Murderson – This is the link to my Murderson ebook trailer.
I’ve been quite busy of late, doing more editing and writing. I’ve actually started my new book! yes, I’m actually about thirty pages in. I’ve decided to write a thriller that I had in mind- yes, there is a serial killer involved. It’s going well, and I’ve been doing plenty of research. As you can see I’ve also put a trailer together for Murderson. I saw some other Kindle writers had done so, so I thought I would have a go. It’s not great, but it’s a bit of fun. Don’t be too hard on me.
Right, now for an excerpt from the third book I plan to upload to Kindle. It’s called Welcome To Killville, USA, and basically it’s a kind of ode to writer Jim Thompson who wrote a lot of books in the sixties and seventies. Some of his work consists of The Grifters, The Getaway, The Killer Inside Me, Hell of a Woman, A Swell Looking Babe, Recoil…to name a few. I grew up reading his books and decided ages ago to try and write a book that had his content and style in mind. Check out his books if you like pulp crime novels. They are very well written.
Here goes:
1
I reach for my cigarettes and light one, propped up in bed, the hands still trying to punch a hole in my door. I’m in no hurry to see who it is, because I know who it is and I’m not open to visitors this early in the morning. I smoke, while listening to the keys being placed in the lock and smile, letting the smoke flow out of my grinning mouth. Then I remember the bag. It’s very important no one touches my bag and, if they do, it’s even more important they don’t look inside. That would mean a whole lot of trouble, for them I mean.
‘Mr. Sichman?’ the Concierge asks and looks around the hotel room before he stares at me. What does he expect to see?
‘That’s me, brother. What can I do for you?’ I smile politely and knock my ash on the bedside table.
‘We have had a lot of reports about your behavior, Mr.Sichman.’
‘Call me Matt.’
‘Mr. Sichman, it was reported to me that you were seen talking to two women in the lobby last night.’
‘Is that a problem? I’m a sociable creature by nature.’
‘It is if those women were prostitutes, which we think they were.’
It’s then a rhinoceros in a suit appears behind him, carrying a radio in one hand and a large torch in the other. Security, they call him. I wonder about the times he might have had to use that torch, guessing that he wasn’t planning to use it for seeing in the dark.
I pull myself out of bed, look at them both, and then I get up and let them see me in all my naked glory. ‘So, what’s really going on here?’
‘We have to escort you from the building. Please put some clothes on, then pack your bags.’ The concierge looked away, but the security man kept on giving me a lifeless, but threatening staring.
I turn and grab my stuff and take a last look out of the window at New York City, or at least the view of a few water towers and an advert for some crappy sitcom. You have to stay at one of the hotels around Central Park to get a view and then you’ll really be paying for it. Basically you’re looking at a myth, something made up by the city planners. Central Park: the green of New York that was once marshland, an enormous square piece of land cut out of the earth and replaced with a man made woodland, greenery and carefully laid pathways. Even the skyscrapers that sit on the very edge of the city, across from lady liberty herself, are sitting on what used to be part of the Hudson River paddling like a bunch of tourists on a trip to the beach.
‘So I’m being thrown out for being friendly, that it?’ I ask and see that my bag is on their side of the bed.
‘You know damn well Mr.Sichman, that it isn’t just last night. Let’s not go into detail. Let’s just say your stay at The West Street Hotel has come to an end.’
‘Can I at least take a shower before you throw me out in the street?’
The Concierge lifts his thick black eyebrows and nods towards the bathroom.
I go in and shut the door, leaning my naked butt on the door. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got kicked out. New York hotels don’t like to see their guests having too much of a good time. Don’t get me wrong, they want you to enjoy yourself all right, so long as it shows on your hotel tab at the end of your stay.
They provide a service, the hookers, I mean. Okay, I didn’t do anything with them, honest, but being seen with them wasn’t a bright move. That’s the problem with New York, it’s been cleaned up too much. Take Times Square for instance, with its neon that stretches wantonly between 42nd street and 47th. Are you telling me that a place so steeped in sinful leisure activities can ever be that clean? You could flood the place with disinfectant and that would only be the start. They may pay the cops to patrol it at night, but there’s a time when they go uptown to make sure that no one’s getting broken into on the Upper East Side, protecting the homes of the wealthy. In the day, the place offers the tourists coffee and pie, some dinner and a show, maybe some tacky souvenir. At night, you can get yourself some other kind of pleasure that will cost you a lot more, and could even leave you with a souvenir that even antibiotics will never get rid of. Times Square is the heart of the city; a stinking, rotten heart and I love it.
I put the shower on and look at myself in the bathroom mirror. My hair used to be light brown, now it’s dyed coal black, sticking straight up like slender fingers. My eyes aren’t very blue anymore, more scarlet. Hell, you’ve got to have a good time when you’re in such a party town.
I shower quickly thinking about my bag and the fact that it’s sitting there, next to those two morons that I bet are just sitting there waiting for me. I didn’t grab it and take it into the shower with me, cause that would have only provoked their suspicions. No, I play it casual and let them sit there with it, let them smoke or whatever they do, twiddling their stupid keys, while I laugh at them, because I know what’s in there.
I dress in a black T-shirt and my jeans and walk out into the room and see them sitting, the concierge on the bed, and the security guy in the chair by the door. I smile and pick up my bag. ‘Shall we go gentlemen?’
We ride the elevator in silence or at least we try to, but tourists from the West Coast battle in with us and talk loudly about the shows they caught the night before.
I find myself at the entrance of the hotel with the Concierge standing behind me, giving pleasant greetings to new guests. And me? I’m old news. I miss that old welcoming smile he gave me when I arrived, when he took my cash. Back then he could see I was a man with plenty to spend.
The thing is, he actually opens the door for me and, because of this, I feel I have to tip him, it’s expected after all. What sort of guest would I be if I didn’t? I didn’t even steal a towel or take any of the shampoo. I guarantee the guests checking out at this very moment, worrying about whether the porn they ordered will show up on their bills, are also carrying away most of the stuff not chained down in their rooms. The tiny soaps, the miniature shampoos, all stuffed into their bulging suitcases. We are all thieves, after all.
I tip him. I take out a five dollar bill and push it into his hand. What can he do? He wants to take it, but accepting a tip from a guy like me, well, I guess it makes him feel less of a man, sort of dirty. But he takes it, folds it and places it in the pocket of his beautifully tailored suit. You can bet it wasn’t purchased at Brooks Brothers
I get myself a yellow cab and look up as I feel a first wet jab of a darkening summer sky. I jump in the cab before that New York rain, which can penetrate your bones, starts lashing at the streets.
The cab driver mumbles something that sounds like Hindu, and I guess he’s asking where I’m heading.
‘Times Square.’ I tell him. I pull my bag onto my lap and make sure the driver has his eyes on the other yellow cabs that are about to hustle in on our bit of the street. I open the bag, ignoring the car horns blaring around me. There they all are, all the presidents looking up at me. They must be having one interesting chat in that bag. Jackson, Grant and Franklin, all talking about their days in the White House. Now they’re just stuffed in my bag. How the mighty fall. I feel a hundred dollar bill, rolling it with my fingers.
I bet SHE wishes SHE was here. I hadn’t thought about her for a while. Who SHE is, it isn’t important, but what she done, it marked me out. It made me what I am and maybe I should thank her for it really. But that’s women for you; they create you, whether they are squeezing you out of their body or trying to slide you in, you’re born again.
Where was I going to go? This born again brother had to get back to somewhere he knew, somewhere that reflected his own lust for fun. You cannot move on until you’ve found your starting point. Right then my body’s compass was spinning round, but I knew as soon as I found my happy place I’d be set to get out of the City.
The cab pulls up on the very spot where Seventh Avenue and Broadway caress each other. I’m in the centre of the theatrical world and maybe that’s the right place to be. I’m Matt Sichman today, but I could be playing another part tomorrow and you’d have to give me some kind of award, because you wouldn’t believe the transformation. I’d like to thank the academy. I’d like to thank my abusive parents, the cruel beautiful girl that made me a laughing stock in High school, and the accidental femme fatale that really didn’t mean to mess with my head, but did a really good job anyway.
There I was, standing in the midst of all those promises of leisurely fun. Giant electronic billboards are telling me what to drink or what sporting brand will make me a superior lover. Across the street they sell electronic goods, T-shirts, shoes, and cheap and tacky cups. They want to sell you the City, but you can never really take it away. It’s just another one of those types of cons, like the ones in London, England, where they would try and sell American Tourists the Tower of London or Big Ben. They’re dealing in memories, memories of a place that doesn’t really exist. New York has become fictional, because we’ve made it that way, seen it in so many television shows so that now, when you’re there, you become fictional too. You have to love it though. Yeah, I love it, even though I pay a damn high price for living here too long with a single dream of one woman.
I hustle over to the centre of Seventh Avenue, onto the traffic island where you can stand and watch the crowds merge from either end, while behind me tourists line up to buy cheap tickets to Broadway shows. The Naked Cowboy guy smiles and nods his head at me and I just let my face show how much I want to ridicule him, but he doesn’t care; walking along Seventh in just your pants and a guitar, hell, that’s the American dream. We fought England for the right to do it and we aren’t giving it up now.
Where am I headed?
Somewhere I can invest some of my time and money. I find a telephone and ring the only guy I can think of that might put me up and the only friend who lives on the East Coast.
‘Hey man,’ Jeff says and I hear him laugh. ‘How you been doing?’
‘Good, brother. Hey, listen, I need a place to stay for a couple of days. I need to get away from New York.’
‘Come by here. You know I’ve got room. Get your ass over here.’
‘That’s good of you, Jeff. You are one reliable bastard.’
‘Don’t I know it? How is that foxy girl you told me about?’
‘I had to kill her.’
Jeff laughs, like I’ve made some kind of great joke. Hell, put me on TV, give me my own show. Late Night with fucking Matthew Sichman, I’ll give them entertainment with genitals and a couple of balls.
He thinks I’m joking and perhaps I am. You don’t know, you weren’t there and perhaps I wasn’t there either and it was a waxwork dummy of me and I was looking on from behind a curtain. All I know is that it ended badly and we both got hurt.
Women have a higher threshold of pain. They are made that way so they can take all you’ve got and just when you think you’ve hammered them into submission, bam, they rip out your heart.
Maybe she was dead. Maybe I’m dead too. In Killville, where Jeff lives, I’ll be born again.
Murderson is still available at Amazon