AHMM, December 2009 (19 page)
Read AHMM, December 2009 Online
Authors: Dell Magazine Authors
Then, after walking two blocks, he found himself in Garcia Street. Ready to collapse, his mouth dry, he looked from one side of the street to the other. A short distance away a fourteen-year-old boy was hurrying along. He followed him.
"Psst! Psst!"
The boy stopped.
"Hey, cutie. What are you doing out this late?"
"I'm going home. What do you want?"
"Nothing, nothing ... But don't go so soon, pretty one...” And he took the boy's arm.
The boy tried to pull away.
"Let go! I already told you I'm going home."
He wanted to run. But Ramirez gave a lunge and hugged him. Then the frightened street-boy started screaming:
"Papa! Papa!"
Almost immediately, a few feet away, a door opened, suddenly throwing some light into the street. A tall man appeared. It was the worker who had passed by before on Escobedo Street.
Seeing Ramirez he threw himself on him. Our poor man stood there staring back at him, with eyes as big and fixed as plates, trembling and silent.
"What do you want, you dirty bastard?"
And he gave him a furious kick in the stomach. Octavio Ramirez collapsed, with a long painful gasp of desire.
Epaminondas, which must be the worker's name, seeing the prick on the ground, considered that one kick was too little punishment, and gave him two more, splendid and marvelous ones, in that large nose that provoked him like a sausage.
How those marvelous kicks must have sounded!
Like the splattering of an orange, vigorously thrown against a wall; like the collapse of an umbrella whose ribs smack and shiver; like a nut cracked between two fingers; or better like the encounter of another firm sole of a shoe against another nose!
Like this:
Whack!
with a delicious space between.
Whack!
And then: How Epaminondas became greedy for flesh, driven by the instinct of perversity that makes murderers riddle their victims with stab wounds! That same instinct that pushes some innocent fingers, just for fun, to squeeze harder and harder around friends’ throats until they turn purple and their eyes blaze!
How the sole of Epaminondas's shoe slammed against Octavio Ramirez's nose!
Whack!
Whack!
dizzyingly,
Whack! until a thousand points of light like needles pierced the darkness.
Translator's note: Some of Palacio's textual ambiguity is inevitably lost in translation. For example, the police officer describes the victim as “un hombre vulgar,” which means both “ordinary” and “vulgar,” depending on the context; and the newspaper report mentions that the victim was “vicioso,” which covers a range of meanings from self-indulgent and spoiled to vicious and vice ridden. I opted for “ordinary” and “had some vices,” which are probably what the officer and the reporter had in mind, but in each case, much darker connotations are present in the original. (And yes,
“bien culotada pipa"
really means “big-assed pipe.")—K.W.
Copyright © 1927, and reprinted in
Obras Completas,
Editorial El Conejo, 1986. Used with permission of the estate. Translation © 2009 by Kenneth Wishnia.
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INDEX: VOLUME FIFTY-FOUR 2009
Alexander, Gary
Charlie and the Pirates ... Jan/Feb 49
Allyn, Doug
Flashback! ... Jun 26
Atkins, Joseph B.
Pickup on Route 66 ... Sep 86
Boland, John C.
200 Big Ones ... Mar 56
Out of Her Depth ... Dec 28
Brooks, Jay
Oil Slick ... Mar 27
Brown, Fredric
Fugitive Imposter ... Jun 101
Burns, Rex
Constable Smith and the Bone Pointer ... Oct 4
Campbell, Melodie
Santa Baby ... Jan/Feb 62
Chapman, Tim
A Closer Walk with Thee ... Oct 86
Chesbro, George C.
Home Inversion ... Jun 62
Cleland, Jane K.
Designed to Kill ... Jun 36
Culpepper, Mike
How Aunt Pud, Aunt Margaret, and the Family Retainers Kept Me from Hanging ... Jul/Aug 90
The Icicle Judgment ... Jan/Feb 160
The Necklace of Glass ... Nov 26
The Trollfarm Killing ... Dec 16
De Noux, O'Neil
Price Tag Attached ... Apr 26
Deverell, Diana
Silicon Valley Tango ... Jul/Aug 22
Dirckx, John H.
Death inside the Box ... Apr 68
Eliminate the Middleman ... Jan/Feb 110
Real Men Die ... Sep 26
Dobson, Joanne
A Good Cuppa Joe ... Oct 18
DuBois, Brendan
The High House Writer ... Jul/Aug 39
Egan, K. J.
A Small Circle ... Jan/Feb 30
Emerson, Kathy Lynn
Any Means Short of Murder ... Jan/Feb 140
Estleman, Loren D.
Fletcher Flora Introduction ... Apr 101
Rumble Strip ... Nov 38
Soft Lights and Sabotage ... July/Aug 6
Faherty, Terence
The Caretaker ... Dec 75
Fisher, Eve
Death of a Good Man ... Nov 15
The Mound Builders ... Oct 40
The Porcupine Tree ... Jan/Feb 178
Flora, Fletcher
Insurance ... Apr 102
Floyd, John M.
The Powder Room ... Jul/Aug 128
Remembering Tally ... Jan/Feb 102
Franklin, S. L.
Deadline Edition ... Apr 78
Fusilli, Jim
Digby, Attorney at Law ... May 30
Gore, Steven
The Rules of Evidence ... Apr 15
Goulart, Ron
The Case of the Extra Ventriloquist ... May 74
Gregson, J. M.
The American Dream ... May 23
Hubbard, S. W.
Blind Eye ... Mar 96
Ingraham, Jim
Past Imperfect ... Mar 72
Irvin, Janet E.
After the Dreamtime ... Jan/Feb 130
Johnson, Douglas Grant
The Graycats ... Mar 4
Kelner, Toni L. P.
Fredric Brown Introduction ... Jun 100
Law, Janice
The Garden Tour ... Jan/Feb 39
A Life in Books ... Oct 54
Lawton, R. T.
Boudin Noir ... Dec 62
Leiber, Fritz
Space-Time for Springers ... Sep 97
Levinson, Robert S.
Regarding Certain Occurrences in a Cottage at the Garden of Allah ... Nov 80
Lopresti, Robert
Shanks Gets Killed ... May 4
Shanks on Misdirection ... Jul/Aug 54
Mackay, Scott
Russians Come and Go ... Nov 95
McGuire, D. A.
The Disappearance of Billy Dawber ... Jul/Aug 62
Menge, Elaine
Scavenger ... Jul/Aug 108
Moffitt, Donald
Deadly Passage ... Nov 46
Myers, Beverle Graves
A Cutting Wind ... Apr 4
A Good Cuppa Joe ... Oct 18
Nethercott, Michael
O'Nelligan and the Perfect Man ... Dec 42
O'Nelligan's Glory ... Jul/Aug 146
Oleksiw, Susan
A Sorcerer's Fate ... Dec 4
Palacio, Pablo
The Man Who Was Kicked to Death ... Dec 99
Parker, I. J.
The Incense Murder ... Sep 68
Petrin, Jas. R.
Heavy Lifting ... May 42
Nothing Is Easy ... Jan/Feb 6
Ritchie, Jack
The Fabricator ... May 89
Rowan, Iain
Nowhere to Go ... Dec 90
A Walk in the Park ... Jan/Feb 168
Rutter, Eric
Runaway ... Sep 4
Stack, Gilbert M.
Pandora's Mistake ... Mar 32
Stevens, B. K.
Adjuncts Anonymous ... Jun 72
Stodghill, Dick
Deathtown ... Nov 4
Jack the Tripper ... Jun 4
Strong, Marianne Wilski
Death at Syracusa ... Oct 63
Evil by Design ... May 94
Viets, Elaine
Death of a Condo Commando ... May 60
Warthman, Dan
A Dreadful Day ... Jan/Feb 66
There You Go, Sundance ... Sep 50
Warren, James Lincoln
Fritz Leiber Introduction ... Sep 96
Shanghaied ... Jan/Feb 81
Wiecek, Mike
Colorblind ... Oct 96
Wishnia, Kenneth
Pablo Palacio Introduction ... Dec 98
Westmoreland, Kent
Price Tag Attached ... Apr 26
Wydra, Frank T.
Manhunt ... Apr 50
COMING IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
Requiem for Antlers
by Mitch Alderman
Pretty Rita
by O'Neil De Noux
Midnight
by K. J. Egan
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Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (ISSN:0002-5224), Vol. 54, No. 12, December 2009. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. Annual subscription $55.90 in the U.S.A. and possessions, $65.90 elsewhere, payable in advance in U.S. funds (GST included in Canada). Subscription orders and correspondence regarding subscriptions should be sent to 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Or, to subscribe, call 1-800-220-7443. Editorial Offices: 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007-2352. Executive Offices: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT, and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. © 2009 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. The stories in this magazine are all fictitious, and any resemblance between the characters in them and actual persons is completely coincidental. Reproduction or use, in any manner, of editorial or pictorial content without express written permission is prohibited. Submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. POSTMASTER: Send changes to
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