Three Stories: The Block. Double Blackmail. The Twins.

By George Martin

1. The Block is a novella. Billy Parker is a nightclub bouncer on The Block in Baltimore, Maryland. Friction develops between his wife Sue and his girlfriend Sparkle. His wife has additional troubles when she is targeted by a stalker. When Billy finds himself short of funds, he becomes involved in a dubious scheme with Fast Eddie, which attracts the police. 2. Double Blackmail. Joe Lucas stakes out the ransom payment, when a Senator's daughter is blackmailed for her adventurous past. The trail leads to counter culture types in Washington, D. C. 3. The Twins is a short story. Sue's husband is jailed and she loses custody of her twin sons. She gets a divorce and goes to court, seeking their return.

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Martin
• Release date: May 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311759368

George Martin

The author has traveled across America by car and other means numerous times. He has driven trucks and taxicabs, clerked in warehouses and worked as a market analyst. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree and is the author of nine books. 1. The Boxcar Dawn. 2. Three Stories; (The Block, a novella. Double Blackmail. The Twins.) 3. Beartooth Gap. 4.The Club. 5. Riptide. 6. RipCurrent. 7. Retail Blue. 8. Inside Straight. 9. Retail Red. 10. Rip Off.

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The Block

Double Blackmail

The Twins

Copyright 2016 George Martin

Published by George Martin at Smashwords. Copyright applied for with Library of Congress.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Chapter One.

The Block

The block of three-story row houses was illuminated by the morning sun. The rays gleamed on the rooftops and sparkled on the windows. Each row house was pretty much identical, with two windows and a door on the ground floor. The windows were adjacent, with the door off to one side. The two upper floors were blessed with three windows each.

Although the architecture was identical, the houses were constructed from different shades of brick, which gave the residents some chance of telling them apart. In addition, some of the houses had white stone sills beneath the windows. All of them had a short flight of marble steps leading from the sidewalk to a small front porch. There was no space allotted for front yards or grass.

Everything was pavement, from street to sidewalk to house. The row houses were located in Baltimore, Maryland in the early 1970's and the area was already going downhill, displaying obvious symptoms of unwelcome urban blight.

Two houses down from the corner, a well-kept home stood out against the general decrepitude of the neighborhood. A spirited lady of middle age stepped outside wearing an apron over her dress with a broom in her hand. Auntie Carter began sweeping the front porch. Beyond the far end of the block, on the other side of the street, there was a small grassy park, where two youthful thugs lounged in black leather jackets with nothing better to do.

There was some action at the near end of the block, at the corner house two doors down from Auntie Carter. There was a slight alcove outside the front door and a strong, well-built, powerful man stood in the alcove with his hand on the doorknob. The door was ajar. Billy Parker opened the door with exaggerated caution and slipped stealthily inside, carefully easing the door shut behind him without making a sound.

Above Billy on the second floor of the row house, his wife, Sue Parker, was sound asleep in a double bed. She lay on one side of the bed, with an empty pillow next to her on the other side. Once inside, Billy began to tiptoe quietly up the stairs, moving slowly, shifting his weight carefully. A step creaked under his weight and he paused, standing motionless, listening. Hearing nothing, he continued his clandestine ascent.

Having reached the top of the stairs, Billy Parker went slinking down the hall like a burglar in his own home. He passed a door which was slightly ajar. Inside the bedroom, two boys of elementary school age were fast asleep. The Parker boys did not awaken while their father went sneaking silently past their room.

When he reached the end of the hallway, Billy stopped to listen again. He heard nothing. The house was completely silent. Billy began to twist the doorknob to his bedroom with agonizing slowness. He finally managed to open the door a crack and peek inside. Sue Parker was still sleeping peacefully, so Billy eased the door open and slipped furtively into the bedroom. He stepped forward with cautious deliberation, planted a foot and carefully shifted his weight to it. Then he stepped forward with the other foot, to repeat the process. There was no sound as he shifted his weight. The floorboards did not creak.

At long last, Billy finally made it over to the bed, where he stood motionless above his sleeping wife. She was lying on her back, with her right arm draped across her eyes and her left hand outside the covers, near her hip. Billy Parker leaned toward her, with both hands open in front of him. It looked like he was planning to grab his wife by the throat and strangle her.

But instead of grabbing Sue's neck, Billy's hands moved down along her body and stopped at her left hand. He grasped the wedding ring on her finger and slowly began to work it off. Sue moaned and tossed a little bit. Billy froze, watching her and holding his breath. But Sue did not awaken. She continued sleeping soundly while Billy continued sliding the diamond wedding ring off her finger.

There was a polished wooden bed stand next to the bed. It held a small lamp and a framed photographic portrait of a happy wedding couple. Sue was glorious in her wedding dress. The groom looked sharp in a tuxedo. The face of the groom was Billy's, but his current expression was far different from the happy smiling face in the portrait.

Just as the ring came completely off her finger and he was about to straighten up, Sue reached out and grabbed Billy by the wrist with her hand. Billy's face turned stark white and he began to visibly sweat. He was convinced that he had been caught in the act. But Sue Parker mumbled some unintelligible words, as sleepers sometimes do and turned away from Billy onto her side, relinquishing her hold on his wrist.

Billy gave a sigh of relief that was visible, even if inaudible and he hastily stepped away from the bed with the ring, tiptoed across the bedroom to the door and went through it to the hall. He eased the door shut behind him and went sneaking past the room with his two sons, who were still fast asleep when he passed by.

Billy descended the stairs a bit more rapidly than he had ascended them, but he was still careful not to make too much noise. He made it to the front door and opened it, leaving the row house with the diamond ring held fast in his hand. He turned and walked along the sidewalk in the early morning sun, approaching Auntie, who was busy with her broom. He held the ring up to get a better look at it and refracted sunlight sparkled like a rainbow off the expensive stone.

Auntie finished with the front stoop and started sweeping off the sidewalk. When Billy came near she stopped sweeping, straightened up and looked at him. She saw the ring in his hand. Billy noticed and shoved the ring into his pocket as he walked past, crossing the street and heading toward the grassy park where the two young hoodlums were still hanging around.

The door to the row house between Auntie and the Parkers opened up and Mrs. Brown came outside to take in the morning newspaper.

Mrs. Brown spotted Auntie and greeted her. Good morning, Auntie.

It's about time you got up, Auntie kidded her. The morning's about over.

Mrs. Brown glanced at the receding figure of Billy Parker as neared the park. Where's that Billy Parker off to now? she said.

I reckon he's most likely on his way to the pawnshop, Auntie informed her.

What makes you think that? Did he say so?

He didn't say anything, but he was holding a diamond ring in his hand. I don't know what else he could be doing with it.

Mrs. Brown shook her head in dismay. I just don't know what to make of that man. It seems like he's always up to no good. She retrieved the newspaper from where it had fallen short of her front porch when the newsboy tossed it up there and went back inside.

Auntie Carter resumed sweeping the sidewalk. She stirred up enough dust to resemble a mini-tornado.

One of the leather jacketed punks pointed at Billy Parker as he came near the park. How about this guy? he asked his buddy. You think we can rob him?

Are you crazy, man? We can't rob this guy. That's Bad Billy Parker. He'd hand us our asses on a platter.

Hey. Sorry, man. I didn't realize it.

The two juvenile delinquents stood there and watched Billy Parker walk by with an expression of awe on their young faces.

Chapter Two

Sue Parker was still fast asleep in the double bed. She rolled over on her back, reached out with her left hand and patted the empty bed beside her. Not feeling anything, she turned toward the center of the bed and reached out further, patting the empty surface of the mattress. She became frantic and patted with her hand all the way to the edge of the bed, with her eyes still closed.

Billy? she called. Are you here?

Since there was no answer and she had failed to locate anyone by touch, Sue opened her eyes and saw with a start that she was alone in the bed. The wedding picture of herself and Billy hovered nearby on the nightstand, like a grim reminder of better times in the past. Sue looked around again in disbelief, like she couldn't absorb the fact that Billy wasn't there.

Gone, she said. I wonder where he could be? What could have happened?

She roused herself and sat up distraught in her skimpy nightgown and reached out for the picture next to the bed. She held it up in the dim bedroom light, staring at it earnestly. Some of the pain left her eyes and a faint smile played at the corners of her mouth, as a flood of fond memories floated through her mind. Then she returned to the less than perfect present. The beginnings of a smile vanished from her face and she set the wedding picture back down with an unhappy frown.

She threw her legs over the edge of the mattress. Throwing the covers out of the way, she got out of bed in her shorty nightie. She walked across the floor on bare feet and left the bedroom. She walked down the hall to the room where her two sons lay sleeping and peeked through the cracked door at them. Satisfied that at least here nothing was amiss, she went into the bathroom, where she switched on the light and fluffed her hair in front of the mirror. Next, she turned, reached down and picked up a True Romance magazine from the tiled floor near the bathtub.

With her free hand, she set the plug in the drain hole, turned on the water and adjusted the warm and cold knobs until she had a suitable temperature. Then she sat on the cold porcelain edge of the tub reading the romance magazine as the tub began to fill up.

When the tub was full enough for a bath, she set the magazine aside on the floor, turned off the water and grasped the left ring finger with her right hand, making an habitual motion as if to remove the ring. The right hand came up empty and she stared at it in puzzled bewilderment. Then she glanced at her ring finger and saw that the ring was missing.

My ring. Where could it be? I don't think I dropped it.

Sue scouted around anxiously on the floor, searching for the missing engagement ring.

What could have happened to it? I know I was wearing it last night. It didn't just get up and walk off by itself. What will Billy think if I lost it?

Sue left the bathroom without taking her bath. She rushed back to the bedroom and searched around on the top of the bed. Not finding the ring, she threw back the covers and ran her hand anxiously across the bottom sheets, but nothing was there. She extended her search beneath the pillows, but again came up empty. Becoming agitated, she looked around on the floor near the bed. She even bent down and peered underneath the bed, but it was all to no avail. The ring had apparently vanished during the night and was not to be found.

It must have fallen somewhere, Sue thought. Then another idea entered her mind. Could someone have taken it while I was asleep?

Forgetting her bath completely, Sue Parker hastily dressed in tight blue jeans and a clean blouse. She stepped into a pair of penny loafers and hurried into the kitchen, neglecting to pull the plug in the bathtub and drain out the water. Once in the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator door, only to discover that it was empty.