George Martin: Down These Strange Streets

“He’ll flake away and we’ll get out the vacuum cleaner,” Joaquin said, with a good approximation of calm. Before his elevation to the sheriff’s position, Joaquin had been in body disposal, Dahlia recalled. “If the stain won’t clean out of the rug, we’ll buy another.”

That was something Cedric would never have said, and Dahlia brightened. “Thank you, Sheriff. He almost surprised me,” she said, and she could barely believe the words were coming from her lips. Perhaps she would miss Cedric more than she had realized.

“When the humans charge the police in order to be shot, they call it ‘suicide by cop.’ ” Katamori bowed to his new friend. He said gallantly, “We will call it ‘Death by Dahlia.’ ”

Music may have charms to soothe the savage breast, but as the down-on-his-luck private eye in the gritty story that follows learns, it also has charms that can open doors—including doors to places where nobody ought to go.

Prolific Texas writer Joe R. Lansdale has won the Edgar® Award, the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the American Mystery Award, the International Crime Writer’s Award, and eight Bram Stoker Awards. Although perhaps best known for horror/thrillers such asThe Nightrunners,Bubba Ho-Tep,The Bottoms,The God of the Razor, andThe Drive-In, he also writes the popular Hap Collins and Leonard Pine mystery series—Savage Season,Mucho Mojo,The Two- Bear Mambo,Bad Chili,Rumble Tumble,Captains Outrageous—as well as Western novels such asTexas Night RiderandBlooddance, and totally unclassifiable cross-genre novels such asZeppelins West,The Magic Wagon, andFlaming London. His other novels includeDead in the West,The Big Blow,Sunset and Sawdust,Act of Love,Freezer Burn,Waltz of Shadows,The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels, andLeather Maiden. He has also contributed novels to series such asBatmanandTarzan. His many short stories have been collected inBy Bizarre Hands;Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back;The Shadows Kith and Kin;The Long Ones;Stories by Mama Lansdale’s Youngest Boy;Bestsellers Guaranteed;On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks;Electric Gumbo;Writer of the Purple Rage;A Fist Full of Stories;Bumper Crop;The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent;For a Few Stories More;Mad Dog Summer: And Other Stories;The King and Other Stories; andHigh Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale. As editor, he has produced the anthologiesThe Best of the West,Retro Pulp Tales,Son of Retro Pulp Tales(with his son, Keith Lansdale),Razored Saddles(with Pat LoBrutto),Dark at Heart: All New Tales of Dark Suspense(with his wife, Karen Lansdale),The Horror Hall of Fame: The Stoker Winners, and the Robert E. Howard tribute anthologyCross Plains Universe(with Scott A. Cupp). An anthology in tribute to Lansdale’s work isLords of the Razor. His most recent books are a new collection,Deadman’s Road; an omnibus,Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal; and, as editor, a new anthology,Crucified Dreams. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

IWAS DOWN AT THE BLUE LIGHT JOINT THAT NIGHT, FINISHING OFF SOME ribs and listening to some blues, when in walked Alma May. She was looking good too. Had a dress on that fit her the way a dress ought to fit every woman in the world. She was wearing a little flat hat that leaned to one side, like an unbalanced plate on a waiter’s palm. The high heels she had on made her legs look tight and way all right.

The light wasn’t all that good in the joint, which is one of its appeals. It sometimes helps a man or woman get along in a way the daylight wouldn’t stand, but I knew Alma May enough to know light didn’t matter. She’d look good wearing a sack and a paper hat.

There was something about her face that showed me right off she was worried, that things weren’t right. She was glancing left and right, like she was in some big city trying to cross a busy street and not get hit by a car.

I got my bottle of beer, left out from my table, and went over to her.

Then I knew why she’d been looking around like that. She said, “I was looking for you, Richard.”

“Say you were,” I said. “Well, you done found me.”

The way she stared at me wiped the grin off my face.

“Something wrong, Alma May?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I got to talk, though. Thought you’d be here, and I was wondering you might want to come by my place.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“All right.”

“But don’t get no business in mind,” she said. “This isn’t like the old days. I need your help, and I need to know I can count on you.”

“Well, I kind of like the kind of business we used to do, but all right, we’re friends. It’s cool.”

“I hoped you’d say that.”

“You got a car?” I said.

She shook her head. “No. I had a friend drop me off.”

I thought, Friend? Sure.

“All right then,” I said, “let’s strut on out.”

I GUESS YOU COULD SAY IT’S A SHAME ALMA MAY MAKES HER MONEY TURNING tricks, but when you’re the one paying for the tricks, and you are one of her satisfied customers, you feel different. Right then, anyway. Later, you feel guilty. Like maybe you done peed on the Mona Lisa . Cause that gal, she was one fine dark-skin woman who should have got better than a thousand rides and enough money to buy some eats and make some coffee in the morning. She deserved something good. Should have found and married a man with a steady job that could have done all right by her.