Then I catch Mickey on the jaw with a good one, she’s out in a second, and I’ve got her stretched out on the bed. I’ve got one phone call to make, before I go, to Sergeant Fitz, telling him he was right, it was a lover’s quarrel, but it wasn’t Mickey. I did Connie with a .38 special, two bullets in her chest from about three feet. Sounds from his tone like I guessed right on the caliber and range. It’s the only way to save the dyke, and Connie loved this woman, so I suppose I might as well, too, and this is my parting gift.

“You killed Conrad Rodriguez. In a domestic dispute.”

“That’s right.”

“And you’re willing to sign a statement to that effect?”

“Well,” I say, “I’ll be a little busy for the next hour or so. But if I’m still around after that…I’ll sign George Washington’s autograph on your fucking grandmother’s ass, flatfoot.”

I cradle the phone, pocket the .38, get the keys to Mickey’s bike out of the pouch of her airport blues. She’s waking up, but I’m gone before she knows what’s happening. I figure her bike’s probably in the alley. There it is, parked up next to the garbage heap, Harley 883 Sportster, beautiful. I fire it up and hit the clutch. Rubber spins and then I’m moving like hell. Mickey screams after me, hanging out the window of the Ambassador. Yelling for me to stop. “Put it on my tab,” I mutter as I shift into third and lay down the rubber, skidding onto the main drag, screaming toward Jimmy’s bar like a pale rider with the .38 heavy in my pocket and the bad taste of payback in my mouth. It’s almost sunrise; Jimmy’s always at work early, his muscle’s gonna be light this time of day. The sky cracks open, spilling fire overhead, casting black skyscraper shadows along my path. Two in the chest. Birds rise in flocks as I pass, screaming death wails, announcing my approach. God put a lightning bolt in my hand, motherfucker, a lightning bolt in a .38 special. Blood is thicker than tears, you piece of shit. The city blends like nightmares into a sound less watercolor around me, painted in Connie’s blood.

Jimmy’s in his office, greeting me with a smile.

THOMAS S. ROCHE

on “Up for a Nickel,” first published in Best American Erotica in 1999

I wrote “Up for a Nickel” as my contribution to the first Noirotica anthology, and the story is all about what I wanted to see in such a genre. I was interested in editing an anthology of erotic horror, and author Nancy Kilpatrick had suggested to me that there was a lot of erotic horror, but no one had done erotic mysteries. So I did it.