The Cadaver Client

“Happy birthday, you mangy fleabag, you.”

I scratched his battle-scarred head. He rewarded me with the merest flick of his long, black tail.

I sat in my chair, my shiny new boots propped on my battered old desk, and watched Three-leg Cat lick the stump of his missing paw.

That’s how I celebrated the tenth birthday of my business. It had been ten years ago today that I’d scraped together enough coin to pay the rent on the office on Cambrit Street and hire a man to paint a finder’s eye on the bubbled glass pane set in the weather-beaten door. Three-leg, then a mangy injured kitten, had been the first living soul to pass through my open door.

For the last ten years I’d done what every finder does—I’d found things. Sons or daughters or fathers or trouble. If you’ve lost something, or someone, you can seek out my painted finder’s eye, and I’ll pull my feet off my desk, and for the right handful of coin I’ll see if I can find it for you.

I’d done very well, right after the War, finding fathers and sons left abandoned by the Regency when the Truce was declared. These days, I didn’t look for missing soldiers nearly as often as I looked for straying wives or errant husbands.

I reflected on that as Three-leg Cat washed his scar. For awhile the soldiers I’d found often brought their families joy, but the news I brought my clients lately was anything but joyous.

Three-leg Cat looked up, as though he’d heard my thoughts, and gave me a scathing look of feline contempt.

“Buy your own breakfast then,” I muttered.

Three-leg Cat leaped down from my desk, and it was then I heard Mama’s voice close by my door.

I groaned. I’d inherited Mama Hog along with the office. Her card and potion shop was two doors down from mine. She’d taken me on as a project the very first day, and ten years later she was still trying to browbeat me into the Mama Hog version of respectability.

I hoped she’d pass on by, but as usual, luck was showing no love to Markhats near and far. Mama banged on my door, then tried the latch.

“You in there, boy?”

I swung my legs down to the floor. “I’m closed, Mama. No, I’m retiring. Going to sell off my business and buy a barge.”

Mama guffawed and swung my door open, and it was then I saw Mama Hog wasn’t alone.

I gaped.

Mama Hog is old. She claims to be a hundred and twenty, and though I doubt that, I’d buy even odds she is on the bad side of eighty. Mama carefully cultivates every clichéd Witch Woman affectation ever spoken—a wild tangle of grey hair, fingernails that could scare a grizzly bear, and a mole that sometimes changes cheeks from day to day. That’s Mama, and I gather the look is good for business, even in downtown Rannit.

But if Mama was two-dozen clichés stitched together with wrinkles and cackles, her companion was something straight out of myth.

She was a head higher than Mama, which put her just a bit below my shoulders. If she had hair at all, I couldn’t see it, not beneath that trail-beaten black bowler hat. She wore a faded poncho that might have been striped in orange and black zigzags half a century ago, and six or seven layers of castoff rags under that, all clashing, all tattered and trailing threads or bits of cloth.

Her face, though—there were eyes, tiny and black, recessed so far beneath wrinkled grey brows I wondered how the woman saw. Her nose was a wart-encrusted proboscis that sprouted its own crop of fine, white hairs from within, and her chin protruded far enough forward to nearly meet the tip of her nose.

She had hands the color and texture of old leather, and black fingernails four times longer than Mama’s and sharpened to points besides.

She held a gnarled walking stick in her right hand and a handful of dark rags in her left. She was muttering, and though her black eyes were turned up toward mine, I didn’t think she was talking to me. She confirmed this by raising the rags to her lips and whispering to them, then shaking her head as if they’d replied.

“Boy, this here is Granny Knot,” said Mama. “I brung her here myself so I could make inter-ductions. Granny Knot, this is that finder what I told ye about. His name is Markhat. Markhat, this be Granny Knot.”

Mama caught my sleeve and hissed at me. “Don’t you dare make no mock of her, boy.”

“Pleased to meet you, Granny Knot.”

Granny whispered into her handful of rags, then held it to her ear, listened and cackled.

“Granny here needs to be hirin’ herself a finder,” said Mama. “I told her you was the best, boy. And I told her you’d deal fair with her. Don’t make a liar out of me.”

I groaned.

“Mama,” I began. “I just took on a big case, I was just headed out the door—”

“I pays,” said Granny Knot. Her black eyes sparkled, back in the shadows. “I pays good. Got old coin. Three hundred crowns. Pays you fifty.”

I almost snorted. Three hundred crowns, especially in pre-War old coin, was a small fortune. I didn’t figure Granny Knot of the handful of rags had ever seen three crowns stuck together, much less three hundred.

“Granny here is a spook doctor,” said Mama. “Best in Rannit.”

“Nice meeting you, Granny.” I rose. Spook doctors claim to converse with spirits. For a price, of course. Always for a price. “Nice hat.”

And that’s when Granny cackled again and pulled a canvas sack from somewhere beneath her rags and let it fall onto my desk with a tinkle and a thump.

“Three. Hundred. Crowns.”

And then Granny cackled again and went back to her whispered conversation with her pet rags.

Mama grinned at me, her two front teeth shining in triumph.

“I’ll leave you two alone to talk business,” she said. She made a small courtly bow to Granny, who plopped down in my client’s chair while a pair of grey moths escaped her wardrobe and began to dart around my office.

Mama stomped out. Granny beamed at me, and the coins in the sack shifted with that magical sound of gold on gold.

“You’ve hired yourself a finder, looks like.” I said. “So, tell me what it is you’ve lost.”


-- End Excerpt

Another excerpt, you ask?


Indeed it is, I reply.  This one from The Cadaver Client, in which Markhat takes on a dead man for a client.  This is a novella-length tale (hence the reduced price) which is set early in Markhat's career.  Fans refer to it as one of the 'pre-Darla' tales.


If you've been on the fence about trying the Markhat series, The Cadaver Client is a good place to start.  You'll meet Mama Hog, Markhat's next-door-neighbor and a major source of exasperation for the streetwise finder.  you'll also get a feel for Rannit, Markhat's rough-and-tumble home.  


Yes, the Markhat books are fantasy, but you won't find any winsome Elves or cute fairies here.  Or dragons, for that matter.  I based the mean streets of Rannit on what I've seen of the seedier parts of Memphis, Tennessee, and believe me, any Elf that tried to charm the masses with ancient songs would quickly find he was missing his wallet, his rings, and a significant volume of his blood, probably not in that order.


Why did I decide to drop a 1940s film-noir private eye into a world where magic works and the dead don't always stay buried?


Your guess is as good as mine.  Some will claim I must have suffered a recent head injury.  Others will speak of an excess of over-the-counter cold medicine and a bout of insomnia.  Still others will just make that finger-spinning motion by the side of their head when they think I'm not looking.


Any or all of them might be right.  But I've had a blast writing Markhat.  I think we've all wanted to be that guy who always has the perfect retort, who's never at a loss for words.  That's Markhat.  Cynical, quick-witted, weary enough of the world to see it for what it is, yet not so calloused that he can turn away from the suffering of innocents.  


No wonder I enjoy pretending to be the guy.  


I think you'll enjoy reading about him, too.  If the excerpt hooked you, follow the links below to choose which version you'd like.  Kindle, Nook, pdf for your PC, a version for your Sony e-reader, heck, even print -- choose below!


The Cadaver Client - Various Formats (Nook, pdf, Mobi, etc.)


The Cadaver Client - Amazon Kindle version


The Markhat Files - Printed book, 3 stories, includes The Cadaver Client!


The e-book versions are less than 3 bucks and the print book from Amazon is around ten (it includes 3 Markhat novellas -- The Cadaver Client, Dead Man's Rain, and The Mister Trophy).


Thanks for reading!

Dead Man's Rain

The Widow Merlat sat across from me, breathed through her scented silk hanky, and did her best to make it plain she wasn’t one of those Hill snobs who think of us common folk as mere servant-fodder. No, I was all right in her book—not a human being like her, of course, but as long as I kept my eyes on the floor and knocked the horse flop off my boots, I’d be welcome at her servant’s entrance any day.

“You come highly recommended, goodman Markhat,” she said, daring Rannit’s unfashionable south-side air long enough to lower her hanky while she spoke. “The most capable, most experienced finder in all of Rannit. I’m told you are discreet, as well. I would not be here otherwise.”

I sighed. My head hurt and I still had cemetery dirt on my shoes. I did not need to have my face rubbed in my humble origins by a Hill widow who doubtlessly thought her son was the first rich boy to ever take a fancy to the half-elf parlor maid.

“I’m also told you are expensive,” said the widow. She plopped a fat black clutch purse down on my desk, and it tinkled, heavy with coin. “Good,” she added. “I’ve never trusted bargains, nor shopped for them. Money means nothing to me.”

“Funny you should say that, Lady Merlat,” I said. “Why, just the other day I was telling the Regent that money means twenty jerks a day, to me. Plus expenses. And that’s only if I decide to take the job.” I leaned back in my chair and clasped my hands behind my head. “And, despite your generous display of the money that means nothing to you, I haven’t said yes yet.”

The widow smiled a tight, small smile. “You will, finder,” she said. “I’ll pay thirty crowns a day. Forty. Fifty. Whatever it takes, I will pay.”

Outside, an ogre huffed and puffed as he pulled a manure wagon down the street, and all the silk in Hent wasn’t going to keep the stench out of the widow’s Hill-bred nostrils.

The widow shoved her purse my way. I shoved it back.

“Tell me what you want,” I said.

She nodded, once and quickly, and took a deep breath. A hint of color fought its way past the powder on her cheeks.

“My husband is dead,” she said.

She was wearing more black than a barge-load of undertakers. “No,” I said, straight-faced. “How long?”

“Two years,” she said. More color leaked through. “Two years. He caught fever.” The widow’s voice went thin. “He caught fever and he died and I buried him.” She took in a ragged breath. “But now he’s back, goodman. Returned.”

“Returned?” I lifted an eyebrow. “How? Rattling chains, wearing a bed-sheet?” I stood. “Nice talking to you, Lady.”

Her small bright eyes got smaller and brighter. “Sit,” she hissed. “I am neither senile nor insane. My husband has returned. He walks the grounds at night. He rattles the windows, pulls at all the doors. All but four of the staff left after his second visit.” The widow Merlat gave her hanky a savage twist. “I had to hire caterers for the Armistice Day Festival,” she said. “The canapés were spoiled, and two of my guests fell ill after sampling the stuffed mushrooms.”

“Tragic,” I said. “Shocking. And the wine?”

“Goodman Markhat,” she said. “Are you mocking me?”

I sighed, eyed the coin-purse, sat. “Lady Merlat,” I said, “this sounds like a matter for the Watch, or the Church, or both. Why me? What can I do that they can’t?”

She twisted her hanky and chose her words. “The Watch. The Church. Don’t you think I tried, goodman? Don’t you think I tried?”

“I don’t know, Lady,” I said. “Did you?”

She glared. “Sixty crowns a day,” she said.

“So your husband is a revenant,” I said, slowly. “And he’s tracking up the flower beds and scaring the neighbors and the coachman is also the butler and nobody can cook a decent meal.”

“Sixty-five crowns,” she said, her voice glacial, to match her eyes. “Seventy, if you vow to hold your tongue.”

I grinned. “Sixty-five it is,” I said. “And I need to make one thing perfectly clear, Lady Merlat. I saw a lot of folks get suddenly, tragically dead during the War. What I didn’t see was anybody walking around afterward complaining about it.”

“You doubt my word?”

“I believe you believe, but that doesn’t make it the truth,” I said. “Have you seen your husband, Lady Markhat? Really seen him?”

She shuddered, and went corpse-pale underneath the powder. “Once,” she said in a whisper. “The second time. I’d moved upstairs, kept the windows shuttered and bolted. But I heard the dogs barking and Harl, the footman, shouting and I peeked outside and there he was, standing there, looking up at me.” She shivered all over, fought it off. “It was him, goodman Markhat. Two years in the grave—but it was Ebed.”

She hesitated. And then she lowered the hanky and looked me in the eye. “Please,” she said, and the word stuck in her throat, so she repeated it. “Please.”

“All right, Lady,” I said. “All right.” I opened my desk, pulled out a pad of ragged pulp-paper and a pair of brass dipping-pens. “I’ll do this much. I’ll try to find out who or what you saw,” I said. “Give it three days. If I come up empty, you only owe me for two.”

“I saw my husband,” said the widow. “I saw him, and others have seen him, and I’ll pay you sixty-five crowns a day to find out why he has returned, and how I can put him to rest.”

I sighed. “I need to know a few things, Lady Merlat,” I said. “Names, dates, addresses. And the location of your husband’s tomb.”

She found a fresh hanky and took a big breath.

Revenants and funerals and aching in the head.

Happy birthday to me.

Yep.  I sneaked another promo into the blog.  For Dead Man's Rain, which is a fan favorite in the Markhat series, at least judging from the emails I get.

The excerpt is from the opening.  Later on, you've got a haunted mansion, a mob of ruthless heirs, and Ebed Merlat, who may or may not be the walking dead.  Oh, and there's a storm.  A stormy night, in fact.  Dark, too.  So, one might say, a dark and . . . .

One might say that but I certainly won't.  It's a spooky little tale of (literally?) undying love and a guilt so profound it can't even be buried.  But don't take my word for it -- here are a few reviews I've received via email:

"...tons better than anything I ever wrote."   W. Shakespeare, deceased. 

"...and if we do not receive your payment by the 15th, we will consider the account delinquent."   MasterCard.

"Greetings of the day to you dear.  I am Dr. Reverend Mbai Basoli, and I have a 100% safe and legal business deal for you."  drbasoli@yahoo.com

"...for more CONFIDENCE in the BEDROOM, with NO SIDE EFFECTS and NO PRESCRIPTION!"  zmaxplus@scamdrugs.com

By now you're either hooked or you long ago hit the back button, so I'll list the various formats below.  Choose your poison!

Dead Man's Rain (Various formats - Nook, Sony, etc.)

Dead Man's Rain (Kindle version)

Print Version -- Contains Dead Man's Rain and two other Markhat tales!

Free Sample Tuesday: THE BANSHEE'S WALK

When I'm not ranting about miscreants and ne'er-do-wells, I write books.

At infrequent intervals, I mention these books here in the blog.  Who am I kidding?  I plug my books shamelessly, hoping a couple of you will follow the convenient links below the sample to get your very own copy.  

Today's excerpt comes from my Markhat novel THE BANSHEE'S WALK.  Markhat, the feckless hero, is a finder, which is what private eyes in his world paint on their doors.  People who've lost wives or husbands or sons or hope come to see Markhat, and if they're lucky, he finds what they've lost.  

But what Markhat usually finds is trouble.  In THE BANSHEE'S WALK, Markhat is hired by a wealthy patron of the arts to determine who has been surveying her estate in the dead of night, and why.  Markhat suspects nothing but a petty land grab, or a squabble over property lines -- but what he discovers in the forest called the Banshee's Walk is something much older and far more sinister.

Enjoy the excerpt.  Links to various e-book versions and the printed book follow...

Excerpt from THE BANSHEE'S WALK

Moving through a forest at night is a perilous business. You can’t see briars before they tear through your clothes and into your skin. You can’t see rattlesnakes until you’ve annoyed them and they bite. And Heaven help you if you run into a wild boar sow with piglets nearby, because boars are worse than snakes and briars combined.

I never saw an example of any of those. All I saw were soldiers, some mounted, most on foot. These weren’t all kids, either. Half were my age, which meant they were vets who done this sneaking around business before.

I just hoped none of them were better at it than me.

The stars wheeled by above. The coward Moon never rose. The wind kept blowing, howling now and then, reminding me of Buttercup. I still had a hunk of corn bread for her, mashed flat and wrapped in one of Lady Werewilk’s good cotton napkins.

I topped a tiny little hillock, made my way between the trunks of two mighty oaks, popped my head up long enough to count fires. I saw two.

And something else. A faint blue radiance, bobbing and trailing sparks that lay there glowing but didn’t touch off any fires.

I bit back a curse word. I’d watched five of the black robed bastards be yanked up into the sky and I’d been sure, absolutely sure, that I’d seen the last of sorcerers at least for the night.

But here was at least one more, still on the hunt.

I hoped Buttercup was somewhere safe. I wondered why they were so determined to snatch her.

I eased my way back down the hill on my belly, and then I crawled on, heading for the Faery Ring.

I chided myself a dozen times on that dark journey, about my destination. I was making an awfully long leap of faith, going from two mentions in an old Werewilk family history to being sure something ancient and potent was hidden along a creek that had dried to nothing generations before the War even broke. You’ll feel pretty foolish, I told myself, if you reach the Ring and all you find are oaks and midnight.

You’ll feel even more foolish if someone sees you and puts an arrow through your gut.

I couldn’t argue with either sentiment, but I kept going.

Halfway there, I began to see signs that I might have been right after all.

I found rutted wagon tracks, in the forest. Wagons had left the old road. I counted at least five. Men had cleared the way with axes, oxen and ropes. Some of the cut timber was so fresh it still wept sap.

But there were no men. Not a single sentry had been left in the wagons’ wake.

Although men had accompanied the wagons, in single file on either side of them, in numbers I couldn’t even estimate.

I stayed thirty feet or so off the new-cut road. I moved as quietly as I could, but I no longer crawled. Instinct told me that, at last, I was about to learn just what the fuss was about.

I smelled smoke from the fires before I saw them. A few moments later, I heard the first voices, and the first sounds of hammers and picks and axes. And then I topped another gentle rise, and it all came into view.

A ring of torches. Wagons. Men moving and shouting and working. Most were digging. Others were erecting a scaffold of fresh-cut timbers over the deep wound they’d dug in the soft, wet earth.

As I watched, chains were dragged from a wagon, and a heavy block and tackle, and ladders were propped against the scaffold and men clambered up them, chains and tackle in tow.

I felt a tiny hand slip into my right pocket. I didn’t even smell her over my own enthusiastic stink.

“Hello, Buttercup,” I whispered.

She found and unwrapped the corn bread, frowned at its mashed state, and then shrugged and began to gobble it down, using the napkin to keep the crumbs in place.

She stood pressed to my side, her right hand filled with corn bread and her left wrapped around my waist. 

The top of her filthy little banshee head failed to even meet the middle of my chest.

She was shaking. I didn’t dare move. I didn’t want to spook her, even though the realization that she was probably being tracked by at least one determined sorcerer was sending shivers up and down my spine.

“Did you lose your blanket?”

She looked up at me again and grinned.

And then she coughed, choking on a mouthful of dry corn bread.

It wasn’t the loudest cough I’d ever heard but it was close. But I dropped to my knees and dared putting an arm around her as I did so.

She didn’t bolt. She was shaking. She huddled close, still chewing, her eyes locked on mine.

I raised a finger to my lips.

She hesitated a moment, and then did the same.

I almost laughed. But instead I watched and listened.

The workers down below kept working. The movement of the torches and lanterns kept on as before, with none of them heading suddenly our way.

No booted feet rushed towards us. No iron hooves, either. I decided we’d found Fate’s favor, that time. I hoped the rest of the night would prove as fortunate.

“Do you know what they’re doing, down there?” I asked, in a whisper. I wasn’t really expecting a reply. I had no way of knowing whether Buttercup could speak or understand speech.

She tilted her head and eyed me curiously. I shrugged.

“No matter. We’ll just watch for a while.”

And we did. They dug. Dirt was hauled the edge of the light and dumped. I tried to pick out the ringleaders by looking for anyone not carrying a tool. Part of the activity right at the edge of the excavation was obscured by a tent that was being erected as I watched, and I wasn’t willing to risk moving just to see around it.

A horn blew, three short blasts. In the Army that meant archers to the fore. To the men below, it meant more shovels, on the double, because a mob of them leapt from the backs of various wagons and hoofed it toward the hole.

It was then I caught a brief glimpse of what I decided was the man in charge. A small group of men made a slow circle of the pit. Three of them carried odd glowing implements that they held out over the hole on lances.

The fourth was twice the height of any man I’d ever known, and as thin as he was tall. If he were a he at all. No way to tell, since he or she was wrapped in white robes from head to toe.

I tried very hard to sink back even further into the shadows. My knowledge of Rannit’s sorcerous crowd was by no means exhaustive, but anyone that odd would have been mentioned, here or there.

Which meant an out-of-town wand-waver was in the mix.

I thought back to those stories we told each other in the trenches. There had been something about an inhumanly tall wand-waver, way up in the Northlands. Longshanks or Longlegs or some such, fond of using plagues as weapons. The diseases had killed humans as well as Trolls. There had been grumblings that our losses to illness had been at least as numerous as those of the enemy.

After the War, the bulk of the Regency’s sorcery corps moved with the Regent to Rannit, which had survived the War with relatively little damage. The sorcerers who didn’t make the move were generally the ones who’d made powerful enemies among the wand-wavers who did.

Buttercup gobbled down the last of her corn bread. She then licked the napkin clean of crumbs and butter before deciding my other pockets might bear more yummy treasures.

“Whoa, sister, that’s no way to act.”

I grabbed her hands. They were tiny, but strong. She smiled and before I realized what was happening she leaped up in my lap and kissed me, square on the lips.

I fell over backward. Dry leaves crunched. Tattletale twigs snapped. Buttercup fell with me, giggling and redoubling her grip. I tried to pry her away without hurting her, but her tiny stature belied a powerful frame.

I was about to stand up and take her by the shoulders and just push her an arm’s length away when we both heard the sound of a horse trotting through the trees.

She let go. She drew her hands up over her mouth, covering a tiny mewling noise.

The blue glow shone through the limbs, coming our way.

--- End Excerpt

Want to read more?  Then clickety-click with your nimble little finger, dear reader.  Your choice of formats is below.

THE BANSHEE'S WALK as a printed book

(Pre-order now, comes out June 7)

THE BANSHEE'S WALK for the Amazon Kindle

(Available now!)

THE BANSHEE'S WALK all other formats!

Enjoy!

Trash on Parade: Kage Games LLC

UPDATE 4-26-2011 1612 CST -- The game app has been PULLED from the Android store.  VICTORY

The world, as you know, is filled with worthless, reprehensible scum.

This week, I present to you the creators of the Google Android app 'Dog Wars,' who have just edged out Westboro Baptist for the top spot in my coveted 'Waste of Skin and Air' list, which showcases the most flagrant examples of humanity gone horribly, terribly wrong.

I know that some of you believe no person is bad through and through.  Some of you believe that hidden in even the darkest heart, a tiny spark of goodness survives, needing only patient, compassionate nurturing to blossom forth into the flower of human kindness.

People like you are so cute.  Clueless, of course, and nearly defenseless in a world that eats kittens for breakfast, but you're cute nonetheless.

And utterly mistaken.  Take for instance the Dog Wars game I mentioned earlier.

The creators of this travesty find it amusing to equip and fight virtual dogs in bloody VR death matches.  I suspect they and their mutant scum customer base use the app between actual dog fights and felonies, i.e., passing the time between violent home invasions and hanging around various alleys in search of their next fix.

Because those are the sorts of people who enjoy dog fighting.  They also enjoy rape, murder, and of course armed robbery, and they'd do them all at the same time if they had just a few more appendages.

The owners of Kage Games LLC know their market base (scum, worthless, see also Trash, Vermin, etc.) and are pandering directly toward it.  Of course, they defend their wares with a variety of mentally-challenged arguments,  claiming their 'game' is a harmless simulation.

Sure it is.  Just like 'Wife Beater 2.0,' and 'Mega-Rapist 2000.'

What?

Those last two aren't games?  Why not?  After all, they're just harmless simulations.

Oh, right, because they not only depict but glorify violent crimes.  My bad.

I've looked for contact information for Kage Games LLC.  There's a web page, but it's a static image with no links or contact info.  I suspect the 'owners' pulled anything resembling an actual page when news of their disgusting game hit the web.

I'd love to let  Kage Games LLC know what I think of them.  Too bad they don't have the guts to put their names out in public.  But since they're hiding, the best I can do is call them out here:

An Open Letter to Dog Fight Fans, the Makers of the 'Dog Wars' App, and the Defenders Thereof:

You are filth.  Trash. Aberrations. Utterly and wholly contemptible.  Without worth or value as people of any sort.  Even the base chemicals which comprise your gap-toothed, foul-smelling bodies are worthless, since they must be riddled with impurities and laced with raw sewage.  


I can only imagine what sort of creatures brought you into the world.  Siblings, of course, who were in turn descended from a long line of siblings.  I suspect you were raised up in a remote cabin, where you practiced random cannibalism when you weren't molesting livestock or trying desperately to evolve opposable thumbs.


And now you've discovered the Internet.  Wonderful.  And you saw a need among your like-minded brethren for a 'game' that glorifies the killing of innocent dogs.  Lacking any sort of compassion or other higher mental functions, it's no surprise that you dived in with both club feet, eager to make a few fast bucks off your two favorite things, suffering and violence.


It appears that your 'game' will be yanked from the Android market any moment now.  And that's good.  Your sort of 'entertainment' has no place in a civilized society.


And neither do you.  It is my most sincere wish that each of you and your 'fans' contract something both truly nasty and inexorably disfiguring.  Huge anal warts, for instance.  Untreatable.  Incurable. And slow.

Now that would be fun.  Maybe you could even make it into a game app!  Plot the spread of the cancer through your system, maybe even have the raging tumors fight.  


Sounds like a fun game to me!  

If you'd like to email android and ask them what in the **** they're doing keeping such a piece of trash on their Market, do so here:

press@google.com

Westboro Baptist -- Ya'll Don't Come Back Now, You Hear?

I don't follow the gap-toothed meanderings of the inbred loons who comprise Westboro Baptist church much these days.  I do have a Google alert set in case a headline containing the words 'Westboro Baptist church bus plunges flaming explosion carnage' pops up.  I'm always ready for a good laugh.

So I had no idea the whole wretched Westboro mob was heading for my home state just last week.

But they were.  To Brandon, Mississippi, to 'protest' during the funeral of USMC Staff Sgt. Jason Rogers, who was laid to rest last Saturday.


I can't imagine what Sgt. Rogers' family was going through.  I can imagine their reactions to seeing the misshapen, drooling troglodytes from Westboro waving signs that mocked their son's untimely death.  No one should be forced to endure that.


I know, I know, free speech, even for those who don't deserve it.  And I agree with that.


I also agree with the people in Brandon who decided the Rogers family had quite enough to deal with without adding the Westboro protest to the list.


According to my sources, trouble started early for the Westboro 'faithful,' in the form of an impromptu beat-down outside a Brandon gas station at which a passer-by demonstrated to a loudmouthed Westborite that yes, you have a perfect right to defile the memory of a dead man, and by the way have you met my fist?


The pugilistic stranger left the scene, and due to poor lighting conditions and a sudden uptick in sunspot activity witnesses gave conflicting descriptions of the assailant to the Brandon police.  Some claimed the stranger was tall and white.  Others maintained he was short and African-American.  Still others produced elaborate sketches of Gandalf, or the Green Hornet.


The Westboro street preacher waddled back to his hotel, sadly unavenged.


The actual morning of the planned  protest brought even more difficulties for the various primates from Westboro. When the Westboro bunch emerged from their motel rooms, after doubtlessly spending their night picking through each other's hair in search of lice and ticks, it seems careless motorists had parked their large and unwieldy pickups behind all the Westboro vehicles.  Inexplicably, the drivers of the poorly-parked trucks could not be found.


The Westborons demanded a tow truck.  Such was dispatched, but became lost in the teeming metropolis that is Brandon, Mississippi.  The delay was such that the 'protesters' were unable to travel to their appointed spot in time to disrupt the funeral.


What a shame!  They are after all such lovely, wonderful people.  I do hope their experiences here don't sour them on the state.  


In fact, I'd like to extend to each and every Westboron a special invitation.  


Come back to Mississippi anytime. 


We are, after all, the hospitality state....  

Weary Bones

Tonight, I'm just tired.

I shouldn't be, really.  I'm 87,000 words into a new novel.  Yes, you read that right.  Eighty-seven thousand words done, which leaves another thirteen thousand to go if I'm aiming for an even hundred thousand.

This isn't a Markhat novel, either.  It's something new and completely different.  And it's nearly done.

I should be turning cartwheels.  Shouting. Frolicking in sun-dappled meadows in slow motion while a string ensemble provides soothing background music.

Okay, maybe not frolicking.  I'm too old to effectively frolic without risking a hasty, expensive trip to the ER afterward.  Too, the visual was disturbing.  So, new policy:  No frolicking.

But why am I so lethargic, all the sudden?

Maybe it's just physical.  It's been a rough couple of weeks.

Whatever the cause, I need it fixed, right now.  I need to stick THE END on this new one, and get moving on the edits.  But right now I'm having trouble focusing.  A few minutes ago I wrote the same sentence twice, and while some might hail such repetition as a brilliant example of the new avant-garde it will just get me rejected.

I think what I need is coffee.  And a new day.  This one is shot.

I'll leave you with the title of the new work-in-progress.  It's called All the Paths of Shadow.  I love the title. I can almost see the cover art, too.  And the movie posters.  Especially those.

Now that's the kind of thinking that might just restore me.

What I'm Reading Now: Moon Dance

I snagged a great Kindle e-book a couple of days ago.

One of the great things about owning a Kindle is the opportunity to browse thousands and thousands of indie and self-published titles.  Now, I'll say up front that most of these books are, to be blunt, crap.  In many cases, there's a reason the authors chose to self-publish, that reason being no publisher on Earth would read past the first paragraph, let alone pony up a small fortune to see the awful thing lurch to life in print.

But they're not all bad.  I can always tell before I'm done reading the second line of the book description, because the same writer who writes that wrote the book.  If it's a confusing, wandering quagmire of cliches and purple prose, I move on.

But there are gems hidden amid the refuse.  One such gem is Moon Dance (Vampire for Hire #1) by J. R. Rain..

It's only 99 cents.  Yeah, I'm a tightwad.  But J. R. Rain should really be asking more than a buck for Moon Dance.

I have a weakness for film-noir private eyes.  I firmly believe the world should be black and white, stuck circa 1940.  Fedoras.  Rainswept streets at midnight.  Dames.

So you're probably thinking Moon Dance is set in a world just like that, right?

Wrong.  The protagonist is a working mom, with two small kids and a lot of laundry.

She's also spent the last six years as a vampire.

So no fedoras.  Rainswept streets, maybe.  But what the book has is the most important thing of all -- it's got the heart and soul of a gritty, unflinching PI novel.

I doff my hat -- a damp fedora, with two bullet holes -- to J. R. Rain, whoever they are, because not only do they know how to write, but they know how to write the stuff I like.

I'll post a full review when I'm done.  Again, that's Moon Dance, by J.R. Rain.

Near Midnight for Lennox

I've received word that tomorrow is the date for the final appeal for Lennox.  If the new judge rules to uphold Ken Nixon's tragically erroneous ruling of last week, then poor Lennox will be put down on the grounds that he is a dangerous pit bull dog even though he is not a pit bull and has never demonstrated any aggression or received a single complaint.

Look.  This entire situation is ridiculous.  The Belfast City Council Dog Wardens had a warrant, and the address was wrong on the warrant, and they wound up at Lennox's house.  Being the stunning paragons of intellect that they are, the Dog Wardens looked about, spied a black dog, and hauled him away on suspicion of being a pit bull.

Fast forward ten months.  Yes.  Ten freaking months.  I've seen photos that leaked out of poor Lennox, a beloved housepet, crammed into a tiny cage surrounded by his own feces.  That's what passes for animal care in the merry old town of Belfast.  Hay and crap.

You go, Belfast.  Keep that sort of mindset up, and you'll hit the thirteenth century any decade now.

The Belfast City Council also kept Lennox's status and whereabouts a secret during this time.  Lennox's owner, a twelve-year-old girl in ill health, had no idea whether her furry friend was alive or dead.

Another score for Belfast.  First we've got animal cruelty, now we get just a hint of child abuse.

Belfast, is there any reprehensible low to which you will not stoop?

But the story gets worse.  When poor Lennox's case is finally heard by a judge (remember the ten months part?), District Judge Ken Nixon ignores DNA evidence which proves Lennox is not a prohibited breed pit bull dog.  This judge ignores Lennox's lifetime of good behavior.

No, District Judge Ken Nixon sentences Lennox to death, because apparently all pit bulls are black and thus all black dogs are pit bulls and ipso facto, hocus pocus, abracadabra!

Guilty.  The sentence is death.  Next case please.

Nice work there, Judge Nixon.  I suppose jurisprudence is a lot simpler when you hide an old Magic 8 Ball toy under those robes.  Guilty, Innocent, Reply Hazy Try Again Later -- have I told you how much I admire your keen legal mind?

No?  Good.

But now Lennox has one final chance, before one last judge.

I hope that justice will win the day.  I hope that finally, someone in authority will look at this whole sordid convergence of incompetence and outright stupidity  and dismiss the wretched case once and for all.

That won't make up for the year Lennox has suffered at the barbaric hands of the Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, or the little girl's suffering as she mourned for her missing friend.

But it's at least a step in the right direction.

And that will be a first for Belfast in this sad matter.

UPDATE:  The news I got about Lennox's appeal was incorrect.  Today is the day the date for the appeal will be set, not the day of the actual appeal.  My apologies.

Belfast Buffoonery: Judges Sans Judgement

The case of Lennox, the dog who was seized in Belfast for being a pit bull despite a DNA test which confirmed he was NOT a pit bull, has taken a sudden tragic turn for the worse.  Scroll down to see my earlier posts about this travesty.

The Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, more commonly known locally as 'sheep fanciers,' kept Lennox locked away in a tiny tiny cage for a year before a judge finally heard the case.

Not that the Wardens had much of a case.  They identified Lennox as a pit bull, a breed prohibited by local law. The Wardens came to this conclusion after engaging in a stunning bit of police work.

They measured Lennox's back legs.  With a cloth tape measure.

Yeah.  That's "CSI: Belfast."  A couple of quasi-literate bumpkins and their mum's old sewing tape.

Anyway, after a lengthy round of finger-counting and open-mouthed division, these paragons of law enforcement declared Lennox a pit bull and carried him off.  Lennox then spent a year in the tiny cage I just mentioned, surrounded by his own feces.

I was appalled at that, until a friend who's been to Belfast assured me that sleeping in a bed of one's own droppings is quite commonplace there.  Oh, a few rich society Belfasters do use fancy outdoor toilets, but they are in the minority.

But back to the case.  This judge, a District Judge we'll call Stupid McStupidson, heard the evidence, wiped drool from his bottom six chins, and declared that Lennox was a menace to public safety, and must therefore be put down.

Unless Lennox's owners can win an appeal, Lennox the not-pit-bull is doomed.

Doomed for the crime of being large and black.

Public safety, Judge Mac MacStupid O'Shaunesy?  Yes, yes, I can see your point.  This dog, which has never harmed anyone, could secretly be procuring anti-tank weapons from North African arms dealers, and burying these weapons in his backyard, just waiting to strike.  You are very wise, District Judge Stupid McStupidson .  Most of us were completely fooled by Lennox's lack of opposable thumbs and speech or writing abilities.

But that makes him the perfect terrorist!

And since Lennox has a spotless record, and since he isn't a pit bull, why else would he have spent a year in solitary confinement?  He must be guilty!

It's all so clear now.  All so obvious.

And all I had to do to understand District Judge  Stupid McStupidson's reasoning was apply a little common sense.  Well, apply a little common sense and huff five cans of cheap gold spray paint.  That knocked my IQ down several hundred points, and now I'm in a perfectly Belfast state of mind!

If I huff another half a dozen cans, thus reducing myself to a mental level somewhere between that of carrots and sand, I might even be qualified to run against District Judge Stupid McStupidson in the next next election!

Wait, wait.  I'd need to move to Belfast to do that.

And even after picking up a drug habit and rendering myself Belfastish, I'm not stupid enough to do that.

PS --

I hope someone will forward this blog post  to the judge.  Then I hope someone else will read it to him, slowly, explaining the big words as they go.  I know that will take time, but I've heard if you keep a bucket of fish handy he'll sit still as long as you keep feeding him.  Try, won't you?


UPDATE 9-30-2011:

In a stunning display of judicial incompetence and profound stupidity, Judge Dereck Rodgers just decreed that Poor Lennox, after spending 18 months locked up, is to be put down.

I am appalled beyond words at the thuggish, brutal cretins who run Belfast.  From the Dog Wardens to the bloated, ham-faced dog 'experts' to the witless judges, Belfast is nothing but a blight upon the Earth.  I wish everyone involved with the prosecution nothing but misery and misfortune.


UPDATE, REDUX --

Lennox was not put down in September of 2011. Instead, he was held in legal limbo, with no visits allowed, while the Belfast legal community struggled with weighty matters including but not limited to 'how to read without sounding out the words aloud' and 'what kind of rash is this.'

Lennox remains on Death Row.

Banned from Belfast!

I knew it was coming.

The Belfast City Council has blocked me from posting on their Facebook page and has deleted all my previous posts.  It seems they do not love having their penchant for murdering dogs spoken about in public.  Or maybe they were simply intimidated at the sight of two-syllable words.  Most of the posts created by residents of Belfast were of the 'wher i gits beere?' variety.  Several were open solicitations for intimate relations with underage donkeys.  And people claim Belfast has no night life!

Honestly, I was surprised to find a Facebook page for Belfast at all.  Setting up any sort of web page seems beyond the grasp of that mob of raging alcoholic leprechaun-molesters -- but wait, they probably paid a human to set them up.  Yes.  I should have realized that immediately, since the Belfast page lacked any references to bestiality, inbreeding, or public urination, which are all time-honored civic traditions in quaint little Belfast.

A judge ruled on Lennox's case a couple of days ago.  Now, let's take a quick look at the facts.  The Belfast City Council Dog Wardens, hereafter referred to as 'Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons,' grabbed Lennox the not-pit-bull after going to the wrong house.  That's right.  The warrant wasn't even for the address at which poor Lennox lived.

Why anyone would have the Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons of the Belfast City Council a written warrant is quite beyond me.  That's like sending my dogs to the grocery store with a shopping list written up in a 32-bit cipher code.  Good things are simply not going to happen.

And they didn't.  The Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons showed up at the wrong house.  Deep in the recesses of their dim little minds, they knew they were sent after a pit bull dog.

I can almost hear the stunted synapses in their miniscule brains struggling to connect.  Pit. Bull. Dog.  Lennox. Dog.  Lennox. Black Dog.

A pair of neurons managed a single brief connection.

Lennox pit bull dog!

And thus poor Lennox was led away.

Led away to languish in a tiny cage filled with his own feces.  Photos prove this.  Worse, Lennox remained in this cage for a year.

A year?  Really, people.  I know the Belfast City Dog Wardens -- pardon me, the Child Molesting Guinness-Swilling Sheep-Buggering Fascist Drooling Inbred Morons -- have a lot to do.  They have to remember what shoes are for.  Every morning for them is a struggle with door-knobs and buttons and a dozen other fiendishly complicated devices.

Just stumbling from the alley beside the pub and down to the Dog Warden office probably occupies most of their morning.

Finally, though, Lennox's case was presented to a judge.

One would think that a judge would posses certain mental qualities.  Detectable brain activity, for a start.  Some meager command of language.  The ability to relieve oneself without soiling one's robes.

That's what one would think.

But remember, this is Belfast.  Belfast, often referred to as the open, running sore of the United Kingdom.  Belfast, land of enchantment, if by enchantment you mean buggery, outdoor lavatories, and frequent encounters with piles of human feces.  That Belfast.

And so, in keeping with a millennia-old tradition of making the kinds of legal decisions that leave mollusks gasping in open disbelief, this Belfast judge decreed that Lennox the dog should be put to death, for the crime of being not-a-pit-bull, having black fur, and not living at the address listed on the warrant.

Way to go, Your Honor.  High-fives and dark skunky beers all around.  Keep up that level of stellar legal work, and you'll be Lord High Mayor of the malodorous trash-heap that is Belfast before you can say 'let's go club some baby seals.'

I don't know what's going to happen to poor Lennox.  I hope that the recent outpouring of rage aimed at Belfast might convince them to relent.  Understand I'm not expecting an appeal to their better natures to work. I don't think anyone on the Belfast City Council has a better nature.  But even a band of bloodthirsty goat-fanciers understands economic loss, and the whole 'Hey, let's kill some black dogs, just for the lulz' attitude isn't helping draw tourists toward the cloud of black flies that hangs like a noisy cloud over Belfast.

If you're angry about the treatment of this dog, let the mouth-breathers on the Belfast City Council know it.

Hit them here on Facebook.  Email the toothless beer-swilling gits here.

And then let's all hope that someone in Belfast grows an extra brain cell or three.

Yeah, it's a faint hope, but that's about all Lennox has right now.