Shell Game

By Tim Holter Bruckner

What do you know about someone? Someone close. A friend. A loved one. You know only what they want you to know. Nate Selegman’s friend, Wilson Montgomery, a.k.a., Turtle, was a piece of work. He was a lying, conniving, self-serving jerk. And someone murdered him. And enjoyed doing it. The cops have no leads and no suspects. Nate decides to find out what happened to his old friend. The more he discovers the less he knows. One thing becomes clear. The Turtle he thought he knew was someone else. The Turtle he uncovers plunges him into a world of crime, double-dealing, blackmail and murder. Trust is expensive, and his life, it turns out, is cheap.

From Author Tim Holter Bruckner (Sensible Redhorn, The Adventure of the Pearl Le Fong) comes a new tale of noir and mystery — Shell Game! From Pro Se Productions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Oct 15, 2015

Book preview

SHELL GAME

by Tim Holter Bruckner

Published by Pro Se Press

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Copyright © 2015 Tim Holter Bruckner

All rights reserved.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

About the Author

Prologue

—

The thing about Turtle, a.k.a. Wilson Marion Montgomery, was that you could never tell when he was lying. He was a master. He never stretched the truth too far and never embellished too much. Most liars offer up more than they need to. They think that bracketing the lie with context makes it more believable. But it doesn’t work that way. They flesh it out. They give a little too much background or a little too much auxiliary detail. Every eyewitness to an event only sees so much. And that through eyes compromised by the event. There’s a lack of clarity. A preponderance of impressions, but shallow on specifics. Turtle knew when to hold back. He’d launch into a story. Something about somebody doing whatever. And you’d ask him, but why? And he’d say, How the hell would I know?

For years I believed Turtle was adopted and raised by a Lithuanian couple who had to give him up because they were convicted of dealing in stolen reindeer hides. There was the story that his sister was married to a negro and living in the basement of a church in Mississippi with her three mulatto children. Turns out she was single and in a boarding school in Indiana.

So, when Turtle turned up dead, I had to go through all of it, all the stories, all the lies, and try and figure out what was real and what was not and what of the real stuff got him killed.

Chapter One

—

I met Wilson on the first day of fifth grade. He was wearing a turtleneck sweater. It was huge. Must have belonged to his dad. The sleeves, rolled up to his elbows, made him look like Popeye. The turtleneck collar came up to his nose. For the first week I never saw the lower half of his face. I was starting to think that maybe he had some kind of horrible scar or birth defect. On Friday, Miss Tulcky made him roll it down when he was giving a book report, because all anyone could hear was the odd consonant and a whole lot of mumbling. Turns out, aside from a crooked front tooth, he was normal looking. But from then on, he was known, and would be known forevermore, as Turtle.

As we were leaving school one Friday, he asked if I wanted to come over and hang out. He told me they’d just moved into the neighborhood and he didn’t have any friends. I didn’t really want to but after he told me about not having any friends, I felt bad for him. He lived two blocks from me. We were four houses down from his when he stopped.

I need to tell you something, he said.

Okay.

My mom has a… condition.

Okay. I was starting to regret my decision.

She has a hard time hearing what you’re saying if you talk too fast. So, when you talk to her, make sure you talk slow so she can hear each word. It’s not like she’s deaf or anything. You don’t have to talk loud. Just slow and everything will be fine. Okay?

Sure. Okay.

His house used to belong to Mr. and Mrs. Stromky. I mowed their lawn one summer, so I knew the place.

He opened the door and called in. Mom, I’m home. I brought someone with me.

A woman came out of the kitchen into the living room. Her hair was piled so high on her head she had to duck to get through the door. (I’d recently seen a picture of Lucille Ball on the cover of TV Guide with her red hair and bright red lips. Turtle’s mom’s hair looked like that twenty years before but with the saturation dial turned up to maximum.) I thought maybe it was a hat. It wasn’t.

Mom, this is Nate.

Hello, Nate, she said. She said it kind of slow, like she was still figuring out how her tongue worked.

H-e-l-l-o, Mrs. M-o-n-t-g-o-m-e-r-y, I said.

She looked at Turtle and smiled and then looked at me and extended her hand for me to shake, I guess. She was wearing an elbow length yellow rubber glove. I took her hand and kind of shook it trying to ignore the cold greasy feeling. Then she turned and headed back into the kitchen, ducking.

We spent a couple of hours going through his collection of comic books and pulp magazines. He had hundreds of them. I was pretty impressed. I wasn’t really into comics all that much, but if the number of them wasn’t impressive enough the variety was amazing. Titles I’d never heard of: Tailspin Tommy, Amazing Stories, More Fun, Action Comics and a couple issues of Spicy Detective. Those he had hidden under his mattress.

These used to belong to a kid that used to live next door to us in our old neighborhood. He was a pyromaniac. Do you know what that is?

I said I did.

He set his house on fire. Burned up his whole family and the dog. At the last minute he threw these out his bedroom window. ‘Take care of them for me, Willie!’ he said, just before he burst into flames.

Wow, was all I could say.

As I was leaving, his mom told me to come back anytime. Turtle said he’d see me tomorrow, which was news to me, being as it was a Saturday. On the walk home I kept thinking about what I would tell my mom. How much I would tell her. As nice and kind as my mom was, she wasn’t comfortable with people who were a little different. It took her almost a year to be friendly with Mr. Olson just because half of his mustache was prematurely gray.

It’s not like he chose to have his mustache be all weird, my sister tried to counsel my mom. It wasn’t until she saw Mr. Olson helping Miss O’Murphy, who was about ninety years old at the time, carry her groceries into her house for her that my mom figured my sister was probably right. Although, my mom avoided looking Mr. Olson in the face whenever they met.

Where’ve you been? my mom asked when I got home.

Went to the new kid’s house, I said.

And?

He’s got a lot of comics.

Well, that’s nice. Did you meet his folks?

His mom.

She nice?

Yep, I said. When’s dinner?

Chapter Two

His name was Peter Stiffie. Really. What were his parents thinking? Pete and I grew up, more or less together, since grade school. He had a few classes with me and Turtle over the years. Pete was a bad ass. A bad ass. He liked me, for some reason. Go figure. I’d seen him take people apart for nothing. I watched him hit a guy so hard in the mouth the kid swallowed four of his own teeth, just for looking at Pete funny. It turned out the kid was cross-eyed. But that’s all Pete needed. To everyone’s surprise, Pete got into the police academy and is now a homicide detective. I figured it was worth a try, getting in touch to see if there was anything he could tell me about Turtle’s death. He sounded glad to hear from me and suggested we meet at Cherub’s Crossing for a couple of drinks and maybe catch up on old times.

I’m not much of drinker. It’s not that I don’t like to drink, but drink doesn’t like me. I don’t get more gregarious or funny. I don’t get moody or angry. I get sleepy. I tried drinking coffee drinks but the effect was the same except that after the alcohol wore off, the caffeine kicked in. Pete, on the other hand, could drink his weight in straight shots and be none the worse for wear. I promised myself I would have one beer and nurse it along like it was the last one on earth.

He was sitting at a table near the back when I got there. He’d gotten a little heavier and his hair was a little thinner, otherwise he looked just the same, which was a little depressing because I was starting to look like my dad.

Nate! he called when he saw me.

At the table I stuck out my hand and he pushed it aside and gave me a bear hug a grizzly would have been proud of.

What’ll you have? he asked, catching the waitress’s attention.

Beer, I said.

Our waitress, a pretty girl with jet black hair, blood red lips and a t-shirt so tight you could read the mole just above her right breast, smiled at me the way some adults smile at other people’s stupid children.

A couple of stouts and a couple of Jim Beams, neat, he ordered. She smiled at Pete. She gave me a look like it was past my bed time and shouldn’t I be back at the old folk’s home.

We did about a half an hour of catch-up. He had a baby girl and boy