Christmas Haiku

It's nearly chrimbo time, so in true homework style, Jacob was set to do an English haiku. I thought it was brilliant. Here it is:

There's snow, but no rain.
The big man is on his way.
Children go insane.

Class. He even incorporated the seventeen sounds, or syllables.
Arigatou gozaimasu.

It's ready.

The novel that I've been sweating over for eleven years is finally ready for publication. I can damned well taste it now. But...but I've got to wait for my proofreader - just in case.
Godspeed my reader. Read like the wind.
Then it will be here. New Rochdale Police Department will be born. Nugus, Padraic and Rosie will breathe literary air. Jenny will fight, Webster will plot, Grimshaw will plan. Vaughn will kill. Maurice will die. Maurice will die.
Soon.

NRPD Facebook page

 Below is the link to my Facebook page for NRPD: The mean streets.

Please like the page, although, to be honest, I'm not that sure of what will happen if I got a million likes.
Is there a guy that comes around to your house and presents you with a cheque and a large thumb statuette? Who knows?
If that happens I'll let you all know.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/NRPD/156667744462251?ref=hl

Cheers.

The folk who lived in Backwards town.

Not to outdone by her big brother, my nine year old daughter Aoife has something she wanted to post as well.
This is a poem that she did for school. I think she was given a similar poem and she had to put her own slant on it.
It's brilliant. I especially love the last line - it conjures up a weird image!!

The folk who lived in Backwards town.

The folk who lived in Backwards town
Had a ruler who wore a gown.
The ruler had a palace that was upside down.
He found it quite appealing
Because everything was on the ceiling.
He goes to sleep under his bed
And wears a crown inside his head.

By Aoife Burrill.

The Last Hand

A new short story from the author of NRPD.

The Last Hand.

An FBI agent tries to find out the last secret of a serial killer - just hours from execution.

Excerpt:

It had taken me two years to track this asshole down and as I was taking my time more young women ended up in the mortuary. Maybe that’s why he thought of me: I arrested him. Eventually. I know when I close my eyes, I still see his victims, dissected, vandalized. I’d crossed two other predators during my career. This was the worst.


Don't forget, you can see my page on  https://www.facebook.com/pages/NRPD/156667744462251

See you there.

Six Word Stories

I'm sure most people have heard of the great Hemingway short story that consisted of only six words.

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Those six powerful words are impossible to emulate, however, in Nick's house, we can but try.

These aren't by me but my eleven year old son. (Mine are inaccessible at present. Later.)

By Jacob Burrill:

Investigation is closed, but not solved.

Friends are gone, but not forgotten.

Aliens may attack or could abduct.

Wake up. Out of bed. Dead.

London bridge falling down. People scream.  (My favourite.)

Let's hope he writes more, I think there is a new talent emerging.

Bad news

Got the dreaded e-mail today - 'thanks for your submission, unfortunately...' etc. Nevermind. Although it does mean that the short story that was rejected still belongs to me.
Anyway, I've definitely finished 'The last hand' now and I'm hoping to send it off in the next week or so.
My next post should be on some stories that Jacob (young son) and I have both come up with.
Keep you posted.

I'm back!

A thousand apologies to all my readers (all three of you). I have been away from this blog for a long time. Why? you ask.
The answer is: I don't know. Sometimes things just get away from you - isn't that a lesson of life.
However the result is now I'm back, and with a new short story too.

I've penned a story called 'The last hand'. It's about a condemned man being questioned on the whereabouts of one of his victims. Although all is not as it seems.

Other news: I'm still waiting for news of 'A small town robbery'. Among many others, it is being read for an American anthology. Patience.

Anyway, I'm glad that I have finally returned and I'll let you know if there is any other news very soon.

NRPD: The Blurb

At last here is the blurb to the upcoming novel NRPD: The Mean Streets. I hope it creates an interest and if it sounds stupid then I'm sure that one of my many, many followers will let me know. Thanks.


A killer is stalking the mean streets of New Rochdale.

Two policemen are viciously slaughtered in a seemingly opportunistic attack.

Detective Sergeant Nugus Bottomley and his new recruit Detective Constable Padraic Evans manage to tie the murders to a train robbery from the 80’s - a train robbery that never was.

A local gangster and his Hollywood starlet daughter are only too happy to confuse Nugus and Padraic, especially when a mysterious stranger starts leaking blood everywhere.

Then comes the TV crew.

A twisted plot - gruesome murders, a creepy prison cell, a doner kebab and an ice cream van.

NRPD: The Mean Streets - You may die laughing.

A New Rochdale Police Department novel from the author of The Boatman.

NRPD: The Mean Streets

I'm really hoping I'll have a publishing date soon for my novel. It will be out on Smashwords. The novel is called NRPD: The Mean Streets - New Rochdale Police Department.
It's a cross-genre thriller with a bit of sci-fi, a bit of horror and a lot of comedy, all mixed together into a lovely and disturbing recipe of murder and mayhem.
A synopsis will follow (as soon as I find it).
Early reviews of the book are favourable from the two people who have read it - one of them being me.
I'll keep you posted.
Nick.

I've started a new short story. At the moment the working title is "The List".
It's about two killers deciding about who they should slaughter. Of course, the title and the theme of the story may change as I write it, because these things tend to be very fluid.
I'll keep you posted.

Don't forget: there are other places to view Nick's work, such as http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/horror/darkfire/july11_FS.html

Gahhhh. I really need to rewrite the whole thing. The only good thing is that nobody has seen this blog yet. It's like it's my own secret garden.
Procrastination is overrated, but I can live my life by it. Bah.

New Rochdale Police Department

Welcome.

Here's a bit of NRPD: The Mean Streets.



A drop of cooled condensation crawled slowly over the stonework, dribbling down, eventually to rest in a crevice in the dirty grout between the heavy stones. Grimshaw lay on his side on his bunk watching the drips of water work their way down. This was something he did often. Sometimes he watched twin drops race their way down the wall, other times a singular drop of water was enough to entertain him.  This is all he had. No real entertainment, no real life.  This is what he subsisted on - watching water drip down the walls of his damp cell. There was a time when he had books to read but they had been confiscated when he had assaulted a guard with one of the bedsprings he had removed from his bunk.  So his precious books had been taken away as had his bedsprings. Now he had to lie on his thin mattress on the floor whilst biding his time watching water run down the wall. All that for slashing a man’s throat - ridiculous. Come on, the bastard lived, just. Now Grimshaw was reduced to this.
He figured that lights out was coming soon. He had no clock, but he just knew. After so many years of lights on in the morning, lights out at night. No time, just twelve hours of light, twelve hours of dark. That was it.  That was the only thing that denoted the days. And so there was no birthdays, no Christmas, no New Year. Fuck all. Just light and dark.
For once, tonight Grimshaw was waiting for the dark. He waited and waited. Eventually the lights went out and he heard the day guard shout goodnight. Routine went as normal. The night guard walked down the corridor flashing his torch into every nook and cranny in the old cells and then he flashed his light into Grimshaw’s cell. Grimshaw waved back at the light without actually raising his head from the mattress on the floor. He waited some more.
He slowly counted to sixty and then counted to sixty again. Then he counted to sixty another five-eight times. This was the only way he could estimate an hour. He was actually very close because he had practiced it many times. He knew the night guard usually took a walk an hour into his shift and then he would snooze for about four hours and then after a hot beverage he would take another walk around. Grimshaw was fortunate that the thick walls in this underground purgatory were very acoustic. The guard’s snores would start soon and then he would have approximately four hours before he heard the kettle begin to boil. He continued to wait.
He idly wondered, as he lay in the dark, on whether Nugus would follow the clues he had left. Personally, he thought the hints about the books were a little heavy handed, but he needed Nugus to fire up his brain and follow the silver. It was finally time that he got his revenge on that bastard Webster, and he needed Nugus to help him, whether he wanted to or not.
His night vision had kicked in after about thirty minutes, so he could see quite well now with the diffused glow from the guard’s office. He lay there silently for another ten minutes or so until the gentle snoring became rhythmic. Silently he crept from his bunk and stood in the middle of his cell and stretched. What he didn’t want now was the acoustics that had been to his advantage so far to work against him.
He stepped to the wall adjoining his cell with the empty one next door. Crouching down he counted out the lowest line of bricks from the metal bars. When he reached the fifth one he counted out vertically to the seventh brick and started to work his fingernail into the grout.  It was softer than it should have been due in no small part to his constant digging and remoulding of the grout over the last six months. In a few minutes of teasing he managed to loosen the entire brick and lift it out and placed it on the floor. The brick was heavy and large as was customarily used in the building of Victorian masonry.  By removing this brick he had left a substantial hole in the wall, but not yet big enough to crawl through. However, it did give him the leverage to pull at the next brick lower down. He heaved on it after three, and it budged a bare smidge. On the next heave it moved an inch. Then it moved two. Small pieces of crumbling sandy cement tumbled onto the floor. Anticipating this, he had moved his mattress close to the wall. Eventually, when the second brick came away after a final pull the brick fell silently to the mattress. Unfortunately, the hefty brick rolled and fell against his foot, grazing his ankle badly. He held in a scream, breathing rapidly in and out for a few minutes. He hadn’t anticipated that. Fucker.  He held his ankle in the dark, no blood, but a bruise certainly.  He stood and put his weight on it - sore but manageable.
He started to work on the next brick, it moved slightly easier and he only needed to move it out of the way , not actually extract it from the wall. The brick swivelled around on its axis.
Now there was enough room to scrabble his slight frame through the wall.
He had been planning this ever since he had noticed a loose piece of grout in the wall.  This not only involved manipulating the disintegrating grout out of the wall around the brick and then disguising his handiwork with spit-softened cement, but he had also been starving himself so he could slender down enough to fit though a small hole. He knew he wouldn’t have the time or the strength to make a large exit hole. He was also bothered that if he had to remove too many bricks then he was risking creating more noise and alerting the sleeping guard. It was his one chance and he couldn’t jeopardise it. His timing was critical as well. He had to wait until the right somnolent guard was on duty and he also waited for the right day guard to store some crap in his neighbouring cell. Most of the guards made sure they locked the ‘store’ cell door. However one didn’t bother half the time, after all there was nobody in it, and it was unlikely that anybody would steal from it.
The one thing Grimshaw was good at was waiting and he had, until the time was right. Today’s visit from that nerdy detective had spurred him on and everything seemed to be coming together.
Grimshaw moved slowly through the newly excavated wall. His clothes snagged on the rough brickwork and he forced himself through, snaking out in the neighbouring cell being careful not to disturb anything stored in there. He dusted himself off and took a minute to orientate himself in this new environment. Detritus was built up in piles in this cell. It had become a dumping ground over the years for unwanted furniture and ornaments from the city hall over the years. He warily circumnavigated the unwanted bric-a-brac and made his way to the cell door. Pushing it open, he was relieved to find it open. It had crossed his mind several times since he started his escape that he could have been mistaken. If he’d have found a securely locked door then his months of planning would have been wasted. He was committed now and wouldn’t be able to put the bricks back in the wall without discovery. That would have, of course, meant more punishment. Severe punishment.
He was out now, but far from clear. As an after thought he stepped back into the cell and grabbed something.  He made his way down the outer corridor to the office door. It was locked, but he knew that it was going to be. He positioned the object he had retrieved from the store cell on the floor, just out of the ring of light coming from the office through the small observation window, he then lightly started to scratch on the door.  There was no response at first, but when he did it again he could hear the snores of the guard stutter and the chair creaking as he lifted himself up. He scratched again. The key in the door turned very carefully and the door slowly opened. The guards had been after a rat that had been roaming the cell floor for a while, and Grimshaw had done his bit by feeding it with his unwanted food. Now the guard was convinced that he had a chance to kill it and therefore wining the sizable pot that had been accruing for the eventual victor in this war against the offending rodent. With Grimshaw hiding behind the door, the guard stepped cautiously into the corridor and saw part of the stuffed ferret that Grimshaw had placed on the floor. The guard raised his baton slowly to strike the beast. He could almost hear the admiration of his colleagues. As he struck down, bringing him off his natural centre of gravity, Grimshaw lashed out with a sharp chop to the back of the guard’s neck and he collapsed heavily onto the cold floor. Immediately Grimshaw was upon him, relieving him of his keys and his baton. He handcuffed the groaning guard’s hands behind his back and then kicked him in the abdomen.  He always hated this bastard, more than the others. He had a tendency to be cruel when he wasn’t sleeping on duty.
Shuffling through the keys, Grimshaw found the right key to the arms locker. He selected a 12-bore Franchi Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun or SPAS - a pump action anti-riot weapon capable of firing twenty-four to thirty rounds per minute of buckshot at a range of forty metres and a 9mm Berretta handgun. He stuffed two boxes of 9mm bullets and a box of shotgun rounds into the pockets of the guard’s coat that hung on the back of the outer door and donned said coat. Before he let himself out, armed, dangerous and warm, he had some unfinished business to attend to.
He turned to the semi-conscious guard and held his newly acquired baton high. Fighting oblivion, the guard’s eyes sprang tears of fear. He knew what was coming.

Please enjoy this short story.

The will.

Charlie killed himself on a Wednesday. He’d paid his bills, arranged an undertaker and taken a big bottle of pills. He was always very considerate.
He didn’t have any family. We were his nearest people – just colleagues, you might say. He was the janitor at the Arcade police department, now we had nobody to clean up after us. Wait, there was more to it than that, he was a one of the boys. A friend. A really nice guy and we were sad that he was gone.
The funeral was grey and tidy. Nobody else was there. Sixty years on this Earth and the only ones to see him off was us – his friends, I suppose. How sad. The Chief of police said a few words. There wasn’t anybody there to cry for him. Then it was all over.
Days later we received a visitor at the precinct. A lawyer from the big city - all full of business, in an expensive suit and tie. He was there to act as executor for Charlie’s last will and testament. We all had to be there for it, the chief and all the deputies, all two of us. It would only take fifteen minutes we were told, so we closed the front door of the precinct and sat in the chief’s office as the lawyer produced a file from his expensive briefcase. We weren’t that worried about interruption. It’s a quiet town is Arcade; besides it was too early for drunken brawls at Jose’s Tavern and Grill and too late for school-run speeding citations.
“‘I, Charles Becker, being of sound mind and body…’ ”
It read like the menu at Jose’s, predictable and without flavour. That is until he got to the real meat of it. Our janitor, the lawyer explained through Charlie’s words, was independently wealthy. He’d had some luck with the World Series, every year, for the last twenty-three years. 1988 through to 2011. His luck had accumulated millions of dollars. I mean millions. And he was leaving it all to us. All of it.
None of us reacted. It was beyond deserving a reaction. Things like this didn’t happen to us. The lawyer peered over the Charlie’s will. “You all can start breathing now,” he said.
We did. Big gulps of the sweat tinged air in that small office. I looked around at the others. The chief was nearing retirement and his eyes widened at the news. Gordy, the other deputy, was only a kid. I honestly thought he was going to faint right there and then. My family had grown up and left. The wife and I could have done with that kind of money ten years ago, but, hell, we could do with the money right now.
So how do you dance of the table at a will reading? Is that disrespecting the dead?
The lawyer caught us before we did anything stupid. “Before you boys run off to buy new tractors or whatever your hearts desire out here in farmland, Charlie had a stipulation. You can claim this money in twenty-four hours, but only if you solve a missing persons case first.”
“A missing person?” I asked. My brain had already taken a holiday.
“Who’s missing?” The chief asked wisely.
The lawyer pulled out a business card from a silver case. The card was ivory, embossed. He wrote a name and a date of birth on the back. He turned the card over and proffered it to the chief. “Ring me later.”
“When we’ve solved the case?”
“When you run into problems,” the lawyer said with a wink and a wry smile.
* * *
I think Gordy was all for running out into the street and calling the guys name out. The chief sent him out to cruise the I109 for speeders, just to get him out of the road. With a sulk he was gone. The chief told me to find this man, while he sorted out some paperwork. That meant he had to go for a lie down - he hadn’t been well recently. I could still the shock on his face.
I got to work. I put his name and date of birth through the DMV and NCIC. Edward Hamill, thirty-seven, no priors. Not known to the FBI. The DMV gave me his home address and told me he had a clean licence. Not even an outstanding parking ticket. He lived in a suburb of the city - swanky area.
It also showed me a picture of him - no doubt he was definitely a relation of Charlie’s, got to be a son or a younger brother. So I tried the NamUs, which put on the missing persons database. Nothing. Then I ‘googled’ his name. Got a business address and phone number. Seems he was a scientist working at a private research and development place. So I rang. After sweet talking a receptionist I got put through to his office. He answered on the first ring. I found our missing person in twenty minutes. He assured me that he was far from missing. And no, he had never heard of anyone called Charlie Becker.
Now it was becoming clear. Charlie was probably this man’s father and he wanted us to find him. I could see all the money evaporating. Edward’s mother had presumably never told him. Obviously our recently deceased janitor wanted us to find his estranged son so he could have all the money.
Goodbye Charlie. Goodbye money. Case closed.
Except… except it was all so twisted. Why couldn’t Charlie just find his son on his own? It wasn’t like he was a million miles away. Twenty at the most. It took me minutes to find him. Even without the DMV, it wouldn’t have taken more than an hour for Charlie to locate him on the internet. Hell, if he’d asked I’d have done it for him. Why the pretence? Why the promise of big money, when it was only ever going to go to this asshole of a son?
Fine. I’ll see this through and maybe Charlie, wherever he is, will be happy.
I asked the son if I could meet him. Sure, he said, come on over. Asshole. He definitely had Charlie’s friendly nature - just as long as he didn’t have his father’s weird sense of humour.
On the way there I decided to ring the lawyer.
“What the hell is going on? I’ve just spoke to Hamill. He’s not missing. Is this a joke?” I was so pissed.
“No, officer, this isn’t a joke. My client paid me a huge retainer and asked me to read his will on the event of his death. But that doesn’t mean he told me everything.”
“Did you know that Hamill wasn’t missing?”
“I know this is disconcerting for you. I’m just following my client’s wishes,” he said, almost sorry.
“Did you know?” I pushed. I could hear the lawyer take in a sharp breath.
“As a matter of fact, I did. I investigated this claim of a missing person myself. Mr Becker wrote his will six months ago. Edward Hamill wasn’t missing then.”
“So why am I doing this?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation from my voice.
“I approached Mr Becker about this. He claimed that Hamill will disappear tonight at seven exactly. He wanted you to stop him. Mr Becker was very emphatic about it. That’s as much as I know.”
“How? Is he kidnapped? Does he fall down a well?” I stopped myself. This was bull. How could Charlie Becker know that this man was going to disappear? He couldn’t. It was a trick, or a trap. Charlie had set something up here.
The lawyer was silent. Waiting for me to think this through.
“Okay,” I said. “He’s supposed to disappear at nine. I’ll make sure he doesn’t. Will that fulfil Charlie’s stipulation?”
“Yes it will.”
It was five-thirty.
“I’ll ring you at five past seven.” I rang off.
* * *
Inside the main reception of Hamill’s place of work a receptionist directed me down to his office. Coming from the lime-green painted dump of the precinct, this place was beautiful. The carpet in the corridor must have cost more than my annual salary. Paintings an the walls looked original by, maybe, French guys, not that I would know, but they probably were. Hamill’s office was just as flashy. There was enough space in there to park both of our squad cars, and it was filled with books and certificates on the walls. He had three computers on his massive glass desk. There were more big flat screen TV’s dotted around the place than in Harry Martin’s electrical store in the new mall. Everyone of the screens were on, showing freaky multicoloured flashes, like tunnels and tube, expanding and collapsing upon themselves. Like screensavers gone mad. It was dizzying. Disturbing.
Hamill showed me to a chair a tubular thing that you needed an engineering degree just to sit down. I perched.
Christ, he looked like Charlie. I mean spitting image. He even had on a baseball shirt. It was going to be hard breaking the news.
“Thanks for seeing me at short notice.”
Hamill nodded. I could tell he was busy, but much too polite to boost me.
I showed him a picture of Charlie I’d blown up from his driver’s licence.
“Do you know this man? Charlie Becker?”
Hamill looked thoughtful. He slowly shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Although I’ll admit he looks familiar.”
“He looks like you.”
Hamill took the photo from me and studied it closer. He smiled.
“You’re right. Older sure, but yes I suppose he does.”
“Could he be a relation?” I asked.
“Er, I’d have to ask my parents, but if he is he’s someone I’ve never heard them talk about. Charlie Becker you said?” He looked genuinely perplexed. So was I.
“Your parents, do you have a picture?”
“Yes, in my wallet.”
He produced an old photo after some rummaging around. The photo was dated, a middle-aged couple with their arms around each other. I peered at the photo then back at Hamill again. The likeness was remarkable. I could see both his mother and father in his face. Who was Charlie?
“Look, what’s this all about? I’ll ask my parents about this guy. Is he the one that said I was a missing person?”
I could see that Hamill was trying really hard to remain polite. I looked at my watch. It was only six-fifteen.
“Is it possible to ring your parents now?” I tried so hard not to come off desperate.
“They’re in Thailand. A second honeymoon, or maybe a third. I’ve lost count.”
Think. Could I arrest him or cuff him to the desk? If I pulled out my gun would I be able to keep him here until nine? No. I got up from the complicated chair.
“Thank you Mr Hamill, sorry Dr Hamill,” I quickly corrected myself after seeing his nameplate on his desk.
“Eddie, please.” He stuck out his hand. I was beginning to like this guy. Then again, I liked Charlie and look where that got me.
“Say, what kind of doctor are you?”
He smiled.
“Sorry,” I said. “Force of habit. Policemen ask questions.”
“No, not at all. I have a PhD in astrophysics.
“Oh,” I said.
“And pure maths.”
“Ah.”
“And advanced quantum mechanics. I once held the Einstein Chair of Theoretical Physics at Princeton.”
“I have a leather lazi-boy back at… never mind.”
He smiled again. I paused waiting for something else. He seemed embarrassed.
“So that’s what you do here? Physics and maths and stuff.” I filled in the pause.
“Well, it’s a R and D post.” He waved his arms around the room at all the incomprehensible images on the TV’s. “I’m looking at the fabric of the universe.”
I was out of my depth here. “Okay then, I better go. There’s a lot of universe out there so I better leave you to it.” I’d decided to wait in the parking lot until he went home. Then I could follow him until it was past seven. “What time do you finish?”
“I’m afraid I put in a few all-nighters in here. Tonight is one of them.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” he said explaining further. “We have a big experiment tonight. Kind of crucial really.” He looked at his watch. “Sorry to rush you, but I have to prepare. Something big is going to happen at seven tonight.”
* * *
I woke up in a small infirmary. Dr Hamill was standing over me with a glass of water. Concern on his face.
“Are you okay? You just went down.”
I fumbled to sit.
“What time is it?”
“Er, twenty-five to seven. Are you alright now?”
“This experiment - what is it?”
The concern on Hamill’s face deepened into worry. “Sorry. It’s classified.”
I stood up and took hold of his lab coat. “Tell me!” I think I shouted.
“Don’t you need a warrant or something?” He backed away.
“Do I need one?”
“Come back tomorrow, I’ll tell you then.”
I let him go. I couldn’t be bad to him. I needed him to trust me.
“Please. Charlie thought you’re going to disappear at seven tonight.”
Hamill laughed. “Well, I suppose I am. But only for minute.”
“Please, I’m trying to protect you. I have a lot riding on this.”
Hamill suddenly became thoughtful. He looked at me closely.
“There must be a leak here. Nobody knows about the breakthrough. Not yet. Who is Charlie Becker?”
“He was our janitor. He died after winning loads on the world series. He wanted me to stop you from becoming a missing person.”
Hamill looked at me as though I had just said I’d seen Santa Claus. He spun around and bolted out of the door. I heard a click as he locked me in.
I stepped forward and stood in the puddle where he’d dropped the glass of water. This had become more than money now. Some strange shit was going on here. I pulled out my gun and blew a hole in the door.
  In the corridor a man in a white was carrying a bundle of printouts was staring shocked as I busted out.
“Where did Dr Hamill go?”
He dropped his papers as he stared at my big gun. He pointed down the corridor. “He’s due in lab 3,” he squeaked.
I ran shouting ‘lab 3’ at anybody I saw. Scientists break quickly at the sight of a gun. Everyone I met pointed and ducked. I smashed through the door of lab 3 when I found it.
The large room was like an operating theatre at the city hospital. Machines stood pinging in every corner. White coated geeks stood around with clipboards and iPads and handheld thingys. Hamill was stood on a dais in front of a big round thing. He looked at me with determination.
“You’re not going to stop me going through here.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing?” I screamed. The gun in my hand probably made me look like a madman.
“When this portal turns on at seven, I’m going to step back in time.”
“Portal?” I said.
He looked at his watch. I looked at mine. We had fifteen minutes. I put my gun back in the holster.
He was a scientist. That meant he had to explain everything whether he wanted to or not. It was his nature. I’m a policeman, I crave information. That was my nature.
“This portal manufactures a crack in the fabric of the universe. It makes a wormhole. A tunnel through time. And I’m going to step though it.”
“At seven,” I said. “At seven you’re going to step through there and not come back.”
“No, I’m just going for a peek.”
At last it was clear. I laughed as I approached Hamill on the dais. “You’re Charlie. You’ll step through there and not come back. You’re going to trapped in the past and then in twenty-three years you’ll die, by your own hand. Then you’ll send me to come and stop you.”
I could see Hamill’s face - Charlie’s face - crack. He knew I was right. But I knew his mind. He was Charlie. I knew Charlie.
“The plan, if this goes wrong is to accumulate money - I decided to memorize every world series winner - then when the time comes, this time - now -  I have to commit suicide. My will has to send someone to stop me from making a mistake.” He almost looked defeated as he knew that his plan B had come into effect. I was here to stop him.
“So stop then. Don‘t go in there.” It was over.
“No, I have to go in.” It wasn’t over.
“Why?”
“Paradoxical consequences.” He was resigned.
“What?”
“If  I don’t go in there then I would have never have sent you to come and stop me. That’s why suicide is factored into the strategy. I cannot meet myself - it would cause further paradox. And I’m sorry about the money.”
He jolted me back to the reason why I came looking for him in the first place. “It’s not about the money,” I lied. Well, kind of. I wanted to solve this - the money was a great bonus.
Then Charlie really brought home this paradox thing. “If you stop me going back then I won’t be there to will you the money.”
He was right.
No.
Which ever way this worked out then there’s be no money. If I stopped him, or if I let him go, I’d fail. Did he have the will to step though the portal despite knowing that he couldn’t come back? Did I have the will to stop him?
I breathed deeply. It wasn’t about the money. The chief would understand. Gordy would probably shoot me. But I had to stop him. For Charlie.
I rushed him on the dais. And pushed him out of the way just as the portal started to fire up. It was seven.
He fell one way, I fell the other. A lightening streaked tunnel was between us. We both fell.
* * *
I woke up in an alleyway. It was night. I rushed out into the street.
A late night vendor was selling newspapers. I grabbed one. The date was the 19th of January, 1987.
Shit.
Who the hell won the world series this year?  

Hello to everyone. This blog is going to be an on-going collection of my work. Please read and comment or ignore if you aren't interested. Thanks. Nick.