"Bullets, Booze and Bastards"

Sample chapter from Frank Sinatra in a Blender by Matthew McBride

I pulled into Norman Russo’s driveway as the sun was seduced by gravity and evening set in. Orange and pink stripes blazed then faded in the dead sky behind his neighbor’s shed, in desperate need of paint.

I let the Crown Victoria run while I finished the rest of my drink and set the Styrofoam cup next to the short-barrel shotgun mounted on the floorboard. I dropped a 20-milligram Oxycontin in the middle of a dollar bill, folded the bill up tightly, and smashed the pill to a fine powder with the rounded edge of a Bic.

I rubbed the paper between my fingers to grind it up as best I could.

The car shook as the wind slammed it from the side. I looked around. There were two empty police cruisers parked in front of me and an officer lighting up a smoke on the front porch.

I dumped out the powder and rolled up a bill tight, then ducked down to snort a line half the length of the owner’s manual for a 1997 Crown Victoria.

When the Oxy hit, my right eye began to water. I sniffed hard and took another drink of gin. I opened my door and the cold wind sawed deep into my bones. Chemical motivation cleansed my nerves as the world inside my head exploded and painted my mind with raw enthusiasm.

Norman Russo picked a good day to kill himself. The weather was shit and there was nothing worthwhile on TV. Not that I watched much of that. I had better things to do. Like drink.

I nodded toward the rookie at the door like I was someone important. It worked. He gave a nod of his own. I should have brought my cup.

The house was clean and had the look of a place with money. A nice home in an expensive neighborhood, meticulously maintained except for that peeling shed. An officer was taking pictures of the sliding door with a digital camera. I noticed there was no security system.

Another officer asked who I was. I told him I’d been summoned by the Chief, that they should’ve been expecting me.

“Valentine?”

I nodded.

“Right over there.” He pointed toward a set of stairs with a hole knocked in the drywall above. Splinters from the two-by-four Norman Russo used to hang himself from decorated the staircase carpet.

It looked like the victim killed himself on the staircase. Not the first place I would’ve picked.

“Down here,” a voice shouted from the basement. Another officer squeezed by me in the hall as if I were invisible. They resented the fact that Chief Caraway called me down to observe.

When I took the first step down, unexpected elation blistered inside me as the Oxy invaded my system. I stopped midway down the stairs to get a closer look at the suicide note pinned to the wall with a yellow thumbtack. The writing was sloppy at best and hard to read, like it was written in haste.

I heard a familiar voice behind me and turned to find Dan O’Shea, a veteran detective I knew from way back.

“What do you think, Nick?” Dan’s wide shoulders and concrete-hard chest reflected his former career as a boxer.

I swallowed and cringed as the remains of the Oxy drained down my throat, then told him it was the funniest suicide note I’d ever read.

O’Shea stood in the doorway, perplexed. “Well, that’s a helluva thing to say.”

I looked down at the lifeless heap of body on the bottom step and shrugged. Told O’Shea maybe the deceased was just a bad speller. He shook his head and searched for a response that never came.

It was hard to believe a 300-pound man would hang himself from a rafter over the basement stairs with a rope that didn’t look strong enough to string a piñata. When I got close to the body Russo’s neck sure looked broken. But there was bruising around the upper spine that didn’t come from a rope. I knew something about rope. It looked like somebody’d beat him across the back and neck with a bat. I knew about bats too. Knew what an aluminum Easton was capable of in the hands of a gifted slugger.

Starting with a handwritten suicide note that didn’t make sense, my suspicions of the crime scene were strong and unwavering.

I walked outside through the basement door and stepped into the last rays from the retreating sun. The icy wind made me wish for a cup of hot coffee in my hand, but I had quit. Thoughts of coffee made me long for a cigarette but I had quit those too. In fact, the cigarettes were why I quit the coffee; I couldn’t have one without the other. It’s all or nothing for a guy like me. A guy who appreciates funny suicide notes.