilled the room."Oh, don't worry about Tullio. Not after tomorrow morning."He was still laughing when Nick and Angelo turned and left the room. They closed the door very gently behind them.