Lydia Meets Raymond

Lydia was sitting in her paneled office in the back of Malibu Waterbeds trying to figure out what to do about Grace when all hell broke loose. Things were bad enough for Lydia and a fight on the showroom floor made things worse.

The big guy in the black T-shirt emblazoned with the Crazy Pony Cabaret logo was kneeling down on the black and white checkerboard tiles making pulp out of the customer’s face. Raising his fists and bringing them down like a metronome. Lydia heard the sickening thuds and saw blood spurting everywhere.

She heard a woman screaming.

“No, Raymond, you gotta stop,” the woman said. “It’s not like that. You’re gonna kill him you keep doing that.”

From TRINITY’S FIFTH BUSINESS

Coming soon.

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Play That Funky Music

The Thing, 1957 by Allen via Flickr

This close to Tucson.

Play that Funky Music White Boy on the radio.

Hal turned up the volume and sang along. He was almost to Benson, Arizona when the highway signs for The THING got his attention. No funny business, Mitch had said.

Dancing and singing.

Hal kept driving.

Moving to the grooving.

The signs came every couple of miles.

Mystery of the Ages?

What the hell could that be?

Some other time he would definitely go there.

From TRINITY SPRINGS FORWARD

Coming soon from Barnstork Press

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Watching the Traffic on Route 66

Dallas liked standing in front of the out-sized window, his hands making marks on the glass, watching the traffic on Route 66.

Edison didn’t want to talk to Dallas.

“Can’t talk to you Dallas. I’m busy.”

“Edison,” Dallas said. “Edison, listen just a minute. What’s a minute hurt you?”

AMERICAN TYPOLOGIES Globetrotter Lodge, Holbrook, Arizona by David Meyer via Flickr

Dallas was trying to sound reasonable. He was trying to keep Edison on the phone.

“Can’t talk,” Edison said. “I’m busy.”

“Edison, this is important.” Dallas said.

“Told you, I can’t talk. I’ll call you back.”
”Come on Edison. Just listen to what I’m saying.”

Edison hung up the phone and then looked at it.

Dallas would call again and again until Edison talked to him.

Edison grabbed the burro and ate it. It wasn’t enough. He would get something more at Jane’s Cafe in town.

From DIM LIGHTS THICK SMOKE

Coming soon from Barnstork Press

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Daydreams About Night Things

Hal walked in.

Ronnie Milsap singing on the radio. Daydreams About Night Things.

A soap opera with the volume turned down playing on the black and white.

Hal signed his name as Jean-Paul Belmondo in the motel register.

He listed his car as a blue Ford from Nebraska.

“How long you planning to be here?” she asked

From TRINITY SPRINGS FORWARD

Coming soon.

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Jean-Paul Belmondo

Miracle Mile - Tucson, Arizona

Hal arrived in Tucson a day early.

La Siesta Motel Sign. Image by Erin via Flickr

Wearing his white leisure suit, Hal had driven the white Cadillac Coupe de Ville all the way across the country from icy Cleveland Heights to the long warm neon glow of Tucson’s Miracle Mile.

Mi Casita Motel was the first place he’d come to as he’d come into town. Mi Casita looked perfect. The place had to look inconspicuous.

He stood up, stretched, looked around the parking lot.

The Cadillac shined in the Tucson sun. He needed to get it washed, but it still looked nice.

From TRINITY SPRINGS FORWARD

Coming soon.

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Green, Green Grass of Home

Even before he hit the city limits of Holbrook, Edison knew he wasn’t riding for the money.

Edison wanted the chance to prove something.

The rodeo was a connection with his dead brother.

Hearing the announcer calling his name, seeing the crowd up in the stands. It all took him back to his early days with Livingston.

The purse was chicken scratch, barely worth getting into his truck.

The Merle Haggard tape was in the deck. Green, Green Grass of Home playing.

Edison kept it on.

Stormin' Norman

Major Stanley Friend held the bottle by the neck. It felt good in his hands, like a baseball bat.

He took a practice swing.

He held the empty bottle aloft, like Norm Cash in the on-deck circle.

Norm Cash.

Stormin’ Norman.

The Tigers had been something.

norm-cash-detroit-tigers via pete g3 on flickr

Cash, Kaline, Lolich, McClain.

From TRINITY and the SHORT-TIMER

Buy the Trinity books and FERGUSON’S TRIP on amazon or on this website.

Georges Simenon

Simenon was my first crime novelist hero. I don’t know how many of his novels I’ve read, but it’s only a small fraction of the hundreds and hundreds he wrote. The first one I read was MAIGRET and the BUM (MAIGRET et le CLOCHARD) which i picked up in Value Village in Tucson years ago. Something clicked for me with the atmosphere, dialogue and the length and I’ve tried to emulate him ever since in all those areas.

I mentioned length. They generally are in the hundred and fifteen to hundred and twenty page length. Just about right for an airplane trip. In the book I’m writing now, Trinity’s reading (on an airplane) Maigret and the Strangled Stripper. He finishes it before the end of the flight.

The entire Maigret catalog is now being re-released by Penguin. Don’t miss them.

Ghost Stories Like Big Joe and the Phantom 309

Ghost of Haynesville Woods. Used with permission given by Christopher Mills.

FERGUSON’S TRIP mentions ghost stories told about the Haynesville Woods. If you’ve ever heard Red Sovine’s “Big Joe and the Phantom 309” which was also recorded by Tom Waits on his “Nighthawks at the Diner” album, then you’ve heard a story very much like those told about the woods..

if you’ve never heard the song, you’re in for a treat.

Buy FERGUSON’S TRIP and my other novels on Amazon or on this website.

Hot already and the temperature's rising

Brooks lived in an old Santa Fe style house. The kind that stays low to the ground like a dust devil and sprawls behind the cover of desert vegetation.

Standing at the front door, Trinity looked at the long expanse of the Tucson skyline, trying to pick his neighborhood out of the brownish haze spreading from A Mountain to the university.

Nothing ostentatious about the house. It’s understatement practically screamed money.

Brooks answered the door himself, holding what Trinity guessed wasn’t his first gin and tonic of the day.

From TRINITY WORKS ALONE

Barnstork Press

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Fenton's back...

How lucky was Matthew Fenton? Not only to see Marty Curtis again, but for her to sit down next to him at the breakfast table like he was her best friend in the world.

She was like the girl in the Clarol ad.

And the closer he gets… the better you look.

She didn’t have that carefree look today. Something was wrong and it didn’t take long for her to start telling Fenton the trouble.

From TRINITY SPRINGS FORWARD

Coming soon.

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Smyrna Mills Road

Phil Kopeck drove Whitey Wilson and Marty MacMurray and then had to pick up Billy Sumner, who almost didn’t get off work, and Kenny Johnson who lived all the way down on the Smyrna Mills Road. Somehow, even with their equipment, all five of those guys jammed into Kopeck’s lime green Roadrunner, burning oil the whole way to the game.

From FERGUSON’S TRIP Now available on Amazon or on this website.

S(no)W by Roland Brunner via Flickr

Walk Away

The Coupe de Ville was a hell of a nice ride.

The Cadillac’s owner wasn’t going to miss it.

Long white Cadillac

He was going to be there in his recliner in the house in the foothills. Hal had read his directions, and there was virtually no risk. If things looked funky, he could just walk away.

From TRINITY SPRINGS FORWARD

Coming soon.

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White Freightliner

Space Age Lodge photo by David Meyer via Flickr

Trinity is heading to Quartzsite, but first he and Sager stop in Gila Bend for a cheeseburger at the Space Age Lodge. Sager is looking out the window into the empty desert. A White Freightliner passes.

A good opportunity to listen to the Townes Van Zandt song performed by Billy Joe Shaver.

TRINITY’S FIFTH BUSINESS - Coming soon

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The Bucket of Blood Saloon

Two Holbrook saloons are mentioned in DIM LIGHTS THICK SMOKE.

Major action takes place in or near the Ten High Saloon, but the infamous Bucket of Blood Saloon is used also as a backdrop for a critical part of the story.

Coming soon: DIM LIGHTS THICK SMOKE - A Northern Arizona Crime Novel

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Bucket of Blood Street, Holbrook, Arizona Image by Tristan Tom via Flickr

...The Law Won...

In a way, Jerry Daigle regretted not having anyone to share the plan with. He’d spent so much time thinking about it, it would have been nice to get some attaboys for his brilliance. But that was part of the plan.

Nobody’s in on it, he thought. Just Jerry Daigle.

From FERGUSON’S TRIP

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Bobby Fuller

Conway Twitty in Greece

Years ago, a Conway Twitty record made it to Symi. The taverna on the beach played it over and over and Tad associated the song with America.

Greece, Symi by Christos Nussil via Flickr

He looked at the photograph of Symi on the wall next to the booth.

Twitty’s strong voice climbed from one key to another.

It’s Only Make Believe. 

The little taverna on Saint Nicholas Beach was a blaze of white and the sea was a bright blue. The sun was shining and the effect was beautiful. With the song on the jukebox, Tad felt like he was back there as a kid.

From LEFTY and the KILLERS

The Cheevers Mask

Chatterbox Barry.

Coaching from the goaltender’s spot, wearing his Gerry Cheevers mask with the stitches painted on. Should have let him do the coaching tonight, Ferguson thought.

From FERGUSON’S TRIP

Illustration of mask by John Holliday

Buy my crime novels on Amazon or on this website, and check out the great hockey anthem by Warren Zevon.

350 Turbo Fire V8

Ferguson slung himself into his Impala station wagon parked in the snow in front of the Bide-a-Wee. The thermometer on the porch read something just above zero. Even in sub-zero weather the Impala’s 350 Turbo Fire V8 was reliable. Ferguson turned the heat onto full blast. Snow was still not covering either his Maine Vacationland license plate or the Registered Maine Guide sticker on his windshield. Not yet, anyway.

From FERGUSON’S TRIP

Illustration by John Holliday

70's Action

John Holliday’s illustrations for the cover of FERGUSON’S TRIP are a nod to the action movie posters of the 1970’s. In FERGUSON’S TRIP, Thane Ferguson and Barry Lufkin have a short conversation about the 1977 Charles Bronson film TELEFON.