Bob Liter

Coming Soon

2008-06-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

COMING SOON

Family Plan
A Novel
by
Bob Liter

Many thousands of single mothers face extreme difficulties in raising their children. One of them is Nora Alexander who is trying to raise her nine-year-old daughter, Becky. She faces complications that make her struggle more difficult than most.

FAMILY PLAN is the story of Nora’s battle to raise her daughter while fighting alcohol addiction. She is on the run from her ex, Herman Brink, who seeks custody of Becky, even though he is not her father, to exact revenge on Nora because of the divorce.

Nora and Becky use a false last name to worm their way into renting a room from Henry Dodd who doesn’t realize Nora is his estranged granddaughter. Nora gets a job as a waitress and reluctantly falls under the influence of Lance Arnold who owns a tavern, The Lazy Hour.

He romances her and talks her into becoming a waitress at his tavern. Her ex-husband finds and kidnaps her. She escapes and later is accused of murder when a man dies while trying to rape her during a snowstorm. She finally is exonerated. Custody of Becky becomes a court issue. The judge gives Nora another chance as long as she marries Lance, a recovering alcoholic.

The author, Bob Liter, is also the creator of several romances published by Renaissance E Books, including the best seller, DANNY BOY.

CHAPTER ONE
Of Family Plan

Windshield wipers on Nora Alexander's 12-year-old Geo whipped back and forth as she turned into the driveway of a white bungalow and parked. Her nine-year-old daughter, Becky, stretched and said in a voice heavy with sleep, “Are we there?”
“Yes, kiddo, finally. Now remember. Our last name is Johnson.”
Nora looked in the rearview mirror at her own tired face. She brushed hair back from her forehead and thought, Will this work? It has to.
“Are we going in or not? I gotta pee,” Becky said as she pressed her hands between her legs. Nora nodded and said, “When the rain lets up.”
She fussed with her daughter’s hair until the girl said, “Mama, what good will that do? We’ll get soaked when we get out of the car.”
Nora’s hands went from the girl’s hair to her own. She combed it with her fingers and said, “Maybe this will be better. The rain I mean. We’ll look more pathetic.”
“My name is Becky Johnson,” the girl recited.
Nora hugged the child and said, "You're a real trooper."
"Yeah, a real trooper," Becky repeated.
"Remember the plan now," Nora said and added, “Okay, let’s go.”
They struggled out of the small car and ran hand-in-hand to the cement stoop at the front door.
“Now don’t forget,” Nora said.
Becky nodded.
Nora rapped gently. After a minute or so she rapped harder. The door opened. A man thumbed suspenders over a faded blue shirt, hitched up baggy pants, rubbed bleary eyes, glanced at Becky and Nora and said, “What do you want?”
Nora placed a hand on Becky’s shoulder and said, “I understand you have a room to rent.”
She shook water from her auburn hair. Becky shook her head and wiped water from her face.
“A room to rent? What gave you that idea?”
“Didn’t you advertise in the paper? I threw it away, it got so wet.”
The girl said, “I gotta go potty, Mama.”
“Just pee your pants, Becky. What difference will it make? You’re already soaked.”
Becky stamped her foot. Water splashed onto her short, white socks and dripped into worn canvas shoes. Her eyes flashed disgust as she said, “I won’t.”
The man smiled, stepped back, and opened the door wider.
“You can use the bathroom, young lady. It’s down the hall to the right.”
Becky dashed past him. Nora said, “She’s so impetuous. She’ll drip water all over your house.”
“I’m impetuous too when I have to go. Come in, water won’t hurt this old carpet or anything else in the house. Want some coffee?”
The woman looked directly into his pale blue eyes and said, “That would be heaven.” She followed him into the kitchen.
“Feel better?” He said when Becky joined them. She sat next to Nora and lifted the coffee cup, put it to her lips, and sipped.
Becky handed the cup back to Nora without a word.
“I’m Henry Dodd,” the man said. He extended a callused hand toward Nora.
She took it, returned his firm grip, and said, “I’m Nora Johnson and this is my daughter, Becky.”
"I don't rent rooms," Henry Dodd said.
Nora broke the silence by saying, “I must have the wrong address. We need a place to stay. I’m looking for a job.”
Henry stared.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just thought, that is, you remind me of someone. Hope you find a place to live. And a job,” he added as he stood.
Nora slid her chair back and glanced at the linoleum flooring. It was clean, the red and green pattern still clear and bright under the shine. Water had puddled around her feet.
“Got a mop?” she asked.
Henry nodded, opened the basement door, pulled a mop up from the first step, and swiped up the water. After putting the mop away he stood at the back door and looked out.
“Still raining like hell. You could stay until it stops, if you want.”
“Can I watch television, Mama, can I?”
“Why not,” Henry said. In the living room he handed Becky the remote. She glanced at it and quickly found a cartoon show featuring a large talking dog. Henry returned to the kitchen and offered more coffee.
“Thanks, sorry to bother you,” Nora said.
She checked out the kitchen. It would be heaven to have such a place permanently. The cupboard doors where smudged here and there with dirt and bits of dried food. Stuff that would easily wash off. She wondered what food was inside.
“No bother, just sittin’ around sleeping and watching it rain and glad I wasn’t out in it. Still a little cool to be dancing in the rain. You want a towel?”
Henry stood, walked through the living room, opened a closet door across from the bathroom, and removed a bath towel from a stack. He examined it, looked at the others, kept the one in his hands, and returned to the kitchen.
“It’s kinda lost its fuzz, but it will dry you some,” he said.
“Thanks.” Nora stood and dried her face and arms. She leaned over, shook her hair loose, flipped her hair back and wrapped the towel around it.

(Watch this spot and mysite.verizon.net/bobliter/ for the publication date.)

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counter

2008-02-06T13:16:00.001-08:00

A LooLoo

2008-02-02T19:25:00.000-08:00

Death Sting
A Nick Bancroft mystery
By Bob Liter

"A REAL LOO-LOO!" When Vicki Fowler's body is found covered with bee stings in a Central Illinois pasture the sheriff calls her death an accident. Free-lance reporter and private detective Nick Bancroft doesn't believe it. He learns the victim lived in a home for young unwed mothers who work as waitresses and whores at a local nightclub. Murder suspects include an alcoholic handy man, the man and wife who operate the home, a nightclub operator and his henchman, and a sheriff's deputy. Federal agents on the trail of an international porno ring try to halt Nick's investigation. Nick is beaten and thrown in a ditch. Later he and his earthy lover, Maggie Atley, are dumped in a deep lake with weights tied to their ankles. The Nick Bancroft Mysteries are "power packed ... draw the reader into the story from the opening line and hold the attention to the surprising end. Peopled with fascinating, credible characters," raves Holly Martin in Black Dragon Reviews. Bob Liter's detective novels are full of "twists and turns. A real Loo-Loo!" says Detra Fitch in Huntress Book Reviews.

Available from Renaissance E Books, Fictionwise.com and other Internet ebook stores.

New Novel

2007-07-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

{Below is the first chapter of my newest novel. The novel is available at fictionwise.com Search under my name, Bob Liter)

FORK IN THE ROAD
By Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE

Mayor Ollie Oelwein hoisted his rear onto the last empty stool at the counter in Rosemary’s Delmonico Diner. He turned and mumbled, “Twelve citizens, not countin’ you and me.”
“You going?” Rosemary Allen asked.
“Of course,” the mayor said. “Got to. Look at all these people. No doubt they’s goin’. Best gathering I've seen in Fork for some time.”
“I may run out of doughnuts,” Rosemary said.
“What?” the mayor said. “Can’t hear much above the chatter.”
Rosemary leaned closer and repeated the statement. She pushed slender fingers through long, gleaming auburn hair, moved a strand from her forehead, sighed and glided from behind the counter. She joined in conversations as she refilled coffee cups at the six ancient tables, their scars hidden by checkered red clothes.
The material of her white polyester waitress uniform moved with the flow of her legs and buttocks. Some male eyes focused higher where curves bounced and breathed.
She returned to behind the counter and said, “Everybody’s talking about the snow storm again. Haven’t heard a single rumor this morning about the murder. Kinda strange, people talking in July about a snow storm.”
“Well,” the mayor said, “there’s principles involved here. No sir, Daniel Owens just can’t get away with what he did. You goin' aint ya?”
"No," Rosemary said. "Won't be any business, but I'm not going down there and watch Daniel make a fool of himself."
The mayor chewed the last bite of his third chocolate-covered doughnut, gulped the last drop of coffee, and slid off the stool.
“Serve him right if he makes a fool of himself. Got no business attacking a public official. If he gets away with that, why who knows what’s next?"
He cleared his throat a couple of times and said, "Hey folks, we better git. It’s thirty-five miles to Cleardale, ya know.”
Gregory Lancaster, the garbage collector, who was sitting alone at a corner table, stood and said, “Hell, Ollie, we got two hours yet. Gonna pick up a couple blocks of garbage before I head down.”
“Smells like ya already made some pickups,” Fred Gilmore, the grocery store owner, shouted.
“Don’t often see ya up this early,” Gregory replied.
“Now, now boys, don’t need discord on an important day like this. I’m headed for Cleardale.”
The mayor hitched up his pants, waved like a departing candidate, and went outside. He stood in the morning sunlight on the cracked sidewalk in front of the diner beneath the Coca Cola sign, looked south on Main Street. Dave Martin’s Hick’s Gasoline Station wasn’t open yet. Three store fronts in that direction were boarded up. Weeds grew against the edge of the buildings.
Damned fool, the mayor thought. He could get some business if he’d get off his lazy ass. Probably still in bed with that wife of his. The mayor snickered at the idea.
To the north, Gilmore’s Quick Stop Grocery was open. Fred’s wife swept the front walk like every morning. Glenn’s Hardware Store was closed. Probably wouldn’t open until after he got back from Cleardale, if then. And beyond that, John Turner’s apartment building stood out. Only four apartments, but the building front was brick. It looked out of place, being new and all. Made the rest of the buildings look even older than they were.
Except for Absalom’s Tavern across the street, of course. Nothing could make it look any older than it already did with its faded Griesedieck Beer sign and its eroding stone walls.
Some wanted to publicize the fact that it was the first tavern built in Cleardale County, but Hester DeWitt, president of the historical society, forbid it. Said it made Fork look bad enough by just being there.
“Should be demolished,” she insisted.
She hinted she wouldn’t mind if the sagging building next to the tavern that housed Millie Pruitt’s Knickknack Shop also was torn down.
“Imagine a young woman like that opening a shop right next to that horrid tavern,” she often told her husband.
People thought Turner was nuts, building an apartment building in Fork. But all four of the apartments were rented. Brought three new people into town from Cleardale because of the low rent. Rosemary Allen lived in the fourth.
The mayor could remember when all the stores were open, the town was bustling, sort of. It never had been much, but at least it was more then.
“Is Buford scared because he has to testify?” Lard Herman asked as he came out of the diner picking his teeth.
“Claims he ain’t," the mayor said.
A small crowd formed in front of the diner beside the mayor’s ten-year-old Chrysler. Faded white letters spelled out “loading zone” on the sidewalk.
Lard leaned against the Chrysler as he continued to explore his teeth. The mayor wiped an imaginary smudge from the front fender and announced he was going to pick up Margaret and head for Cleardale.
“Damn fools,” the mayor snorted an hour later as he drove on County Road 24R a few miles short of Cleardale. He leaned back and watched orderly fields of corn and soybeans drift by. The road had once been marked by farm houses and barnyards but now only a few remained. A corporation, Pork Products Incorporated, had bought up much of the land. He wrinkled his nose and was thankful the huge hog farm was nearer Cleardale than Fork. The folks in Cleardale had fought the project for years, but in the end the corporation won. Now it raised thousands of pigs and harvested corn and beans from the rest of the land.
Cars whizzed by. Many of them honked like berserk geese as they passed.
“Now, now, Ollie,” Margaret said. “Don’t let them upset you. You’re the mayor, you must maintain your dignity. Sit up and watch the road.”
She turned the rearview mirror and adjusted her hat.
The parking lot behind Cleardale County Court House, half taken up by spaces reserved for county officials, was full. Ollie swore under his breath so Margaret wouldn’t hear. He backed out of the lot and parked a block away in the first empty street space he found.
He admired the clean sidewalk and the prosperous looking stores as he and Margaret walked back. Gregory Lancaster stood in front of the building smoking a bit of twisted cigar. Margaret walked around him as if he were a separate building.
“Seats all taken, I suppose,” the mayor said.
“Nope. Not all. They saved a couple in the front row for you and Margaret,” Gregory said.
They entered the one-hundred-year-old limestone building and trudged up wide, worn steps to the second floor. They leaned against the wall at the top to catch their breath before entering a large room where tall windows provided a view of the parking lot. Many of the folding chairs from the stack against the far wall were scattered about the room with bodies parked on them.
The mayor and Margaret made their way to the front and thanked Buford DeWitt who had put a coat on one chair and a camera on another. Buford, a small man with tiny hands and a bit of a mustache, said, “Saved ‘em for ya.”
“Thanks, Buford.”
Buford’s wife, Hester, sitting straight as a rake handle, nodded to the mayor and his wife.
“Damn fools,” Buford whispered, when those behind repeated complaints about Hester’s hat. She removing hat pins and whispered, “What’s there to see, I’d like to know.” She removed the hat and placed it on her lap. The imitation grapes, attached to the left side, tried to escape.
A large desk dominated the front of the room. A wooden chair sat beside it. The conversational buzz quieted as a bald man wearing rimless glasses and a gray pin-stripped suit entered the room. A manila folder was tucked under his arm. He settled onto the chair behind the desk. He squinted at the faces before him. He removed a white cloth from a drawer and dusted the top of the desk. From the same drawer he produced a large gavel and placed it near his right hand. He looked out at the crowd.
“Quiet, quiet.”
A hush settled over the room.
“I’m Judge Homer Hopping. Now if you people don’t be quiet I’ll have you removed. By gum, we’re going to have order. Hear me? Where is Mister Buford?”
Buford DeWitt stood and said, “Here, your honor.”
“Well, you git up here and sit. We’ll hear from you first.”
Buford wiggled in the chair beside the judge.
“You comfortable yet?” the judge asked as he glared at Buford.
“Now I understand, Mister Buford, that you are alleging that this other fellow assaulted you and your wife.”
“My last name is DeWitt. Buford DeWitt. That is correct, your honor.”
Buford looked at his wife. Hester nodded her approval.
“Tell me what this thing is all about,” the judge said.
Buford hemmed a little, hawed a little, and, after getting a stern look from Hester, said, “Well, your honor, he knocked me down. In a snow drift. When I tried to get up he knocked me down again. Then he knocked my wife down. Into the snow drift.”
The judge studied papers from the folder, looked up and said, “Mister, what is it, Owens, Daniel Owens, what about that? Owens, you here?”
Daniel Owens rose from the middle of the crowd and said, “Here.”
Daniel, in his usual denim jeans, jacket and scuffed boots, strode to in front of the judge and said, “I didn’t knock him or Hester down. I shoved ‘em. They just fell into the snow bank. I shoved Buford back down when he tried to get up. Was tired of him swinging at me. Hester socked me with her purse.”
“How tall are you, Mister Owens?”
“About six two I guess,” Daniel said.
“How tall is Mister Buford?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well,” the judge said, “He’s not much more than five feet, I’d guess. As I understand it, this happened in Mister Buford’s driveway. Is that correct?”
“Mister DeWitt’s driveway, yes,” Daniel said.
“What were you doing there?”
“Plowin’ snow into DeWitt’s drive.”
“Why were you doing that?”
Daniel pushed long, dark strands of unruly dark hair from his forehead.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
The judge picked up the gavel by the heavy end, pointed it at Daniel and said, “I don’t care how long it is, I want to know the reason why you were blocking Mister Buford’s drive. That is what you were doing, isn’t it?”
“His last name is DeWitt. He’s one of our councilmen.”
“Fork has councilmen?”
“Yes, three.”
“So?”
Daniel put his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans. He pushed his right boot around on the floor as if he were moving dirt.
“We elected ‘em several years ago. Ollie’s the mayor, Buford is the street commissioner, and Gregory collects the garbage.”
“Yes, yes, go on.”
Dan scuffed the floor with his right boot again.
“Well, ya see, we had this snow storm last February. Buford rents John Turner’s truck, the one with the plow attachment, and plows our streets. That’s his job. Gets paid fifty dollars when he has to plow. Plows every chance he gets. First time he ever had to work for the money.”
The judge stood, shook his left leg, sat down again, and said, “Get to the point.”
“Buford plows his own street, College Street, first,” Daniel said.
“College Street? Does Fork have a college?”
“Gosh no. That’s just the street’s name.”
“So?”
“Buford plowed his own street first, comes back and clears the plowed snow from his driveway entrance and then goes about the rest of the town plowin’ streets and blockin’ everyone else’s driveway.”
Buford stood from his seat beside the judge and said, “I can explain that, your honor.”
“Explain it,” the judge said.
“No way could I plow all the streets if I’da stopped to clear every driveway. I cleared mine because Hester, well she said I had to because of the historical society meeting.”
“The complaint says you pushed four feet of snow into Mister Buford’s drive. Is that correct, Mister Owens?”
“Correct, your honor,” Buford DeWitt said.
“I was asking Mister Owens”
“Correct, your honor,” Daniel said, mimicking Buford.
“This is dumb. I’ve got several other hearings scheduled this morning. How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Push four feet of snow onto this fellow, Buford’s driveway, what else?”
“I used the same plow he used,” Daniel Owens said.
“Mister, what is it?” The judge shuffled the papers in front of him and added, “Mister Turner’s truck and plow, is that it?”
“Yes, your honor.”
The judge shook his head, glared at Buford DeWitt, then Daniel Owens and said, “You're fined five dollars, Mister Owens. It’s because of nonsense like this that I haven’t played golf in a week."

Be Neat

2007-07-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

Housekeeping 101
By Bob Liter

His dark eyes glistened with concentration as he washed asparagus spears. One bare arm, rippling with muscles, stretched to retrieve a pan from the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. Tight jeans outlined the length of his legs. His chest filled his short-sleeved shirt. Sweat beaded on his brow. He flipped a towel from a wall rack and wiped his tanned face. He folded it carefully and put it back. As he turned toward me I put my hands on the table and pretended to be looking at them.

“May I get you another drink, Jan?” he asked.

“No thanks, not yet.” I displayed my half-filled glass of white wine.
I never imagined, when Roger Taylor invited me to dinner, that he would cook it himself in his Good Housekeeping apartment. My name is Jan Cooper. I’m the receptionist at Finch-Taylor Insurance Agency. Roger is the younger part of Finch-Taylor.

He placed a sauce pan on the stove, melted two tablespoons of butter in it, added a bit of salt, two tablespoons of flour and stirred.

“It’s important to get the ingredients mixed well,” he said, “but I’m sure you know that.”
I nodded. He measured out two cups of milk, poured it into the mixture slowly, stirring all the while. He added a cup of shredded cheddar cheese and stirred until he was satisfied.

“The sauce is the thing,” he said as he layered the asparagus and the sauce in a gleaming baking dish.

“Hope you like asparagus.”

“I love asparagus,” I said with my fingers crossed. I still clung to the idea that a lie didn’t count if you crossed your fingers.

“I saw you in My Fair Lady.”

“Really.That was two months ago?”

I was surprised. The local Theater Guild had staged the play and I had a small part. We see each other every day at work and this was the first he had mentioned it.

“You a member of the guild?”

“No, maybe I should support it. I just heard you were going to be in the play.”

What to say? Should I ask him if he thought I was star material? Did he enjoy it?
Before I could decide he said, “I thought your round face, you cute figure, I thought it was just right for that racing scene. The big floppy hat and the way you paraded around the stage was something I’ll remember.”

“Thank you,” I managed. My round face. Cherubic, my mother called it.

The evening was pleasant enough. We listened to some classy jazz, talked some about work and drank wine. I was nervous about that. Scared I might spill some on the light blue cushioned chair I was sitting in.

After we ate we washed and dried the dishes. He put them away carefully, checked each cupboard before he closed the door.

He drove me home and kissed me at the side of his car when I refused his offer to see me to the door. My building was nice enough, all brick and glass, the hallways were clean, even the elevator was kept neat. I opened the door to my apartment, Number 310, and stumbled over a plastic sack that I should have picked up after I dropped it a couple of days before. I stooped, picked it up, gathered up the newspaper pages on the floor and couch and piled them on the kitchen table beside the breakfast dishes.

The next morning, before I went to work, I picked up the sweater hanging on the kitchen chair, the pair of shoes in the corner and the blouse I planned to wash two days before. I’d do the dirty dishes that night when I got home from work, maybe. The wadded up editor page of the local newspaper was still in the sink where I’d thrown it after reading that the mayor was right when he insisted we didn’t need any more street sweepers. He should drive down my street and see all the leaves.

Three days later, on a Friday after he had been out of the office most of the time, Roger asked me on a picnic. He followed me outside where October skies leaked rain drops on my head.

He must have read my mind. “Supposed to be sunny tomorrow,” he said.

“I haven’t been on a picnic for years,” I said. “I’d love to.”

I spent half a week’s salary on a pair of designer blue jeans, new loafers, and a sweatshirt that advertised the Saint Louis Cardinals. I thought about that on the way home. Why did I buy that sweatshirt? I don’t like baseball. Did he? I had no idea. Just another dumb thing I did. Like the baseball cap I wore to the picnic. It was one my brother left behind.
It did keep the rain out of my eyes. The “sunny tomorrow” prediction turned out to be as wrong as the whole date. We got soaked, the sandwiches were soggy and my feet hurt. We had walked to the edge of a lake, about two blocks from the car, when the sky dropped its load on us.

He drove to my building and pouted when I refused to let him come it. With unwashed breakfast dishes in the sink and clothes from the day before strewn on the living room couch and floor there was no way he was going to get inside.

The next day, or maybe it was two days later, I scrubbed the kitchen floor, emptied the garbage, ran the vacuum on the living room carpet, hung up my clean clothes and put the dirty stuff in a hamper I had to go out and buy, and waited.

He was in and out of the office frequently, nodded at me most of the time when he passed my desk, but didn’t stop and talk like before. And he didn’t ask me out on a date. I was seriously thinking of inviting him to eat with me at a nearby restaurant -- my turn to treat I would say -- but abandoned the idea. I could see no future for me and Mister Clean, even if he was the hunkiest guy I’d ever seen, and I was ready to be domesticated.
A week later he stopped at my desk and said, “Jan, I’m, well that is, you see I enjoyed that night when I cooked supper for you so much, could I do it again?

“Do you know how to make something besides that asparagus thing?” I asked, as if that made any difference.

“Sure, how about vegetable soup?”

I laughed. This guy would be fixing something more fancy than vegetable soup, wouldn’t he?”

I hesitated for just a moment and said, “Yeah, I guess.Why not?”

We closed up the office that night and he escorted me to his black, shiny new BMW. I enjoyed the comfort of the passenger seat so much I didn’t notice he was going away from his apartment to another part of town. He parked behind Excel Arms, a large, tall building with parking space for maybe fifty cars, each space marked with a name.
“Why are we here?” I asked. Was he trying to pull something, like my leg?

“I live here,’ he said. “Got a nice view of Bradley Park.”

Three people, a woman wearing glasses and an upturned nose, a man carrying a briefcase and a teenager with earphones glued to his head, joined us in the elevator. We were the first to get off, on the fourth floor, and I followed him to apartment, Four Zero Nine. The gold letters on the door were spelled out.

“But I thought . . .”

“Oh, you mean the other apartment. That’s my mother’s. She was visiting my sister. Let me use it but made me promise not to make a mess. She’s a clean freak.”

We entered a large living room. He ducked behind a three-cushion couch and came up with a sweatshirt, a pair of smelly socks and one running shoe. He tossed them into the bedroom off to the side and closed the door.

“Come look at the view,” he said.

I followed him into the kitchen and noted several dirty dishes in the sink. We stood beyond a blond kitchen table littered with magazines, his arm around my shoulder. The park stretched out before us. Multicolored leaves carpeted the ground. The surface of a small lake glistened in the twilight. I leaned against him, content to stand there forever.

“I’ll bet you are hungry. I know I am. Can you wait until I get something delivered? Pizza maybe?”

“Pizza? I came here expecting a kitchen demonstration. Like on television. Like last time.”

“Were you impressed? I practiced on that recipe for a week. I don’t know how to cook anything else.”

“Pizza will be fine,” I said.

While we waited for the pizza I talked him into drying while I washed the dirty dishes. Someone

had to teach him not to be a slob.

####

interesting link

2007-03-25T08:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/links.shtml

Take a look if you are interested in books, authors or discussions on writing fiction.

The Girls Next Door

2007-02-15T17:19:00.001-08:00

The Girls Next Door
By Bob Liter
I came home to an empty house the day I got back from my freshman year at State College. Dad was driving a load of cattle feed across Kansas and Mother was working at Crestwood Community Bank downtown. I’d have stopped there, but it was nearly four o’clock and she’d soon be home.
I glanced apprehensively at the house to the east where Mandy Anders lives. I hoped she wouldn’t come running out to pester me. I did look forward to seeing her again. But that could wait. I hoped she wouldn’t still be making me feel like a worm with those big brown eyes because I didn’t take her to the high school prom the spring before? I was a senior, of course, and she was only a junior. Who wants to go to a prom with his sister? She’s not really my sister, but she might as well have been the way she tagged after me.
I glanced at the house to the west where Beth Ann Crosley lives. She was voted queen of our high school class. She had always been a queen as far as I was concerned.
She let me do her homework, wash her red convertible and any other chores she was above doing, but she wouldn’t go to the prom with me. She went with Gary Showalter, the star quarterback, the lead in two school plays and a guy with muscles, dark hair and a smile for everyone, even me. I hated him then, but realized later that he was a nice guy.
I thought of all this as I stepped out of my tired Honda and stretched. Was Beth Ann still dating Gary? I sighed, popped the back end of the Honda, and gathered my dirty clothes. In the house I shoved them into the washing machine and plopped down on the living room couch. I was asleep when Mom got home. She hugged me, scolded me for not sorting my clothes before I put them in the washer, and praised me for not failing any of my college courses.
Dinner appeared on the kitchen table while I washed up. We ate and talked. Home cooking. It was great. Dad called at seven and told us he’d complete his run the next day and be home after that. I went to bed and slept until ten the next morning.
I took my time getting up, enjoyed a slow, hot shower and put on clean jeans, a T-shirt that smelled of fresh, and sandals. I made the bed, proving I’d learned something at college.
In the kitchen I lingered over coffee and read Mom’s note that said, “Ron, if you have time please mow the grass. Your father will be tired when he gets home.”
And so I was directing the mower toward Mandy’s house when Beth Ann tapped on my shoulder, hugged me when I turned off the machine, and gave me a smile warmer than any I remembered from her in the past. She’d never hugged me before.
“Welcome home.. Great to see you.”
“Beth Ann. Great to see you. How’s Gary?”
“Gary who? Showalter? That scum. I have nothing, absolutely nothing to do with him. He married Flossie Cramer not long after you left for college. Let’s talk about something, someone else. She’s already pregnant. How did you like college? You didn’t flunk did you? Want to come over to my house. We could listen to some records or something. Nobody’s home.”
I leaned against the mower. How I had hoped in the past that Beth Ann would pay attention to me like she did Gary. And now?. I surprised myself when I said, “Maybe tomorrow. I need to finish mowing the yard.”
Beth Ann’s eyes widened. She seemed to be as surprised as I was when I turned down a change to be with her. She stuck her nose in the air, turned and walked back to her house. I watched her hips sway and smacked my forehead with the heel of my hand.
Was I out of my mind? Before I had time to answer myself I heard a door slam and then Mandy’s voice.
“Hi, big man on campus,” she shouted.
She skipped across the grass. This was Mandy? She was wearing blue jeans as usual but they were pressed and fit her legs like a second skin. Her chest filled out the white blouse in a rounded way I didn’t remember. And her hair. Each strand was as independent as ever but shorter with colorful highlights. It still was sandy, but there were dark strands here and there. Her eyes sparkled. That hadn’t changed. But her lips seemed fuller, more inviting. The little girl who had followed me around, the girl who pouted only last year because I wouldn’t take her to a high school dance, had become a knockout.
Hello, Mandy,” I said with wonder in my voice.
She smiled. No, she did more than that. She grinned like her ship had come in or something. We talked about college and how she would be going to one in the next state come fall. I forgot about Beth Ann, lost all desire to date her. It was Mandy. She skipped on to her family’s mailbox on the curb, gathered catalogs and letters, waved to me and disappeared into her house.
I waited an hour before I knocked on her front door. She opened it eventually and stood with a cell phone against her ear.
“Okay, Robbie, I’ll see you tonight,” she said and snapped the phone shut.
offered me lemonade. We sat on the patio in back. She had changed to shorts and a T-shirt that clung gratefully to her bosom. I talked around it for awhile but finally had to ask, “Who’s Robbie?”
“He’s my fiancé,” she cooed.
“Aren’t you, I mean I always thought of you as so young. Too young to be engaged.”
“I’m only a year younger than you, Mister College Man.”
Later, as I sat in the kitchen waiting for Mom to get home and fix supper I realized I felt good about Mandy’s obvious happiness, and that I didn’t like Beth Ann. I got out the high school yearbook and decided to call Charlene Chatsworth. She wasn’t home.
###

Bob Liter is the author of print and Internet short stories as well as eight novels published by Renaissance E Books. He may be reached at bobliter@verizon.net

The Girls Next Door

2007-02-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

2007-02-04T13:19:00.000-08:00

http//www.sarahweinman.com/

2007-02-04T13:11:00.000-08:00

Bob Liter
BobLiter@verizon.net
http://bobliter.blogspot.com/
http://mysite.verizon.net/bobliter/

Christmas Cookies

2006-12-06T08:23:00.001-08:00

Christmas Cookies
By Bob Liter
I was only three years old when Mrs. Benson let me turn on the mixer. She’d stand me on a chair next to her red, Formica-top kitchen table. I’d turn on the switch and watch flour, sugar, vanilla and the rest of the ingredients swirl around and around, the colors blending until they melted into each other and became cookie dough. And she let me turn the mixer off, too. She’d steady me on the chair because by then my balance would have disappeared into the swirling ingredients.
But my sister, Clara, the one with the bright red hair and the missing tooth, who was six, got to pour the stuff into the bowl before I did my job. And Barb, who was nine and thought she was going to be a blonde movie star, was in charge of measuring things. Three years later, when I was six, I memorized the recipe: One-half cup of butter, two eggs, a teaspoon of vanilla, three cups of flour, and a teaspoon of baking soda. The chocolate chips go in last and are mixed in by hand.
I got a spanking at home for making a mess while trying to put all the ingredients in a bowl. I remember the spanking, and mother says to this day, "Mandy, you cried and cried. I’ve been sorry ever since although I don’t think I spanked you that hard."
The best part was when Mrs. Benson let me drop in the chocolate chips as Clara and Barb took turns stirring the mixture with wooden spoons. And then Clara and Barb would take turns putting gobs of the dough on the cookie sheet, fifteen to a sheet. There was always a contest to see which globs were closest to the size of a walnut, the size recommended by Mrs. Benson.
Mrs. Benson added or subtracted bits of dough from the globs before the cookie sheet went into the oven. The heat was set at 350 degrees by Mrs. Benson and the cookies baked for eight minutes.
Then Barb and Clara got to lift them off the sheet with a spatula and place them on a cooling wrack. The process was repeated until we had five dozen cookies, more or less.
While the second batch was baking I watched the first batch cool and sometimes tested the cookies with the tips of my fingers. That first year I burned my lips when no one was looking and I put a hot one in my mouth.
Barb said it served me right. Clara just laughed. But Mrs. Benson got me a glass of cold water and suggested it would be better to wait a little longer before I tested them. She soothed my wounded pride by declaring me the official taster and advised me when it was safe to do so.
Once Clara got mad at me because I ate what she said was her favorite cookie, the one she claimed reminded her of some movie star. Barb sided with Clara and said I was always doing something stupid like messing with her makeup or borrowing her comb.
Mrs. Benson said then and the other times we got to arguing, "Girls. We’re supposed to be a team. You have to leave petty things aside in you want to function as a team. You think the good cooks let arguments get in the way of their job? Your job is making cookies. Now c’mon, no more arguing."
Our arguments always stopped then although sometimes they started again when we got home. Making cookies at Mrs. Benson’s became an annual affair. Until she was sixteen, Barb joined Clara and me every time Mrs. Benson invited us. Mother was pleased we liked to go. Mrs. Benson lived alone and was a regular at our church. That first time was after Mrs. Benson saw us with mother and dad outside the church after services.
Mother introduced us and Mrs. Benson shook hands with me and the others. She patted me on the shoulder and asked if I would like to come to her house and make cookies. I liked cookies, that was for sure, so I said yes. Mother said she would let Mrs. Benson know. After some discussion at out kitchen table that Sunday, and a protest from Barb that she didn’t want to go to some old lady’s house to make cookies, it was eventually agreed that we would all go. Mrs. Benson’s house was only a couple of blocks over from ours and mother insisted Barb stop griping and do this little thing for "poor Mrs. Benson. Her husband is dead and her two daughters have moved away. She’s all alone."
We did it every year, the last time when I was seventeen. Barb had gotten married, Clara was in college and they seldom were home at the same time.
"When children grow up they drift apart, mostly. Your sisters have lives of their own," mother told me when I complained. It was kinda sad, just me and Mrs. Benson making cookies. I did most of the measuring, mixing, and baking. I had to watch her because sometimes she forgot the recipe. It still was fun, but not the same.
By the time I went away to college I hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Benson for several weeks. She was no longer at church when we were. Mother said she had started going to the late service if she went at all. I thought of visiting her, but by then I had a boyfriend and I thought I was just too busy.
That last Christmas, after Barb had missed coming home for three of them and Clara was angry with her and they weren’t speaking, I sat with mother at the kitchen table.
"It’s sad when your own children can’t get along," mother said.
I listened. I was good at that. I’m an office manager now at Apex Insurance downtown and a lot of the problems we have are eventually settled because I just listen to the complaints.
But it didn’t always work. I listened to Barb and I listened to Clara. Not often, because we were seldom together, but when I had the chance I listened.
Mother was getting older. Her hair had turned gray, her eyes weren’t as clear as they once were, and that winter she often expressed the fear that one or the other of the girls wouldn’t come home. I had the feeling she was thinking it might be the last chance for all of us to get together again. Dad had died from bone-marrow cancer earlier in the year. I spent as much time as possible with my mother. She appreciated it. but it was obvious she missed Clara and Barb.
I talked to them about coming home for Christmas. "Well, maybe," they both said.
I called them both, convinced them it was important they come home for Christmas, and said, "For your mother’s sake, get along. Or at least pretend to."
Christmas week finally came. Barb came with her daughter, Bridget who was ten. Clara brought her whole family, her husband Hank, her boy, Augie, 12, and her three-year-old girl, Amanda. She was named after me, Clara said, only they called her Amanda instead of Mandy.
She was a cute little thing and I found myself thinking she reminded me of me when I was that age.
"I don’t see it," Clara said. "She never gets in trouble. Remember that time you tried to make cookies and made such a mess?"
That night mother and I sat at the kitchen table drinking a final cup of tea. Barb and her daughter had gone to bed and Clara and her family had gone back to the motel where they were staying.
"I wish they’d stay here," mother said.
"I know. There’s room."
"Too bad they just can’t seem to get along."
"They used to," I sighed. "Mrs. Benson used to straighten us out when we were making cookies. She said we were a team and teammates don’t argue all the time. How is she? She still alive."
"Oh my, yes, much older of course and not as spry as she used to be. Saw her at church just last week. We both go to the late service now."
"Could we invite her over for Christmas dinner?"
"Mandy, what a wonderful idea. Give her a call, tell her you’ll drive over and pick her up."
I called her Christmas Eve morning. She sounded frail and said she would think about it.
"Please come," I said. "We’ll make cookies and I’ll let you turn on the mixer."
She laughed.
I sat with her at Christmas services and helped her into my car. I saw a tear slide down her check before she turned away.
By noon the whole family was there and I insisted my two sisters come into the kitchen and help me and Mrs. Benson make cookies. The routine wasn’t quite the same. Clara and Barb got to arguing about the recipe. I knew it of course, but I was sick of trying to referee.
Mrs. Benson turned off the mixer and, in a voice quivering with emotion, said, "Girls. We’re supposed to be a team. You have to leave petty things aside in you want to function as a team. You think good cooks let arguments get in the way of their job? Your job is making cookies. Now c’mon, no more arguing."
Clara and Barb looked at each other. Clara smiled without opening her mouth. Barb laughed nervously. Their arms opened slowly, they closed the distance between them and embraced. It was a good Christmas.
#####

Bonus Baby, a short story

2006-09-03T06:54:00.000-07:00

Bonus Baby
By Bob Liter
"I'm just naturally drawn to you, Amy, because of your 68 percent waist-to-hip ratio. It means you're fertile."
Barry Cartwright, the big lug, had nursed a draft beer for half an hour before springing that statement on me. I moved behind the bar to the only other customer in the Lazy Hour Tavern, an old guy named Armstrong, who would down his last glass of beer in a moment and say goodnight.
Then, if Barry would only leave, or at least shut up, I could get back to studying South American geography, a college course I thought would be a snap. No such luck. The professor, a geek named Mister Thomas, who always needed a shave and wore leather pants, expected his students to study. So that's what I was trying to do on this slow Monday night.
I mumbled to myself, "Montedeveo, capitol of Uruguay, almost fifty percent of the nation's population. Modern metropolis with historical old town. Surrounded by white sandy beaches. Highlights include Ciudad Vieja, Old Town, with its 18th century buildings, vibrant Mercado del Puerto, and bustling commercial activity of Avenida 18 de Julio and its theaters, museums and art galleries."
"How come you mumble to yourself but won't talk to me," Barry said.
"I'm trying to study for a test."
"I may have a job at the University of Illinois this fall if I want it," he said. "Where you going to school?"
"ICC, the junior college here."
I picked up his glass, wiped the bar with a soft white rag that was ready for the laundry, and said, "Won't the girls be thrilled. Especially the ones that measure up to your fertility standards. I'm surprised you're interested in a females' pregnancy potential. You want to be a father?"
"Sure," he said, "eventually."
"Won't some girl be lucky."
He sipped beer, gazed at me with his serious blue eyes, and said, "Hey. Why be pissed at me? What did I ever do to you?"
"You insulted me, that's what. And, to make it worse, I bet you don't remember."
He put his elbow on the bar, rested his chin on his hand, and said, "Why would I insult you? When? I never insulted you."
"At the Century Movie House during the summer before you went away to college."
"Whatever I said, I'm sorry."
"It was a romantic movie and you fell asleep."
"Hey, I remember now. I was tired. Stayed out too late the night before. Was so tired I couldn't sleep. That's why I was there. Wasn't like a date or anything. I just happened to sit beside you. How did I insult you?"
"You were such a big shot. Got a baseball scholarship to Illinois. I was thrilled to be sitting beside you. Next thing I know you're snoring."
He moved his hand away from his chin and sipped a bit more beer.
"A lot's happened since then," he said as he gazed right through me.
"To you. Not to me. I'm still stuck here trying to graduate so I can amount to something."
He lifted his face, straightened his shoulders, and said, "Looks to me like you amount to something already. The hip, waist ratio for one thing."
He was making me nervous, like he did in high school during assembly when he noticed I was looking at him. I turned to the sink and washed beer glasses I'd already washed.
"Aren't bartenders supposed to talk to customers?"
I dried my hands and said, "What are your plans now that your arm is shot for pitching?"
"You know about that?"
"Sure, everybody around here that's half alive knows about it. You get a million dollar bonus for signing with the Cubs, work your way up to the majors and after two wins your shoulder gives out. Doctors say you're through."
He looked down at the bar, drew a circle with his glass and said, "It wasn't quite a million dollars. I didn't believe the doctors at first, but now I know I'll never be able to pitch in the majors again."
"A rotten break," I said. "But I hear you've been bowling a ton of games a day at Crossroads. Doesn't that hurt your arm?"
"You seem to know a lot about me."
"I tend bar. Guys talk about sports. Besides I like sports. Plan to be a sports reporter. Majoring in journalism."
He stretched his left arm across the bar. "Doesn't hurt except when I throw. Bowling doesn't hurt. Difference motion. Need to be able to repeat the same mechanics though to be successful in either sport. I'm gonna try the pro bowlers' tour."
"Anything to avoid work, huh."
I ran the soapy water out of the sink behind the bar, wiped things off and said, "Well, it's time to close. Good luck on the tour."
He slid off the bar stool, stretched his arm again, and said, "I'll be back."
At the door he turned and smiled.
"So will I," I said.
He came back to the bar often that summer, mostly just an hour or so before closing. We talked when there was time. He didn't drink much in spite of all the offers from guys to buy him drinks.
I couldn't ignore him, even when I was busy. How can you ignore a guy who has measured your pregnancy potential with his eyes and keeps checking to be sure he was right?
One night in the middle of August he said, "I'll be watching the sports pages for your stories. I'm going down to St. Louis to work with some of the pro bowlers down there, get ready for the tour."
A couple of days later at Crossroads Lanes I asked the manager, a guy named Kurt Weaver, about Barry Cartwright.
"I'm studying to be a sports reporter and plan to write an article about him," I said.
I asked Kurt how he spelled his last name, even though I knew. It's a trick I learned working on the high school paper. Indicate the name of the person you're questioning will be in the article and they'll usually tell you what you want to know.
Kurt said, "Barry's good. Can string strikes here. Probably the best bowler in town. But he's gonna see a lot of different conditions on the tour. They dress the lanes different ways. What favors some guys kill others. The best ones can adjust, and in a hurry. And conditions change from one lane to the next during qualifying and match play."
I held up a hand to slow him down, caught up on my notes and said, "Do you think he can make it?"
"Never know," Kurt said. He brushed a hand over his closely cropped hair and continued, "Nobody from around here ever has. Several have tried."
I gathered more information from Barry's baseball history, from a couple of professional bowlers I contacted by e-mail, and wrote the article. I sent it to the local paper, the Gazette, and they printed it. No pay though. They said they would print more of my stuff maybe. I said, "No thanks." No pay, no play, that's my motto.
The tour opened the last week in September. I read the results on the Internet. In the first tournament Barry finished 87th and failed to qualify for the finals. The next three weeks he also failed to qualify. Once he averaged 212 a game and missed qualifying by ten pins. After that his name never appeared in any of the results.
I moped around the campus, turned down several offers for dates from guys who may or may not have realized my pregnancy potential, and looked forward to graduation and the day I could go after stories, including whatever happened to Barry Cartwright.
Graduation ceremonies were the last week in May. My parents came up from Florida. Some aunts and uncles were there. Even my brother, the doctor from back east, came to see me get my diploma.
And I got a job as a sports reporter for the Chicago Times. I covered some crap assignments well enough, apparently, to get assigned to write features about the University of Illinois football and basketball teams. I saw Barry one spring day as I hung around the athletic director's office trying to find someone who knew about a change in the football team's schedule.
He smiled. Where the hell had he been after giving me that come on at the bar. I knew, of course, that it was nothing more than that. Just a come on, and only a half hearted one at that. Still I had been seeing his smile and his serious eyes in my sleep. Had been daydreaming about him coming to get me, about my pregnancy ratio and how it was going to waste.
I'd even dated some guys, but it was no good.
"High," he said. Like he'd just seen me the day before.
I gulped and managed to say, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm the assistant baseball coach. Gonna teach these kids how not to ruin their arms."
"Too bad someone didn't teach you."
"They tried to up in the bigs, but it was too late. How you been?"
"Fine. Just fine. And you?"
His skin was darker than I remembered it. But his blue eyes gazed at me in the same serious manner.
"Montevideo," he said.
"Montevideo?"
He recited the stuff I had mumbled in the bar that night that seemed so long ago.
"The part about the white beaches got me. After I flunked out on the bowling tour I went down there for a final fling. Laid around on the beaches for a month."
"What were you doing, checking the fertility ratios of the beach bunnies?"
"Yeah, that, and I did some thinking too. Decided to get on with my life. Gonna study more about coaching, maybe some other stuff. And start a family. I been keeping track of your career."
My heart fluttered just a bit.
"Gee, won't some girl be lucky now that you've decided to start a family."
"Yeah, maybe. Let's go get something to eat and talk about it."
He was right about my fertility potential. We've been married three years now and have created three wonderful children.
###
Bob Liter's novels are available at fictionwise.com and other Internet book stores.

Joe Lieberman's defeat

2006-08-13T14:49:00.000-07:00

The defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman in the recent Democrat primary in Connecticut has upset a lot of Republicans and some Foxy television commentators. They say it threatens America’s safety against terrorists and winning of the war in Iraq.
There are others who view it as a defeat for every scum bag in Congress. Even though Lieberman’s personal reputation didn’t seem to be an issue, perhaps it was. He was there when MZM Inc. founder Mitchell Wade was buying California Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham. He was there while Cunningham lived on Wade’s yacht on the Potomac.
He was there while Cunningham steered more than $150 million worth of contracts to MZM Inc., a Washington-based defense contractor, and $80 million to Poway-based ADCS Inc., mainly through earmarks. In return, executives at the two companies gave him at least $2.4 million in cash, antiques and other gifts. Wade pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham and is awaiting sentencing. ADCS head Brent Wilkes has not been charged
Are we to believe Lieberman didn’t know what Cunningham was doing? And since he must have, why didn’t he do something about it? Oh, we all know how difficult it is to blow the whistle on a friend or a fellow employee, but this is the Congress of the United States. Calls for a higher level of responsibility, doesn’t it? Apparently not. Where was Representative Ray LaHood?
All incumbents must have know what was going on, what still is going on. I say throw the rascals out. Starting at the top would be good.

Dave Kindred

2006-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

During the early summer of 1959 a kid named Dave Kindred just out of high school with a sports background applied for a job on a small town newspaper where I was managing editor. I hired him and, although I didn’t recognize it, he was on his way to a major career in sports journalism.
After college he wrote for the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and also wrote columns for national sports magazines.
And he wrote books, ten of them so far. I was stuck with my own meager journalism career and was only vaguely aware of his accomplishments. Now I know. He mentioned me in the acknowledgments of his latest book, Sound and Fury. So I read it. My gosh, the kid can write. And research. It must have taken a ton of digging to come up with such a complete story.
This is my first attempt since college at writing a book report. But when a guy names you in the book’s acknowledgments, what you gonna do? I’m not doing it justice, I know. However, if you like sports, particularly boxing, you’ll love the story of Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell and their unlikely relationship.
Enough already. Read the book. Sound and Fury. I highly recommend it, naturally. But so do many others even though they are not mentioned in the acknowledgments.
That’s SOUND AND FURY by Dave Kindred.

Stuff this

2006-07-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love these inserts they stuff into magazines? I especially like the ones that are loose and flutter to the floor when you thumb through the pages.

Good News

2006-07-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

There is some good news after all. Since the price of a gallon of gasoline has topped $3, states have gained revenue from the taxes we get to pay. For instance the state of Illinois, it has been reported, has gained an extra $136 million because of the increase in fuel prices. Feel better?

The Con Game

2006-06-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

The Con Game
By Bob Liter

The Hole in the Wall was a small, dimly lit joint on Jefferson with a bar beyond mismatched tables and chairs. I sat at a table and twiddled my thumbs waiting for service. The whir of a tired overhead fan was the dominating noise. Not a customer or bartender in sight.
I was getting antsy when a blonde waitress, dark-haired roots and all, came through a door behind the bar. She strolled to my table, looked me over, and said, “Sorry, didn’t hear you come in. What would you like?"
"What I would like is you," I said, "but for now I'll take a shot of Lord Calvert and a glass of beer."
She smiled, returned to the bar, and rapped her knuckles on the door. A husky bald guy wearing red suspenders appeared. He settled his fat ass on a stool behind the bar and looked me over.
I smiled my dumbest smile. He looked away.
The two of them whispered at each other. Suspenders got up, fixed my drink and poured my beer. The waitress put my stuff on the table and wiggled her fanny back to a bar stool where she sat, apparently waiting for me to order something else.
Three days later, after I'd stopped by every afternoon, Roxie -- her name was embroidered on her blouse -- got real friendly. She hitched up her brassiere and called me Jay. I'd told her my name was Jay Winthrop. Two customers, apparently construction workers, squatted on bar stools. Red suspenders leaned close and mumbled something their way occasionally. The two customers turned and checked me out.
While Roxie got my usual order I adjusted my Armani shirt and Gleason slacks and made sure my scuffed loafers were out of sight. She returned and placed the order in front of me, offering me a close, revealing view of her chest.
"My feet hurt," she said. "They always hurt this time of day."
"Sit down, Roxie," I said.
"Would you mind, Jay? I won't stay long."
I pushed the glass of beer her way. "Have some if you want."
It was time to make my move.
"I'm staying at the Pere Marquette. It's too far away to get there and back in time. Been working on this business deal with Caterpillar for three mornings now. Wish I had a place to take an afternoon nap closer," I said.
She had removed her shoes. She wiggled her left foot, replaced the shoe and said, "You could flop at my place. I live above this joint. Good enough to catch a nap if you want."
I sipped whiskey, looked over the rim of the glass and said, "Gee, that's awfully nice of you. If I wouldn't be intruding I'd go up there after I finish this drink and sleep for an hour."
"Well, why not?" she said. She put the other shoe on and said, "Soon as you're ready."
"Can you just leave?"
She nodded toward the bartender and said, "He can wait on anyone that comes in while I'm gone. Do him good to get off his duff."
Her round bottom bobbed as she climbed the stairs ahead of me. Her living room included a couch, a couple of chairs and a television set. The window looked out on a roof across the way and an alley below. The kitchen included unwashed dishes, worn oil paper on the counter and a rusty sink.
"The bedroom's in here," she said.
Cigarette butts overflowed from an ash try on the dresser.
"If I didn't have to work I wouldn't mind joining you."
I put my coat on the back of a chair, flipped my loafers off and lay on the bed. She hesitated and then lay close beside me. She kissed me. She put her arm around my shoulder, moved closer and kissed me again.
"Well, that's all I can do for you now. I've got to get back to work."
An hour later I went back down to the bar, ordered a beer, gulped it, smiled at her and said, "I'll be back tomorrow for sure."
I returned the next afternoon, sat at my usual table, and ordered a glass of beer. Roxie, behind the bar, seemed nervous. The bartender brought the beer and a manila envelop and sat down across from me.
"You know Roxie's my wife?" he asked.
"Yeah I kinda figured that's the way it was, or at least that's what you'd claim. Nothing serious happened between us, if that's what you're worried about."
"You're the one ought to be worried. Look at these. And don't get any ideas. I've got the negatives."
He pulled eight-by-ten photos from the envelop and flipped them across the table. They showed me and Roxie in bed kissing.
I glanced at them and said, "All we did was kiss."
He pointed at me and said, "Look, mister. Nobody fools with my wife. You pay or I'll find out where you live, give the pictures to your wife, maybe your boss, too. I can find out where you work, Mister Winthrop."
"What makes you think I'm married?"
He grinned.
"You ain't too smart, wearing a wedding ring when you plan to fool around."
Roxie glanced at me and glanced away.
"So what do you want me to do?" I asked, as if I didn't know.
"You pay me ten thousand dollars, I give you the photos and negatives," he said.
"Ha. Where am I gonna get ten thousand dollars? Think I carry that kinda money around with me?"
He scrapped the chair on the floor as he stood and said, "You be back here tomorrow with the money or I start looking for your wife or anybody else who would be interested."
"Damn," I said. "Look at all the money I spent in here. Just trying to relax after a big deal, and you pull this. I been set up. Damn you and your wife."
"That's right, Mister Winthrop, you've been set up. You should know better."
I pushed myself away from the table, stood and glowered at him and said, "I'll be back tomorrow."
The next afternoon Roxie didn't seem to be around. The bartender, his thumbs on the inside of his suspenders, marched to my table. I ordered a glass of beer.
He poured the beer from the customer side of the bar, placed it in front of me and said, "Got the money?"
I reached into my inside coat pocket and handed him a tape recording.
"What's this crap?" he said.
"You listen to that. You'll hear a guy sounds just like you trying to blackmail me."
"But I got the pictures. I'll expose you if you don't pay up."
"No you won't. Not unless you're stupider than you look."
He snapped one of his suspenders against his chest and said, "Who are you?"
"My real name's Nick Bancroft. One of your blackmailed suckers hired me. Never mind which one. If you continue to squeeze him I'll turn a copy of the tape over to the police. Roxie came down the stairs. I waved to her as I left.

New Novel

2006-03-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

Below is the first chapter of my latest Nick Bancroft mystery. It is available on the Internet at: Fictionwise.com

And the Band Played On
By Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE

I witnessed the murder of Irene Donovan because I’d made a promise to "some time" take Maggie Atley to a band concert. Maggie, a librarian, divorcee and my talented lover, insisted I take her, "Because the outdoor band concert season is almost over."
She wiped an imaginary tear from under her right eye and said, "Please, Nick."
You'd think I'd be smart enough to withhold promises I didn't intend to keep.
I'm Nick Bancroft. In my hometown, Central City, Illinois, I squeezed out a leisurely living as a freelance reporter and private investigator.
"You lack ambition," Maggie sometimes reminds me, "but I don't care because my ex-husband was overwhelmed by it and never had time for me."
"Did I really promise to take you to a band concert?" I said as I sipped coffee and sought room to stretch my legs during a leisurely Sunday breakfast in the kitchen of my apartment. Our knees touched as we sat at the fold-down table.
"Look, Nick, if you’re going to weasel . . . ."
"Have I ever weaseled on a promise to you?"
Maggie looked at the ceiling, lowered her gaze, and rolled her eyes as though she was about to faint. Later, after she’d "done her face," and put on a pink and blue dress that swirled away from her slender legs when she turned fast enough, we strolled hand in hand toward the Methodist Church three blocks away.
"Such a nice morning," Maggie said as we gazed at blue skies and a few fluffy clouds. A breeze tugged gently at her hair.
I walked her to the church and moseyed on to Kellog’s Drug Store a couple of blocks down Division Street, bought a copy of the Sunday Chicago Tribune and strolled back to the apartment.
I read about the Chicago Bears dim prospects of winning a game. The cat, which had been content lying beside me on the couch, jumped down, went to the door, and rubbed against Maggie's leg when she entered the apartment.
1 She kicked off her shoes, slipped out of panties, pulled the dress over her head and went into the bedroom.
"Shame," I said. "You having just come from church and all."
"I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," she said.
"I missed you," I said as I lay in bed on my back beside her. "But you do wear me out."
"Ha. You recover fast enough."
I kissed her ear.
"I missed you too," she admitted. "But I enjoyed visiting my sons and their families."
That evening, after driving my Escort through the four blocks of downtown Central City, I turned on Park Drive and entered the half-empty blacktop parking lot above a natural amphitheater in Oakglen Park. Oak and elm trees rimmed the top of the west and north banks. A small lake hemmed in the east side. The bandstand nestled at the back of the hollow. It had been repaired some twenty years before but still was kept freshly painted. The park was one of Central City's "Points of pride."
After I parked the car Maggie and I strolled down a wide cement path past semicircular rows of wooden park benches. She led me to the front row. Large speakers stood guard at either end of the stage. A path led away from the benches up to a concession stand. Behind the benches a grassy slope provided space for blankets and lawn chairs.
I slouched on a park bench hoping time wouldn’t stand still as we waited for the concert to begin on that late August evening. The afternoon heat had dissipated. A breeze rustled through the trees high above. Clouds, highlighted by slanting sun rays, drifted by now and then.
Maggie introduced me to Nina Fitch, or was it Fatch. They chatted about the public library and how Nina loved the books Maggie chose for her daughter. Nina's plump face was as lined as her wrinkled shorts. Her faded blouse was a size too small.
Her daughter, perhaps six years old, with straight brown hair and large brown eyes, squirmed her way onto my lap. She smelled of Ivory soap.
"Do you like me?" she said. Her eyes held mine until I said, "Sure."
She bounced a couple of times and said, "Bet you don’t know my name."
Before I could admit my ignorance she said, "When will the music start?"
I shrugged.
"Why don’t you talk to me?"
And so it went. The questions came faster than I could answer. Eventually I just said, "Because." She countered with, "Why?"
Nina and her daughter left to join a woman and two children a couple of rows behind us. I sighed and squirmed on the bench. Two old guys settled on the bench behind us and argued about the proposal for a mega hog farm north of town that would, according to one, stink up the town and poison the water supply.
"That’s all a bunch of bullshit," one of the guys said. "Modern technology prevents the smell and the pollution."
"It’s not a bunch of bullshit, it’s hog shit and nothing is gonna keep it from smelling and polluting. Corporations don’t care about modern technology. It costs money. The only thing they care about is profit, and to hell with the rest," the other voice replied.
I’d heard the arguments often. I tried to tune them out by observing the variety of humans flowing down the ramp. Musical instrument cases, large and small, were attached to some. Those persons, all dressed in black slacks -- white shirts for men, white blouses for women -- meandered to behind the bandstand and eventually appeared on the stage.
Sounds, at first isolated, became a raucous chorus of discordant notes, and challenged the boom of a kettle drum.
I said, "They aren’t very good are they?"
Maggie faced me.
"You know, smart ass, they’re just tuning up. Sit up before you slide off the bench."
"Speaking of ass, you’ve got a built-in cushion there to sit on. I’m all muscle."
She stood and looked behind us, as slim as a teenager. Well, almost. A brown belt surrounded the top of her tan shorts. A black, silky blouse fitted nicely over her breasts. Tan sandals completed the outfit. Her hair, near the color of the shorts at the moment, was cropped and gave her that cool look. "People still sit on the slope on blankets," she said. "I used to do that with my boys. They never sat still. I spent more time trying to keep track of them than I did listening."
I stood to keep the disfigurement of my rear from becoming permanent. Familiar faces, some I could even connect with names, were scattered among the swelling crowd.
Richard Bowles, editor of the Central City Press, and his wife, Ruth, ambled down the walk as racing kids jostled them. Poor Richard. He'd told me once that he would have left Central City long ago if it hadn't been for his kids.
"What do the kids have to do with it?" I asked.
"They're so happy here. They like school, their friends, everything is so comfortable for the whole family."
I wondered then if I would have felt trapped in the gutless news coverage of the Press if I had a family.
The tall frame of Luther Bishop stood out in a line at the refreshment stand near the top of the slope. He had been an unsuccessful candidate for state representative in the last election.
To the left of the stand Bruce Locket sought souls for his Church of the Gathering. I turned away, hoping he wouldn’t spot me and come seeking publicity. I waited a minute or so and looked back. He had moved on. But Big Ed Coburn, the county board chairman and farm implement dealer, was there glad-handing voters.
A steady stream of squealing children flowed back and forth in front of and behind Maggie and me. I sat and continued to squirm, trying to find a comfort zone.
Maggie said, "See, I told you we’d have to get here early for a good seat. The benches are nearly filled already."
More people filed down from the parking area and onto the benches, or carried their lawn chairs and blankets to open spots on the slope.
"Yeah," I said. "Those late comers will be sorry. They won’t be able to hear a thing."
I smelled the whiskey and cigar before I was shoved against Maggie to make room on the bench for Big Ed.
"Surprised a hotshot like you would attend our little band concert," he said as he pressed his big ass against me. My inclination was to punch him in the nose. That's just what he wanted so he could file charges. He'd been harassing me ever since I cut him out of a photo that appeared in the Central City Press while I was working there.
Maggie glanced at Big Ed and turned away. She'd once said, "When that creep looks at me I feel like he's looking up my skirt and I'm not wearing any underwear."
We both tried to ignore him as noise from the stage increased. The kettle drum guy, not much taller than the drum, thumped it with a drumstick, adjusted the tightness of the skin with turnbuckle-like things, and thumped it again. The band director appeared in matching coat and pants and a generous portion of shoulder decorations. He stood facing the band. A single note sounded from one of the instruments. This apparently was a signal for the others to duplicate the sound.
Big Ed stood, sneered down at me, and waddled away.
The director tapped his baton on the podium. The noise from the stage ceased and the murmur of conversation behind us dwindled. The conductor raised his baton.
A whip-crack sound bit into the air. A scream followed. The director’s baton remained frozen in space. An instant of silence was shattered by, "Somebody help. She’s bleeding. I think she’s been shot."
The screamer stood in the third row to our left on the far side of the amphitheater. I dodged benches and people and raced to the scene. I put my hands on the screamer’s shoulders and assured her it would be all right to rest her lungs. She collapsed and edged away from the body of a young woman sprawled on the bench. Blood dripped from the young woman’s forehead.
I pressed a finger into her neck. No pulse. She was dead.

Return

2005-10-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of writing a novel called Return of the Robber Barons. It will take place in Texas and Washington DC.
Research should be easy. Scenes appear daily in the news.

Death Sting

2005-08-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

Below is the first chapter of my novel, DEATH STING

DEATH STING
By
Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE
"However," I read from the local newspaper, "according to the coroner, it wasn't the bee stings that killed her. She apparently died from a heart attack brought on by stress."
Maggie Atley, who sat across from me at the fold-down kitchen table in my apartment, lowered her latest romance novel, something about "Hot Coles."
"What?"
"The body was found in a field southwest of town, according to the Central City Press. In other words, this woman was scared to death."
"What a horrible way to die," Maggie said. "Who was she?"
She marked her place in the book with one of my latest past due bills, put the book down, lifted her coffee cup and sipped. She frowned, said, "Yuk," got up, went to the counter, poured the coffee from her cup into the coffee maker, refilled her cup and returned.
"Her name was Vicki Fowler. Twenty-three years old from Springfield. She lived here at the Good Shepherd Home."
Maggie pushed light brown hair from her forehead and sighed.
"I know what you're thinking," she said.
"You always think you do."
She put her elbows on the table, held the cup in both hands and smiled that knowing smile I loved.
"You're thinking there’s a story in this you can sell to the Chicago Times. You're planning right to investigate and neglect work that brings in steady money, work that pays the bills. Right, Nick? It’s your business, of course, but you need money."
When we first met I was thinking I would like to get in her pants -- to coin a phrase -- and her warm blue eyes, sparkling with amusement, suggested she had read my thoughts. Instead of pretending to be offended, she smiled.
Now I admired her freshly scrubbed face. She was a knockout when her hair was teased into a semblance of obedience, and she wore that eye shadow stuff and the rest of it. But at breakfast, with tousled hair and freckles on her checks unhidden by makeup, she was woman.
"Well, why not?" I said. "There’s surely more to the story than what they’ve printed here."
As it turned out there was a hell of a lot more. If I’d known how dangerous to my well being the players would turn out to be, well I’d have thought about it.
Maggie was my part-time secretary, lover and would-be slave driver. She lived with me at the moment. We had agreed it wasn’t necessarily a permanent arrangement, which was fine with me, I thought.
My name is Nick Bancroft. I'm an ex-reporter who inherited a run-down one-man detective agency. I’m a couple of years older than Maggie's "nearly forty."
"What about those pictures you promised that attorney?" Maggie asked. "The ones of the broken sidewalk. And you have two traffic-accident photo jobs."
I squeezed out from under the table and kissed her forehead. After refilling my cup, I went to the office in the front of the apartment, taking the newspaper with me.
She was right, I had to get to work, and I would in a minute or two, but first I had to consider the possibilities of the bee-sting story. How would a woman get bee stings all over her body and wind up dead in a nearby farm field?
My cat jumped upon the desk, sniffed the coffee cup, sat and waited. I petted it automatically, a cat-trained provider. It was mostly white with a black ear and an attitude. Maggie had foisted the stray on me back at my old office. It wouldn’t let me touch it for weeks even though it showed up regularly to be fed. I hadn’t bothered to give it a name. Maggie called it Ruffles until I convinced her it was male.
She appeared in the office doorway, leaned against the jamb, and sighed. "You pay more attention to that cat than to me. I want more than a peck on the forehead when you head out to slay dragons."
She glided into the room, petted the cat, and sat on my lap. Her one-hundred-and-twenty or so pounds settled in as we kissed. I got a pleasant whiff of Dial soap, the soap I had used in the shower to wash perspiration from her body after her usual two-mile run.
We sat, as we often had since she came to live with me, and watched through the large front window as a variety of shoes and ankles marched past on the sidewalk above. Stairs from the walk led down and by the window and its black, block lettering advertising my business, "AAA Investigations."
My office consisted of an old wooden desk, a couple of metal file cabinets, an outdated Dell computer, a Canon printer and a Motorola radio in a cracked plastic case.
"Okay boss, I'll get the mundane stuff done, and then see what I can find out about how and why a woman winds up scared to death by bees."
Maggie placed her warm, moist lips on mine. I caressed a well-formed breast before she pulled away, stood, and said, "Oh no. We've both got things to do."
She placed one hand atop her head and sashayed from the room. I downed the rest of the coffee and left the cup on my desk. She'd see it later, take it to the kitchen, and insist she wasn’t going to chase all over the apartment picking up dirty cups. Life was good . . . then.

The complete ebook is available at http://renebooks.com Under search and author type in BOB LITER, click search and all of my novels, including this one, will be offered for sale at $4 or less.

Danny Boy

2005-07-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

Below is chapter one of my novel, Danny Boy
You may purchase the entire novel from Renebooks.com
Under search, type in Bob Liter in the author box and Danny Boy and my several other novels will appear.

DANNY BOY
By Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE

Dan heard the noise again. Someone had opened a door and closed it quietly. He gently removed Allie’s arm from across his chest. She sighed and turned away. He eased out of bed and crept to the morning light filtering through the flimsy curtains of the second-floor window.
He edged the curtain aside. The house’s shadow embraced the sloping front lawn and flower beds. Not a cloud in the sky beyond. Soon the sun would climb from behind the house and create another steaming July day.
Two men stood beside a van parked near the garage, their shadows extending down the drive. Any escape in the car was blocked. Somehow, even in Duncan, a tiny spot near the center of the Illinois map, they had found him. Allie touched his shoulder. He jumped and pushed her away from the window.
She slid her arms under his, placed her hands on his chest and pressed warm, bare breasts into his back.
"Sorry I woke you," Dan said. "They’re here. There’ll be more, no doubt. Here comes another van."
Allie kissed his shoulder and shuddered. "Mother’s up. We better get dressed and down stairs before they start pounding on the door."
She stayed close as he turned in her arms, leaned his torso into hers, and pushed a lock of brown-sugar hair from her forehead.
She said, "Danny Boy, we can’t do this now?"
"I know. Don’t call me Danny Boy."
In the kitchen Elizabeth Ainsworth glared at her daughter.
"Those people out there," she said. "It’s your fault. Get those horrid creatures out of my yard. They’ll be in the house next."
She leaned forward in her wheelchair and patted her hair.
"You must have been up awhile," Allie said. "Where’s your house coat and curlers? You hoping to get your picture taken?"
Mrs. Ainsworth opened her mouth. Pounding from the front door silenced her.
"Stay here," Dan said. "I’ll talk to them."
He crossed the living room and opened the door. Reporters, photographers and cameramen confronted him. Vans and cars lined the driveway. Others were parked on the street. They had dragged lawn chairs and equipment across the yard up to the house. Others sat on portable seats spiked into the lush grass. They were in various stages of summer undress. It was Duncan’s first media blitz.
A tall, lean-faced man with fierce eyes said, "Mister Jones, we want to interview you and the woman."
"I’ll be out there after I’ve had my breakfast. Now excuse me."
He slammed the door.
Allie looked out the front window and ducked as a woman with a camcorder on her shoulder approached.
"They look like vultures fighting over a corpse in a television documentary," Allie said. "The whole thing is repugnant."
"I suppose that’s your word for today," Dan said.
"Yes, it is. Repugnant, that which excites distaste or aversion."
"How did you find time to look that up?"
"I looked it up last night. I look up my word for the next day every night."
Dan stood behind her. He wondered if she memorized the word and its meaning while they made love. Did it matter now? How had they found him? He imagined the media, in the early morning hours, streaming south from Chicago and north from Springfield on Interstate 55. They would have turned west on the county road and crossed old Route 66.
"The police might run them off the property, but it won’t do any good until we let them get their pictures," he said.
Mrs. Ainsworth wheeled her chair to face him and said, "The police?" What police? Chief Buford, his two-man staff? Maybe Eleanor, the dispatcher?"
He knelt in front of her wheelchair. "They’ll keep coming back, sneaking around. The best way is to let them take their pictures, refuse to answer their questions and hope they’ll go away."
"Don’t tell us what to do, Danny Boy. This is your fault, too. As soon as those, those persons leave I want you to leave."
Allie stood beside the window and said, "There’s trucks, reporters and cameramen from all the Chicago stations. And a Chicago Tribune van. Even a van from the Springfield paper where I worked. God, what will they think of me now?"
Mrs. Ainsworth wheeled closer to the front window and stared out. A camera flash smacked into her eyes. She backed away and said, "If it will get them to leave us alone, do it."
"Allie, you’ll have to come out, too, when I signal," Dan said.
He stood near the kitchen door a few seconds, threw back his shoulders and stepped out into the backyard. Sunlight blinded him for an instant. A flock of squawking reporters caught up with him half way to the garage. He plowed on. Shouts ripped the air.
"Who took the nude photos? Does this have anything to do with the Chicago scandal?"
He retrieved a step ladder from the garage, pushed it against the pressing reporters, placed it on the driveway and climbed up two steps. Bodies and photographic equipment bumped against the ladder, threatening to knock it over. He gripped the top and held up his other hand.
"Where’s the woman? Do the nude photos of you and this Ainsworth woman have anything to do with the scandal in Chicago?"
Questions were repeated, and new ones were shouted. He kept his hand raised and his mouth shut. Shouts gradually turned to murmurs.
"As most of you probably know, I’ve been through this before. I will not be intimidated. We are not going to answer questions. None. Zero. You have half an hour to shoot your pictures. Back up enough so that Allison Ainsworth can come out and then take your pictures. Remember, no questions or we go back in the house and call the police."
Reporters and cameramen grudgingly backed off an inch at a time. Allie came out the back door at Dan’s beckoning and hurried to the ladder. She climbed up one step and clung to Dan. He placed a hand on her shoulder and noted she had combed her unruly hair. Her face was tense, flushed. Her eyes glowed with fear and fascination as she scanned the faces in front of them. Flash bulb and camcorder lights bounced from them like blows. The crowd inched forward as those in back pushed.
Dan shouted, "Those of you in front will have to move out so the others can get their shots."
He squeezed Allie’s hand and whispered, "It’ll soon be over. Look beyond them at the sky, think about what a nice day it is. It’s easier not to answer if you don’t look at ‘em."
Later he held up his arm and pointed to his wristwatch.
"Time’s up," he shouted. "Now get off the property. You’ve already torn up the yard and the flower beds. Five minutes and I call police."
Dan tried not to hear, but different voices penetrated. One, a woman’s, shouted shrilly as the crowd grudgingly receded toward the street.
"Who took the photos? Did they pay you for posing nude? Mister Jones, Mister Jones! Why did you leave Chicago and come to this little town? To escape that scandal?"
"This berg is his home town," a male voice shouted.
In the house, once the crowd had vacated the yard and was gathered on the street among the vehicles, Dan called police.
"There’s a mob blocking traffic on Wentworth Avenue," Dan told the dispatcher, Mrs. Buford, the police chief’s wife.
"Where?"
"Wentworth is a block long. Where do you think?"
"In front of the Ainsworth house, right? I’ll send Elmer."
Dan replaced the phone in its kitchen-wall cradle and sagged into a chair. He wiped sweat from his brow and sipped cold coffee.
"She’s sending Elmer Davis out. Won’t he be important for a few days, telling the whole town how he handled the media crowd at the Ainsworth house."
Through the kitchen window the blue sky remained serene. He and Allie had put Duncan on the map temporarily. In a few days the furor over the story and published photos of him and Allie nude, swimming and loving on the beach, would be replaced by whatever was new. But not in Duncan. In Duncan it would live on as another chapter in the story of Danny Boy Jones’ humiliation.

August Is Murder

2005-05-31T07:08:00.000-07:00

Below is the first chapter of my novel, August Is Murder. The rest of it is available at http://renebooks.com

August is Murder
by Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE

The first time they tried to kill me I was asleep. Coughing, my own, jarred me awake. I rolled to a sitting position from the sweat-wet bedding and continued choking on hot, acrid air. The sweat was no surprise. My air conditioner had quit. But this was more than August heat in Central City, Illinois.
A flip of the light switch near my bed did nothing to eliminate the darkness. I went to hands and knees and felt around until I found my pants and shoes. I sat against the bed, squirmed into the jeans, and put on much-used Reeboks. Heat from the floor roasted my rump.
"Don't panic, Nick," I said aloud. My office and apartment were on the third floor of a partially abandoned building. Should I try to save anything or just get the hell out? My files, I had to save my case files. The dented metal filing cabinet in the office contained stuff from the previous owner, but I just wanted my own files in the top drawer. I crawled into the office, stood, and pulled out the top drawer. I felt my way to the office door and opened it. A swish of even hotter air swept against my face. The drawer slipped from my hands, but I kept it from falling to the floor with a knee.
What about Maggie? She might be in the office on the second floor. It was well past midnight. Why would she be there? I assured myself she was not. She was the reason why I now had a stray cat and a cracked heart. What about the cat? No need to worry about it. Any cat that came and went when the office door was locked wouldn't be trapped in that old building.
Flickering light appeared as I neared the stairway. Hungry flames licked at the air below, daring me to try to escape in that direction. Blazing noise rose like the vicious growl of a watchdog.
"Don't panic," I repeated.
My lungs felt as though they were melting. Heat pushed me back like an unseen hand. The fire escape! Where was it? On the side of the building at the end of the hall? Beyond my office and all that unoccupied space? I remembered rust, lots of rust. What a choice. Walk down the stairs into an inferno or risk falling three floors from a fire escape that probably hadn't been used in twenty years.
I felt my way to the end of the hallway. The door leading to the fire escape wouldn't budge. Could I crawl through the door window? I smashed the file drawer against the glass, shattering it. Hot air swished out of the building through the opening.
I placed the drawer on the floor and removed shards of glass until I figured there was enough room to climb out. I felt around outside trying to locate something solid. Nothing. Light from the fire had not yet penetrated the darkness on that side of the building. Was the fire escape really there? I picked up the file drawer and dropped it outside the window, hoping it would hit the fire escape landing, if it was there. The file drawer thudded against something almost immediately.
I used the doorknob to steady myself and raised one leg through the window. Muscles complained as I maneuvered the other leg through. Broken glass ripped my pants and cut into my legs and stomach as I wiggled out into the darkness.
I grasped the base of the window frame and rested my knees against the outside of the door. I lowered my feet an inch at a time. If my legs extended completely and my feet still hadn't touched anything, could I pull myself back up?
My feet made contact with something solid. The platform? I tested it with my weight as I held onto the window ledge in case the thing below me, whatever it was, gave way.
I released one hand from the ledge. It was sticky. I reached down and tried to feel whatever was supporting my feet but I couldn't reach it unless I let go. I took a deep breath, released my grip on the window ledge, and sank to my knees on metal -- crusty metal. The fire escape landing.
The file cabinet drawer sat near steps leading down. Holding the rail with one hand, I carried the drawer in my free arm and made my way down, a step at a time, toward a glow coming from inside the building. Flickering light cast shadows on the second-floor fire escape platform. I put the file drawer on the landing and crept onto the fire escape extension straight out into the night. Would the rust give way and allow my weight to swing the extension down to the ground? About halfway out the damned thing dropped without warning. I squeezed the railings until pain in my blood-soaked hands forced a scream from parched lips. The noise evaporated into the smoky night. The extension jolted to an abrupt halt. It was headed downward at an angle that left me about 20 feet above the ground.
I climbed back up, retrieved the file drawer, and climbed down cautiously, a step at a time, fearing the ladder would drop farther at any moment. When I was almost to the end it descended at a slow, comfortable pace and stopped about two feet from the ground. I stepped onto the blessed gravel and expected the ladder to spring back up. It didn't. Firelight made it easy to make my way to the front of the building. I ran awkwardly away from the heat and flames.
The hungry blaze ate at the building and its contents. My stuff was in there. My clothes, a couple of bowling balls I no longer bothered to keep in the rear of my car, a radio, an old wooden chair, my bed, and a refrigerator. And the desk. My good old desk. The fire would consume them all.

You may obtain the rest of the novel through http://renebooks.com

Backstory

2005-05-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

The report below is from http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/backstory/

Andrew Winston’s Backstory

From the day I moved to Chicago I wanted to write a book about the city. Not just set in Chicago—about Chicago. It seemed to be an omen on my first visit that, according to the landlord showing me one apartment, Saul Bellow had written Humboldt’s Gift in that modest flat with its high windows facing the bus stop at Hyde Park Boulevard and 54th Street. A landlord dropping Saul Bellow’s name? I needed no further proof that this was the city for me. I decided to believe him, and signed a lease.

Chicago is a city that demands to be written about—but to be written about in a certain way. It is more pragmatic than newer cities and less self-involved than the older cities to its east. After all, this is a city that turned its river around and ran it away from Lake Michigan (where the city got its drinking water) so that industrialists could continue pour poisons into the stream. What is more darkly, more poetically American than that? To be in Chicago is to be closer to some essential quality of the American character, down where you can feel the engine throbbing, watch the cogwheels chewing away, and sometimes get your necktie caught in the gears.

I never did write a novel in that apartment. I lived in five more apartments in four other Chicago neighborhoods over the six years, from the southside to the northside. A crowd of characters collected in my head, and I made several false starts on books that tried to impose various styles and genres onto my diverse cast.

Then a friend working at a weekly newspaper asked if I would try my hand at creating a serialized novel á la Tales of the City, set in Chicago. Suddenly I saw a way to write a book as a tapestry of interwoven lives. The book would be about the process of people connecting and the changes they inflict on one another. I agreed and began mapping out a set of connecting stories on index cards using a complicated color scheme to create the warp and woof of the novel’s structure.

I sketched out seven storylines—a postman who stores undelivered mail in his southside garage, a Greek diner owner, a bunch of young hipsters starting a band (named Lather Rinse Repeat), two gay couples (one male, one female), a Jewish widow, and a Vietnamese-A

Nick Bancroft

2005-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

Below is a Nick Bancroft short story. Nick is the subject of four mysteries I have written. They are published at: http://renebooks.com

The Hole in the Wall was a small, dimly lit joint on Jefferson with a bar beyond mismatched tables and chairs. A blonde waitress, dark-haired roots and all, strolled to my table and said, "What would you like?"
"What I would like is you," I said, "but for now I'll take
a shot of Lord Calvert and a glass of beer."
She smiled, returned to the bar, held an animated conversation with the bartender, a husky bald guy who wore red suspenders, and returned with the order.
Three days later, after I'd stopped by every afternoon, Roxie -- her name was embroidered on her blouse -- got real friendly. She hitched up her brassiere and called me Jay. I'd told her my name was Jay Winthrop.
While she got my usual order I adjusted my Armani shirt and Gleason slacks and made sure my scuffed loafers were out of sight. She returned and placed the order in front of me, offering me a close, revealing view of her chest.
"My feet hurt," she said. "They always hurt this time of day."
"Sit down, Roxie," I said.
"Would you mind, Jay? I won't stay long."
I pushed the glass of beer her way. "Have some if you want."
It was time to make my move.
"I'm staying at the Pere Marquette. It's too far away to get there and back in time. Been working on this business deal with Caterpillar for three mornings now. Wish I had a place to take an afternoon nap closer," I said.
She had removed her shoes. She wiggled her foot, replaced one shoe and said, "You could flop at my place. I live above this joint. Good enough to catch a nap if you want."
I sipped whiskey, looked over the rim of the glass and said, "Gee, that's awfully nice of you. If I wouldn't be intruding I'd go up there after I finish this drink and sleep for an hour."
"Well, why not?" she said. She put the other shoe on and said, "Soon as you're ready."
"Can you just leave?"
She nodded toward the bartender and said, "He can wait on anyone that comes in while I'm gone. Do him good to get off his duff."
Her round bottom bobbed as she climbed the stairs ahead of me. Her living room included a couch, a couple of chairs and a television set. The window looked out on a roof across the way and an alley below. The cluttered kitchen included worn oil paper on the counter and a rusty sink.
"The bedroom's in here," she said.
An ash try on the dresser was nearly overflowing with cigarette butts.
"If I didn't have to work I wouldn't mind joining you."
I put my coat on the back of a chair, flipped my loafers under the bed and lay on my side on the bed. She hesitated and then lay close beside me. She kissed me. She put her arm around my shoulder, moved closer and kissed me again.
"Well, that's all I can do for you now. I've got to get back to work."
An hour later I went back down to the bar, ordered a beer, gulped it, smiled at her and said, "I'll be back tomorrow for sure."
I returned the next afternoon, sat at my usual table, and ordered a glass of beer. Roxie seemed nervous. The bartender brought the beer and a manila envelop and sat down across from me.
"You know Roxie's my wife?" he asked.
"Yeah I kinda figured that's the way it was, or at least that's what you'd claim. Nothing serious happened between us, if that's what you're worried about."
"You're the one ought to be worried. Look at these. And don't get any ideas. I've got the negatives."
He pulled eight-by-ten photos from the envelop and flipped them across the table. They showed me and Roxie in bed kissing.
I glanced at them and said, "All we did was kiss."
He pointed at me and said, "Look, mister. Nobody fools with my wife. You pay or I'll find out where you live, give the pictures to your wife, maybe your boss, too. I can find out where you work, Mister Winthrop."
"What makes you think I'm married?"
He grinned.
"You ain't too smart, wearing a wedding ring when you plan to fool around."
Roxie was behind the bar. She glanced at me and glanced away.

"So what do you want me to do?" I asked, as if I didn't know.
"You pay me ten thousand dollars, I give you the photos and negatives," he said.
"Ha. Where am I gonna get ten thousand dollars? Think I carry that kinda money around with me?"
He scrapped the chair on the floor as he stood and said, "You be back here tomorrow with the money or I start looking for your wife or anybody else who would be interested."
"Damn," I said. "Look at all the money I spent in here. Just trying to relax after a big deal, and you pull this. I been set up. Damn you and your wife."
"That's right, Mister Winthrop, you've been set up. You should know better."
I pushed myself away from the table, stood and glowered at him and said, "I'll be back tomorrow."
The next afternoon Roxie didn't seem to be around. The bartender, his thumbs on the inside of his suspenders, marched to my table. I ordered a glass of beer.
He poured the beer from the customer side of the bar, placed it in front of me and said, "Got the money?"
I reached into my inside coat pocket and handed him a tape recording.
"What's this crap?" he said.
"You listen to that. You'll hear a guy sounds just like you trying to blackmail me."
"But I got the pictures. I'll expose you if you don't pay up."
"No you won't. Not unless you're stupider than you look."
He snapped one of his suspenders against his chest and said, "Who are you?"
"My real name's Nick Bancroft. One of your blackmailed suckers hired me. Never mind which one. If you continue to squeeze him I'll turn a copy of the tape over to the police. Roxie came down the stairs. I waved to her as I left.

Memories

2005-05-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

I had a dog named Jiggs when I was a kid. He loved to travel until that night our Model T smacked into a cow. When a Model T hits a cow it has a tendency to cause bowel movements in dogs that happen to be riding in the vehicle. Pavlov, you my remember, proved this with his experiments.
After that Jiggs resisted riding in our car. It was pushed up pretty much like an accordion anyway and so was crowded, even in the back seat.
We lived in Iowa and naturally, when we traveled, we saw lots of cows. It I was alert I would cover Jiggs' eyes when we got near one. But when I was not on watch, and we passed one, Jiggs would jump into my lap and make my life miserable. As Pavlov demonstrated in another of his experiments, such situations often scare the piss right out of a dog, even an English Bulldog like Jiggs.
Jiggs added proof to another Pavlov experiment in which he demonstrated that when fear didn't scare the piss out of his dog it often aroused him. The dog, that is. This led to the expression, Jiggs Up. And indeed it is. Talk to you later.

Reading Reward

2005-04-26T05:54:00.000-07:00

Most readers will agree that reading books, at least some of them, is rewarding. However, according to a story in the Natchez Democrat posted on the blog, Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind, the reward can turn into cash. The story :

When Michele Anderson started to pull a mystery novel off the shelf Tuesday at Armstrong Library, she noticed a bulge under the dust jacket. And with her background in library work she had to check it out.

"I felt something in there, and from my time working here (Anderson worked cataloguing books at the library in the late '80s and early '90s) I just had to straighten it out and felt in there and pulled it out," Anderson said. "I thought, 'Whoa. Wait a minute,' and I took it to the librarian downstairs."

"It" was a substantial sum of money, and Anderson and Susan Cassagne, the library's director, are trying to identify the money's rightful owner so they can return it.

"We want to make an effort to find whose money it is so we can give it back," Cassagne said.

Cassagne asked that details, such as the amount of money and the title of the book it was found in, not be included in this story so that she can identify the money's rightful owner. Anyone who thinks they may have left money in a book they checked out more than a year ago can contact the library.

Unfortunately, because the library switched to a new system and tried to ward off the Patriot Act, they have no record of who the money belongs to. And what if no one claims it?

As if all that weren't complicated enough, there's the matter of what to do with the money if it isn't claimed. Cassagne found an opinion from the Mississippi Attorney General's office about a similar case.

In that case, money was found in a paperback on an exchange table, where patrons were invited to leave old books and pick up any they wanted. But since those books were not the property of the library, the opinion found the money wasn't either and one lucky patron got $1,100 out of the deal.

Cassagne said she believes if the money is not claimed it is the property of the library, though she said she would like to thank Anderson in some form.

Cassagne said this isn't the most unusual thing she's found in a library book.

"I found a spaghetti noodle once," Cassagne said. "We find a lot of love letters, pictures, that sort of thing."

M. J. Rose

2005-04-24T06:36:00.000-07:00

M. J. Rose, author of the novels, Lip Service and The Halo Effect, plus other books plus numerous articles on writing and the publishing industry, has one of my favorite blogs. To get there go www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/BkDoctorSin/ or to Google and type in mjroseauthor@aol.com

Danny Boy

2005-04-20T07:19:00.000-07:00

Below is the first chapter of my novel, Danny Boy. I would appreciate any comments you might want to make.

DANNY BOY
By Bob Liter

CHAPTER ONE

Dan heard the noise again. Someone had opened a door and closed it quietly. He gently removed Allie’s arm from across his chest. She sighed and turned away. He eased out of bed and crept to the morning light filtering through the flimsy curtains of the second-floor window.
He edged the curtain aside. The house’s shadow embraced the sloping front lawn and flower beds. Not a cloud in the sky beyond. Soon the sun would climb from behind the house and create another steaming July day.
Two men stood beside a van parked near the garage, their shadows extending down the drive. Any escape is his car was blocked. Somehow, even in Duncan, a tiny spot near the center of the Illinois map, they had found him. Allie touched his shoulder. He jumped and pushed her away from the window.
She slid her arms under his, placed her hands on his chest and pressed warm, bare breasts into his back.
"Sorry I woke you," Dan said. "They’re here. There’ll be more, no doubt. Here comes another van."
Allie kissed his shoulder and shuddered. "Mother’s up. We better get dressed and down stairs before they start pounding on the door."
She stayed close as he turned in her arms, leaned his torso into hers, and pushed a lock of brown-sugar hair from her forehead.
She said, "Danny Boy, we can’t do this now?"
"I know. Don’t call me Danny Boy."
In the kitchen Elizabeth Ainsworth glared at her daughter.
"Those people out there," she said. "It’s your fault. Get those horrid creatures out of my yard. They’ll be in the house next."
She leaned forward in her wheelchair and patted her hair.
"You must have been up awhile," Allie said. "Where’s your house coat and curlers? You hoping to get your picture taken?"
Mrs. Ainsworth opened her mouth. Pounding on the front door silenced her.
"Stay here," Dan said. "I’ll talk to them."
He crossed the living room and opened the door. Reporters, photographers and cameramen confronted him. Vans and cars lined the driveway. Others were parked on the street. They had dragged lawn chairs and equipment across the yard up to the house. Others sat on portable seats spiked into the lush grass. They were in various stages of summer undress. It was Duncan’s first media blitz.
A tall, lean-faced man with fierce eyes said, "Mister Jones, we want to interview you and the woman."
"I’ll be out there after I’ve had my breakfast. Now excuse me."
He slammed the door.
Allie looked out the front window and ducked as a woman with a camcorder on her shoulder approached.
"They look like vultures fighting over a corpse in a television documentary," Allie said. "The whole thing is repugnant."
"I suppose that’s your word for today," Dan said.
"Yes, it is. Repugnant, that which excites distaste or aversion."
"How did you find time to look that up?"
"I looked it up last night. I look up my word for the next day every night."
Dan stood behind her. He wondered if she memorized the word and its meaning while they made love. Did it matter now? How had they found him? He imagined the media, in the early morning hours, streaming south from Chicago and north from Springfield on Interstate 55. They would have turned west on the county road and crossed old Route 66.
"The police might run them off the property, but it won’t do any good until we let them get their pictures," he said.
Mrs. Ainsworth wheeled her chair to face him and said, "The police?" What police? Chief Buford, his two-man staff? Maybe Eleanor, the dispatcher?"
He knelt in front of her wheelchair. "They’ll keep coming back, sneaking around. The best way is to let them take their pictures, refuse to answer their questions and hope they’ll go away."
"Don’t tell us what to do, Danny Boy. This is your fault, too. As soon as those, those persons leave I want you to leave."
Allie stood beside the window and said, "There’s trucks, reporters and cameramen from all the Chicago stations. And a Chicago Tribune van. Even a van from the Springfield paper where I worked. God, what will they think of me now?"
Mrs. Ainsworth wheeled closer to the front window and stared out. A camera flash smacked into her eyes. She backed away and said, "If it will get them to leave us alone, do it."
"Allie, you’ll have to come out, too, when I signal," Dan said.
He stood near the kitchen door a few seconds, threw back his shoulders and stepped out into the backyard. Sunlight blinded him for an instant. A flock of squawking reporters caught up with him half way to the garage. He plowed on. Shouts ripped the air.
"Who took the nude photos? Does this have anything to do with the Chicago scandal?"
He retrieved a step ladder from the garage, pushed it against the pressing reporters, placed it on the driveway and climbed up two steps. Bodies and photographic equipment bumped against the ladder, threatening to knock it over. He gripped the top and held up his other hand.
"Where’s the woman? Do the nude photos of you and this Ainsworth woman have anything to do with the scandal in Chicago?"
Questions were repeated, and new ones were shouted. He kept his hand raised and his mouth shut. Shouts gradually turned to murmurs.
"As most of you probably know, I’ve been through this before. I will not be intimidated. We are not going to answer questions. None. Zero. You have half an hour to shoot your pictures. Back up enough so that Allison Ainsworth can come out and then take your pictures. Remember, no questions or we go back in the house and call the police."
Reporters and cameramen grudgingly backed off an inch at a time. Allie came out the back door at Dan’s beckoning and hurried to the ladder. She climbed up one step and clung to Dan. He placed a hand on her shoulder and noted she had combed her unruly hair. Her face was tense, flushed. Her eyes glowed with fear and fascination as she scanned the faces in front of them. Flash bulb and camcorder lights bounced from them like blows. The crowd inched forward as those in back pushed.
Dan shouted, "Those of you in front will have to move out so the others can get their shots."
He squeezed Allie’s hand and whispered, "It’ll soon be over. Look beyond them at the sky, think about what a nice day it is. It’s easier not to answer if you don’t look at ‘em."
Later he held up his arm and pointed to his wristwatch.
"Time’s up," he shouted. "Now get off the property. You’ve already torn up the yard and the flower beds. Five minutes and I call police."
Dan tried not to hear, but different voices penetrated. One, a woman’s, shouted shrilly as the crowd grudgingly receded toward the street.
"Who took the photos? Did they pay you for posing nude? Mister Jones, Mister Jones! Why did you leave Chicago and come to this little town? To escape that scandal?"
"This berg is his home town," a male voice shouted.
In the house, once the crowd had vacated the yard and was gathered on the street among the vehicles, Dan called police.
"There’s a mob blocking traffic on Wentworth Avenue," Dan told the dispatcher, Mrs. Buford, the police chief’s wife.
"Where?"
"Wentworth is a block long. Where do you think?"
"In front of the Ainsworth house, right? I’ll send Elmer."
Dan replaced the phone in its kitchen-wall cradle and sagged into a chair. He wiped sweat from his brow and sipped cold coffee.
"She’s sending Elmer Davis out. Won’t he be important for a few days, telling the whole town how he handled the media crowd at the Ainsworth house."
Through the kitchen window the blue sky remained serene. He and Allie had put Duncan on the map temporarily. In a few days the furor over the story and published photos of him and Allie nude, swimming and loving on the beach, would be replaced by whatever was new. But not in Duncan. In Duncan it would live on as another chapter in the story of Danny Boy Jones’ humiliation.
The entire novel is available at: http//renebooks.com

I'm starting to bark

2005-03-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

I understand there's a new product out. It's a CD recording of music for dogs. The music supposedly soothes them and makes them behave better. The makers are thrilled at the sales because, besides dog owners, wives are buying the CD for their husbands.

Newsday memo

2005-03-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

Laurie Garrett's memo to Newsday collegues as posted by Poynteronline:

2/28/2005 11:47:08 AMDear Newsday Friends and Colleagues, On March 8th -- International Women's Day -- my leave of absence from Newsday ends. I will not be returning to the paper, largely because my work at the Council on Foreign Relations has proven to be the most exciting challenge of my life. But you have been through so much pain and difficulty over the last year, all of which I monitored closely and with considerable concern, that I don't want to disappear from the Newsday scene without saying a few words. Indulge me. Ever since the Chandler Family plucked Mark Willes from General Foods, placing him at the helm of Times Mirror with a mandate to destroy the institutions in ways that would boost dividends, journalism has suffered at Newsday. The pain of the last year actually began a decade ago: the sad arc of greed has finally hit bottom. The leaders of Times Mirror and Tribune have proven to be mirrors of a general trend in the media world: They serve their stockholders first, Wall St. second and somewhere far down the list comes service to newspaper readerships. In 1996 I personally confronted Willes on that point, and he publicly confirmed that the new regime was one in which even the number of newspapers sold was irrelevant, so long as stock returns continued to rise. The deterioration we experienced at Newsday was hardly unique. All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions. Long gone are the days of fast-talking, whiskey-swilling Murray Kempton peers eloquently filling columns with daily dish on government scandals, mobsters and police corruption. The sort of in-your-face challenge that the Fourth Estate once posed for politicians has been replaced by mud-slinging, lies and, where it ought not be, timidity. When I started out in journalism the newsrooms were still full of old guys with blue collar backgrounds who got genuinely indignant when the Governor lied or somebody turned off the heat on a poor person's apartment in mid-January. They cussed and yelled their ways through the day, took an occasional sly snort from a bottle in the bottom drawer of their desk and bit into news stories like packs of wild dogs, never letting go until they'd found and told the truth. If they hadn't been reporters most of those guys would have been cops or firefighters. It was just that way. Now the blue collar has been fully replaced by white ones in America's newsrooms, everybody has college degrees. The "His Girl Friday" romance of the newshound is gone. All too many journalists seem to mistake scandal mongering for tenacious investigation, and far too many aspire to make themselves the story. When I think back to the old fellows who were retiring when I first arrived at Newsday – guys (almost all of them were guys) who had cop brothers and fathers working union jobs – I suspect most of them would be disgusted by what passes today for journalism. Theirs was not a perfect world --- too white, too male, seen through a haze of cigarette smoke and Scotch – but it was an honest one rooted in mid-20th Century American working class values. Honesty and tenacity (and for that matter, the working class) seem to have taken backseats to the sort of "snappy news", sensationalism, scandal-for-the-sake of scandal crap that sells. This is not a uniquely Tribune or even newspaper industry problem: this is true from the Atlanta mixing rooms of CNN to Sulzberger's offices in Times Square. Profits: that's what it's all about now. But you just can't realize annual profit returns of more than 30 percent by methodically laying out the truth in a dignified, accessible manner. And it's damned tough to find that truth every day with a mere skeleton crew of reporters and editors. This is terrible for democracy. I have been in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. I have found America a place of great and confused fearfulness, in which cynically placed bits of misinformation (e.g. Cheney's, "If John Kerry had been President during the Cold War we would have had thermonuclear war.") fall on ears that absorb all, without filtration or fact-checking. Leading journalists have tried to defend their mission, pointing to the paucity of accurate, edited coverage found in blogs, internet sites, Fox-TV and talk radio. They argue that good old-fashioned newspaper editing is the key to providing America with credible information, forming the basis for wise voting and enlightened governance. But their claims have been undermined by Jayson Blair's blatant fabrications, Judy Miller's bogus weapons of mass destruction coverage, the media's inaccurate and inappropriate convictions of Wen Ho Lee, Richard Jewell and Steven Hatfill, CBS' failure to smell a con job regarding Bush's Texas Air Guard career and, sadly, so on. What does it mean when even journalists consider comedian John [sic] -- "This is a fake news show, People!" -- Stewart one of the most reliable sources of "news"?It would be easy to descend into despair, not only about the state of journalism, but the future of American democracy. But giving up is not an option. There is too much at stake. I would remind my Newsday colleagues that during the bleak period that commenced with the appointment of Willes, and persists today, some great journalism has been done at the paper. A tiny, dedicated team of foreign correspondents has literally risked their lives to bring readers fresh, often ground-breaking news from the battlefields of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. Newsday readers are on top of details about the sorry state of fiscal governance in Nassau County, scandals in Suffolk County, Bloomberg's plans for the west side of Manhattan, and the sad state of politics in Albany. We still have some of the best film and performing arts criticism in the country, an aggressive photo department, tough sports columnists, under-utilized specialty and investigative reporters and a savvy business section. So what is to be done? I have no idea what Tribune corporate leaders in Chicago have up their sleeves for Newsday, the LA Times, Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune and the other media outlets under their control. Despite rumors that are rife in the newsrooms, you are also in the dark. And you should remember that. During times of hardship as extreme as those we have experienced at Newsday it is easy to become paralyzed by rumors, unable to think clearly about the work at hand. After all, people have lost their jobs, and some were removed from the building by armed guards, with only moments' notice. Every Newsday employee is justified in his or her concern about just how lean Chicago plans to make the newspaper machine. But rumors only feed fear, and personal fear is rarely stimulus for good journalism. Now is the time to think in imaginative ways. Salon and Slate have both gone into the black; in nations like Ukraine and South Africa courageous new forms of journalism are arising; some of the blogs that clog the internet are actually quite good and manage to keep politicians on their toes. Opportunities for quality journalism are still there, though you may need to scratch new surfaces, open locked doors and nudge a few reticent editors to find them. On a fundamental level, your readers desperately need for you to try, over and over again, to tell the stories, dig the dirt and bring them the news. Les Payne has often correctly pointed out that Newsday's problems have never been rooted in the institution's journalism: Rather, they have been business issues. We have never been accused of fostering a Jayson Blair, a bozo who accepted $250,000 from the Bush Administration to write flattering stories, an investigative reporting team that relied on a single source for a series that smeared the life of an innocent man, acted as a conduit for the Department of Defense for weapons of mass destruction disinformation, or any of the other ghastly violations of the public trust that have recently transpired. Newsday's honor has, by its own accounts, been besmirched by a series of lies committed on the business/advertising/circulation side of the company. (And few news organizations have covered on its pages their own shortcomings as closely as has Newsday.) All of us have been forced to pay a price for those grievous actions. But nobody has charged that Newsday's journalistic enterprise has failed to abide by the highest ethical standards. Newsday has always had more talent than it knew how to use. So go ahead, Talent: Show them your stuff. I'll be reading. (March 8th may be my last day as a Newsday employee, but it won't mark the end of my readership.) I thank each and every one of you who have been my friends and colleagues since I joined Newsday in 1988. I hope that we will stay in touch over coming years. Make me regret leaving, Guys: Turn Newsday into a kick ass paper that I will be begging to return to.
Bye for now, Laurie Garrett

Re-writing

2005-03-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

Sue Bolich and Jefferson Carter have covered the subject as well as most writing books.The only thing I might add is that I am reading now, chapter by chapter, a novel to my wife. The writing is supposed to be humorous. Chapter one and two passed the test. She laughed. Chapter three failed miserably. I've read and reread the damned novel too many times already and never did I miss the lack of humor in chapter three. But my wife did. And while I was reading it to her I realized it wasn't funny at all because the things that made it funny were still in my mind, not on the paper. I've rewritten it and hope I've turned it into the ha ha I thought it was in the first place.

writing tip

2005-02-23T09:54:00.000-08:00

Below is a quote from book editor Ray Rhamey from his blog at http://www.editorrr.com
But most edits also include "plussing" as well as pruning. It usually falls in two areas that authors have trouble seeing clearly because, when they read through their manuscripts, they're seeing both the words on the page and the "moving picture" of the story as they see it in their minds. Unfortunately, a reader can only see the first part.
Scene setting is the first added work that my comments frequently call for. Often it's missing altogether (writer sees movie, reader sees nothing). My approach is to explain why it's needed, to suggest ideas that the author can build upon, and how to couch it in terms of a character's point of view so it becomes more involving than a verbal rendition of a postcard. I can't save the day for the writer, but I can set them on the path.
Staging is another area that turns into a swamp for some writers. They are so focused on moving the story forward that the physical movements they call for are either unlikely or impossible. Here's an example I cited in an earlier post:
Once safely inside her apartment on the fourth floor, she went to her bedroom window. She recoiled behind the curtain when she saw a long shadow on the pavement below recede into darkness. She recognized him.

"How?"

The Maltese Falcon

2005-02-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

Below are the opening paragraphs of Chapter Two of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon.

A telephone -bell rang in the darkness. When it had rung three times bed-springs creaked, fingers fumbled on wood, something small and hard thudded on a carpeted floor, the springs creaked again, and a man’s voice said: "Hello . . . Yes, speaking . . . Dead? . . . Yes . . . Fifteen minutes, Thanks."
A switch clicked and a white bowl hung on three gilded chains from the ceiling’s center filled the room with light. Spade, bare-footed in green and white checked pajamas, sat on the side of his bed. He scowled at the telephone on the table while his hands took from beside it a packet of brown papers and a sack of Bull Durham tobacco.

I can see that scene as though it was a movie and have been looking for examples of writing that paint such a word picture. As has been discussed, it is difficult to evaluate writing on the basis of one or two paragraphs, but I’m curious to learn if the scene above comes through as clearly for others as it did for me.

What's In A Title?

2005-02-09T09:38:00.000-08:00

There’s been a discussion about titles of novels and do they help sell books? How do writers arrive at titles? Thus, I’ve been thinking about the titles of my novels.

The first novel I wrote, a Nick Bancroft mystery, was titled "August Is Murder."
My clever idea at the time was to write a series of Nick Bancroft mysteries, each named after a month. I’ve written four Nick Bancrofts since then and never did come up with a second month title.

As I remember, when starting the second one, I thought about working September into the title. It just didn’t work for me. Sex Is September? Too limiting. September Is Slaying or September Death. Maybe, but for some reason I decided against it. So the title of the novel became A Point of Murder. It involves a spike driven through the victim’s head.

Next came Death Sting. It involves the death of a young woman who is found in a farm field with her body covered by what turn out to be bee stings.
The next one, Murder by the Book, involves a young woman found murdered in an empty football stadium with a sex etiquette book in her naked lap.

I’ve just finished another Nick Bancroft and have named it And the Band Played On, stealing the title from the song involving a guy named Casey. An agent has informed me there is another published book with the same title. Should I change mine? I seem reluctant to do so. However I still have time. If a publisher buys it they will probably change the title anyway.

I’ve also written "Rain Day Lover" and "Danny Boy." Sweet little romances that leave Nick Bancroft out.

So, how does a person arrive at a title? In my case the titles come for the stories. Speaking of story, that’s mine for today.

Name that novel?

2005-02-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

I've spent some time considering different titles for all of the novels I've finished and sometimes have not been satisfied with the final results. Seems deciding on a title is a common thing among writers. What follows is an article I stole from another blog, Bookslut. It arrived there after being stolen from another site. Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

Enough About Me #2: In Which the Author Struggles to Find the Right Title
February 07, 2005
By Adam Langer

Early this morning, at 1:20 a.m., to be exact, I pushed the send button and zipped off a revised manuscript to my editor. And the manuscript now actually has a title that I like. I’m calling it The Washington Story. When I’d written the first draft, I’d called it The Washington Years, but that always felt too generic. The second draft was The Washington Cycle, which I liked fairly well, but didn’t look quite right either. It didn’t help that a good friend of mine, who happens to be a publicist, said that it reminded her of “The Washing Cycle.” And then there was a friend’s agent who said that “Cycle” was a deadly word and was largely responsible for the fact that nobody had gone to see the Pulitzer-Prize winning play, The Kentucky Cycle. When my own agent’s office sent me an e-mail titled “Re: The W.C.,” it was back to the drawing board.

Deep in the throes of title block, I’d been trying to convince myself that titles really didn’t matter much—that Annie Hall would have been just as successful had Woody Allen stuck with Anhedonia, that I’d still have read A Streetcar Named Desire in English class even if Tennessee Williams had used any of his original titles, such as Blanche’s Chair in the Moon. I’d like to think that Joseph Heller would probably have been just as successful if he had kept calling his debut Catch-18.

But the fact is that Thomas Wolfe’s original title O, Lost doesn’t have quite the same ring as Look Homeward, Angel, nor does Margaret Mitchell’s Fontenoy Hall, which became Gone With the Wind. If F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone with Trimalchio in West Egg, one of his working titles for The Great Gatsby, God knows what we’d have studied in high school.

The conventional wisdom is that titles matter a great deal.

I’ve been e-mailing with John Horn, film writer for Newsweek, who reports that the producers of Searching For Bobby Fischer blamed its underperformance partly on its “unwieldy title.” Horn adds that Pretty Woman was once called $3,000, which was not so hot, and that While You Were Sleeping’s original title was the wisely discarded Coma Guy. You could write a whole book about this topic and, as it turns out, someone already has—check out Harcourt publisher André Bernard’s Now All We Need Is a Title (Norton, 1996) for more of these sorts of fun and games. Bernard writes that George Eliot initially considered the title St. Ogg’s on the Floss for The Mill on the Floss, and that Don DeLillo’s original title for White Noise was Panasonic.

“Titles do matter, but it’s not something that one can measure,” says Nicole Aragi, agent to Jonathan Safran Foer, Nathan Englander and Edwidge Danticat, among others. “I picked up A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian because I liked the title so much, and first bought A Wild Sheep Chase in a bookstore years ago for the same reason, becoming a Haruki Murakami addict from there on. I can probably think of a good handful of books I was drawn to because of the title rather than familiarity with the author's work—Plainsong; Blood Meridian; A Brief History of Time. As for books I've worked on, I'd say that titles like Everything Is Illuminated and For the Relief of Unbearable Urges played a part in the success of those books, though exactly how, and how much, who knows?”

Meanwhile, Aragi says that one of her forthcoming books, The Great Inland Sea, was originally titled Agapanthus Tango in the U.K. But “too many people blinked and said, ‘Huh, what’s an agapanthus?,’ ” she says.

“It’s one thing for a title to intrigue, another for it to bemuse,” says Aragi.

Dan Chaon’s You Remind Me of Me was first The Premonitions, which, he says, “I came up with before The Corrections came out. But my editor felt it was too close. I had the title You Remind Me of Me in one of my old title folders, and I realized how well it fit.” MJ Andersen, author of Portable Prairie: Confessions of an Unsettled Midwesterner, started out calling her book Home Beyond Home, but says that St. Martin’s asked her to change it. “Maybe it sounded too abstract,” she says. “They wanted something like Dances with the Daughters of Job.”

And as for Jincy Willett’s Winner of the National Book Award, that catchy title started out as a joke.

“The title was always Fame and Honor,” she says. “But as I got closer to finishing, my publisher told me that the title had to go. It was a drab title. Abstract nouns, apparently, make lousy titles. (War and Peace, for example.) Anyway, I wasn't surprised, but I was kind of cheesed off, because I really liked my title. So I came up with a clever ploy: I would “suggest” increasingly goofy or inappropriate alternatives until, in the end, they gave up and let me keep it. My first outrageous suggestion was based on a story I once heard, about this guy who made a student film entitled something like Winner of Twelve Academy Awards. St. Martin's e-mailed back that this would be problematic, as there might be legal issues, but I asked them to work on it. About a month later they called and said that their lawyers were “fine with the title,” and everybody loved it, and it was already creating “buzz.” Once I realized what they were talking about, I was of course aghast. As it turned out, St. Martin's was right and I was wrong. Only one reviewer really dumped on the title, and I'm sure that the book got much of the attention that it did by virtue of the title alone.”

On the other hand, a title, of course, is only part of the package. As music critic Steve Dollar says, “The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street was originally going to be called Tropical Disease. Either way, it would still be the greatest rock ’n’ roll album ever made.”

As far as I’m concerned, one of my all-time favorite titles is former Eagles’ guitarist Joe Walsh’s album You Bought It, You Name It. Cute, but I didn’t buy the record. And I’m not sure if anybody else did either.

Novel Idea

2005-02-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking of writing a novel about a US president who wants to convert a part of Social Security to private accounts. Should I write it from the standpoint of the stock market boys who will have diarrhea over the prospect of sucking up all that money or should I write it from the standpoint of the company officials who will slober all over themselves in anticipation of getting their firm named as one of the places SS recipients will be allowed to invest?

And, of course, I could write it from the standpoint of the politicians who will receive huge donations to influence their vote when it comes to naming the lucky companies.

Perhaps I should write it from the standpoint of an Enron like company where the planners are already busy figuring out how to screw the whole country.

Decisions, decision. Life -- for an author at least -- is tough.
Bob Liter

Best-selling authors

2005-01-29T04:24:00.000-08:00

Some of my friends, my literary friends, disdain best-selling authors. It's an old thing, this idea that anything that's popular, like a best-selling book, can't be that good or the general public wouldn't buy it.
My best-selling novel buying is pretty much limited to best-selling mysteries. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take this weekend off and read the latest Sue Grafton
mystery. I also have a copy of the latest Nelson DeMille. Both are best-selling mysteries. I like them anyway. I write mysteries, as well as romances, etc. I'm not purposely doing anything to avoid being a best-selling author. Apparently, however, I'm not writing anything, so far, to make me a best-selling author.
This started out as a blog about what books I like to read and an attempt to find out what you like to read. Best-selling authors? Best-selling mysteries? Or just a damned good book, best selling or not?

Origin of ideas

2005-01-27T03:16:00.000-08:00

Where do you get your ideas? It's probably the question most asked of fiction writers. I've written nine novels and close to a hundred short stories and I'd be hard pressed to remember from where most of them sprang.

However, I remember precisely where the idea for one of my Nick Bancroft mysteries originated. It was hatched when I read an Associated Press news report from Jackson, Miss. It said:

A 66-year-old nursing home patient died after being bitten hundreds of times by fire ants that swarmed over her body while she was in bed ... She died four days later from heart failure brought on by physiological stress, according the her physician.

In the opening paragraph of my novel, Death Sting, I wrote:

"However," I read from the local newspaper, "according to the coroner, it wasn't the bee stings that killed her. She apparently died from a heart attack brought on by stress."

Nick Bancroft works in Central Illinois. No fire ants, as far as I know, thus the bee stings.

The idea for the Bancroft novel I've just finished came from a municipal band concert. While I was waiting with my wife for the thing to start my mind played with the idea of a murder at the concert. Thus was born, And The Band Played On.

I also write erotic romances, using the pen name, Cyn Castle. Readers, some with astonished looks on their faces, ask me where I get my ideas.

Apparently they think my memory is gone.

ebooks

2005-01-26T08:14:00.000-08:00

This article appeared in the Jan. 13 issue of the Peoria Journal Star. Since I have seven ebooks published I found it iteresting.

EAST PEORIA - Mark Lasswell hates the thought of lugging books with him, but he still wants to be able to enjoy a good book while waiting for appointments.

He used to purchase electronic books to download to his Palm Pilot, but now he checks them out of Fondulac District Library's eBranch.

"I've started reading more now that we have eBranch," Lasswell said. "I've probably read 20."

And since he's the president of the Fondulac library board, he gets to promote e-books whenever someone sees him scrutinizing his PDA and asks him what he's reading.

E-books are getting good reviews from traditional readers, too.

"I am a book person and I am hooked on e-books," said Nancy Gillfillan, director of Fondulac District Library.

She liked the idea of e-books and spread the word to other librarians about this trend.

"I got them all hooked," she said.

In all, she now has 42 libraries in Illinois that have joined together to offer this service to their patrons.

Gillfillan was president of the Illinois Library Association last year and heard more about the e-book trend. She wrote a grant proposal, and in October received a $130,000 grant called "Leading the Way" from the Illinois State Library.

Each of the 42 libraries in the project received 100 books to start an eBranch and money to buy 200 more titles. Each library also received a PDA so staff can demonstrate how to download books. Training for the libraries was also part of the grant.

"It's affordable or I wouldn't have done it," Gillfillan said.

Although the grant money gets e-books started in all of the libraries, there are additional costs. She said each library will pay a fee each year to continue to program and will probably want to purchase more books beyond what the grant money covered.

Gillfillan says she loves books but also sees the advantages of e-books.

"Parents are waiting," she said.

But beyond the parent waiting for soccer practice to end, there the waiting everyone does - at the doctor's office, the airport or even in traffic.

She also thinks e-books will be helpful to travelers, who could download a travel book to their PDA and take the information about their destination on their trip. And business travelers can take e-books with them to save space in their luggage.

She also said people can cuddle up in bed with their PDA without disturbing their spouse.

"Some people like them in bed because they are backlit," she said.

Right now, Fondulac Library has about 700 titles in its eBranch. Patrons can go to the library's Web site - www.fondulac.ib.il.us - and click on the eBranch. There are detailed directions about how to register and download books. Patrons can also download the MobiPocket software needed for e-books.

"I have people afraid of technology using it," Gillfillan said.

There are other benefits to a paperless book, too.

"There are no fines, no overdues. It's just done," she said.

Patrons also don't have to worry about library hours, since e-books can be downloaded anytime. The books are downloaded to PDAs or even home computers, and expire after a certain length of time.

"It's all virtual," Gillfillan said.

Each library will determine the length of time before an e-book expires, or disappears from a PDA. Some e-books can only be downloaded by one person, while many of the classics can be checked out by several people at a time.

The books that can be checked out by several people would be good for book clubs or high school classes, Gillfillan said.

Pekin Community High School is part of the program, and librarian Cynthia Clark said students will be using the eBranch soon.

"Our school uses a lot of technology, especially in new ways," Clark said.

Clark is on the board of trustees for Fondulac Library and said she wanted the Pekin High library to be included in the grant money.

She said a class will use the e-books this semester for a class project.

"We have a lot of classics that the teachers are excited about," Clark said.

A class will be assigned a book and can download it on a PDA or a computer at school or at home. A message board will be set up, Clark said, and the students will communicate online and will answer questions about the book. PCHS students will use the bar code on their student identification cards to register for e-books.

Clark said she's pleased the program will help Pekin High students who live outside the Pekin Public Library district. The high school library can borrow books from area libraries for those students, but it can take up to two weeks to get a book.

She can purchase an e-book and have it available in 48 hours. E-books cost about the same as a book.

"It's a wonderful opportunity," Clark said.

Libraries from Byron to Marion were included in the grant, Gillfillan said. The libraries are now getting their Web sites updated to include their eBranch. So far, 12 of the 42 libraries have a link on their Web site.

The libraries are also trying to get the public educated on the e-books, she said. Area libraries involved include Morton, Washington, Farmington, Metamora, Peoria Heights, Princeville and Dunlap.

"We've had people that couldn't individually afford it. We're doing more with less, that's been the whole point," Gillfillan said.

Now Clear This

2005-01-25T07:20:00.000-08:00

The president "made it clear."
The governor "made it clear."
The mayor "made it clear."
I’m clear up to here with reporters (print and television) reporting that so and so "made it clear."
To whom was it made clear? To the reporter? "Made it clear" is one of those catch phrases that find their way into journalism from time to time. Reporting that someone made something clear is the opinion of the reporter. Just the facts, please. Let the reader or viewer decide if anything in this world of spin is ever "made clear."

rejections

2005-01-24T08:27:00.000-08:00

Most writers, I’m sure, have had their share of form-letter rejections from agents and publishers. However, every once in a while, I get something encouraging. This handwritten note from a publisher for instance:
Dear Mr. Liter:

Thank you for your submission of AUGUST IS MURDER. It is lively and well done, and I wish I could offer to consider it. But I’m afraid the publishing situation is so dreadful that we have had to cut our mystery list -- and indeed our fiction acquisitions -- to the bone. Review media have tightened and superstore returns been ruinous. I do hope you can place this. Good luck.
The novel has been published by Renaissance E Books but, as always with my novels, I keep seeking a print publisher.
Anyway, it was nice to get the note rather than a form letter. Incidentally, I’ve started a blog at my webb site. Seems to be a way to promote the blogger’s writing.

1/23/05

2005-01-23T14:48:00.000-08:00

I've been busy with my daughter, Martie, getting this blog thing set up. The idea, of course, is to promote my books. I've become aware of what a good job MJ Rose does of promoting her stuff.

Blogging Is Now Part of Bob Liter's Website

2005-01-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

I will be filing a sometimes journal as I work on my newest novel. I write murder mysteries involving detective-freelance writer Nick Bancroft. His stormy love affair with unpredictable Maggie Atley adds spice to Nick's sometimes stumbling efforts to discover who done it.

Check here from time to time for writing discussions of how my writing is going, opinions, etc.

My latest Nick Bancroft mystery is available at Renaissance E Books

I will also keep you posted on when my next book will be released.

For more information about Bob Liter's Home Page which is also the location for Nick Bancroft, Private Detective follow this LINK