Part 1 of 1
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Tonight, our PI finds himself anxiously loitering with a man once well known for his hoodlum tendencies.
The Skinner Co. Network
209 - Mulligan Smith and The Wait, Part 1 of 1
[♪♪♪] Welcome to FlashPulp episode 209. Tonight we present Mulligan Smith and The Weight, Part 1 of 1. This week's episodes are brought to you by In Broad Daylight. Hey there, Nathan Lowell here to tell you about a new book on patiobooks.com. I think you're going to like it. It's called In Broad Daylight and it's by my boy and your Seth Harwood. Seth's the author of the Jack Palms crime series, Jack Wakes Up, This Is Life, and Checkmate. And now he's got a new thriller starring FBI agent Jess Harding, who's tracking a bloody serial killer across Alaska. If you like thrills and chills, my work, or Scott Sigler's, JC Hutchins, or any of the stories on Crime Wave, you're going to love In Broad Daylight by Seth Harwood. Give it a shot, check it out. And when you decide you love it, remember Nate sent you. That's right, it's your boy here, Seth Harwood, back with a new podcast novel, In Broad Daylight, starring female FBI agent Jess Harding. You can find it at SethHarwood.com, patiobooks.com, and on iTunes. We'll be waiting. FlashPulp is an experiment in broadcasting fresh pulp stories in modern age. Three to ten minutes of fiction brought to you Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. Tonight, our PI finds himself anxiously loitering with a man once well known for his hoodlum tendencies. Mulligan Smith and the Weight, part one of one, written by Jaredie Skinner, Art and Narration Biopoponax, audio produced by Jessica May. Mulligan Smith, private investigator, had spent the evening watching a Blue Crown Victoria sit empty. The Ford was parked in the law of the shawtyess Walmart in the east end of capital city, and none of the employees bothered to note yet another unshaven vagrant hanging by the storefront. The chill November morning had left a frost on the windshield, which remained even as the sun snuck away behind grey cloud cover. But the detective had been hopeful, until recently, that he could intercept anyone interested in the vehicle's condition. He'd spotted the sedan's taxi cap markings when he'd first approached, and it had seemed odd that a working car would go unnoticed so long, but the company door decals were hemmed in by the constant flow of poorly parking shoppers, and the only other indicator was a small white roof cap, which might be easily missed on a brisk winter's day. Smith hadn't stood alone the entire watch, however, and the wrinkled man with the comb over halo who'd helped occupy him for the last hour was still talking. Ah, hell, I know you heard it a thousand times from your old man. Well, uh, read it, I guess, considering his lack of snitch meat, but things were different then. Listen, I saw the guy once while he was using the john. He was in a bag of mails, a pool place that used to sell smoke to twice the price, so they also sold beer, and their new junks are lazy. I cranked the door open while his hands were full, put one in his kneecap and lent nature to the rest. Hell, my mess. He had to crawl out of it on his own. He was dragging a lot of liquids behind him when he finally made it back to the tables. It took Mel an extra hundred to shut him up. Can you imagine a sea note keeping a man's silence? Times were different. Though Mulligan was well familiar with Walmart Mike's shady past, he'd only known the man in the years since he'd taken on his latest identity. Even as they spoke, Mike's greeter vest waggled with his wide-armed punctuations. For a fellow who seems to rarely bother brushing his hair, continued the former gunman, he sure look agitated. Not that it's my business, and patience is a virtue, sure. But if you got something you need to get done, then get it done. I ever told you how I got popped? The worldly welcomeer said his hand to his cheek, rubbed at it with a sigh, then began his telling. Didn't understand back then. It wasn't up to hurt folks. I was just trying to make some scratch. Well, it might sound like a cop-out, but it felt like a war. It felt like my time in Vietnam, actually. I kicked around a few cities, but the folks I fell in with had the same notion across the board. It was an enterprise, but it was also something that came out of the neighborhoods and the kids they ran with, and the people they'd grown up around. But what was smaller? It was before the internet had everyone poking everyone else, and you could think that even the guy three blocks over was your enemy, coming to cut you in your sleep, saw heroin or your sister. Jesus, selling holes to my sister was my job. It kept me busy for a long time. Fortunately, she was smaller than me. It went clean after lending me a black eye. Pfft, what an idiot I was. My moronic axe may have been buried, but the worst of it was the death of Salty O'Malley. Bailey knew Salty, and he never did much to deserve the knife I gave him. The recital stalled at the approach of a customer familiar with Mike's on-the-clock barrage of polite hollows, and Smith began tapping his index finger against his pocketed phone. It was rare for Mulligan to grow impatient at the narrator's stories, but he'd recently placed a fairly urgent call and had yet to receive a response. As he scanned the flow of battered minivans and high revving hatchbacks, the interrupting round-faced man passed with a wheezed greeting. The automatic door slid shut, and the storyteller continued. It wasn't mad and much why I did it. It changed me. Had a girl, and the same day she told me she was preggers. We've been together a while. Long as I'd known a gal, really. We had a little basement place we rented from a stepdad. Anyhow, I broke down. I couldn't handle the idea when my jacket was tumbling around in our tiny washing machine, stained with dead O'Malley's blood. I told her I was so happy. I told her I had to call my ma. I left. I tried to drink away the tail end of the 70s, but look at it as always giving me the s***. Even then, I was too much of a pansy to try anything stronger. The 80s were balls. I told myself at first I'd just stick to mine and stuff. But my stomach wasn't in anymore. I got so hungry in '83 that I tried to mug an idiot tourist and brought daylight off Times Square. I started weeping as she handed me the money. I ended up giving her my last ten. I'm apologizing. By the 90s, I'd almost stopped having nightmares. Dreams about meeting my boy in the cops suddenly bursting in. Or worse, dreams of salty O'Malley sitting in the darkness at the end of my bed and asking me why I did it. It wasn't the talking corpse that scared me in those. It was a lack of an answer. Anyhow, I'd heard from folks and new folks that my kid had been born all right, and then he and his mama moved in with her parents. I lost track of them after that, but it was always my intention, once I could look myself in the mirror to go back. In '97, while I'm stalking the shelves at a Connecticut K-mod, it walks a push broom mustache in a brown jacket. It tells me about cool case files and DNA testing, and it all ends in a long stretch at a tall wall of federal correctional shanty. They count broke briefly, as did Mike's boys. With a soggy cough, he cleared his throat, then finished his tail. I had deserved it, even with my changes, and wouldn't have mattered anyhow. Sally had tears in her eyes when she told me he'd died at 15. Kiansa, she gave me, though, now something. Both men needed a moment of silence, and as they took it, a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and began trawling the cement sea's yellow-lined aisles. He wasn't sure if it was due to the story or the delay, but Smith was feeling uncooperative. Originally, he'd intended to direct their search, but he reasoned that he'd been clear about the license plate in question, and that the sweet smell of decay emanating from the trunk had been easy enough to spot when he'd encountered it an hour earlier. He said, "You're coming off a long shift. Must be hungry. Let's go grab a burger." Dad mentioned once he knew a guy in Boston who blew his own leg off and had to lay low at his mother's house for three months, smiling while Mark Mike shrugged off his smock. Yeah, mean old bag. Let's see. That'd be '74? The pair stepped down from the curb. Flashpulp is presented by Flashpulp.com and is released under the Canadian Creative Commons contribution non-commercial 2.5 license. Text and audio commentaries can be sent to skinner@skinner.fm or the voicemail line at 206-338-2792. But be aware that they may appear in a future Flashcast. We'd also like to thank the free sound project found at freesound.org. For a full listing of effects used during the show, as well as credits for the users who provided them, please check this episode's notes at flashpulp.com. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell your friends. ♪ Sunday is gloomy, my hours are stumbled out. Here is the shadows I live with are stumbled out. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)