Staten Island Noir (35 page)

"I found it," he says, staring at the dog who stares back, weighing his words with beady, angry eyes. Then, curling its upper lip to show fangs, growls from deep down in its little chest.

"Where did you
find
it?" Aunt May snaps.

"In the schoolyard."

"Liar!"

"She gave it to me."

Aunt May makes him push it all the way back. As he runs the gauntlet, he again keeps his head down, eyes to the pavement. The little girl is still there, bawlin', with her mother and a bunch of little girls. The other little girls are bawlin' too; he has no idea why. When the little girl sees him, she stops, runs to the carriage, snatches up her doll and hugs it. But when Aunt May holds him by the scruff of the neck in front of the little girl and tells her to give him a good slap right across his face, she starts bawlin' again. Staked out by bloodthirsty hostiles, his face burns under their piteous stares. In sight of the Stone Saints across the street giving him the ass, he prays with all his might that all the windows in all the houses on every block be nailed shut.

 

End of Excerpt

 

More about
Queens Noir

 

The
Queens Noir
e-book (eisbn 9781617750595) is available from Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, the iTunes store, Kobo, the Sony eReader store, Google Play, and from the websites of participating independent bookstores. The print edition ($15.95, ISBN-13:9781933354408) is availabe on our website and in online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere.

 

On the heels of Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx, the borough of Queens enters the chambers of noir.

 

Featuring brand-new stories by:
Denis Hamill, Maggie Estep, Megan Abbott, Robert Knightly, Liz Martinez, Jill Eisenstadt, Mary Byrne, Tori Carrington, Shailly P. Agnihotri, k.j.a. Wishnia, Victoria Eng, Alan Gordon, Beverly Farley, Joe Guglielmelli, and Glenville Lovell.

 

Queens used to be dismissed as the "Bedroom of Manhattan"
— daily disgorging its sons and daughters by elevated rail and the Queensboro Bridge to their jobs in "New York" (as Manhattan was known to us in the outer boroughs). In 2007, Queens is the Borough of Immigrants— 2.2 million residents, forty-eight percent of whom are foreign-born, the vast majority of them Asian. In fifty-plus distinct neighborhoods, speaking 140 different languages, reside: Chinese, Koreans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Guyanese, Jamaicans, Haitians, Trinidadians, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Dominicans, Mexicans, Filipinos, not to mention Greeks.

 

Queens County is the largest borough,
accommodating two beaches, two airports, Aqueduct Racetrack, three elevated train structures, and Shea Stadium.
Queens Noir
has set twenty original crime stories in the neighborhoods and at the "Big A," Shea Stadium, JFK Airport, Rockaway Beach, and aboard the elevated Flushing 7 subway line.

 

Robert Knightly
relocated from Manhattan to Jackson Heights, Queens in 1994 (marriage and a bigger apartment). He spent his first forty-four years in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, just a hop, skip, and a jump over the Pulaski Bridge spanning Newtown Creek between Greenpoint and Long Island City, Queens. He works as a criminal trial lawyer for the Legal Aid Society in the Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens. Once upon a time, he was a New York City policeman, but that was in big, bad Brooklyn.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Introduction

 

PART I: QUEENS ON THE FLY: BY SEA, HORSE, TRAIN, PLANE, AND SILVER SCREEN

"Alice Fantastic" MAGGIE ESTEP (Aqueduct Racetrack)

"Under the Throgs Neck Bridge" DENIS HAMILL (Bayside)

"Golden Venture" JILL EISENSTADT (The Rockaways)

"Buckner's Error" JOSEPH GUGLIELMELLI (Shea Stadium)

"Baggage Claim" PATRICIA KING (JFK Airport)

"Arrivederci, Aldo" KIM SKYES (Long Island City)

 

PART II: OLD QUEENS

"Hollywood Lanes" MEGAN ABBOT (Forest Hills)

"Only the Strong Survive" MARY BYRNE (Astoria)

"First Calvary" ROBERT KNIGHTLEY (Blissville)

"Bottom of the Sixth" ALAN GORDON (Rego Park)

"The Flower of Flushing" VICTORIA ENG (Flushing)

"Crazy Jill Saves the Slinky" STEPHEN SOLOMITA (College Point)

"Last Stop, Ditmars" TORI CARRINGTON (Ditmars)

 

PART III: FOREIGN SHORES

"Avoid Agony" SHAILLY AGNIHOTRI (Jackson Heights)

"Viernes Loco" K.J.A. WISHNIA (Corona)

"Out of Body" GLENVILLE LOVELL (South Jamaica)

"Lights Out for Frankie" LIZ MARTINEZ (Woodside)

"Jihad Sucks; or, The Conversion of the Jews" JILLIAN ABBOTT (Richmond Hill)

"The Investigation" BELINDA FARLEY (Jamaica)

About Akashic Books

 

 

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