Fish Nets: The Second Guppy Anthology Read online

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 2013 by SinC Guppies.

  Copyrights to individual stories are reserved by the authors.

  Published by Wildside Press LLC.

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  INTRODUCTION, by Kaye George

  The Guppies have done it again! In 2011, this Sisters in Crime chapter put out an anthology of crime stories, Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology. It was published by Wildside Press and has enjoyed steady sales and good reviews all year long.

  The Guppies are an online chapter made up of and devoted to unpublished writers, and created for mutual support. The name, Guppies, is a shortened version of “The Great Unpublished.” It was a good attitude to take, calling themselves Great. The beginning Gups did such a good job that most of those originals are published authors now. Many of them stayed in the group to help out the newer members. The group grows every year and more and more of the members achieve their dream, a mystery book on a shelf or an e-reader, or on both. Or a story in an anthology or elsewhere.

  The theme of this collection is Fish Nets. Every story herein contains a reference to a fish net. Some of the stories make it central and some peripheral, but it’s there in all of them. Once again, the volume was ably edited by Ramona DeFelice Long, and the stories judged and chosen by fellow Guppies.

  H.S. Stavropoulos’s excellent “White Flip-Flop” starts the volume, setting our expectations high as ethereal images from the sands of a Greek beach shimmer through this tale of old wrongs—and a new one. Not to worry. The bar is set high, but keeps being met in each subsequent story.

  In the historical “Netted” by KB Inglee, a daring young woman who wanted to be a pirate as a child helps solve a tangled mystery in eighteenth-century Delaware. Diane Vallere throws us into the fashion world of Versace…and Big Bird, in “Dress for Success.” Warren Bull gives us a backwoods bible-thumper, an unusual character who picks and chooses Bible verses to suit himself.

  Kara Cerise gets the Best First Line Prize in her “Reef Town”: It was a dark and slimy night. It’s all uphill from there, or maybe upstream. Judy Smith, with “The Girl in the Fishnet Stockings,” takes us on a trip to a tough-talking speakeasy that feels like a fun visit to an old pulp story. In “Keeping Up Appearances” by Julie Tollefson, Nick’s estranged wife disappears. But this emergency is not her usual drama queen stuff. This time their young daughter is missing too.

  “The Hindi Houdini” by Gigi Pandian nets the reader and doesn’t let go in this excellent locked room mystery. In Harriette Sackler’s contribution, young Jamie has gone from a bad home situation into a worse place, the property of a member of the Devils biker gang. Eddie Bell, retired cop, avid fisherman, and author of the Fish Nets column, goes “Fishing for Justice” when he comes across a piece of his past.

  Pamela’s obsession is classifying everything as clean or dirty, in “Clean” by Steve Shrott. Killing someone is too dirty for her. Certainly, she didn’t do it.

  Gary Fish is in a scary situation when he runs into an “Inside Job” in this techno-thriller by Mysti Berry. This story gets the Best Use of the Fish Nets Theme Award with fish.net.

  Michelle Markey Butler gives us “John Calvin Can Bite Me,” a story of two bigoted people who were never meant for each other, clashing as books mysteriously disappear. There’s a great cop duo in Teresa Hewitt Inge’s “Fishing for Murder” that we should see more of in the future.

  Captain Billie, the old net maker, is a poor, filthy creature, but because young Tracey likes his dog, Buck, in Katherine Russell’s “In Seine,” the girl manages to see her way through a tangle of fish nets. In “Lawn Ballerinas” by Beth Hinshaw, the new widow doesn’t miss her abusive husband all that much. He loved fishing, but accidents happen to fishermen.

  The net in Robin’s Nest is for birds, but can have other uses, as we learn in Kate Fellowes’ “Don’t Take That Chance.” When Abby’s father dies in questionable circumstances, in Gloria Alden’s “The Lure of the Rainbow,” she nets the clue to the culprit, along with a rainbow trout. The book covers are being used in Elaine Will Sparber’s “Cover Story,” but not to cover books. The young runaway in E.B. Davis’ “The Runaway” sees something horrifying and grows up fast, just in time for her birthday, on the boat she stows away in.

  Julie starts forming a pilfering habit to get at a fishnet-wearing bimbo, but her plan goes awry in “Routine Changes” by Betsy Bitner. Fancy helps her policeman son get to the bottom of a surprising case in the nicely-put-together puzzler, “Fishy Business” by Jean Huffman. In “The Stonecutter” by Edith Maxwell, Eleanor falls for the exotic title character, but there’s a problem. Edith weaves a gorgeous story soaked in the atmosphere of Portugal to end the volume.

  These stories run from serious to funny to noir to cute to clever to scary. Now there is no longer “The” Guppy Anthology, there are two. Watch for the third.

  THE WHITE FLIP-FLOP, by H.S. Stavropoulos

  August. The end of the season. Next week we’d return to Athens. Alone on my father’s beach, I raked the sand. My job since I was ten. My children took my place over the years but now they are lawyers, doctors and teachers. I hope for grandchildren to do this one day. Or even nieces and nephews if only Zoi would marry. If a man existed to tame that one. At the end of the beach near the outcropping, I dropped my rake.

  I inhaled the air off the Mediterranean. Stuck out my tongue like a snake to taste salt air. I pulled off my shirt. I slipped the chain from around my neck, then thought better of it and put it back on. I threw off my sandals, emptied my pockets, set my father’s lighter gently on my shirt. I stripped down to my underpants. Hell, it had more coverage than a Speedo. I reached the edge of the beach and waded in.

  Unlike the middle of summer when the sea turned warm and as easy to jump in as a bath. Today, cool water chased goose bumps up my legs. Like a man caressing a new lover, anticipating that exquisite moment when the woman would be mine, I entered slowly. And when I could wait no more I plunged in. Dove deep.

  Through window glass clarity I watched tiny fish flee before me. When my lungs threatened to explode, I kicked for the surface and gulped air. I ran my tongue around my lips and tasted the salt. My eyes were too acclimated to sting from the salt. I floated on my back, watching white clouds drift across the sky, then swam further out, diving here and there, looking for the pirate reefs and sunken treasure ships of my childhood imaginings. But I kept away from the underwater ledge and its memories.

  Closer to shore I set my feet down and wiggled my toes into the sandy bottom. I strove forward against the waves retreating into the sea and scanned the beach. I turned to the jut of land that sheltered our beach from wind and surging waves. At the end overlooking the sea, he stood. Panayia! As much a curse as a prayer. The hair on the back of my neck tingled, my heart began to beat faster and I was ten again.

  “Poios einai autos, Baba?”

  “Kosta, speak English. You must practice.” My father spoke heavily accented but grammatically correct English, thanks to fighting alongside a stranded English student during the war. He waved his hands about even when he spoke English.

  “Okay, who is that man?”

  “A paying tourist. Now go fetch an umbrella.”

  “Please sir, where would you like to sit?” I indicated the lounge chairs arranged across the beach with one hand and almost clunked him on the head with the umbrella as it escaped my grasp. “Sorry.” I grabbed it back into my arms, hoping my father had not seen.

  The man laughed and ruffled my hair. “Where is the best spot?”

  Encouraged by his smile I took him to a chair at the curve of the beach ne
ar the outcropping. One could see the entire stretch of beach here. Not too close to the water, yet not too far back. I punched the umbrella deep into the sand, praying it would hold the first time. When it did I turned and triumphantly bowed. I raised my head to find him looking at me. I felt his gaze enter my brain and run down my spine and into my being. His stance was taut. Muscles flexed like a cat before it pounced. I felt the fear churn in my guts and threaten to empty them right then.

  “How is the sea around here for swimming?”

  “Wonderful, if you stay within our cove.” I pointed to the outcropping at his back “But if you swim to the end and try to go around it, the waves hit hard against the rocks and the water,” I made a corkscrew motion with my finger, “can pull you in there and it is very deep.” I didn’t want to scare him away. “But here it’s wonderful.”

  He smiled and flipped me a coin. I caught it and scurried off.

  I ran straight to the kafenio my father and mother owned and operated overlooking the beach. “The best drink, Baba. And meze.”

  My father poured the amber liquid in a glass. As he was about to add ice, I said no. I took out our best tray, wiped it clean and laid the drink, the small plate with olives, pieces of roasted lamb, a slab of feta and a piece of warm sliced bread. My mother looked at me taking such care, then at my father and said, “Big spender?”

  “No, Mama, this is on the house.”

  My mother crossed herself and my father’s worry beads stopped their clack, clack, then continued, clack-clack-clack-clack. I walked fast as if the sound were bullets aimed at my back. We never discussed the Sight, but both knew how to tell when I worked under its sway.

  That night I pulled out the coin from my pocket before bed to find that the man had tipped me a gold lira. Like the kind from the war. People still found bags of them where they landed from the Allied planes to seed the Resistance. My father had one from the English student who had fought the Germans. But the shining coin in my hand was not from a foreigner battling evil.

  Now as I stood knee deep in the sea and watched the man, I thought about that coin at my home in Athens, safe. I hesitated then shrugged and walked out of the waves. What the gods decreed, no man can avoid. It is our mira. I returned to my clothes. Put on the shirt and buttoned it and tucked the chain around my neck inside. My pants still lay on the ground. He would know that I chose to be vulnerable for a reason. I should have put the pants on first but instinct kicked in rather than sense. I felt him rather than heard anything over the lap of the waves coming to shore. I bent and picked up my pants and hurried into them. Then I turned.

  “It’s a bit late but there is still sun enough. If you’d like an umbrella and something to eat and drink, I would be happy to get it for you.” I stood eye to eye with him.

  His face was the same. Age had been kind to him, the wrinkles, mere lines. Like those a child might make in the sand only to be washed away by the next wave. If I blinked my eyes, my father might just come down the path from our kafenio and I’d be ten years old again. His sandy blonde hair hid the white well. I ran a hand through my dark hair. My white hairs were like stripes on a zebra. Aren’t the wicked supposed to wither under the burden of their guilt?

  “Where is the best spot?”

  I led him to the same spot as when I’d been a boy. Retrieved an umbrella and set it easily in the sand at his right near the rake I’d dropped before my swim. When I inherited the business, I purchased umbrellas with sharp metal points on the ends guaranteed to stand firm in the sand unlike the umbrellas that haunted my childhood, that usually flopped down to the ground or, worse still, right on top of a tourist to my shame and my father’s disappointed look.

  I left and walked up to the kafenio. Away from the view of the beach, I made a telephone call. Then I set up the best tray and returned with the amber liquid and meze.

  I’d crossed that span of path to beach and back again a hundred thousand times in my life. Today, memories of my father filled my time. If this were my last walk down this path, I hoped my father would meet me at the end.

  “Here you are.” I placed our best tray near his cigarettes on the little table next to him.

  “I remember your parents. How are they?”

  His lack of pretense surprised me. I thought the game would play out differently. “My mother is well. My father’s been dead for ten years.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Run down in the street. He bled out before someone could help him.” I shivered. “I would have killed the man myself if he’d ever been found. To hell with the blood on my hands.”

  “It’s only the blood of those who trusted you or the innocents that just got in the way that stains.” He wiped one hand with the other then picked up his drink, saluting me with the glass. He sipped then smiled. “The best.” I inclined my head in acknowledgment. He sipped again. “She is the only one whose face haunts me.”

  The goose bumps rose on my skin at his words as if I’d dipped back into the cool sea. That day rolled before my eyes like a film. The first time I saw painted toenails.

  She strode across the beach. A wide brimmed hat hid her hair and large dark sunglasses, her eyes. Her strides were long. At each step her navy dress flowed and darted around her body as if alive. Sometimes covering her completely, sometimes revealing long tan legs. Whack!

  “Hey.” I rubbed the back of my neck where my father had just delivered a slap.

  “Get an umbrella for the lady.”

  A moment later the umbrella was open and sheltering her from the sun. She smiled a wide open smile and showed big even teeth that only Americans had.

  “Hello, would you like a drink? Something to eat?” I said to my reflection in her sunglasses. I looked wider and one side of my face was larger than the other. When she tilted her head to think, my image rotated dizzyingly, until my head almost touched the sand.

  “Frappé.”

  I returned to find that she had shed the dress like an outer skin. Discarded carelessly on the back of the chair, it reached towards her with each breeze like a scorned lover. Her bikini was white and her skin was like the honey from my grandfather’s hives. Smooth fluid amber. Her stomach made a round half dome above her bikini. I moved my eyes away reluctantly to the ground. White flip-flops lay next to her chair. My eyes betrayed me and sought the woman again. I forced them to her feet and noticed the painted pink toenails. This puzzled me about women. I set the iced shaken coffee down and watched a single bead of sweat trace a glistening line into the middle of her bikini top. I suddenly didn’t feel right. First the man and now this woman. Maybe I was getting sick or had been in the sun too long. I trudged back to the kafenio, the sweat running down my back. My legs were heavy as if the sand were sucking me down. I asked for a glass of cold water while my father laughed and my mother flung him daggers with her eyes.

  “Your memory of her is different, I think.”

  His words brought me back. The sound of the gentle lapping of the waves surrounded us. I looked at his face. It revealed nothing, as if carved from a single piece of marble, smoothed and polished into perfection.

  “I remember her pink toes.”

  He smiled. “Ah. Her eyes haunt me.”

  “She wore the Jackie-O sunglasses most of the time I talked with her.”

  “Emerald green eyes, like the deep sea.”

  “A sacrifice for the gods?”

  He tilted his head. “Perhaps Poseidon wanted her for a bride.”

  I laughed. The gods were known for their lust of mortal woman. “Or an all too human man wanted her dead.”

  “Or a jealous wife wanted her husband’s mistress dead.”

  I crossed myself. “Never enrage a woman. Their wrath is limitless.”

  “Amen, brother.” He became quiet. “How long have you known?”

  I reached inside my shirt and pulled out the chain with its ring. “Since I found this.”

  I knew that ring was special when I touched it. The Sight humme
d through my bones like an electric current. My father is, or should I say was, since he’s been buried these past ten years, Deos skoriston, an honest man. My father would go over the sand with a pitch-fork wrapped in cheese cloth at the end of each day. He posted a sign Lost Items underneath our telephone number. He never kept what was not his.

  When the sand combing became my job, I was almost always honest, I only kept the little cars the foreign kids would drop. The thought always made me sad that I was less like my father.

  Then I found the ring I held out in my hand. I turned that day over and over in my mind like the beads of komboloi the men run through their fingers when they sit and drink their ouzos and play backgammon. I remember because the ring was not the only thing I found that day.

  “You didn’t turn it into the police.”

  “I knew we were dealing with things we didn’t understand.”

  “That’s a West Point graduation ring. Her lover was an American Naval officer. He loved her.” He closed his eyes. “He was married and his father-in-law was a very powerful man.” He stood up. “Had you turned it in, the ring would have implicated him.”

  Him? But, I’d always known it was his. The Sight had never failed me before.

  The second day the man had come to our beach. Two bikini clad young tourists were playing paddle ball. They moved across the beach along the water. Their peals of laughter rang through the air. I watched them play. Their bodies glistened with the tanning oil they slathered on each other. Skinny foreign girls in bikinis when Greek girls still wore dresses and swam separately from men. Would Greek girls look the same if they wore bikinis or were foreign girls different? One of the girls hit the ball hard and it headed right for the man. I tried to shout a warning. He reached up and caught the ball. The ring flashed in the sun as he threw the ball back.

  I blinked my eyes and the memory receded. He held a gun in that same hand.

  I stepped closer to the umbrella, grateful for its pointed end. No other avenue of escape presented itself but I could use it as a weapon if I could bend my old body to snatch it up before he shot. Then I remembered. What a fool I am. The pointed ends of these umbrellas made them harder to pull out of the sand. Would I die now, longing for the hated umbrellas of my youth?