This Letter to Norman Court

By Pablo D'Stair

When petty crook Trevor English is offered two thousand dollars to deliver a letter across the country, the choice seems fairly simple—money up front, no way he can go wrong.

And when he finds himself in possession of correspondence several parties would pay to get their hands on, the choice seems even simpler—take what he can, while he can, from who he can...and disappear.

this letter to Norman Court is the first installment in Pablo D’Stair’s five-novella Trevor English cycle.

Praise for the books by Pablo D’Stair:

“D'Stair is clearly a master. Likely Jean Patrick Manchette reincarnated...” —Matt Phillips, author of Countdown and The Bad Kind of Lucky

• Language: English
• Publisher: All Due Respect Books
• Release date: Jan 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463785331

Pablo D'Stair

Pablo D'Stair is a novelist, filmmaker, essayist, interviewer, comic book artist, and independent publisher. His work has appeared in various mediums for the past 15 years, often pseudonymously.

Book preview

THIS LETTER TO NORMAN COURT

A Trevor English Novella

Pablo D’Stair

PRAISE FOR PABLO D’STAIR

D'Stair is clearly a master. Likely Jean Patrick Manchette reincarnated… —Matt Phillips, author of Countdown and The Bad Kind of Lucky

Somehow again and again you’re drawn in…you get used to the book’s rhythm and follow it because the work is obsessive. We find ourselves in a languid kind of suspense, bracing ourselves… —Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho

Pablo D’Stair doesn’t just write like a house afire, he writes like the whole city’s burning, and these words he’s putting on the page are the thing that can save us all. —Stephen Graham Jones, Bram Stoker Award-winner

Pablo D’Stair is defining the new writer [and the new film maker]. D’Stair’s late realism needs to be included in any examination of the condition of the novel. —Tony Burgess, award-winning author/screenwriter

Like Kerouac before him, I felt there was one roll of paper on which the story was typed. And there’s a rhythm behind it. Not the speedy bop of jazz this time, more an urban dubstep. Shadows and edges becoming audible. —Nigel Bird, author of Smoke

Copyright © 2011 by Pablo D’Stair

First All Due Respect Edition January 2020

All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Cover design by JT Lindroos

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

this letter to Norman Court

About the Author

Books by the Author

Preview from The Stone Carrier by Robert Ward

Preview from True Dark by Mike Miner

Preview from I Know Where You Sleep by Alan Orloff

Well the fat’s in the fire and the water’s in the tank

The whiskey’s in the jar and the money’s in the bank

—Bob Dylan, Cold Irons Bound

One of the girls working behind the counter—I think maybe the one who’d wrapped my burger, passed it to the guy working the register to set on my tray—she’d made sort of quick, flirting eye contact with me while I’d been in line, but she hadn’t looked up to see where I’d sat down or anything. It had been flirting, though, like she’d for a moment, anyway, thought I was attractive, was probably even having a little fantasy about me, who I might’ve been, what I might say, do to her, but it was the sort of thing she knew it’d be ruined by looking at me again. I kept my eye on her anyway, kind of, not even so much thinking about anything.

I’d taken a large bite, was taking a drink to help me swallow it, when some guy sat down right at my table, nodded at me, smiling and it wasn’t until I’d mashed the swallow down, caught my breath and was saying Can I help you? I realized it was the guy I’d stolen his wallet about two days before.

‘Sixty, seventy dollars, it isn’t much money,’ he said.

I coughed into my hand, had another quick sip of my drink, wiped the excess from my lip.

‘It was forty dollars.’

No point in playacting the innocent for this guy.

‘Forty?’ He hardly seemed like he was paying attention, his saying Forty might not even’ve been a question.

‘It was forty, forty-two, something. Look, it’s gone, it’s spent. And I’m sure you probably canceled your credit cards, everything, but I don’t bother about those and I don’t leave them around for people might take them.’

‘Why not?’

I didn’t like this person, he looked like the clothes he was wearing and nothing else, that’s all somebody would describe him by if he went missing or robbed a bank or something.

‘Because. I don’t know why not.’

‘You can’t sell them to people or something?’

I shrugged, glanced over to the counter, behind it, the girl not looking up, still.

‘Why would somebody buy a credit card someone’s just gonna cancel?’

I knew there were reasons, knew what he was talking about, but I didn’t know anything about it, in a practical sense—this guy’d probably watched a movie or some news magazine, had all sorts of little ideas about everything he’d picked up here and there. Thing was, he could chit chat it up, whatever he thought he was doing, I didn’t care. There was obviously certainly nothing he could do about it, unless he was gonna shoot me, cut me down at the Wendy’s or whichever place this was. The wallet was gone, it’d been forty-two something dollars, it’d been two days ago. Even if he was tape recording me, spy camera glasses, I didn’t know what he thought, like he was being tricky.

‘Well, forty dollars is even less money, then.’

I nodded, back to my burger, the bite I took shoving wet bread up, wedging it up into the gum of the tooth I was missing and I dug at this with my tongue while he went on with his bit.

‘How would you like to make some more money than that? How about we talk about that?’

I sighed, vaguely interested—at least it wasn’t what I’d been thinking, wasn’t so banal.

‘How about we talk about it? Fine, talk about it.’

‘I’ll pay you two thousand dollars to deliver a letter to my brother.’

I grinned.

‘A small fortune. But what else is it for?’

‘It’s not for anything else. Though, I suppose there’s the stipulation that you don’t tell him it’s from me.’

My mind drifted to cinematic pretend, trying to weasel around how he’d be edging me into something I didn’t want into, but at the same time I didn’t so much care, really, because it was going to be either he gave me the money, all of it, in front or there wasn’t going to be anything about me delivering any letter to anybody and so I could just walk off if I got feeling something was askew, money in pocket, dust my hands of it all.

‘What’s he going to do with me I give it to him? I’m suppose to have a chat with him or what?’

‘Just in case, just in case he asks you something. I just need you to put it into his hand, personally, that’s the only important thing, no reason you have to say a thing to him after that.’

I ate my last bite, the girl wasn’t even behind the counter anymore so I did a phony stretch to see was she maybe wiping down some table but she wasn’t anyplace, was in back, employee toilet or something.

‘And so how would this letter have gotten to him somebody didn’t steal your wallet?’

He chuckled, very real chuckle, said he didn’t know, he’d been thinking about it all for a while.

So it was something, it wasn’t normal, not like he could mail it from a pretend address—send it to a hotel inside another envelope, little note asks them to send it along so that the postmark is someplace strange—nothing that could be left to chance or have a straight third party involved with.

It was pointless, making it all a little mystery—I wanted to know about the letter, I’d say Yes to the guy, take the two thousand, open the letter and have a look. I was no more reliable than a hotel clerk, this little scene must’ve just given the guy a kick, this little intrigue, maybe he was full of it.

And sort of mind reader, he out of nothing said ‘I like you, I think you seem the sort of person who could do this and know that’s that.’

‘I seem that way, yeah?’

He nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘You know you have to give me that two thousand, that’s first, then I take your letter. What, your brother’s gonna kill me I give it to him?’

He shook his head, face a scrunch, a real genuine expression of it’s-nothing-like-that. In fact, I didn’t think it was—the suit of clothes I was striking the deal with, it was too earnest for that, it was something I’d never decipher and he was right, I really didn’t care and probably I would deliver the letter.

I said Alright, tilted my drink cup back, got an ice cube I broke and swallowed in two chews, looked over to the counter, behind the counter, the girl wasn’t there, still.

Down to my last three cigarettes, enough to get me through the walk to the coffee shop I’d agreed to meet the man at, pick up the money, the letter. I more than halfway expected he wouldn’t be there, still had some dull little anxieties he might be setting me up to do something, except all I’d done was agree to deliver a letter.

Two thousand dollars wasn’t enough I could live carefree, but I couldn’t think of the last time I’d had that much money on me at once, didn’t know had it ever happened even back when I was working legitimate, checks every other week. Money goes someplace, always does, the same place, away.

As it was, what did I think was better: deliver a letter, get the two grand all in one handful or just stay the grind nabbing briefcases, wallets, whatever to make it enough to kick this friend or that enough to stay on in their apartment?

Not a question, really.

I was coming up on the coffee shop, the guy at a table outside reading some newspaper. Both the letter and the money, all neat in its own thick envelope, were inside of