Helen Topaz, Henry Dollar

By Pablo D'Stair

Manufacturing threats of blackmail against himself, petty crook Trevor English convinces his lover, Helen, to pay off his fictional victimizer.

But when Helen suggests that an investigator be brought in to find out who was behind the extortion, Trevor finds he must either maintain his intricate deception or end his affair—either option capable of spinning his life wildly out of his control.

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

“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

• Language: English
• Publisher: All Due Respect Books
• Release date: May 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463395042

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

HELEN TOPAZ, HENRY DOLLAR

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 May 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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an imprint of Down & Out Books

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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

Helen Topaz, Henry Dollar

About the Author

Books by the Author

Preview from Mister Trot from Tin Street by Pablo D’Stair

Preview from Pushing Water by Dana King

Preview from Occam’s Razor by Joe Clifford

Hey! Who could your lover be?

Let me eat off his head so you can really see!

—Bob Dylan, 10,000 Men

I’d really fell in love with the name of the sixteenth, seventeenth guy I stole his wallet to get his ID based on he looked pretty much like me—Henry Dollar. Must’ve smiled, full of myself that day and a month into it being my name officially, even there on the name badge I got for the security job, it still gave me a kick.

Was breathing into the hot of my coffee, fogging the lenses of my stolen reading glasses, leaned against one of the pillars the underground garage, not ready yet to make my full round. Down the way, coming out from the elevator, I saw that woman’d been going out of her way to have cigarettes with me, chat a little bit more about me out of me at a time. Hadn’t asked her, but she’d volunteered she worked up the fifth floor of the building, offices for Kolfax Company, Ltd. Nothing better to do I got her full name, wandering through the offices middle of the night—Helen Topaz.

She caught my eye and started right over, I took a swallow and met her—when she’d seen I’d started walking had stopped, lit herself a cigarette, asked me did I want one, I told her No thanks.

‘Your wife doesn’t miss you, all night?’

She’d said this on another occasion, that time’d made a thing of pointing to the wedding band I wore—this’d been something tucked in a pocket of another stolen wallet—but this time just said it on a breath of smoke out, obvious she knew she’d asked before and so now the question was moving on to indicate other things.

‘She does, but it works out better I take a second job awhile, just she’s got some classes to finish out.’

‘Then it’ll be your turn?’

I shrugged. She made a face like Was I sure I didn’t want another cigarette? so I took out my own pack, lit one.

‘What else did you say you do?’ she asked.

‘Don’t know I had, but nothing so interesting. Some filing work—actually a lot of the time I can even do it at home, just bring home these boxes.’

‘Filing?’

‘For a loan company, house loans and stuff, sorting all these papers out how they like them.’

And then we back-and-forthed about Did the company make me sign something about having the papers off premises? or whatever, I said Yeah, made up some bit about how inane it all was, added but it was good I could see my wife she popped home for lunch or something.

Like I knew it would, that got a pause from her. Could tell in the quiet tick tock tick tock of her next two drags she was analyzing that out—did it suggest happiness, indicate my imaginary marriage was a solid one? or was it a tag for her to pull, get a step further along where she was getting at, little conversation this night, little conversation that?

‘You get evenings too with her, though? Or that’s when you sleep?’

Since I’d played along with it all long enough, no point letting it go loose, I answered her ‘It’s usually when I sleep, yeah,’ then went on my toes took a breath in, let it out I went back on flat feet, asked ‘Did you want to grab a bite maybe sometime, just something—talk without it being in a parking garage?’

She said Sure, eyes wide and an unnecessary rise of both shoulders, but I was scratching my head, acted like I hadn’t heard.

‘It’s I know you must be beat from work, like I’m always pestering you, feel I’m taking advantage, right? I’ve got to be here, so I shanghai you into chit-chat you’re going to your car.’

Even while I’d said all that, fake shyness, random shifts of weight foot-to-foot, she was trying to get in again, emphatic, that Yes, yes she’d love it.

‘What’s your shift, anyway?’ I asked. ‘You get off eleven, midnight from coming on at four or something?’

She sighed, rolled her eyes already like we were especially intimate. ‘No, just for these next few weeks I’m working extra, getting some things finalized—come in whenever, leave whenever.’

It was a cue line I didn’t take, lit a new cigarette, let her add in herself Good thing, though, or otherwise I never would’ve bumped into you—been shanghaied.

Still didn’t give her the direct confirmation, no reciprocal Yeah good thing, just matter-of-facted how my schedule coming up was rough all week through the weekend, but maybe the upcoming Tuesday we could do lunch.

‘You take lunch around here?’

She did, but said if I had the day off she could meet me wherever.

‘It’s fine, no I’ll just meet you out here, come down after I sleep in, right?’

Waited until dead center of my shift, two in the morning, to take an extra stroll around in the doors of Kolfax, poked around offices I knew weren’t Helen’s before I key carded my way in there, let the door shut, took a seat, place lit by the night out through the windows and the computer on some abstract screensaver.

Looked the same as last time, pretty blank, only photos of her and some girlfriends, nothing to show she had a boyfriend, a lover, even a former one or a crush she kept photos of. One or two of the pictures she had up did have a guy in the mix, but another clearly showcased this fellow with his arms around one of the other ladies, Helen in the same photo hugging a girlfriend, all big laughs on the faces.

Work stuff was neatly filed, candy jar that said Don’t Touch—but this turned in her direction not out to anyone else might have a treat her expense—few secondhand-shop paperbacks on display by some postcards of vaguely European places, nothing written on them.

Night went by, got cigarettes my way to the train’d take me out to the apartment I was letting a room out in—bit of good luck I’d fallen into, the guy actually owned the apartment on opposite schedule of me and hadn’t asked any questions about anything due to I’d offered half year rent in front, cash, which’d set me back a bit but security job’d just about got the investment back and with no sort of record at, no signed agreement on a napkin even, I was well eased into feeling alone, clear.

Had bought a lockbox I kept in my duffle all closed up in a cardboard box in the closet, every night before I left I’d check it, every morning I got home—money in a growing lump, gun covered in cloth, stack of IDs I could use in a pinch. My entire life.

Had a long shower, realized I’d not used soap I was toweling dry, getting dressed in my lounging clothes.

Thing with Helen was on my mind, how to play it if I was going to play it—knew I had her attached, but needed the whole thing to be her idea it came down to anything or else I was shooting myself in the foot.

Fell asleep trying not to fall asleep, trying to play out scenarios, how much to play it I just liked talking, how much I was making a pass just slowed up by guilt about going behind on my wife.

Had two nights off in a row, found I was getting anxious for Tuesday. I shaved my beard growth all the way down and cut my hair.

First night back, Helen didn’t show up in the parking garage, maybe her working late had come to an end. But almost like it was meant for me, now she had an obvious calendar set to her desk, Tuesday circled—thing was