[Note from Steve: The first two sections of this story are based on real events.  The rest is, of course, speculative fiction: sometimes brain drain is more than the Third World’s loss.  Enjoy.]

The Universal Language

Copyright 2015, Steven M. Moore

                Max Gorman accepted refreshments from his graduate student with a smile.  She asked if he needed anything else, he said no, and so she went to mingle with the other PhD hopefuls.

“She hasn’t picked a thesis topic yet,” he said to the chairperson after a bite of stale cookie and sip of weak coffee.  “She’s interested in everything.”

“You’re interested in everything,” said the chairperson.  “What do you think of the candidate so far?”

Max glanced at the man who was going to end his interview day by presenting at the last weekly seminar of the spring semester.

“Nervous hands, and the red pants are a distraction.  He seems affable enough, but not as strong as some of the others.  But my opinion doesn’t matter anymore, so don’t make conversation by asking for it.”

The chairperson smiled.  Their professor emeritus was the most intelligent person he’d  ever known.  He was also old school, a mathematician who had contributed to many subfields of mathematics.

“Want me to wheel you in?  I need to chat with our candidate a bit before the seminar starts.  You can join us.”

Max took the cup of coffee out of the holder in the arm of his wheelchair and handed it and the remains of the cookie to the tall man who had been his best student.

“Get rid of this swill and hockey puck and I’m your man.”

***

                The chairperson noted that Max was dozing during the seminar.  The candidate was presenting the definition of a new class of Banach space operators and drawing all sorts of interesting conclusions about their properties.  When he finished forty minutes later, he asked for questions.  Max raised his head and lifted his hand.

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[In case you haven’t noticed, this is the 30^th anniversary of Ghostbusters, a classic bit of tomfoolery set in New York City.  Here’s some tomfoolery that’s a wee bit more serious.  It also happens far removed from NYC.  Enjoy!]

The Flying Dutchman

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

                Call me cynical.  Or, paranoid.  I knew there was something wrong when I stepped aboard the Huang Cheng.  It was a bit too clean, for one thing.  Freighters carry freight.  While medical supplies might be in pristine, sealed containers, general freight containers leave their spoor behind like wild beasts from some primitive planet.  True, the starship had a passenger section where anyone could save some money by flying like freight (that anyone had to be an oxygen-breathing ET in our case, of course).  That section was a cut above the crew’s in quality of accomodations, but not much (with each stateroom adaptable to different ETs).

I’d been on a doomed ship before.  Once I ended up in cryosleep in planetary orbit in an escape pod, being picked up a few centuries later by pure chance by an ITUIP explorer ship.  Obregon, the doctor who brought me out of cryo, started calling me Methuselah.  Never could get him to explain that.  Could hardly pronounce it even.  Never looked it up in a database either.  I felt that same sense of doom in the Huang Cheng.

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[Note: In spite of my lists of what-ifs and other data I use to create stories for you, sometimes I just wake up in the middle of the night with a story idea.  Who knows?  I might eventually turn this one into a novella or novel, although it’s really short in its present form.  Enjoy!]

Cleo’s ASP

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

Dargon signed off from the remote feed to the planet’s huge satellite and faced his assistant.

“There’s evidence they made it to that huge moon, but, for some reason, after that they just hunkered down until all hell broke loose.”  He stretched.  “The fossil record isn’t of long duration.  You’d think they went through an atomic holocaust because it happened so quickly.”

“Maybe not so quickly,” said J’Rin.  “There are strata, as you know.”

“Not many.  Doesn’t change the fact that they failed to explore the solar system and beyond.”  A figure appeared silhouetted in the opening to his tent.  “Yes, Tilsook?”

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[This is the ninth and last installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  (It’s the last until next fall, at least.)  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  Today it’s Jing-Wei Liu from Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder.  In software, you always have another bug; in writing, there’s always another edit to make.  Somehow Rafael Ortiz, NYPD Detective Chen’s old partner, of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” received a name change to Ruiz from The Midas Bomb to Angels Need Not Apply, probably because I already had an Ortiz in the latter book.  (sigh)  Moot point here, though, because Jing-Wei Liu was Chen’s lawyer in Teeter-Totter, and Ortiz needs a good lawyer too.  Enjoy.]

Forced Retirement

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

Ortiz performed the countdown with his fingers—one, two, three.  On three, the leader and another member of the SWAT team used their battering ram to crash through the door.  A firefight ensued with the three dealers.  High-grade heroin dust filled the air as their suspects overturned their work table and started firing.  Two were taken out by return fire, but the woman, running in a crouch and using a large frying pan to shield her head, made it into the bedroom, Ruiz in pursuit.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Ortiz had no intention of shooting her in the back as she struggled to open the window that led to the fire escape.  There were cops in the alley below who’d collar her easily enough.  But she turned and pointed her gun at him.

He reacted by instinct upon seeing the weapon, moving to the side and firing before she could.  His bullet smashed into her jaw, and the frying pan broke through the window, followed by her body.

He rushed to the window and looked down at the dead body.  Shit!  We needed one of them alive for questioning.

NYPD needed to know where the influx of high-grade stuff on the streets originated.  The original source didn’t matter, but they wanted the middlemen suppliers.  They figured it was a Mexican cartel, but which one?

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[This is the eighth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Alicia Castro from Angels Need Not Apply, the second book in “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  Enjoy.]

A Nation of Immigrants

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

                Alicia Castro-Grant unlocked the passenger’s door at the repair shop.  Her tall and lanky adopted son, Jimmy, struggled into the small SUV.

“Thanks for picking me up, Alicia.”

She smiled, although it always bothered her that Jimmy never called her Mom.  She felt like she was his mother, ever since Peter and she had adopted the kid.  Of course, he didn’t call Peter Dad either.

“Do you have the estimate for the insurance company?” she asked.  He dug it out of a shirt pocket—a legal-sized page folded enough to fit in the star athlete’s pocket.  “Unfold it for me.  We’ll run it by to the insurance company on the way home.”

Jimmy, one of the most careful drivers she knew, had been T-boned at a Las Vegas intersection by a drunken tourist in a rental car.  His car had come just under the price for a complete totaling.  Alicia hoped it would be OK after the costly repairs, all paid for by the drunk’s insurance company.  In the interim, she would have to be a soccer mom again.  Rather, basketball mom, considering Jimmy’s major sport.  He was so good that he had won a full scholarship to UCLA.  That helps on the household finances, she thought.  They still owed the kid a nice dinner in celebration.

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[This is the sixth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Colin Murphy from The Midas Bomb, the first book in “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  A new addition to that series, The Collector, will be released soon.  For now, enjoy the present stories…and this short story!]

The Hippocratic Oath

Steven M. Moore

Copyright, 2014

  The nurse poured some coffee and watched the ER doctor.  He was scribbling on a paper napkin with one of the cheap pens the hospital provided.

“You still trying to be a poet, honey?”

Colin Murphy glanced at the ER nurse and smiled.  “You think I’m wasting my time?”

Beatrice Jones thought a moment.  “I’m thinking you’re probably a better ER doctor than poet, no offense intended.”

“No offense taken, but you only see me in the one activity.  How do you know I can’t write poetry?  I’ve won some contests.”

“Do tell?  And how drunk were you, old Irishman?”

“I’m going easy on the liquor.  It won’t bring Chen back.”

“Who’s Chen?”

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What Happened to those Characters?  The Profiler (Virginia Morgan)…

[This is the sixth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Virginia Morgan from The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, the bridge between “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” and “The Clones and Mutants Series.”  Enjoy.]

The Profiler

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

Virginia Morgan cracked open the door.  The man standing there put away the badge he had shown her through the peephole.

“I’m retired, so I hope this is a fucking social call!”

The badge said his name was Arthur Newcastle.  The badge had looked authentic.  Her hand behind her back still held a Glock.

“More than social,” said Newcastle.

Geez, this guy’s tall.  Maybe two meters.  Looks like an NBA star, and handsome too.  “I guess I can let you in.”  She opened the door wider.  Didn’t show the gun.  The agent had to stoop to enter.  “Have a seat.  Need some coffee?”

He drank it black.  She loaded hers with cream and sugar.  It was her third of the day, and she had progressed from black to loaded.  Whiskey would be added after dinner, maybe with a touch of ReddiWhip.

“I hope this isn’t about an old case,” she said after handing him his mug and sitting down across from him.  The gun was stored in the pocket of her bathrobe, ready just in case.  He fills up the whole damn sofa!

“No, but you’ve profiled some similar cases.  We need some help with a new one.”

“You telling me with all the people you now have profiling, you can’t come up with one for a current case?  I was good, but I’m sure you have better now.  Are psych grads that bad these days?”

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[This is the fifth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Denise Dupont, the CIA operative in Evil Agenda, the second book in my “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.”  Enjoy.]

Channeling Idi Amin

Steven M. Moore

Copyright, 2014

                Denise Dupont knew she looked stunning but felt groped.  The dictator’s eyes were all over her.  Part of the job.  He flashed a toothy smile.  She smiled back.

She was dressed in a flowing gown, its multiple hues like a neon sign in Paris inviting the fat man to dine on her.  The native headwear and large golden earrings topped her off, but Samuel Chibuzo wasn’t looking at the top.  Spike heels made her as tall as any man in the ballroom, but he wasn’t admiring those either.

God, he’s repugnant!

The self-declared Black Pope and leader of the Christian Brotherhood of West Africa, Royal and Divine Monarch and President of the Federal and Independent Republic of West Africa, and chief and principal shaman of three major tribes in the country, already had eleven wives and twenty-three children.  She was trying to tempt him enough so that he wanted to make her number twelve.

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[This is the fourth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Jay Sandoval, the ezine investigative reporter in Full Medical, the first book in my “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.”  Enjoy.]

Daddy’s Girl

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

                Jay Sandoval often reminisced while she ran.  Her life with Boston cop Chris Tanner had turned out better than she hoped.  Chris was still only a detective, albeit a successful one, but he had turned down two promotions, not wanting to be chained to a desk.  They had their little house in Medford, bordering on the Fells, her usual choice as a jogging spot.  Their two adopted kids were doing well in school and the oldest would enter kinder in the fall.

All the turmoil associated with the cloned children had subsided as far as she knew.  Their good friend, Kalidas Metropolis, was busy at the Center taking care of them; they’d soon be released into the government’s witness protection program.  The cover-up, engineered by the government, would be complete.

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[Note from Steve: I usually don’t write about the paranormal.  But those of you who’ve read “The Town Hall Gang” and “The Bridge,” short stories in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, my anthology of tales of speculative fiction, know I CAN write them.  You also might be familiar with hard-boiled Detective Rolando Castilblanco, of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” though, so here’s one of his most unusual cases, a cross-genre short story, if you will.  Enjoy.  And, don’t miss the intrepid detectives in my new novel, Aristocrats and Assassins, or The Collector, which is coming soon.  More of the detectives’ cases can be found in the short story collection, Pop Two Antacids and Have Some Java.]

Singing Ghosts

Steven M. Moore

                I hate old houses.  Creaks and groans.  Radiators wheezing strange country’s national anthems.  Windows painted tightly shut with old lead paint.  Damp basements, dark attics, and cubbyholes.  The East Coast has old houses in abundance, some dating back to the early 19^th century.  And people still live in them and sleep in them alone at night.

Ghost?  I put down my sandwich and stared at Tia Lucia who sat at the end of the long dining room table.  Heard Stuart try to stifle a chuckle so my aunt wouldn’t hear.

Lucia Castilblanco had married Samuel Lloyd and lived in that Long Island house for more than forty years.  Uncle Sam was police chief; Tia Lucia ran a bakery.  They’d enjoyed a long and happy marriage, but she was a widow now, retired from the bakery, and living all alone in that house that was already old when they bought it.

Through lunch, we had chatted about police work while we munched on ham and Swiss cheese on rye with spicy mustard, taco chips, and drank lemonade.  Because Stuart was a crime reporter for a local TV station and I was a cop, we were interested, but Lucia knew more about forensics than either one of us.  I’d long suspected Tio Sam had tested ideas about cases with her.

My father was only slightly shorter than I am, but Lucia is tiny.  Genetics plays tricks in all families, I suppose.  She was well-proportioned, although barely five feet tall, but she had a big personality.  She still but infrequently drove her lime-green Caddy with the huge fins on the back, using a couple of old Yellow Pages to see over the huge steering wheel.  She’d picked us up at the train station.  I had put Stuart on the front bench seat with my aunt because I didn’t fit; I sprawled in the back amidst grocery bags that she obviously had picked up on her way.  Tia Lucia was organized.

But my father had always said his sister was crazy.  As a kid, I thought she was crazy like a fox, and always enjoyed my visits with my Long Island relatives.  Did I say she ran a bakery?

Long Island has seen better times.  It was still a rich person’s playground, especially in the Hamptons, with huge estates reminiscent of Gatsby’s.  But other parts were becoming run down.  The cops had closed down a meth lab less than a mile away from my aunt’s house, and parts of the island were having heroin-addiction problems, including a few deaths by overdoses.  I didn’t like that Tia Lucia lived alone in that environment in a house that was too big for one person, especially an elderly one.

“Aren’t you just hearing old house noises?” I said.

“Oh, no, this was humming.  Sometimes there are songs with lyrics in some foreign language, but I could tell they were words.  They’re a little sad, like those songs I like so much in the Village.  Someone’s in the house at night, Rollie.”

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