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SUSPICIOUS MINDS ~ TEASER!
ALL ELVIS ALL THE TIME – WELL, MAYBE NOT – CHECK OUT SUSPICIOUS MINDS AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF . . . $2.99 FOR YOUR KINDLE OR NOOK . . .
SUSPICIOUS MINDS ~ PART ONE ~ THE KING IS DEAD ~ 1977
ONE
MARCH 23, 1977 ~ ST. LOUIS CEMETERY NO. 2 ~ NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Even before he turned the black DEA sedan through the cemetery gates, Lew Sutton knew his partner was not going to play ball. Gordon Fontaine hated all drug dealers, but he was obsessed with Zachary Arceneaux. In his bones, Lew could feel trouble brewing. It always did when Gordy was around.
"Are you going to be a good boy?" Lew asked, as he stopped the car next to a curb overrun with crab grass. Worn and discolored headstones tilted at higgledy-piggledy angles all around them.
"If I was going to be good, would I even be here after getting chewed out by our boss for the disturbance I caused last night at the rosary?" Gordy was slumped down on the passenger side of the car with his feet up on the torn and battered dashboard. He wore dark glasses and a loud Mexican guayabera shirt. The shirt hung out over his jeans to hide the gun on his hip. Two toothpicks moved cynically back and forth across his lips. Gordy's version of cool.
Lew laughed quietly. "I thought I was going to have a heart attack when you started trying to haul the body out of the coffin and Arceneaux's goons had to restrain you.
"Yeah, and a fat lot of help you were. I'm telling you that was no cadaver in that coffin. At least it wasn't Arceneaux's cadaver.
"Come on, Gordy," Lew implored. "Arceneaux is dead. You saw the body at the viewing last night. Let it go, man. Don't let him ruin your career from beyond the grave."
Gordy shot upright in his seat. "He ain't dead and you know it. If that body we saw last night was any more waxy, it would have had a wick in it. You saw it yourself – the body was sweating."
"Yeah, yeah. You've told it all to me before," Lew put up a hand to interrupt. "Dead bodies don't sweat, but wax ones do."
"Hey, pal," Gordy said. "Nobody twisted your arm to make you come here today. The director is after my badge not yours. If you want to split and go chase street junkies, just drop me here." Gordy started to get out of the sedan, but Lew reached across with a long fingered claw and grabbed him by the shirt collar.
"Damn it, Gordy. Don't screw with me." Lew hauled Gordy back into the car. "We've been partners for a long time. I wanted to put Arceneaux away as much as you did."
"No way! Nobody wants Arceneaux as bad as me."
"There you go with that present tense stuff again. The man is dead. Gone! Finito! Crossed over to the other side! He's gone for a cruise down the River Styx!"
"In a parallel universe maybe, but not in this world. I'm telling you Zachary Arceneaux is alive! I can feel it."
Lew threw up his hands. "Next, you'll be telling Jimmy Hoffa is still alive."
"Yeah, well, you probably bought all that crap about Paul McCartney being dead. Play Abbey Road backward – 'Paul is dead, Paul is dead.' What a load of crap!"
"Gordy, we saw the body!"
"We saw a body. It wasn't Arceneaux's."
Zachary Arceneaux was known in New Orleans as King Cajun. His organization ran drugs through the Louisiana bayous and swamps with the ease and viciousness of a gator running down its prey. The Mississippi River had become Arceneaux's personal drug artery to the rest of the country.
Arceneaux was a merciless, sadistic taskmaster with a finger in every profitable pie – prostitution, gambling, politicians, real estate, and every other hydra-head of corruption. Drugs, however, were his power base. Anyone who threatened that area of his empire felt the bone crushing bite of King Cajun.
Gordy's father, Max Fontaine, had been one of those caught in Arceneaux's jaws.
Fifteen years ago, Max Fontaine had been the Drug Enforcement Agency's top undercover agent. His job had forced him to be away from home a lot. Since Gordy's mother had died in labor, this meant that Gordy was left with an aging and childless aunt and uncle to raise him. Gordy didn't mind. He idolized his father, and his aunt and uncle were good to him.
As Gordy grew up on stories of his father's exploits, he came to believe Max was invulnerable – a champion who was far more interesting than any comic book superhero.
When Max told his son he was going undercover in the bayous, Gordy figured it was just another routine assignment. Max would be gone for a few months and then return with another batch of thrilling tales. This time, though, things were different. Max didn't come back. When Arceneaux chewed Max up and spat his tattered body out on the shores of the Mississippi, Gordy's future became locked in. Arceneaux was going to be taken down, and Gordy was going to do it.
Trading on his father's old contacts, Gordy joined the Drug Enforcement Agency as soon as he was old enough. His abrasive personality did little to endear him to his DEA peers, but his impressive arrest record kept his career on track.
For the past ten years, he had been playing gator and mouse with his father's old adversary. And just when the mouse had been about to turn the tables, the gator had been declared dead.
Gordy was convinced, however, that the gator was only playing opossum.
"We going to do this, or what?" Gordy asked.
"Yeah, yeah." Lew shook his head and put the car back into gear.
Gordy slumped down in the car seat again and returned his feet to the dashboard. He adjusted his one-way aviator sunglasses and a thin smile ran across his lips.
The DEA sedan moved further into the cemetery.
Around the next bend, the two agents could see a huge crowd of mourners gathered on a grassy knoll. The area was far better tended and much less congested with headstones than the rest of the cemetery. The day was hot and sticky, but the mourners all wore long dark coats.
"Would you look at that," Gordy said. "King Cajun even gets a burial plot in the middle of the ground reserved for families and descendants of the city's founding fathers. It's disgusting."
"Maybe so," Lew said. "But it is appropriate. This city was founded on vice, and Arceneaux's legacy certainly fits in."
There was a long line of black limousines park along the curb below the grave site. Uniformed chauffeurs lounged against bumpers or huddled in small groups. Lew tagged the DEA sedan onto the end of the line. The DEA radio under the dash crackled, and several of the chauffeurs turned in the agent's direction as the sound reached their ears through Gordy's open window. Aside from the clustered chauffeurs, other hard looking men stood in pairs located at strategic points around the area.
"Looks like they're expecting us," Lew told Gordy.
Gordy shrugged. "And why not? After ten years of being Arceneaux's personal pain in the butt, you would have thought we'd earned the right to a front row seat." The twin toothpicks traveled rapidly back and forth across his lips as he spoke.
Lew laughed softly in agreement. "Arceneaux must have been fit to be tied when we took down his last five shipments. He must have taken his organization apart looking for the source."
"We had him, man," Gordy said. "He was going down for the long fall and he knew it. I've waited years to slap the cuffs on him, and when I finally get him bang to rights –" Gordy's voice trailed off with a sound full of choked emotion.
"– Arceneaux up and dies of a heart attack," Lew finished the sentence for his partner. "Damn inconsiderate of him."
"Don't make fun of me, partner. There's no justice if Arceneaux is dead. Death is too good for him. He deserves to be put away in a hell hole of a jail. A place where he could end up as desperate as all the runaways he hooked on junk and then put on the streets to peddle their asses."
The two partners sat and watched the scene in silence for a few minutes. A Catholic priest was intoning low mumbles over the grave.
"How do you want to play this?" Lew asked eventually.
"By ear, my man, by ear." Gordy flipped the toothpicks out of his mouth and put his feet down. "Why don't you start out by getting the license plates off of all the cars in the funeral party? It might be real interesting to see who's who."
"What are you going to do?"
Gordy opened the door on his side of the car and started to slide out. "It's cool," he said. "I'm simply going to go and pay my last respects."
Lew followed Gordy's lead and exited their vehicle.
Physically the two DEA agents couldn't have been more opposite. Lew was tall, slender, and dyspeptic looking – like a constipated Japanese crane. He was all elbows and knees, angles and bones. His casual clothing hung on him like Goodwill castoffs, and his lightweight black jacket did little to hide the bulge of the 9mm automatic he carried in a worn shoulder holster.
By contrast, Gordy was a five foot six inch bantam rooster. He'd only made the DEA's height requirements by taping flesh colored foam wedges under his heels for the entrance physical. He was neat and confident, his full black hair flowing in deep waves across his skull. He was the same age as Lew, thirty-one, but looked ten years younger. It wasn't that Gordy looked all that young, but more the fact that Lew was not aging gracefully.
The two men were a good team because Lew was constantly in awe of Gordy's ability to never be at a loss for what to do or say next. However, Gordy certainly had his share of detractors in the agency – old partners or supervisors who despised his cocky attitude and king-size ego. Whenever the booze began to flow at agency parties, everyone knew who was being talked about when "Walking Small" was mentioned.
While trying to keep one eye on Gordy, Lew took a slim notebook out of his inside jacket pocket and began to write down license numbers with the stub of a pencil.
"What the hell are you doing, buddy?" asked a limo chauffeur when he saw Lew bend down behind one of the cars for a closer look.
Lew flashed his DEA identification toward the man like he was trying to hold a vampire at bay with a silver crucifix.
"Don't you guys ever take the day off?" the chauffeur asked with disdain. "Ain't you got no respect for the dead."
Lew fired back a line he'd picked up from Gordy. "Crawl back under your rock, scumbag, before I book you for filth and ignorance in the presence of a federal officer."
The chauffeur held up his hands in a placating gesture and backed off. He wasn't being paid to handle cop grief. That job was reserved for the hardmen who were dotted around the cemetery.
TWO
On the other side of the grassy knoll, where the mourners had gathered to see Arceneaux put to his final rest, was a higher rise. A small pathway, barely wide enough for a car, led to the top of the second rise and then down again on the other side. At the crest, a lone limousine sat overlooking the funeral ceremony.
In the rear seat of the limo, a dark man close to fifty years old sat on the bench seat staring intently out of the side window. He had a face like a bowl full of elbows, all knots and cheekbones. He wore an expensive blue pin-striped suit with a white carnation attached to the stylishly narrow lapel.
Across from the dark man, one of the two men sitting on the limo's jump seats eyed the older man surreptitiously. He figured the price of the silk tie tucked into the pin-striped suit would equal about a month's worth of his own GS-12 government salary.
"I told you he would be here," the dark man said in a gravel voice. He pointed out the bulletproof glass of the window to where Gordy was advancing on the funeral party. "He's going to interrupt the best part. You told me he had been controlled. I want him stopped. Now!"
The young man who had been figuring the price of the tie grabbed a two-way radio from the floor below him and began to talk rapidly into it.
Two of the hardmen near the grave each put a hand to their ear, looked around with slitted eyes, spotted Gordy and began moving toward him.
Gordy saw them coming and slowed his advance.
"You're out of here, Fontaine," the first hardman said as he approached Gordy.
"You and what two armies?" Gordy asked with a cocky smile slapped across his face.
"These two," the hardman said. With his right hand he pulled back his sport coat to reveal a gun in a shoulder holster. "Army number one," he said. With his left had he fished out and flashed a set of credentials. "And army number two."
Gordy squinted at the government pasteboard and the crackerjack prize badge the hardman was showing. "The FBI?" Gordy said in mock awe.
"I'm Agent Jordan," said the hardman. "And this is Agent Lambert." He indicated the second hardman who had moved up behind him. "We've been told to escort you from the area."
Gordy shook his head thoughtfully. "What in the hell are FBI agents doing playing security guards at a drug king's funeral? Has the world gone mad? Now, I know there's something fishy going on. And I'm going to prove it!"
Catching the agents off guard, Gordy faked a move to his left and then dodged back to his right. When Jordan reached out to grab him, Gordy kicked the FBI agent hard in the shin and then savagely pushed him backward into Lambert.
Jordan, who was sarcastically nicknamed "Lucky" because everything always seemed to happen to him, cried out as both agents crashed to the ground in a tangled heap. Showing a clean pair of heels, Gordy ran past them and started up the grassy knoll to where the casket was being lowered.
Lew Sutton looked up from his license gathering when he heard Jordan's shout. He saw Gordy running away from the two men who were sprawled on the ground, and he knew his partner had really blown things wide open this time. When he noticed a half dozen of the other hardmen in the area converging on Gordy, Lew also started running in the same direction. Gordy was his partner, and come hell or high water, you never let your partner hang in the wind.
Shoving his way through the startled mourners at the grave side, Gordy stopped beside the small winch that was lowering the casket. "Federal officer," he said, waving his DEA credentials over his head with one hand while trying to find the off switch for the winch with the other. "I want this coffin opened, and I want it opened now!"
"Please," said the shocked priest. "This is a funeral. Show some respect in the presence of God."
"Listen, padre," Gordy said, turning toward the priest. "God wouldn't waste his time showing up at a funeral for Zachary Arceneaux. This piece of dog excrement you think you're burying isn't worth pissing on. But don't worry about it because Arceneaux isn't even in this fancy box."
The coffin was suspended over the grave by two nylon lowering bands controlled by the winch. After securing the winch, Gordy stepped over to the coffin and knelt down on the edge of the turf next to it.
The burial box was an ornately worked piece of art. Fashioned from hand rubbed teak, it was bejeweled with intricate Sterling silver handles and overlays. Gordy reached out and began to unscrew the silver angel-shaped wing nuts that secured the lid. The mourners at the grave side began to wail and moan. None of them, however, wanted to interfere with the madman in their midst.
"Please stop," the priest implored again. Anger at Gordy's blasphemy suffused his face with color. Swirling his robes around him, he grabbed Gordy's shoulder and tried to pull him away from the coffin.
Gordy, knowing he didn't have much time, turned from his efforts to undo the coffin lid, pulled his gun off his hip and pointed it at the priest. "Back off, padre. This is the last time I'm going to tell you."
Shocked beyond belief, the priest backed away. Gordy returned to his precarious balancing act over the coffin and began unscrewing angels again. They seemed to be multiplying.
Looking around him, the priest spotted the quick release button on the winch. Placing his hand together, he closed his eyes and quickly mumbled the final lines of the grave side service. "Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. May this body be received into the loving arms of our heavenly and most merciful Father. Amen." The priest's voice rose loudly as he intoned the final word.
"Amen!" responded the mourners in unison.
Gordy was removing the last of the angel-shaped wing nuts, leaning fully across the coffin lid to do it, when the priest hit the winch's quick release button. Gordy and the coffin disappeared into the grave like a spooked rabbit down a hole.
The muffled thump of the coffin as it hit the dirt six feet below acted like a signal to the mourners. As if a switch had been thrown, the grave side onlookers suddenly energized, shucking off their long black coats to reveal beautiful multi¬colored clothing beneath.
Brass instruments appeared as if by magic, and the sounds of cool Bourbon Street jazz pierced the shimmering heat of the day. A drum picked up a back beat and the mourners began to dance. Moving their sinewy bodies to the fast paced music the close packed revelers hugged each other in celebration of the dead's departure for a higher plane – a tradition older than jazz itself.
In their enthusiasm, several brightly clad women hindered the progress of the dark suited FBI agents, who were attempting to converge on Gordy, by sweeping them into the dance. The agents tried to get clear, but it was like swimming against a red tide.
Inside the open grave, the lid of the coffin had bounced clear and was resting upright on one edge. Gordy hadn't been so lucky. He was lying half-on and half-off the exposed corpse. Blinded by swirling dust and earth, he pushed out a hand for leverage and found his fingers sliding across the wax on the corpse's face. He yelled out in horror as the features of Zachary Arceneaux were wiped away to reveal the dead face of another man underneath. The corpse wasn't Arceneaux's, but it was still a body, a dead one, and Gordy wanted to get as far away from it as possible.
Fumbling for his gun, which had bounced away from him when he was dropped into the grave, Gordy stood up sputtering and swearing. Even standing on the corpse with his weight crushing the brittle bones beneath him, his head barely rose above the level of the grave mouth. He grabbed the sides of the grave to pull himself out, but the loose earth kept falling in on him.
Finally, using the lid of the coffin for a boost, Gordy rolled out onto the cemetery turf. All around him, the legs of dancers swirled and kicked to the beat of the jazz that filled the air.
*
"I want him dead! do you hear me? Kill him!" The dark man in the back seat of the limo was screaming at the two FBI agents sitting across from him on the jump seats.
The smoke black window separating the front seat from the rear of the limo slid silently down. Senior FBI Agent Dwayne Bowman sat on the passenger side of the front seat next to the liveried driver. Bowman was wearing a ten year old suit that had been out of style since he'd purchased it at a J.C. Penney's two-for-one clearance sale. In his thirty-five year career with the bureau this was the most distasteful assignment he'd ever pulled. He turned in his seat to look into the back of the limo.
"The FBI is not in the habit of murdering other federal law enforcement officers, Arceneaux. If you ask me, this whole scenario of indulging your whim to attend your own funeral is a stupid waste of taxpayer's money. You're a scuz-bucket of the first order, and should be treated as such."
Arceneaux turned his piercing blue eyes on the older agent. "Nobody talks to me that way. You will pay for your insolence."
"I'm not one of your flunkies, Arceneaux." Bowman was unfazed even though his younger counterparts had turned pale under their tans. "You came to us, remember." He pointed a thick, scarred thumb in the direction of the debacle by the grave side. "Gordon Fontaine may have the personality of an exhibit at a proctologist's convention, but he's a hell of a cop. He destroyed your empire almost single-handedly, forced you into a corner, and survived your assassination attempts long enough to convince a Grand Jury to indict you." Bowman chuckled ruefully. "You had two choices," he continued. "Go to jail, or turn State's evidence. So, you came to the FBI because you couldn't stand the thought of going to the DEA and having Fontaine gloating over you every time you turned around. If you ask me, though, the witness protection program is too good for you. We should have told you to go pound sand instead of setting up this elaborate con-job."
Arceneaux was on a slow boil. "Your superiors seem to think the information I can provide them with is worth the effort. I'm sure they will greatly frown on your attitude. I will make sure that they squash you like a bug, little man."
"What are they going to do to me?" Bowman asked. "Delegate me to assignments where I have to protect sheep-dip like you?" He brought out and lighted a thin cigar, blowing smoke in Arceneaux's direction. "What you don't understand is that me and the Bureau director have a lot in common. We're both as high as we're going to go on this job. I'd never make a good area supervisor anyway. I couldn't take the operations."
"Operations?" queried one of the younger agents in surprise. He hoped to be promoted in the very near future.
"Didn't they tell you in the academy at Quantico?" Bowman asked seriously. "Before anyone can become an area supervisor they have to have their spine sucked out. And if you get promoted any higher then you have to have a plate glass window installed in your stomach so you can see where you're going with your head up your ass." Bowman broke out in peals of laughter.
*
Gordy felt a hand grab at the back of his neck. He rolled away and kicked out catching Agent 'Lucky' Jordan on the shin again.
"Look for yourself," Gordy yelled at Jordan. "That isn't Arceneaux in the coffin!"
Other FBI agents had surrounded the grave mouth. They were all facing outward in an effort to keep back the reporters and photographers who had come to cover the funeral.
The revelers who had been so mournful at the start of the funeral were forming themselves into a conga line. Hanging onto each other, they began to wind their way through the headstones and out of the cemetery to continue the wake elsewhere.
"You're under arrest, Fontaine," Jordan said. He was still bent over rubbing his shin. "You're going to lose your badge behind this."
"Arceneaux is not dead!" Gordy screamed at the man. Several other agents began to move toward him. Gordy began rapidly backing away from the grave and started up the second grassy knoll toward the limo. Jordan and the others began to chase him.
Seeing the limo at the top of the second knoll, things suddenly became clear for Gordy. Instinctively, he knew Arceneaux was inside the long, black vehicle, and with speed born of desperation, he picked up his pace.
In the front of the limo, Bowman saw Gordy coming and spoke rapidly to the driver. "Get us clear of here."
Arceneaux watched as Gordy ran toward the vehicle. All his anger toward the DEA agent welled up inside of him. Fontaine may have won another round, but Arceneaux was far from taking a ten count. With the cunning instincts that had kept him alive for years in the middle of the drug wars, Arceneaux decided to make sure Gordy wouldn't be around for the next round.
Depressing the electric window button with a finger from his left hand, Arceneaux snaked out his right hand and snatched the revolver out of the holster of the young agent nearest to him.
Gordy saw the limo's window slide down to reveal the face of the man he'd hated for so long. He saw the gun in Arceneaux's hand as it stuck its ugly snout out of the window and spat fire. Stone splinters exploded from a headstone directly in front of Gordy, but before he could react he was tackled from behind as the gun fired again.
"Stay down," Lew Sutton shouted at his partner, his hands wrapped around Gordy's knees. Though he appeared long, lean, and awkward, Lew Sutton could run like the wind. He'd passed Jordan, Lambert, and the other agents in pursuit of Gordy like they were running in quicksand.
Another hand appeared in the window of the limo to grab at the gun, but not before it fired again. The shot went wide of Gordy and Lew, but 'Lucky' Jordan stumbled and fell as the projectile slammed into his thigh.
"You've got to give it up, Gordy," Lew said.
"Lew," Gordy was desperate, "Arceneaux is in that limo." He pointed at the rapidly disappearing vehicle.
"You need help, Gordy," Lew said. "Arceneaux is dead."
"Lew, they're going to put me away for this. You have to help me."
Lew looked at the rapidly approached FBI agents. One of their own had gone down and it was clear they thought Gordy had fired the shots. Hadn't they seen the gun in the limo window? "Please, Lew?"
Lew released Gordy's legs, and the two men stood up. Lew had his back to the onrushing agents. "One chance," he said to his partner. "Punch me and run. And God go with you, buddy."
Gordy didn't hesitate. He delivered a roundhouse punch to Lew's jaw that sent the skinny man reeling down the hill.
"Strike!" Gordy yelled in triumph as Lew crashed into the FBI agents, knocking them to the ground like a scene from a Keystone Kops' movie.
Gordy hit his afterburners and began running for his life.
TO PURCHASE THE E-BOOK VERSION OF SUSPICIOUS MINDS CLICK HERE
BEHIND THE SCENES: TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN ~ EPISODE 6!
The season finale of Take The Money And Run took us out with one of our most suspenseful episodes. Hiders Kathryn Waltz and Anthony Fanelli ran Mary and I and our detectives, Mike Byrne and John Scalise, all over Chicago in a chase for the briefcase . . . But we were almost there, folks – 200 yards away from the briefcase with $100,000 when time ran out.
But here’s the dirty little secret about Episode 6: Our season finale of Take The Money And Run was actually the first episode shot – as the series pilot –
over a year ago!
While the producers had done some partial dry runs and simulations of the Take The Money And Run format, this episode was the first time the game was being run for real, and there were still a few bugs to be shaken out. As a result, there were some specific differences between this episode and the others, which we started shooting six months later.
First, our local detectives in this episode were not contestants. Even if Mike and John had managed to snag the briefcase at the last second, they wouldn’t have won the money. Nobody would have won the money – which would have left the episode with a very flat feeling. Realizing this, the producers adjusted the format for all the following shows – making the detectives contestants and ensuring a winner every episode. This new wrinkle also gave added incentive to the local detectives.
Second, how many of you noticed we didn’t get the GPS route in this episode? All we were given was the start point and the end point (along with the usual phone records and receipts) of the hiders’ route – talk about lost in the woods – and we still managed to get within 200 yards of the briefcase by the end of the 48 hours. Realizing the difficulties we encountered in this episode, we were given the GPS route (without showing any stops) in the following episodes.
Thirdly, you couldn’t tell it from the way this episode was edited, but there was another member of or investigative team – our very own computer guru. This fine young man (you can see his back in a couple of scenes) did all our computer searches (social networks, real estate records, public phone indexes, etc.). However, once the detectives became contestants, game show legal rules dictated they would have to do all the computer work themselves – thus, our computer guru from this episode found himself on the cutting room floor.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this was the first time Mary and I were thrown into the middle of the Take The Money And Run madness. We were literally flying by the seat of our pants and making things up as we went along. Knowing we didn’t have true guilt or the threat of long-term incarceration to use as interrogatory hammers, we were having to clean the rust off of some of our more subtle interrogation techniques to get to the information we wanted.
A shout out to Kate and Anthony who played the game as seriously as we did (and to John and Vinnie – you know who you rascals are). We appreciated them and their subsequent friendship once all was said and done – even if one of the hardest things Mary and I have ever had to do was put smiles on our faces when Zen walked in and gave them the money . . .
By the time we were filming the two San Francisco episodes in January of this year, Mary and I had found our sea legs. We realized there was some wiggle room within the interrogation parameters of the game we didn’t have legally in the real world – things we could take advantage of in breaking down contestants like Paul Bustamante (who was a lot tougher than he looked in the episode edit).
So, we walked out of San Francisco with two wins under our belts, feeling a little cocky, only to run into Jimmy and Zuly in Miami in February who really played hardball against us to win the money.
However, with the help of detective contestants George and Manny, we came back again in the second Miami episode against the South Beach sisters, Rebecca and Jenny. Then, in March, our luck held against Beau and Ron back in Chicago.
Finishing the season with 4 wins in 6 episodes made us feel pretty good – professional pride intact – a record we couldn’t have achieved without the help of the local detective contestants, some almost sleepless nights during the 48 hours of the games, and a lot of prior experience cracking suspects in the real world.
Much thanks to everyone who has watched and supported us this season. Mary and I have enjoyed interacting with you on ABC’s live chats, on the various call-in radio shows we’ve been participated in, on our blogs, and on all the various social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter. Please stay in touch. It has been a blast.
We are still awaiting word from ABC about a second season – our fingers are obviously crossed. As soon as we know, we’ll let you know.
PULP NOW: SHARKS IN VENICE!
YOU CAN’T GET MUCH MORE PULP THAN THIS – SHARKS AND THE MAFIA IN AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE . . . AND IN VENICE . . .
Traveling to Venice to investigate the mysterious death of his father, David, a famous archaeologist and diver, unearths a killer secret that lies beneath the Venetian waters.
When a ruthless mob boss discovers his findings and kidnaps his girlfriend, David must brave the dangerous, shark-infested waters once again to recover the treasure and rescue his girlfriend.
A dark and mysterious chase ensues and secrets are revealed in this sci-fi thriller.
FOR MORE CLICK HERE
RUNNING WYLDE: SHORT STORIES ~ TEASER!
THIS COLLECTION INCLUDES SHORT STORIES ACROSS THE BREADTH OF MY CAREER. THE TITLE NOVELLA, RUNNING WYLDE, IS ORIGINAL TO THIS COLLECTION . . .
RUNNING WYLDE: SHORT STORIES BY PAUL BISHOP
INTRODUCTION
I am a very lucky guy.
For over twenty years, I've been able to pursue two careers that continue to excite me and reward me—putting villains in jail, and putting words on paper. As a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department specializing in sex crimes, I continue to chase bad guys and solve crimes. Under the cover of darkness, however, I slip into my writer's cloak and find cathartic release by telling stories in the form of novels, screenplays, and short stories for a (hopefully) growing audience.
Such a deal.
There is no doubt each profession feeds the other, occasionally colliding in a mix of coincidence no fiction reader would ever accept. The first time it happened, I was the investigating officer during the trial of a child molester. In court, potential jurors were being asked if they knew anybody connected with the case. A frail, older lady in the back of the jury box answered by stating, "Does it matter if I'm reading Detective Bishop's book?" With that, she reached into the stereotypical knitting bag at her feet, removed a copy of Citadel Run, and waved it over her head with a flourish. The defense attorney immediately removed her from the jury. Order was eventually restored and the trial proceeded. After the lunch recess, however, five other jurors and the judge returned to the courtroom with copies of the book and asked for signatures. The defendant didn't stand a chance.
On another occasion, my partner and I responded to a suspect's residence to arrest him for rape. It was early by dirtbag standards and we were forced to rouse the suspect from his slumbers. Wearing only a tattered robe over his birthday suit, the suspect failed to follow the rules (admit nothing, deny everything, demand proof) by helpfully acknowledging his guilt and effectively talking his way to jail.
Since he was cooperating, the suspect was given the chance to get dressed before being unceremoniously dragged off to his reservation at the Gray Bar Motel. This involved having the handcuffed suspect stand in the doorway to his bedroom while directing my partner to what clothing he wanted to wear. Attempting to retrieve a pair of grubby undershorts from the far side of the bed, my partner (a trained observer) noticed a paperback copy of my novel Kill Me Again splayed open on the nightstand. He held it up and showed it to me with an amused look on his face. We both knew it would be at least twelve years before the suspect had a chance to finish the final chapter.
How strange to be reading a book by an author at night, only to have him turn up to arrest you the following morning. How much stranger for the detective/author to attempt to get additional charges filed for cracking the book's spine. Some things deserve severe punishment.
As a detective, I often get calls from other writers looking to enhance their knowledge of police procedures. I experienced a twist on this scenario after reading The Devil's Waltz by bestselling author and child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman.
The morning after finishing the book, I began an investigation of a bizarre child abuse case. Fresh in my mind was Kellerman's detailed description of a rare disorder known as Munchausen by proxy (a parent who purposely and repeatedly injures or makes a child sick in order to get sympathy for themselves). In short order, I realized what I was up against and called Jonathan for an expert's confirmation. The collaboration led to the arrest and conviction of the suspect, and a new life for the victim. Satisfaction doesn't get much better.
In November of 1993,1 sold the second book in my Fey Croaker series, Twice Dead, based on a twenty-page outline. The storyline, which was set in the LAPD's West Los Angeles Division where I work, involved a series of murders possibly committed by a black ex-football player turned actor. I was halfway through writing the book when, on June 12,1994, the O. J. Simpson case exploded. Not only were the inner workings of the virtually unknown West Los Angeles Division suddenly thrust into the national consciousness, but the parallels between the two stories would make the book look like nothing more than a headline rip-off by the time it was published.
I scrambled to restructure the novel. The black ex-football player turned actor became an NBA star rookie, the victims male instead of female. As this was the second book in an ongoing series about a female homicide supervisor assigned to West Los Angeles Division, the background of the character had to stand.
Near the end of the book, a subplot involving audio tapes of my main character's psychiatric sessions being made public has a bearing on the outcome of the story. The day I turned the book into the editor, the controversy over the Mark Fuhrman tapes broke in the OJ Simpson case. As usual, fiction couldn't stay ahead of real life.
Inspiration also strikes at inconvenient times. During the LA riots in 1992, all detectives were back in uniform, working twelve-hour shifts, three to a patrol car. We spent our time confronting looters, facing down angry mobs, and racing up ladders behind firemen to protect them from snipers (as we had body armor and they didn't—a situation since rectified). I was in more physical confrontations in those five days of civilian rage than any other intense period during my career.
Four days into the debacle, I found myself in the passenger seat of the patrol car scribbling madly into my two-inch by three-inch officers' notebook. When my partners demanded to know what I was doing, I tried to explain I had to do a brain dump—get the images and impressions of the prior days onto paper—so I could continue to focus without fear of losing my writer's edge. They thought I was nuts, but by that time in my twin careers, writing had become a habit. Four days away from the word processor and I was going through withdrawals.
Even minor career crossovers can cause problems. In 1988, while assigned to a nationwide terrorist task force, I was interrogating a suspect with the assistance of a southern FBI agent. After the suspect had told a particularly bald lie (we knew he was lying because his lips were moving), the southern FBI agent moved in close and drawled, "Son, that hound just won't hunt. And if you don't tell me the truth you're gonna find yourself taking a dirt nap." What did he say? What a great couple of lines!
I knew I'd forget the verisimilitude of those statements if I waited any length of time before writing them down, but I had an obligation to concentrate on the interrogation—not on the perfect place to put the words. Thinking fast, I unobtrusively excused myself from the interview room and scribbled down the lines of dialogue on the back of a candy wrapper. I then returned to the continuing interrogation safe in the knowledge my two masters were being served.
And so we come to the stories in this collection. A couple are from the early days of my fiction career, when I struggled under the misconception that writing short stories was a good way to learn how to write a novel (in actuality the reverse is true). Most are from other points along the way, with the title novella written especially for this collection. Many, however, were conceived from an idea or a what if? generated by a scenario from my day job career crossover of the best kind.
As you read, remember truth is always stranger than fiction, and the realities learned on-the-job are the strangest truths of all. Enjoy.
"Cheers!"
Paul Bishop
North of LA
2011
RUNNING WYLDE
I’ve been a runner all my life, or at least as much of it as I can remember. At one point, I became obsessed with marathoning, putting in 120 mile weeks in preparation for qualifying for and then running the Boston Marathon for my 50th birthday. I still squeeze in five to eight miles a day, every day. A day without running and I get pretty prickly to be around. I’d always wanted to write a story around a runner, but it wasn’t until a real life incident involving an LAPD officer who went running in the Santa Monica Mountains and never returned that I found the heart of Running Wylde…
RUNNING WYLDE
PROLOGUE
2008
"Where are you, Dev?"
"Out here," Devlin Wylde called.
Following the sound of Her husband's voice, Hanna stepped into the enclosed patio at the back of their house. Beyond, their backyard swept through a natural meadow to the base of the Santa Monica foothills. Deer often grazed at the edges during twilight.
"Let's go," Hanna said. "Before the phone rings."
"Almost with you," Devlin said. He popped heel inserts into his Brooks, slipped the running shoes on and pulled the laces tight. "Any last minute glitches with the race preparations?"
"That’s an understatement. What was I thinking when I started this project? It was supposed to be a simple 10-K fun run to raise money for the cougar habitat, and it has turned into this monster with a life of its own." Hanna was wearing a brilliant white t-shirt with a stylized line drawing of a cougar on the front. The words 1st Annual Cougar Run were emblazoned on the back across a simple map of the Santa Monica mountains. Hanna worked the area as a park ranger. Below the t-shirt, she wore pink running shorts cut high on tanned, muscled legs. Her own running shoes were battered veterans of the trail. With short, chopped hair, she looked fast even standing still.
"I told you not to volunteer," Devlin chuckled. ignoring the gibe, Hanna stretched her thighs, alternately pulling each foot up behind her buttocks.
"Let’s run up Old Boney,” she said. “ I want to be sure the trail is clear. It shouldn't take over an hour."
"No problem," Devlin said. He bent slowly from the waist, placing his palms flat on the ground. He was lean and wiry, his legs sun-hardened, gnarled muscles. "But let's stretch it out, do ten or fifteen. I need to get some distance in."
As he stood up the phone rang. He looked at Hanna.
"Don't answer it," she said.
"I have too. I'm on-call."
"You're always on-call."
"It's a small unit."
"Let another homicide detective handle it."
Her words came too late. Devlin had already entered the small house and picked up the kitchen phone.
"Wylde." His voice moved an octave lower to its professional range. He listened. "Okay, I'm rolling." He checked his watch. "Forty-five minutes." He hung up.
"Hanna, honey, I'm sorry --" Stepping back into the enclosed patio, Devlin cut his apology short. Through the screens, he saw his wife sprinting away, her legs moving with the speed of anger.
With a rock in his heart, he stood watching as she disappeared into the mountains like Jonah down the whale's gullet.
THE LOS ANGELES TRIBUNE
MAY 30, 2008
SEARCH FOR DETECTIVE’S WIFE CURTAILED
SANTA MONICA (AP) -- After three months, the search for a missing woman has been called off by authorities. Hanna Wylde, 30, wife of Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective Devlin Wylde, disappeared February 18th in the Santa Monica Mountains Recreational Area while running. A park ranger, Ms. Wylde was training for an upcoming 10K race she had organized.
Extensive searches of the trails and surrounding regions did not recovered a single trace of the missing woman, and a police spokesman stated resources are currently being redirected to other pressing issues. A number of possible reasons behind the disappearance have been investigated, but have also met with negative results.
The 10K Cougar Run conceived and organized by Hanna Wylde was run on schedule earlier this month. Responsibility for the event, produced to raise funds to protect the local cougar habitat, was assumed by several of the Santa Monica Mountain park rangers with whom the missing woman worked. The event was staged as both a fund raiser and a way to keep the fate of Hanna Wylde at the forefront of public attention.
At this time, the missing woman is feared dead, however, foul play has not been indicated, but has not been ruled out . . .
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TTMAR: ABC-TV REALITY SHOW TAPS FORMER MASSILLON RESIDENT!
TTMAR EPISODE 6 CONTESTANT, KATE WALTZ, GETS INTERVIEWED . . .
PER INDEONLINE.COM
Last summer, Kate Waltz received an unexpected call from ABC Television Network executives about filming a pilot for a reality show. Her boyfriend, Anthony Fanelli, had neglected to tell her that two months previously, he had responded to a call for competitive Chicago couples and applied to be on a reality show.
“I laughed it off; I didn’t think anything would happen,” said the former Massillon resident and 2002 Central Catholic High School graduate.
More than a year later, they will appear at 9 p.m. Tuesday on ABC’s season finale of “Take the Money and Run.”
Waltz does sales for a logistics company and has lived in Chicago for the past three years. Fanelli, who originally is from Akron, does improvisational comedy and had heard about casting for the TV pilot. So after they were contacted by executives in July 2010, they were flown to Los Angeles to be interviewed and tested to make sure they could handle the type of competitive reality show.
After all, it wasn’t the type of show where the now 27-year-olds would have to eat creepy crawlies or swim in a piranha-infested tank. But they were going to be incarcerated separately in an actual jail cell and interrogated by professionals for up to 48 hours.
Waltz said the couple enjoys the outdoors and thrill-seeking activities like skydiving so they were up for a unique challenge even though they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
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TONIGHT: TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN SEASON FINALE ~ BE THERE!
DATING COUPLE KATHRYN WALTZ & ANTHONY FANELLI IN CHICAGO COMPETE FOR $100,000, ON THE SEASON FINALE OF ABC’S TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN!
“No! No! No! Yes! Yes! Yes!” – In the Season Finale, dating couple Kathryn Waltz and Anthony Fanelli in Chicago are given one hour to hide the briefcase worth $100,000. Once that time is up, they’re taken into custody by retired police officers Mike Byrne and John Scalise and brought to investigative headquarters. “Take the Money And Run” airs TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 (9:00-10:00 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.
Over the next 48 hours, the detectives will work with professional interrogators – Detective Paul Bishop and Deputy District Attorney Mary Hanlon Stone – to combine efforts and determine the location of the briefcase. All they’ll have to go on are cell phone records, any receipts and the GPS coordinates from the players’ car. The rest will be learned from two days and nights of grueling interrogations and extensive field work. If the two detectives are able to locate the briefcase within the 48 hours, they’ll get to keep the money. If not, the two players will keep the $100,000.
Combining elements of an edge-of-your-seat investigative drama with the excitement of real people in their hometowns attempting to outwit high-level detectives and interrogators, “Take the Money And Run” is an exhilarating competition series that will take reality television to a whole new level.
CROAKER: KILL ME AGAIN ~ TEASER
CHAPTER ONE
Fey Croaker looked up from the arrest report that had been occupying her attention and saw Lieutenant Michael Cahill crossing the squad room toward her. As she watched his approach, she felt a familiar chill of anticipation wash over her. Goose bumps thrilled up her neck. Her Irish mother always told her the feeling came from someone walking over your grave. If that was true, Fey hoped they were walking softly.
"The first stiff of the new year?" she asked when Cahill was close enough.
The detective lieutenant shook his head in genuine amazement. "Damn it, Fey. How do you do that? How do you always know when I'm coming to tell you we've got a cold one? It's spooky."
"It's instinct."
"I don't care if it's ESP. It's still spooky."
Fey took off her reading glasses and let them drop by their cord onto her chest. "Where's the body?"
"2008 Mirrorwood." Cahill held out the pink phone memo with the scribbled information.
Fey took the note and glanced at it quickly. Without her glasses on, she had to hold it at arm's length. "Isn't that the new town home complex? What's it called? Oak Vista Estates? The one only dope dealers and Ferrari salesmen can afford. Up off of San Vincente and Barrington."
"Yeah. And it's a sure bet the homeowners' association isn't going to be real pleased about the situation. The people who live in the complex are paying through the nose for private security and all the other amenities."
Fey looked at Cahill. "Come off it, Mike. Those people put more money up their nose in a day than they pay in homeowners' fees. That kind of stuff is just pin money to them."
"Anyone ever tell you you're a cynic?"
"Yeah. It's why I'm good at my job." Fey stood up from behind her desk. She checked her watch. Eight-thirty a.m. A hell of a way to start a day. "Who found the body?" she asked.
"The maid. She thinks it's the owner ..." Cahill grappled with his memory and then pointed to the memo he'd given Fey. "I wrote the name down."
Fey gave the pink slip of paper another long-distance glance. "Miranda Goodwinter?" she read with a question in her voice.
"Sounds right," Cahill said. "Anyway, the body is female, white, forty something. Naked. The maid didn't take too close a look. Too much blood."
"So no positive ID?"
"Nothing beyond the maid's guess, which is probably going to turn out to be good."
"I don't recognize the name. Any political or big-time money overtones yet?"
Cahill snorted. "Hey, you know how it works. This is West L.A. Unless the stiff is a homeless, there's always political or big-time money overtones. Do you think the Oak Vista Estates homeowners' board are going to stand by quietly while we go about our business? Hell, no. They're going to be screaming bloody murder to both the chief's and the mayor's office. If we don't solve this one in a hurry, our butts are going to be in the middle of the skillet."
The West Los Angeles Division was the jewel in the crown of the Los Angeles Police Department—the gem of all twenty-one geographic divisions. Many of L.A.'s richest areas, including Brentwood, Bel-Air, Cheviot Hills, and Pacific Palisades, fell within its jurisdiction.
Beverly Hills had their own Japanese-technology-worshiping police department bordering the West L.A. Division to the east. The city of Santa Monica had a similar setup on the division's west wide, although they favored a more liberal mode. And the northern border along Mulholland Drive possessed some of the most expensive and isolated estates in the city, if not the world.
West L.A. was the rich filling in a money sandwich.
When Fey had first promoted in to West L.A. as a Detective II with sixteen years on the job, Mike Cahill had taken her aside to explain the divisional facts of life. Things were handled differently in West L.A., Cahill told her, because the rich never went up the chain of command. Instead, they started at the top and let the crap roll downhill. The rich were different and expected to be treated differently.
This different treatment didn't mean the rich never went to jail. But it did mean officers better be damn sure of what they had before slapping the cuffs on some movie star's brat. It also made things very tough for an officer who stopped someone for drunk driving only to find out the lawbreaker was on his way home from a thousand-dollar-a-plate fund-raiser for the mayor.
Neither did the difference mean the rich automatically had all their crimes solved and recovered all their property. But it did mean a detective better be prepared to jump a little higher when a councilman's wife said there was a trespasser on her grounds while her husband was out of town on a junket. This was true even if there was no trespasser, and the only reason the wife had called was because she was lonely and horny and wanted some attention from the stud of a uniformed officer who she knew would respond to her 911 call.
Fey played the game with the rich very well. She was known for her bedside manner and for her ability to soothe even the most ruffled of feathers. She was also known to solve a lot of crimes and put a lot of suspects behind bars. In an enclosed world where reputation counts for almost everything, Fey was a rising star. The respect, however, was still grudging because she was still undeniably a woman in a man's world. A bitch in the locker room. A nigger in the woodpile. Different generation, but the same prejudice.
After four years in West L.A., her abilities led to her promotion to Detective III. Two years later, she was given the homicide unit to supervise. It was the top detective spot in the division, and Fey was the first woman to ever head the unit. She was very pleased at first to have overcome that barrier. Then she found out orders had come down from on high to put a woman in the spot—not because a woman, or specifically Fey, deserved the spot, but because a token had to be presented for public relations purposes.
Fey's initial reaction to this news had been anger. She almost stalked into Cahill's office to throw her badge and gun on the desk and resign. Cooler thoughts prevailed, though, and on reflection she decided it didn't matter what the motivations were placing her in the position. She—Fey Croaker—was still in the position, and it was up to her to prove she could do the job, not because she was a woman, but because she was a damn good detective.
Fey had worked homicide earlier in her career as a Detective I, and later as a Detective II, and she had learned quickly the supposed differences between the rich and poor were only superficial. When you worked homicide, dead was dead. Murder had no respect for wealth.
Now Fey sighed and massaged the bridge of her nose with the thumb and index finger of her left hand. Her nails were long, but the blood red polish on them was chipped.
She felt a deep sigh dissipate in her chest. You always wanted the first body in January to be easy, a self-solver. It set the tone for the rest of the year. This one felt rough.
She shoved together the paperwork she had been shuffling and stood up. "Have the coroner and the SID lab boys been notified?"
Cahill nodded his head. "The uniforms radioed for them as soon as they saw the stiff."
"How about an ambulance crew?"
"On the scene now."
"Good. Okay. Who are the blue-suiters on the scene?"
"8-A-64. Reeves and Watts."
Fey visibly cringed. "Why did it have to be Reeves? He wouldn't know a suspect if one came up and jumped in the backseat of his police car. He probably hasn't gotten any further in the investigation than trying to put the make on the maid. Watts is okay, but he's still very wet behind the ears."
"What can I tell you?" Cahill asked. "If working homicide was easy, we'd let someone from the mayor's staff investigate."
"Heaven forbid," Fey said, and rolled her eyes before becoming serious again. "Do me a favor?" she requested. "Send the uniforms a message over the MDT to make sure they've got the crime scene taped off, and that they are staying outside the residence. The last thing we need is the crime scene contaminated by Reeves doing his kleptomaniac act or Watts flicking cigarette ash over all the evidence."
"Anything else?"
Fey took a breath before continuing. "Yeah. Make sure they've got an incident log started and that they're keeping the maid isolated from any other witnesses."
"Will do," said Cahill.
"Oh, and make sure they keep the ambulance crew there until we arrive. I'm going to want to interview them and find out what they touched or moved."
Cahill said, "Check." He had a lot of faith in Fey. She was very methodical in her investigations and didn't miss a trick.
Fey picked up the unit's sign-in sheet and stared at it. "I'll take Hatcher with me," she said, making a notation on the sheet.
"Why don't you take Colby?"
Fey gave Cahill a sharp look. It was very unlike the lieutenant to question who she assigned to a case.
Cahill caught Fey's glance and held up a hand in mock defense before she could retort verbally. "Colby asked specifically to be assigned to this one," he said in a conciliatory tone. "And he knows the lay of the land up there."
Fey grimaced. "What does that mean?" She didn't like Colby. Supervising him was bad enough, but she loathed the thought of actually partnering him on a case. "Just because he dresses like a wannabe movie star with the taste of a two-dollar whore doesn't mean he knows the rich any better than the rest of us."
"Come on, Fey," Cahill said. "Give the guy a break. He's a good detective. He just needs a little experience."
"Not to hear him tell it," she said.
As if on cue, Alan Colby came up the back stairs and cut a swath across the squad room. Tall and athletic, he walked past the random clumps of desks that were scattered around the room, and flashed a grin at Cahill and Fey.
"Was somebody talking about me?" he asked, as if picking up leftover vibrations of conversation. "My ears were burning."
"Grab your stuff," Fey told him as she reached down to take a shoulder-holstered Smith & Wesson .38 out of her desk drawer. "As if you didn't know, we've got a stiff waiting for us up in Brentwood."
"Hot dog!" Colby said.
"I'm glad you find death something to be happy about," Fey said nastily.
"Chill out, Frog Lady. I'm just turned on by a challenge."
Fey halted in the process of slipping on her shoulder rig. "I won't tell you again, Colby. Don't—I repeat, don't—call me Frog Lady."
"You got to love that pose, don't you, Lieutenant?" Colby said, referring to the fact Fey's position, half in and half out of the shoulder rig, pushed her arms back and thrust her bosom forward as if it were an item offered for display.
"It's impressive," Cahill said.
Fey just shook her head and shrugged the shoulder holster the rest of the way into place. "Why is it men never grow out of adolescence? Thank God women aren't fixated on various parts of the male anatomy. If we were, then both sexes would be useless."
The lieutenant's secretary giggled when she overheard the comeback. Fey grinned at her. "It's like trying to keep a room full of five-year-olds busy," she said. The secretary laughed again.
"Come on, Colby," Fey told him. "You're slowing me down."
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MYSTERY CORNER: LABOR DAY MYSTERIES!
MYSTERY MAVEN JANET RANDOLPH PUTS OUT THE WORD ON LABOR DAY MYSTERIES VIA MYSTERY FANFARE . . .
There aren't a lot of mysteries set during the Labor Day Holiday: Lee Harris' Labor Day Murder and Sharyn McCrumb's Highland Laddie Gone. There's also the short story "Labor Day" by R.T. Lawton in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.
So, this year, I decided to turn the theme into something different: Crime Fiction involving Labor Unions. Murder, Mystery And Mayhem put together a great list of Labor Day Mysteries involving unions, tradesman and works. I've added a few more titles and annotations. Some great reads here . . .
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HELL, YEAH! ROCKABILLY: A ROCKET IN MY POCKET!
MAX DÉCHARNÉ
A Rocket in my Pocket is the story of rockabilly music, the primal 50s howl of rockin’ rage that helped start it all.Rockabilly had its roots in country, blues, folk, hillbilly, R and B, boogie-woogie and most other indigenous Deep South forms of popular song that you could strum three chords along to or howl down a cheap microphone.
It was young people’s music, made almost entirely by the first wave of teenagers, despised by adults in general and the country music establishment in particular. Its pioneer exponent, Elvis, eventually become respectable in the eyes of straight society but he was the exception. 1950s rockabilly was a spontaneous outburst of spirited three-chord songs, tiny record labels, primitive studios, fiercely partisan audiences and wild-eyed, driven performers who weren’t even sure that their musical careers would last the week.
The book charts the rise (and fall) of the original 50s wave of rockabillies. It will also follow the progress of the music, in clubs, on radio, TV and film, pinpointing the key record labels and important regional centres, showing how fashions eventually changed and left rockabilly high and dry, far too wild and primitive in an era of smoother sounds. races the music to its Memphis roots.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max Décharné is a writer and musician. He has written about music regularly for Mojo magazine since 1998, where he is their chief authority on the subject of rockabilly music, which he has followed and played since the 1970s. He is the author of six books, including Straight from the Fridge, Dad: A Dictionary of Hipster Slang
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HAT TIP TO BILL CRIDER
A SPECIAL DAVE WHITE PRESENTS FEATURING MARY HANLON STONE AND PAUL BISHOP!
On Tues. Sept. 6, online radio’s Dave White Presents will air a special live call-in event!
At 7:30 p.m. pacific, 10:30 Eastern, Paul Bishop and Mary Hanlon Stone, co-stars of Bertram Van Munster and Jerry Bruckheimer’sTake The Money And Run, will join co-hosts Dave White and Wes Britton to discuss their hit ABC reality series. During the 90 minute broadcast, aired on KSAV.org, listeners will be encouraged to call in or E-mail their own questions for the interrogators.
Debuting Aug. 2, TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN involves pairs of contestants who, each Tuesday at 9:00, try to hide a briefcase filled with $100,000 from teams of detectives in various cities. While the local officers hit the streets looking for the briefcase, Bishop and Stone interrogate the contestants who are locked in jail for 48 hours.
A thirty-five year veteran of a major west coast metropolitan police department, Paul Bishop's career has included a three year tour with the department's Anti-Terrorist Division and over twenty-five years experience in the investigation of sex crimes. He’s also the author of a number of thrillers including the Detective Fey Croaker series. Paul has also written feature film scripts and numerous episodic scripts for television, including such shows as Diagnosis: Murder, LA Dragnet, The New Detectives, and Navy Seals: The Untold Stories.
Mary Hanlon Stone is a Deputy District Attorney for Los Angeles County. She lectures on criminal investigations and trial strategies including the Art of
Interrogation. During her 25 years as a prosecutor, she has specialized in sexual assault and domestic violence cases. Mary is also the bestselling author of invisible girl, a teen novel inspired by her work with troubled girls. Mary is currently working on the legal thriller, Breaking, and a parenting book, How to Tell When Your Teen is Lying, with her co-interrogator, Paul Bishop.
Paul and Mary look forward to answering your questions about their series, books, and careers on Dave White Presents,Tues. Sept. 6 over:
www.KSAV.org
You can e-mail questions or comments before or during the broadcast to talk@ksav.org/
The number to call during the show is (800)407-KSAV
or (800)407-5728
