LITMIR.BIZ

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door to the side of the house, kicked the lattice away and wiggled into the crawlspace, through the dust and spider webs and empty, rusting paint cans. I hate to say I was bordering on frantic, but that’s what I was and there isn’t a better word for it. I was so frantic that I dug in the dirt until my fingers bled. I was still digging long after I knew that the loot I’d hid was just as gone as Gloria. I’d never told Gloria I’d really done it. A guy has gotta cover his bases, right? But, even dumb as she was, she must have figured things out back when I told her not to sell the house. She’d probably gone through every square inch of the place until she found it. Female greed and pure determination won out. In my mind, I saw her on some tropical island, drinking something sweet and strong with a little pink umbrella in it, boasting a tan and laughing at me.

      She was probably getting serviced by some gigolo with a moustache—named Julio or Enrique or something like that.

      The heartless bitch.

      I didn’t like being laughed at.

      Everything that happened, up to that and after that, was all Gloria’s fault. I’ve got nobody to blame but her.

      My bloody fingers were still digging through dirt when the cops pulled up. I froze in my hiding place, stopped breathing, but eventually they spotted me. They pulled me out kicking and screaming and babbling, covered in spiders and sweat and dirt and my own piss, devoid of all dignity.

      One more trip in the back of one more squad car. Hell, it was probably the same one. The scenario was getting too familiar. Like I said, there’s no such thing as a perfect day. Seems the guy I’d roughed up came to long enough to dial 911 before he passed out again. Just my luck, right?

      They grilled me for three days and nights. The dumbest question, the one that drove them nuts, was what the hell was I doing digging in the crawlspace? Damned if I would tell them. Then they’d know I was like every other con who’d swore he was innocent. It was the mantra of the incarcerated. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of telling them the loot had been under their big, flat feet all the time. Of course, if they hadn’t figured I was guilty from the get-go, I wouldn’t have been put away for that robbery in the first place. The snakes were squirming around in my stomach again and I had no way to let off steam. My thought processes were starting to fog. Interrogations do that.

      The morning of day four it hit the fan. The bastard I’d beaten up had died from his injuries. Things got fucking serious after that. The son of a bitch, I didn’t hit him that hard.

      Anyway, I’ll spare you the details of the trial, the ankle chains, the long, boring ride to the penitentiary. For me it was just business as usual.

      God sure as hell gave me the middle finger this time.

      Thanks a lot, Gloria.

      So, here I sit in a smaller cell in a bigger prison, reading the same old crap and sleeping with one eye open so I don’t get it from behind, if you know what I mean. I’ve got lots of time to think. The rest of my life. Some things I still don’t have quite right in my head. I wonder sometimes what I really miss the most—losing the loot—losing my freedom—or losing Gloria.

      Damn, I just don’t know.

      But I sure as hell miss her visits.

      DEAD MAN’S DANCE

      Land’s End, Cornwall 1649

      High upon the cliff, overlooking the wild Cornish sea, the event unfolded in a mood as vacillating as the gray morning sky. The small crowd gathered like the overhead clouds, giggling, muttering, then silent, as shards of sunlight strangled in the thickening fog. The fingers of mist clung to the cliff-side as if they feared the churning sea below, then moved like tendrils around the half-obscured gnarl of twisted oak.

      There was laughter, as if they’d gathered for a Sunday picnic, their voices muffled by the roar of waves crashing against solid rock. The sea spewed its vengeance upward toward the restless, hostile sky, its spray sifting downward to baptize the assemblage. They stood in a circle, and in the center of the circle stood he, tall and ominous, cloaked in black, stoic and still.

      Waves of agitation rippled through the crowd as two men secured a rope on a high, sturdy branch of the old oak. One of them spoke to the other as he tightened the knot:

      “Would’a be fittin’ if the witch finder Matthew Hopkins were here for to find the rest of ’em heathens.”

      “Twenty shillings saved, for he’m be dead as salted mackerel, my dear Michael. An’ besides, we don’t be needing a furriner in our midst—bein’ privy to business better handled by our own.”

      Michael fashioned a noose, then said, “We shoulda killed his wicked father before he spawned the divil by that disease-ridden wench—and better yet to have killed his father before him. But what of the others?”

      “Eff the divil finally be dead they’m be getting back to the business o’ healin’ instead o’ cursin’ I should think.”

      “O’ course, o’ course,” said Michael, but his voice held no conviction. His eyes glanced at the man in black as he lowered himself to the damp ground.

      The wind gusted as the men reentered the crowd. The man was turned over to them, his hands tied behind his back. They held firmly to his arms, as if unsure the bindings could confine him, and pushed him beneath the oak. The man held his head high as he ascended the makeshift ladder, smiling at the gathering storm clouds. The wind caught the hem of his cloak, lifting it. It rose, billowing in a sensual dance around his tall, gaunt form. His face was chiseled, handsome; his eyes cold and gray as the slate cliffs, scanned the crowd.

      To the back, a green eyed woman watched in silence. Her eyes met his, her secret lover, the man about to die. She looked down, expressionless as Michael slid the noose around his neck. The wind whipped her auburn hair across her face. A muscle twitched, distorting her features. She raised her head, muttered silently to the heavens, smiled. Her smile was radiant, the glaze in her eyes spoke of vile, obscene secrets.

      The man in black tossed back his head and laughed.

      Michael kicked the stool out from under him.

      “The last generation of evil be gone.” Someone screamed.

      Then all was silent but for the moan of the wind and the steady creak, creak, creak of the oak’s burdened branch.

      Again the wind caught his cloak, whipped it around him as he spun madly, kicking and twitching, then fighting no more. As if hypnotized, they watched the dead man... dancing, dancing, dancing in a macabre circle.

      “So be it,” said Michael.

      “We be doin’ it like in other lands,” bellowed the second man with authority, met with applause by the crowd. “A hangin’ followed by a burnin’ an’ then that be the end of it.”

      One by one the people broke their trance, gathered twigs and piled them beneath the dead man’s swaying form.

      “This be for corrupting my sweet Mary” said a woman as she placed a branch on the heap.

      “And for killing the wee newborn,” whispered a young lad. “The poor little cheel.”

      “Let not a witch live,” yelled Michael, stirring the crowd to frenzy.

      As the other man knelt to light the funeral pyre there was a discernible depression in the atmosphere. The sky grew dark. The rain, which had been soft and teasing, pelleted down at an angry slant, extinguishing the flames. He relit it, fanned it with his large hands as the crowd chanted.

      Again, the rain smothered it. The dense fog that blanketed the cliff-side was torn free by a violent gust of wind that howled eerily as the hounds of hell. People clung to each other to maintain their balance against the gale-force blast as the storm became a violent, unyielding flagh.

      All eyes turned upward, following the groans and creaks from above their heads. The oak’s branch cracked, then snapped, hurling its gnarled arm and the hanged man over the cliff.

      Michael

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