The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 Read online

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  The Best American

  Mystery Stories 2006

  Ed by Scott Turow

  No copyright 2011 by MadMaxAU eBooks

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  Contents

  Foreword

  Introduction by Scott Turow

  KAREN E. BENDER

  Theft

  C. J. BOX

  Pirates of Yellowstone

  JAMES LEE BURKE

  Why Bugsy Siegel Was a Friend of Mine

  JEFFERY DEAVER

  Born Bad

  JANE HADDAM

  Edelweiss

  WILLIAM HARRISON

  Texas Heat

  ALAN HEATHCOCK

  Peacekeeper

  EMORY HOLMES II

  A.k.a., Moises Rockafella

  WENDY HORNSBY

  Dust Up

  ANDREW KLAVAN

  Her Lord and Master

  ELMORE LEONARD

  Louly and Pretty Boy

  LAURA LIPPMAN

  The Crack Cocaine Diet (Or: How to Lose a Lot of Weight and Change Your

  Life in Just One Weekend)

  ED MCBAIN

  Improvisation

  MIKE MACLEAN

  McHenry’s Gift

  WALTER MOSLEY

  Karma

  JOYCE CAROL OATES

  So Help Me God

  SUE PIKE

  A Temporary Crown

  EMILY RABOTEAU

  Smile

  R. T. SMITH

  Ina Grove

  JEFF SOMERS

  Ringing the Changes

  SCOTT WOLVEN

  Vigilance

  Contributors’ Notes

  Other Distinguished Mystery Stories of 2005

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  Foreword

  Now that Best American Mystery Stories has reached its first decade, I thought I’d go back and reread the forewords I’d written for the first nine to see if I had anything original to say (which would be a major coup for me at any time). Well, I don’t. What I do realize is how much has changed in ten years and how much has not.

  Among the changes are that I (stupidly) crowed about not having a computer for the first few volumes. I do now and couldn’t live without it. Even though I am a card-carrying Luddite and have a certificate from the Lead Pencil Society on my wall, I should have realized sooner that a computer would help me to be a better correspondent and better able to do research.

  It almost seems quaint to read in that first volume that I looked at five hundred stories. My invaluable colleague, Michele Slung, now scans as many as 1,500 mystery stories and double that number of pieces of fiction to determine whether they are eligible for consideration for this genre-specific volume. Don’t ask me how she does it; I’ve never known how she could read that quickly, make such good decisions, and have such extraordinary retention.

  The reasons for these dramatically increased numbers are the proliferation of electronic magazines, or e-zines, and the greater access we have to small literary publications.

  Literary periodicals are among the most thankless efforts on the planet, as well as the most optimistic. Most are run on a volunteer basis or for wages so miniscule that sharecroppers would be outraged and insulted if given the same pay. They often have tiny circulations of a few hundred copies, and the staff spends as much time fundraising as it does producing these handsomely made books.

  Ten years ago, it was a struggle to find these journals. I didn’t know where to find them all, didn’t know who ran them, and didn’t know how to get access to their stories. Further, I have to admit that not everyone involved was as cooperative as one might have wished. The common response to requests for a copy of the magazine was that it didn’t publish mystery stories (you could almost hear the sneer jump off the page). That has largely changed, as every edition of this series has featured large numbers of stories culled from the pages of so many of these worthwhile publications. Story Quarterly, The Harvard Review, The Ontario Review, The Baltimore Review, McSweeney’s, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, The Chattahoochee Review, Glimmer Train, Epoch, Eureka Literary Magazine, Puerto del Sol, Washington Square, and The Georgia Review are just a few of the journals from which mystery stories have been honored. I am extremely grateful to the editors for their dedication and assistance.

  As time goes by, it becomes more apparent that each volume of Best American Mystery Stories is a collaboration. The favorite reading of Nat Sobel, the greatest agent in the world, is literary journals, and when he sends a story to me it goes to the top of the pile because he knows a real writer when he reads one. Friends from all parts of the country call or e-mail or send me stories, wanting to be sure I didn’t miss something important. My editors at Houghton Mifflin are a dream come true. Never, not once, have they hinted that they’d like more best-selling writers in the book, or a different demographic mix, or stories that would appeal more to older or younger readers, East Coast readers or Southern readers or California readers, male readers or female readers, intelligent readers or those who like it when cuddly kittens solve the crime. Because they have been publishing the most honored and successful anthology in the United States, Best American Short Stories, for more than ninety years, they understand it’s about the excellence of the writing, that nothing else matters, which is what my guest editors and I have been trying to provide.

  Speaking of whom, the contribution of these superb writers should never be underestimated. Only if you, too, are a celebrity can you begin to understand the number of requests made of major authors. Speak to writers’ groups, schools, fundraisers, and publishers’ events. Go on a book tour and do interviews for radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, as well as in-store signings at the chains — and don’t forget the independents. Read this book and provide a quote for the dust jacket. Write a short story for my anthology or an introduction for my book. Write faster, since we have to have a book every year. Then go on a book tour in England, France, Germany, and Australia. And why haven’t you finished reading your proofs yet? It’s grueling, even though it sounds like fun, and frequently is fun. No one is suggesting that being a successful writer is harder work than being a small farmer, a steelworker, or a fireman, but the time drains are enormous. What makes it worse, of course, is that every one of the authors who agreed to be guest editors for the series are really nice people. No kidding — they really are swell. They hate to say no, so find themselves up to their eyeballs with demands that would sink lesser people.

  So, in all gratitude and humility, sincere thanks to Robert B. Parker, the first guest editor, and to the cherished friends who followed: Sue Grafton, Ed McBain (the pseudonym of my dear friend Evan Hunter, who sadly passed away last year), Donald E. Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Ellroy, Michael Connelly, Nelson DeMille, Joyce Carol Oates and, of course, one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, Scott Turow.

  This brings me to an embarrassing confession over which I had no control. The astute reader (and that includes one and all who were sharp enough to add this volume to their libraries) will notice that there are five stories (out of twenty-one) from a single volume. The lamentable fact is that the book, Dangerous Women, happens to have been edited by, ah, me. It was my mission to convince as many outstanding writers as possible that it was a good idea to write a story about a femme fatale for this book, and I appear to have succeeded too well. When Mr. Turow selected these stories, I demurred, since l am not a complete idiot and recognize the concept of conflict of interest. He pointed out that the best stories of the year were supposed to go into this volume, regardless of who commissioned it, and that pretty much ended the dis
cussion. Two of the stories, Andrew Klavan’s “Her Lord and Master” and Jeffery Deaver’s “Born Bad,” were nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe award, and I cannot believe that if you read the stories by Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, and Walter Mosley that you could think them unworthy. Therefore, I’d like to go on record and say that if you see this as a problem, blame the authors for having written too well.

  As relentlessly as I work at it, there is always the possibility that I will miss a story, so if you are an author, an editor, a publisher or an interested observer, please feel free to send recommendations to me. (Almost) full disclosure: after 28 years in one location, my bookshop moved in the fall of 2005 and, in all the chaos, an anthology (best left unnamed, lest the editor decide to come after me with an axe, which may be extreme but would have some justification) was overlooked. I am confident that a couple of stories would have received serious consideration for this collection and I’m sick about it. So please, wherever a good mystery story may appear, I’ll be delighted to know about it.

  Here are the guidelines: any mystery story (defined as any work of fiction in which a crime or the threat of a crime is integral to the theme or the plot) published first in the United States or Canada during the calendar year 2006 is eligible. It must be submitted either as a complete periodical or anthology, or a tear sheet with the name and address of the publication or the editor. If it first appeared in electronic format, it must be submitted in a hard copy, together with the issue number of the e-zine and contact information. Original stories are not eligible.

  Last, the drop-dead date for submissions is December 31. It remains unfathomable to me why people decide to submit a story published in April on or around Christmas Day. Last year, no joke, my mailbox brought more than eighty submissions between Christmas and New Year. It also brought more than a score after January l with apologetic letters dated December 28 or 29. The book actually has a deadline, so I passed up the opportunity to read them. I want everyone who writes something good to have a fair chance of getting into this series and, trust me, opening the envelope on Christmas Eve gets the reading started with one strike against it. Send the story as soon as it’s published. That way you won’t forget, and I get to read it wanting to love it rather than murmuring curses at it. Extensive notes are made throughout the year, so don’t worry that an early submission will be neglected or forgotten. No submission will be returned. If you refuse to believe the postal service will actually do what it’s supposed to do, which is deliver the mail, enclose a self-addressed postcard to receive acknowledgment of delivery. Please do not ask for critiques of your work — that was your editor’s job.

  All submissions should be sent to Otto Penzler, The Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007 (please note this is a new address).

  O.P.

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  Introduction

  First, a confession. I have little business being the guest editor of this volume. Although I have always read short stories qf every kind with appreciation, I seldom write them. My rate of story production can be measured on a geologic scale, about one every decade. Looking at my predecessors in this role, I would describe all of them as distinguished practitioners of the form. Not so here. In other words, the opinions expressed are not seasoned by an insider’s experience. But as is so often true with lawyers, a lack of qualifications will not keep me from speaking.

  Let me start, then, by reflecting on the traditional title of this series, Best American Mystery Stories. To be sure, some of the stories that appear here, like Walter Mosley’s “Karma,” are elegant small mysteries, if mystery is taken to have its traditional meaning as a story about the investigation of a puzzling crime. Characteristically, mysteries focus on the detection of the crime’s perpetrator, or more broadly, discovering (or revealing) why that enigmatic crime occurred. Andrew Klavan’s “Her Lord and Master” is a mystery in that second sense.

  But many other stories included here never raise those questions. Instead, what the fictions Otto Penzler and I have chosen hold in common is their subject matter. Every one is about crime— its commission, its aftermath, its anxieties, its effect on character. Best American Crime Stories would be equally, if not more, apropos as the title of this book.

  In fact, more than any other theme, these stories are portraits, in styles ranging from sly to harrowing, of how crimes occurred — the evolution of circumstances so that bad-acting becomes inevitable. “Vigilance” by Scott Wolven or “Ringing the Changes” by Jeff Somers are only two of many possible examples, both gritty and compelling. In fact, more than half the stories here culminate in the commission of one particular offense. So as not to spoil things, I will not name the crime, but let me say if you like all your characters living at the end of a story, this may not be the book for you.

  Yet, I would venture that crime is not the only point of intersection between these stories. If you were to compare most of them to those in the companion volume, Best American Short Stones, you might feel, more often than not, that they somehow seem different. Despite what some critics contend, the distinction is not in elegance of execution — many of these stories, such as R. T. Smith’s “Ina Grove,” are technically masterful; nor in the depth of psychological insight — Alan Heathcock’s “Peacekeeper” is a moving revelation of the interdependence of an individual and a community; nor in the uniqueness of voice or vision. There are few American stylists as distinctive as Elmore Leonard, whose usual roadside magic is displayed in “Louly and Pretty Boy Floyd.” The difference is that the majority of these stories proceed on different assumptions about what a short story is supposed to do when compared to what I’d call “mainstream” contemporary stories that might be taught in a literature class.

  If we are seeking the literary heritage of the majority of these stories, we must hark back to the nineteenth century and the quintessential form that was perfected by writers like Hawthorne and Poe in the United States and Guy de Maupassant in France (and sublimely mastered by Chekhov). The classic short story arose as a function of rapid increases in literacy and the far broader circulation that resulted from newspapers and magazines that were, in today’s terms, hungry for content. Stories in that era evolved from being anecdotal and diffuse to aiming to create a dominant impression at the end. In pursuit of that goal, they took a conventional form some of us were taught to recognize in grade and high school. They had a beginning, a middle, and an end, meaning they presented a conflict, an exposition, and a resolution. I’ll call them three-act stories for convenience. Mysteries are classic three-act stories, which is why naming these volumes Best American Mystery Stories is actually very fair.

  Most of the stories here adhere, at least roughly, to that framework. They are tales in which the reader wants to know about the situation as much as the character, where the traditional question of suspense — “What happens next?” — is foremost. Laura Lippman’s “The Crack Cocaine Diet” or Mike MacLean’s “McHenry’s Gift” are fine examples in which the denouement in both instances startled, and therefore delighted, me. Often, in stories of this species, we care as much about how the problem is worked out as we do the psychology of the main character. Ed McBain’s “Improvisation” is a glimmering case in point, as you’d expect of a story that begins, ‘“Why don’t we kill somebody?’ she suggested.” “Edelweiss” by Jane Haddam develops the same theme and, intriguingly, comes to a kindred resolution. This is not to suggest that psychological insight is incidental or absent in these stories. Instead, the assumption is that the resolution of conflict will provide a final and telling window into character, and therefore that plot and character are functions of one another. “Dust Up” by Wendy Hornsby and William Harrison’s “Texas Heat” employ that strategy to winning effect.

  At the beginning of the twentieth century, James Joyce’s Dubliners abandoned the traditional three-act form of short fiction. Joyce’s epochal stories share the narrative approach of modernist poetry,
and evolve toward, in Joyce’s chosen term, an “epiphany,” a moment of realization, for the reader first, and quite often, for the character, too. Emily Raboteau’s brief gem, “Smile,” is an exquisite exemplar of that approach. The narration evolves only as far as is necessary to achieve that insight. If you ask about the character’s circumstances — where she lives, what she does everyday — they are often little changed. To the question, “What happened in the story?” the answer might be, at least outwardly, “Not very much.” Karen Bender’s potent and fully realized “Theft” provides a splendid illustration of this.

  As should be clear, I am a devotee of stories of both kinds, and therefore we’ve included stories of both schools. Moreover, it is certainly the case that the distinctions I’ve suggested are not hard and fast ones. For several decades now, the somewhat rigorous boundaries that existed forty years ago between high and low culture in American literature have been breaking down. Looking back, it is not unusual for some stories to appear in both the Best Mystery and Best Short Story volumes. Joyce Carol Oates’s “So Help Me God” crosses the borders I’ve declared, which has been typical of her world-revered body of work for decades now. R. T. Smith’s “Ina Grove” is a little bit of everything: it’s a mystery by the definition I’ve included, a searching exploration of individual psychology, and a story with a beginning, middle, and end — several of them in fact. It is also a work of imposing literary art. Indeed, several of these stories are really both fish and fowl. Joyce was determined to wring meaning from the warp and woof of typical daily experience, as opposed to the rare personal cataclysm that crime, for example, represents. Since all of these are crime stories, they are exiles from a pure-blooded Joycean kingdom, but Sue Pike’s “A Temporary Crown” or Emory Holmes’s “A.k.a., Moises Rockafella” are nonetheless moving portrayals of minds in the grip of decline that come to moments of haunting crystallization.