Smith's Monthly #65: Smith's Monthly, #65

By Dean Wesley Smith

This 65th issue of Smith's Monthly contains almost eighty thousand words of fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith, including The Poker Chip, the Ghost of a Chance series origin novel, in which, just fifteen minutes after Dr. Jewel Kelly meets Deputy Sheriff Tommy Ralston, they both die. They simply become ghosts, hanging around their own death scene in the mountains of Montana, waiting for something to happen. But even as ghosts they find each other still really attractive, and in the afterlife their jobs helping people seem to be just as important as before they died.

Also included is a collection of six of Dean's wacked-out crime stories, Weird Crime.

But that's not all! There are four new short stories from some of Dean's most popular series: "A Lack of Tomorrow," a Bryant Street Story; "Yesterday's Cold Grave," a Thunder Mountain time travel story; "Age Might Be a Number," a Poker Boy story; and "A Big Twisted Plot," a Marble Grant story.

Hours and hours of entertaining reading!

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Sep 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215375754

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA TODAY bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith published far over a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. He currently produces novels in four major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the old west, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, and the superhero series staring Poker Boy. During his career he also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds.

Book preview

Smith’s Monthly Issue #65

SMITH’S MONTHLY ISSUE #65

DEAN WESLEY SMITH

WMG Publishing, Inc.

CONTENTS

Introduction

A Big Twisted Plot

Introduction

A Big Twisted Plot

Yesterday’s Cold Grave

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Weird Crime

Foreword

Introduction

After the Dance

Introduction

After the Dance

Death in the Morning

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Center Drives

Introduction

Center Drives

Cheerleader Revelation

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Eyes on My Cards

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

I Killed Adam Chaser

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

A Lack of Tomorrow

Introduction

A Lack of Tomorrow

Age Might Be A Number

Introduction

Age Might Be A Number

The Poker Chip

Introduction

The Poker Chip

I. That’s Got to Hurt

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

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

II. What Happens In Vegas

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

INTRODUCTION

More Weird Stuff

Following along with a pattern from the last six months, not only have I been putting in these issues four or five brand new, original short stories, but been trying to bring forward a novel that graced these pages many years ago.

(Yes, I have been doing this magazine since 2013, with a break for the pandemic.)

The cover is for a six-story collection I did back in 2021 called Weird Crime. All the stories that are in the collection were in these pages at times, but I wanted to bring the entire collection back together here.

So in this issue there are four original stories, six reprint short stories in the collection, and a novel called The Poker Chip.

It is a very weird novel, which is why it fits with the collection.

The original title of the novel was Heaven Painted as a Poker Chip and it is the first book in the Ghost of a Chance series. We changed the name and put almost identical covers on the entire series of books in an effort to rebrand the series. Didn’t work.

So now I am putting a new cover on this one, but same book that appeared here in Smith’s Monthly #10 in July, 2014. It had a different cover then as well, but the original title.

Over the years the ghost agents in my Poker Boy world have had a lot written about them. In fact, an entire series under the name Marble Grant spawned out of these books. But this novel in this issue is the start of the entire idea that ghosts can solve crimes and help people.

Yup, that’s weird even I must admit.

I hope you enjoy the novel as much as I enjoyed writing it.

---

—Dean Wesley Smith

September 2022

INTRODUCTION

Ghost agents Marble Grant and her partner, Sims, watch a pair on Fremont Street in Las Vegas take a tourist couple’s wallets.

It seemed like such a simple crime until it wasn’t. Bringing in superhero detective Sky Tate seemed like their best choice. And from there things get even stranger.

A BIG TWISTED PLOT

A Marble Grant Story

There are a lot of people who not only live in the Las Vegas valley, but millions and millions more visit, although most of the visitors stay in two basic areas: the Strip or Fremont Street downtown.

The locals seldom set foot on either place unless to see visiting friends or hit a great restaurant or see a show or go to work. Locals had their own worlds, schools, shopping, and so on. Tourists never gave the entire valley a second thought.

A lot of locals worked to serve tourists in one way or another. Hotels to transportation to restaurants. Sims and I liked helping the locals where we could. But most of the time we roamed the Strip or the casinos along Fremont Street. Tourists seemed to need a lot more help than the locals.

It was on a beautiful winter afternoon, temperature in the high sixties, bright clear sun, that Sims and I ran into something we had never seen before.

Both of us were dressed in what we called our working clothes. Jeans, running shoes, and silk blouses. Our work as ghost agents consisted of crawling inside people’s minds and seeing if we could help them.

I had on a red blouse today to match my bright red long hair, and Sims had on a much tamer blue blouse. Her long blond hair was pulled back.

After I died my hair this bright red, even I admitted it was a little bright, but I had been trying to match my new red blouse. When I asked Sims what she thought, she said, I’m working with a factory-fresh fire hydrant today.

That bright? I asked.

She just smiled at me. She really, really loves me, I know that.

So after a great lunch at a pizza place in the Arts District, we had jumped back to the Fremont Street Experience and were standing off to one side when a short man, not more than five foot, maybe, and carrying a large satchel over his shoulder walked past us looking busy and focusing on a tourist couple in front of him.

Then suddenly, from the other direction a young girl turned and bumped into the couple, almost knocking them down.

As she apologized and helped the woman to regain her balance, the young girl relieved the woman of her wallet from a purse and at the same time the short man with the satchel took the man’s wallet from his back pocket.

Amazingly smooth as both the woman’s wallet and the man’s wallet vanished into the satchel.

The entire thing was over in less than two seconds, the girl going her way, the short guy and his satchel strolling on down the street.

Total professionals, except for the fact that we saw it.

That was pretty slick, I said.

Amazing, Sims said. I’ll take the girl, bring her back here.

I nodded and jumped to a spot ahead of where the short guy was walking and then just let him walk into me.

I expected the man, whose name was Mike, to be a professional pickpocket. He was, sort of. But in reality he was the middleman for a very large and complex money laundering operation.

There was over four hundred thousand dollars in those two wallets and he and his partner, Vicki, would hit this couple in two more places by the time the day was over. Once down near the Wynn, outside, and once in the Mandalay Bay Casino in the shops area going toward the Luxor.

Their take for the day from the couple would be over a million.

Then tomorrow, in a briefcase, Mike would carry the money into a men’s bathroom and switch out the briefcase. And then in three days they would hit another couple who were bringing money in to be laundered.

I was so shocked, I just let Mike go and jumped back to where I would meet Sims. She had done the same thing with the girl named Vicki.

We both knew when we were in far over our heads.

We need Sky on this one, Sims said.

Exactly what I was thinking, I said. She knows who in the police force to talk to as well.

Sky Tate was a superhero in the world of detectives and a really, really close friend of ours. We often partied once or twice a week together and more often than not all three of us ended up back in Sims’ and my large bed. Sky was helping us train our skills at making our touch work on real things. It is very difficult for ghosts to touch real objects but Sky really enjoyed us practicing on her.

Sky should be at Rocky’s at this time of day, Sims said.

Rocky’s was a hole-in-the-wall locals’ bar where Sky liked to eat lunch and sometimes meet clients. So I jumped us there and Sims was right, Sky was sitting alone in a booth in the back.

And the bar was empty as well.

Hey, beautiful, I said as we walked toward her.

She lit up, beaming. Normally she called us when she needed help on a case. Having us come to visit her unannounced would make her happy and both Sims and I loved making Sky happy.

Today, Sky was actually dressed like we were, with jeans, running shoes, and a silk blouse. But her trench coat and fedora-like hat hung over the booth behind her.

We sat down at the booth where she indicated.

So what do I owe this wonderful honor? Sky asked. Then looked at me with that half-grin she did at times. Got in a fight with a stoplight and the stoplight won, huh?

Fire hydrant red, Sims said. I’m starting to like it.

I think some nights in that bed of yours I turn that shade at times, Sky said. I most definitely like that.

I just laughed and agreed with her on that. Then I said, We stumbled across a doozy of a case. All right if I just touch your hand and give you everything we discovered?

Please, Sky said, putting her right hand out on the table.

I touched her hand and in a moment she saw and knew everything we knew.

Wow, Sky said. That might be the most creative money transfer scheme I have heard about.

Why not just pass the money in large bags in hotel rooms? Sims asked.

Cameras, Sky said. And deniability. The police catch them, they are just common pickpockets and the couple coming from wherever are innocent victims. The exchange in the bathroom is with identical briefcases, so just a natural mix-up. But the real question is what do they do with that much cash every two or three days?

And where is the cash coming from? I asked. Our two pickpockets have no idea and really don’t want to know. Got a hunch the couple doesn’t know either.

Sky nodded. Everyone has deniability. Let’s go take a look at the next exchange and pay attention to who is around and watching it, without seeming they are watching.

Twenty minutes later Sims and I were standing outside the side door to the Wynn where it dumped into a narrow sidewalk area of the Strip.

Sky, without her coat and hat, was strolling down the sidewalk behind the couple pretending to pay attention to her phone.

Same routine as on Fremont Street. The young girl named Vicki turned suddenly into the couple and lifted the woman’s wallet from her purse in the confusion while at the same moment the short guy named Mike took the wallet out of the guy’s pocket. Both wallets were identical to the two they lifted earlier from the same couple.

Sky stopped next to us and put the phone to her ear, pretending to talk to someone to cover her talking with two ghosts that no one else could see.

Check out the guy near the door to the Wynn who is now turning to go back inside.

Short brown hair, dark moustache, pink dress shirt? I asked.

She nodded.

Sims and I both jumped to a spot in front of him and went inside him.

His name was Craig and he was an investment banker who mostly dealt in real estate, representing limited liability corporations for clients who wanted to move cash into real estate.

He formed LLCs like they were candy from a drugstore and made up investor names to get the cash he got twice a week into the companies. Then he would buy homes through each company, often letting the homes stay in the company for up to a year before selling them and paying out the money to the investors.

The money went in dirty, came out clean as money from the sale of real estate.

We jumped back and transferred the information to Sky.

One piece left of this puzzle, she said. We need to know at what level involvement the couple has in all this.

So two hours later after the next exchange was done in a dead camera area of Mandalay Bay, Sims and I jumped into the couple.

Beth and Bob from Milwaukee, WI. They were offered three times a year to take an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas and an extra ten grand to spend on gambling if they simply put the wallets in their bags, and let pickpockets take the wallets from them. The wallets were full of money and had different names inside that Bob figured was fake.

Since they were the victims and he didn’t care what happened to the money that wasn’t his, or where it came from, they took the three trips and had used part of their extra money to redo their kitchen.

They know nothing, I said as I transferred the information and what I had seen by touching Sky’s arm.

Sky nodded. This entire thing is huge, more than likely drug money, and more than likely being done in other cities. Laundering dirty money into houses is something that is done regularly. But getting the money spread out to investment bankers and such is the trick where the money looks like it is coming from real investors.

So what do we do next? I asked.

Nothing for you two unless I call and need help, Sky said. I’ve got to get the two superheroes who are on the police force together and we got to set up a plan and a way that is logical that we figured all this out.

That’s going to take some time, Sims said.

Only the beginning, Sky said, nodding. We’re going to have to set up a task force and bring in bankers and accountants and the FBI to help on all this.

I looked at Sky, then at Sims. Do you have the feeling we just stumbled into a beehive?

Oh, much, much larger than that, Sky said, smiling, if my guess is correct.

You’re excited about firing at this, aren’t you? I asked, smiling at my friend.

I’ll tell you how it is going when I see you on Friday, Sky said. And then I’ll show you just how excited.

With that, she glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then vanished.

I turned to the love of my life. I think we just made her month.

And I think we should celebrate, Sims said. I’m thinking great steaks at the Wynn’s most expensive restaurant.

Champagne as well? I asked.

Of course, Sims said. After all, we may have just helped shut down a lot of bad stuff.

I laughed. You are right, shutting down a lot of bad stuff is worth Champagne.

INTRODUCTION

Time traveler Jessie Fallon worked on researching the thirteen people buried in the most remote cemetery in the lower forty-eight states.

But for all the years in the past, she could not figure out who the thirteenth body might be.

What she ended up finding certainly led to an outcome she could never have suspected.

CHAPTER ONE

Jessica (Jessie) Fallon stood beside the Monumental Creek trail staring at the metal plaque attached to a rock at the base of a pine tree. She nodded to herself. It was real.

The plaque and the cemetery it marked actually existed.

She had taken a three-day trip from Boise just to see it and to make sure.

Fifty feel below her, Monumental Creek bubbled over rocks, filling the very narrow canyon with a background wall of sound that got only interrupted by the soft breeze through the tall pine trees and an occasional bird calling out.

The mountains around her were covered in rock and scrub pine and were far too steep to ever think of climbing.

She had timed getting here to when the sun was bright on the valley floor. It actually reflected off the remains of the snow on the tall peaks around her and a half-mile back up the valley was a very small lake, the remains of the lake that in 1909 had covered the mining town of Roosevelt. Now silt from the spring runoff was within fifty years of making the entire area just a marshy meadow full of moose.

That was where she had left her car after a harrowing ride down into this valley from the Monumental Summit Lodge.

The weather was warm enough that she had taken off her sweater and tied it around her waist, wearing only jeans, running shoes, and a long-sleeved cotton blouse, plus a wide-brimmed sun hat.

She was fair skinned with blond hair and just didn’t need the burn on her face and arms, thus the hat, the long sleeves, and more sunscreen than she wanted to admit to using on her hands and nose.

She got burned enough at times on her trips into the past. She didn’t need to have it happen here in 2024.

By profession, she studied history, but her fascination had gone to the stories and history of Western cemeteries. She had turned to writing creative nonfiction about the people buried in the cemeteries, actually telling the stories of each person in a pioneer or mountain cemetery.

And when she was introduced to being able to travel back into the history in other timelines, identical timelines to her own, she actually made it her task to meet or at least watch the person who would end up in the cemetery.

Critics were calling her books riveting reads and fantastically well researched and accurate.

Now she was about to finish her next book, titled The Thirteen: The Lives and Deaths of Those in the Most Remote Cemetery in the United States.

Only one problem. She couldn’t find out who the thirteenth person was.

The metal plaque on the rock next to the remains of the small cemetery said:

Roosevelt Cemetery

In Memory of the Thunder Mountain Dead

Of whom thirteen are known to rest in this cemetery.

Ten names were listed on the plaque, with three unknown at the bottom. She knew and had written about so far all the named ones and two of the unknowns. That third unknown was driving her crazy.

Someone had been buried here during the Thunder Mountain years that left no record anywhere.

Earlier this summer, Jessie had hired a crew with ground penetrating radar to come in and see what they could see both inside and outside the thick rope that was replaced every ten years or so to mark the boundaries of the graves and keep tourists from accidentally walking on the caved-in graves.

The crew found what they thought were the remains of thirteen graves. No bodies were left and very little of anything else except metal and buttons and some wood for those buried in a box. But it showed where graves had been.

So to Jessie, that plaque was right. But clearly it was going to take some more years to figure out who that thirteenth person was.

Years of living in the past, living in Roosevelt year-round, and watching who died and got buried and when.

It would only take two minutes and fifteen seconds of this timeline, but in the past she needed to be ready to live for a dozen years in the rugged mining town of Roosevelt.

CHAPTER TWO

Jessica got back to the Historical Institute in Boise three days later and went and talked with Director Parks about the best way of finding another traveler who might like to spend some years in Roosevelt. She had decided she would live there alone if she had to, but would rather not.

He told her to just put up a few notes down in the caverns with a phone number and what she was looking to do. She did and the next day she got a call from two travelers, a couple by the name of Dr. Steven Conklin and his wife, Dr. Janice Franks. They saw her note and decided they wanted to do a general store again in Roosevelt to research a new book they were working on. They had lived many years running a general store in Roosevelt and had always enjoyed the time.

The three of them got together later in the day and after hearing what her research was into the thirteenth person in the cemetery, they suggested she come work with them and live in the back of the store. It would be right in the middle of town and give her good cover to watch everything.

She agreed instantly and a week later they headed through the same crystal at the same time to the summer before Roosevelt was started and gold was found in the Thunder Mountain region.

Janice and Steven stayed for the year at the Institute and she got a suite for the winter in the new Idanha Hotel downtown. The entire winter they got prepared to haul in the supplies for the store the next spring and get their store built. It would be one of the first wooden structures built on Main Street.

They had also brought a house plan from Duster and a recommendation of a crew to build both the store and the house.

The area in the back of the store was going to be perfect for Jessie. A large living room with kitchen and fireplace and bathtub, a private small bedroom area, and a direct shot out the back door to the outhouse. She also had a desk where she could sit near the fire and write.

But the house that Janice and Steven built from Duster’s plans was huge in comparison, saying it was a plan they had really enjoyed one winter on one trip back and had always wanted to build it.

Jessie had no doubt it would be comfortable all summer and winter, and they built it up on a small ridge above town, so they would mostly stay out of the stink of hot summer days.

So they all three got settled in and the routine of the general store helped. Twice that first summer Steven went for extra supplies and then got a contract set up for regular supplies to be brought in.

Three people that first summer ended up in the cemetery. Jessie got a chance to get more details about all three before they died.

The second year five more went into the ground, and she had known about all five. None of them were the mystery unknown person.

Every other day, she walked up to the cemetery and checked it out. It was on a ridge down the valley just beside the trail that led to the small mining camp of Thunder Mountain City, and then beyond to Big Creek and Edwardsburg. She wanted to make sure no one was buried when she wasn’t paying attention.

Two more died in their third year in the valley, and again she knew them all. Ten bodies were now in the cemetery. Ten graves were clear.

By the fourth year, the town was staring to wind