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  ALFRED HITCHCOCK MYSTERY MAGAZINE

  December 2006

  Vol. 51, No. 12

  Dell Magazines

  New York

  Cover by Ping Lee

  CONTENTS

  FICTION

  THE SWEET SCIENCE by John F. Dobbyn

  FALSE KEYS by R. T. Lawton

  NO VIDEOTAPING DURING THE MURDER by John H. Dirckx

  A LESSON FROM PURPLE by Ann Woodward

  MORE THAN ONE KIND OF MEAN by Ernest B. and Alice A. Brown

  THE END OF THE LINE by Leslie Budewitz

  WITH MINE OWN HANDS THIS GRAVE I DIG by Brian Muir

  THE PASSENGER by John C. Boland

  AHMM CLASSIC

  THE MIGHTY QUINN by William G. Tapply

  DEPARTMENTS

  EDITOR'S NOTES

  SOLUTION to the November Unsolved

  REEL CRIME by Steve Hockensmith

  BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

  THE STORY THAT WON

  INDEX

  Visit us online at www.TheMysteryPlace.com!

  Click a Link for Easy Navigation

  CONTENTS

  EDITOR'S NOTES: IN THE COMPANY OF SCHEMERS by Linda Landrigan

  THE SWEET SCIENCE by John F. Dobbyn

  FALSE KEYS by R.T. Lawton

  NO VIDEOTAPING DURING THE MURDER by John H. Dirckx

  A LESSON FROM PURPLE by Ann Woodward

  MORE THAN ONE KIND OF MEAN by Ernest B. and Alice A. Brown

  THE END OF THE LINE by Leslie Budewitz

  Solution to the November UNSOLVED

  REEL CRIME by Steve Hockensmith

  WITH MINE OWN HANDS THIS GRAVE I DIG by Brian Muir

  THE PASSENGER by John C. Boland

  BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

  AHMM CLASSIC THE MIGHTY QUINN by William G. Tapply

  COMING IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2007

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  EDITOR'S NOTES: IN THE COMPANY OF SCHEMERS by Linda Landrigan

  With this issue we reach our golden anniversary: The first issue of AHMM was published in December 1956. Regular readers know that we have been celebrating this milestone all year, with reprints of favorite stories from past issues and the publication of a commemorative anthology, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense, published in June by Pegasus Books. We are convinced that AHMM's longevity is attributable to the wonderful authors we have had the pleasure of publishing over the years. The afternoon before the Edgar awards this spring, we had an opportunity to pay tribute to those authors at our annual cocktail party (cohosted by our sister magazine Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine). The pictures here are of some of the illustrious faces in that crowd. And to all our authors and readers, thank you for fifty years of support!

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  Eve Allyn (wife of Doug Allyn), Margaret Maron, and S. J. Rozan

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  Doug Allyn

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  Edward D. and Patricia Hoch

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  Lois and John F. Dobbyn

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  Ron Goulart

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  Jeremiah Healy and Tom Savage

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  Claiborne Hancock, publisher of Pegasus Books, and Otto Penzler, proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York

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  Judy Downer, former assistant editor at AHMM and wife of Alan Gordon, right

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  Abigail Browning, Dell Magazines Subsidiary Rights and Marketing Manager, and James Lincoln Warren

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  From left, Peter Kanter, Publisher of Dell Magazines, Eve Allyn, and K.j.a. Wishnia

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  Nicole Sia, AHMM Editorial Assistant, and Charles Ardai, publisher of Hard Case Crime

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  Parnell Hall and Jim Weikart

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  Dell Magazines art and advertising departments, from left: Victoria Green, Senior Art Director; Connie Goon, Advertising Sales Coordinator; Shirley Chan Levi, Art Production Associate; Julia McEvoy, Advertising Sales Manager.

  Photos by Sarah Tilotta

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  Correction: The credit line accompanying Jim Fusilli's story “Shatterproof” in the October issue should have read “Copyright (c) 1988 by Jim Fusilli; orgin-ally published in AHMM April, 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author."

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE SWEET SCIENCE by John F. Dobbyn

  Sean Qualls

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  He raised his right hand as if it were a pistol, took aim at the priest, and pretended to fire.

  I finally found the address—no mean feat in the bowels of that Irish enclave north of Boston called Charlestown. I'd been here once before, but it was always a challenge.

  I pulled up to the curb in front of a building with a sign that declared through a half century of grime, SULLIVAN'S GYM. Whether it implied some ancient connection with “The Boston Strong-boy,” the great John L. Sullivan of the bare-fist days, is anyone's guess.

  I stayed in the car with the motor running. I figured this was not a place where you parked and left a Corvette with any serious hope of seeing it intact or at all.

  Being in this old neighborhood brought back the first time I was introduced to Matt Flaherty. It was about two years earlier. My senior partner in the law firm of Devlin and Knight, Mr. Lex Devlin, had hauled my uninspired carcass, worn from a day of courtroom combat defending some worthy charged with aggravated assault, down to the neighborhood of Monument and Pearl streets on a mission.

  I remember Mr. Devlin pointing to a third floor window in one of the tenements and announcing with a certain pride that he was born in that room. He pointed to a window in the next tenement and announced with greater pride that Matthew Flaherty was born in that room the following week.

  My response was an uninspired, “I see."

  He gave me that quizzical look and said, “You're showing a remarkable lack of enthusiasm, Michael."

  "It's the best I can do, Mr. Devlin. My enthusiasm hasn't been fed since breakfast, and I haven't the foggiest idea of who Michael Flaherty is."

  "Matthew Flaherty, lad, and I intend to cure that gap in your education this very night."

  He led me through the tired old door on complaining hinges that opened into Sullivan's Gym. The din of leather smacking every shape of punching bag seemed the right accompaniment to the pungent wave of sweat, ancient and modern, that stung the nostrils.

  We walked to the side of the center ring where a couple of heavyweight boxers were hammering each other at close range. When the bell rang and the gloves and sparring helmets came off, Mr. Devlin introduced me to one of the fighters, the aforementioned Matthew Flaherty. My first shock was that a man of Mr. Devlin's vintage, somewhere in the middle seventies, was in condition to give and take the punishment I'd just seen handed out in the ring. My second shock came when the aging pugilist had showered and dressed and rejoined us in the full dress of a Catholic priest. That was over two years ago. I hadn't seen Father Flaherty since then.

  On the button of five o'clock, Mr. Devlin's five-year-old Lincoln Tow
n Car pulled up behind me. I went back and opened the car door for him out of respect for the difference between his seventy-plus years and my twenty-eight.

  He sprang his two-hundred-pound frame out of the car with an agility that made me think he should be opening the door for me. After eight hours of fending off the legal spitballs of a prosecutor in the criminal session of Suffolk County Court, I had been ready to wilt into three fingers of The Famous Grouse scotch and twenty ounces of strip steak. That inspiring thought died on the vine when I got a phone message from Mr. Lex Devlin telling me to meet him at five at Sullivan's Gym.

  For the second time in my life, we walked through that door into a world that is light-years from anything else I've ever experienced. The center of the large room was consumed with the ring that held two fighters going at each other full tilt. We went over to ringside. What with the padded sparring helmets and mouth guards, the faces gave up little by way of identity, but the bodies told a story. One was young, fresh, and taut. The other was equally muscular, but something about the skin said that it was two, maybe three times the age of the other.

  The younger body was amazingly quick, with a good sense of the rhythm that makes a natural fighter, but the older body showed the learning of age and experience. More often than not, the boy's punches struck air or glanced off the arms of the older man. And through it all, punctuating with grunts when he'd take a punch to the body, the older man kept up a running litany of prompts.

  "Keep up that left! Move with me! You're off balance. Dig in that foot when you throw the right!"

  I was mesmerized by the gracefulness of the dance in spite of the violence. Perhaps that's why the old timers call boxing “the sweet science."

  Finally a bell sounded. The two bodies wrapped their arms around each other until they could catch their breath. The older man was talking low, and respect for every word was written all over the young man's face.

  "Give it fifteen minutes on the light bag before you shower. And Tony, you're in by eight o'clock tonight. You hear?"

  Tony nodded and the older man cuffed him a light tap on the back of the head as he jogged off.

  The older man caught sight of us and came over to the side of the ring. When he took off the helmet, the shock of white hair reminded me that Father Flaherty was one week younger than Mr. Devlin.

  We exchanged handshakes. He was still taking deep breaths when he asked if the two of us could join him for dinner. It was either my skipped lunch or the uncertainty of the timing of my next meal that pulled a “Yes!” out of me slightly before he fully got out the invitation. He grinned at my enthusiasm and said he'd join us after a shower.

  When he left, I leaned over to Mr. Devlin.

  "When he was a fighter, how good was he?"

  "Boxer, son.” He moved over to a seat beside the ring.

  "Matt was a champ in the making. He won Golden Gloves heavyweight by the time we were twenty. He went through the early stages of a pro career without a loss."

  "I think you told me once, but why did he quit?"

  "Quit, is it? Matthew Flaherty?” Mr. D. was on his feet beside me. I realized too late that I'd hit the same nerve I hit two years ago when I made the mistake of asking the same question.

  "The man never quit on anything or anyone in his life. There was a lowlife in the neighborhood, ran a gambling syndicate. He put pressure on Matt to take a dive in a particular fight. Matt would have none of it. He came out of his corner that night like he was swinging at the devil. Knocked his man out in the second round just to show them where he stood. When he got home, four of them were waiting for him. Those hands could never land a heavyweight punch again."

  We watched two new fighters sparring in the ring in front of us for a bit before Mr. D. spoke again.

  "That's when Matt found another way to fight the bad guys."

  I was about to speak, when we both felt a massive arm around our shoulders. The hand on my shoulder was knobby and gnarled with fingers that each seemed to choose its own direction. I turned and saw the rugged look of the older boxer dressed in blacks and a Roman collar.

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  Dinner was served by Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, the elderly Irish cook at the rectory of Saint Anthony's Church, a couple of blocks from the gym. She was no Emeril Lagasse, but that woman could do magical things to a corned beef and cabbage. The wine flowed liberally at the hand of our host, and by seven o'clock I felt fully restored to a level of contentment I hadn't remembered in weeks.

  Father Flaherty had been in good spirits throughout the evening. At this point, he leaned across the table toward Mr. Devlin, with a smile of anticipation the width of his face.

  "What did you think of him, Lex?"

  "Of...?"

  "Of Tony? Tony Amato. The boy I was sparring with."

  Mr. D. paused for some thought before answering.

  "He's quick. He's got all the natural tools. I also saw some of the timing, some of the finesse that a certain fighter had when you and I were eighteen. I think I know where he got it."

  Father Flaherty sat back with a grin even broader.

  "He's ready, Matt. He's going to have his last fight at the club level this Friday night. I hope you can be there. You too, Michael. He's fighting a good boxer, Hector Gallo, but he can take him. Then I'm going to turn him pro."

  "And where from there, Matt?"

  Father Flaherty leaned forward.

  "Someday I want you both to remember that you heard it at this table. That boy's going to be the next middleweight champion of the world."

  Mr. D. smiled with him.

  "That's ambitious, but I trust your eye, Matt. Where'd you find him?"

  "Judge Madsen called me. There was a gang fight. Tony was the last one standing. With nothing but these."

  He held up his two tree stumps of fists.

  "The judge needed someone to take responsibility for him. That was three years ago. He's been living with one of the families in the parish. I've been training him since then. He wants it for all the right reasons. He's going to lift his family out of here. He can do it, Lex. I've got the feeling."

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  That Friday night, Mr. D. and I were sitting ringside at the Boston Arena. Father Flaherty reserved seats for us beside Tony's corner. The arena was in the south end of Boston. It held about three hundred spectators, mostly of the male persuasion. I came to realize through the preliminaries that club boxing is every bit as much the raw blood sport as its uptown professional version, without the velvet coating.

  About ten o'clock, a cheer went up when Father Flaherty in civilian clothes walked his future champion down to the ring and through the ropes. Both boxers went through the usual bouncing and shadowboxing while their managers kept their shoulder muscles limbered.

  The referee's instructions were given, gloves were tapped, and the bell sent these modern gladiators into combat.

  There was a lot of bobbing and weaving in the first round. Each fighter felt out the speed and style of the other. Both gave and both took the tentative first round punches. At the bell, I could see tension on the face of Father Flaherty. From where we sat, I could hear him jackhammering instructions into Tony's ear.

  The bell called the boxers back to action. I could see the tension growing on Father Flaherty's face. I noticed the two boxers opening up the give and take with more ferocity, but I must have been missing whatever was deepening Father Flaherty's scowl.

  When the bell brought Tony back to the corner, Father Flaherty fired jibes at him like a machine gun.

  "Tony, what are you doing? You're dropping your left. You're sweeping your right. That kid's going to catch on. He's going to tag you right down the middle. You never did this. What're you doing?"

  Tony just focused straight ahead and mumbled “It's okay. It's okay. I know what I'm doing."

  The stunned look that brought to Father Flaherty's face never found its way into words. The bell sounded and Tony was back in the mix. The third round went worse
than the second. Tony took several hard punches inside. One vicious left opened up a cut over his right eye. By the time he got back to the corner, blood covered the right side of his face. His cut-man cleaned away the blood and was about to apply an astringent, when Father Flaherty pulled him away. He turned Tony's face toward him and said from two inches away, “What's going on?"

  Tony tried to turn away, but Father Flaherty held his face in front of him. “Tell me now, before it happens!"

  I thought I could almost see tears forming in Tony's eyes, when he said something in a whisper. Father Flaherty straightened up and stared at something across the ring. He was looking into the beady eyes of a fat man with greasy thinning hair in the front row. The smirk on his face turned to a grin when Father Flaherty locked eyes with him.

  The one who really caught my attention was the tall figure sitting next to him. He was dressed in a dark suit with a turtleneck shirt. He sat ramrod straight. There was no expression on his face whatever, but what gave me a case of the chills were his eyes. I've seen more warmth in the eyes of a sand shark than in those two pools of cold steel. And they never left Father Flaherty.

  The cut-man in Tony's corner was yelling at Father Flaherty that he had to stop the bleeding before the next round. Father Flaherty ignored him and held Tony's face two inches from his own.

  "What's the deal, Tony? All of it!"

  I could just make out Tony's words.

  "He told me to go down. It has to be in the sixth round or he loses. I got to make it look good till the sixth."

  Father Flaherty was shouting now.

  "Why, Tony? What'll they do?"

  "I can't..."

  "What, Tony? Tell me!"

  "They'll kill..."

  "Who, Tony? You? Your family? Who?"

  Tears were flowing into the streaming blood on Tony's face.

  "You, Father! You!"

  Father Flaherty seemed struck by a bolt of lightening. He stood straight up and looked across the ring at the beady eyes that were grinning back at him. He reached around and grabbed the towel that hung around the cut-man's neck and threw it into the ring.