Short Stories of a Frustrated Author

The file drawer stuck halfway out like it didn’t want to give up what it held. Chicago Police Department kept its old missing persons cases in a room that smelled like dust and neglect. The records clerk was a woman in her fifties with spectacles perched low and a cigarette burning in a glass ashtray that hadn’t been emptied since Truman took office. “You sure you got the year right?” she asked, flipping through a ledger. “Nineteen thirty-six.” She let out a thin stream of smoke. “That’s a long way back.” “Some things don’t stay buried.” She looked at me for a second longer than necessary, then reached into the lower cabinet and pulled out a thin folder. Thin in the way a man’s patience gets thin. Not enough inside. “Ruiz,” she said, sliding it across. “Michael.” I took it to a scarred wooden table under a buzzing light and opened it. The first page was a typed intake form. Name. Age. Address. Last seen near St. Brigid’s Parish. Reporting party: Elena Ruiz, mother. No suspect listed. N...

Chapter One Initialization Noise Daniel Mercer woke before the alarm. He did not know what pulled him up out of sleep. There was no nightmare clinging to him, no lingering image dissolving under daylight. Just a small, clean awareness. A disturbance without shape. He lay still. Rain touched the window. Three soft taps. A pause. Then a dragging hiss, like fingertips sliding slowly down glass. He stared at the ceiling. Three taps. Pause. Hiss. The sound repeated. He checked the clock on the nightstand. 3:17 a.m. Three taps. Pause. Hiss. The rhythm did not vary. He closed his eyes and counted silently with it. When the pattern restarted exactly where he expected it to, something in his chest tightened—not fear, not yet. Just recognition. Rain did not behave like that. He waited for wind. For the natural unevenness of weather. Nothing changed. After the fifth repetition he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. The floor was cool beneath his feet. The apar...

The rain had washed the streets clean by morning, but Chicago never stays clean for long. I started with the bank. Midwestern Development Advisory Group had an account at Lakeshore Trust, the kind of place that smelled like polished wood and quiet secrets. The marble floors were swept, the brass rails gleamed, and the tellers wore the same pleasant expression you see on nurses who know you’re dying but don’t plan on mentioning it. I walked in with Donnelly’s cancelled checks folded in my inside pocket and my pension ID tucked behind them. I didn’t lead with either. The teller was a young woman with hair pinned tight and a voice that sounded like it had been trained not to carry. “Can I help you, sir?” “I’m looking to confirm the existence of an account,” I said. “Corporate. Midwestern Development Advisory Group.” Her smile tightened just enough to let me know she recognized the name. “I’m afraid I can’t discuss client accounts.” “I’m not asking about balances,” I said. “Just whether it...

Paper Cuts and Gun Metal Chapter 1 Chicago never whispers. It hisses. The rain came in sideways off the lake, sharp as buckshot, rattling against the office window like it had something personal to settle. Streetlights smeared themselves across wet pavement below, turning Halsted into a ribbon of dull gold and gasoline rainbows. A streetcar clanged somewhere down the line, the sound thin and metallic, like a knife tapped against a glass. Bells from St. Brigid’s rolled through the evening air, heavy and slow, like a priest clearing his throat before a hard truth. My office sat over a barber shop that never closed early and never asked questions. Second floor. Narrow stairs. Smell of talcum powder and hair tonic rising up through the cracks in the floorboards. Outside, the world was wet and cold and moving too fast for its own good. Inside, it was lamplight and paper and the steady tick of a cheap wall clock that always ran a little slow. Rent was cheap because the building leaned a litt...

Chicago taught me two lessons before I learned long division: don’t look hungry, and don’t look scared. The Marines added a third—never lie to yourself about what you’re willing to do. By 1956 I’m out, pensioned, limping on a knee that clicks in bad weather. I’ve got a small office over a barber shop, a battered desk, a file cabinet that smells like dust and old cigarette paper, and a phone that rings only when someone’s desperate enough to pay for truth. The client is Patrick Donnelly, South Side construction—Irish, respectable, the kind of man who pays for church windows and expects God to notice. He’s being squeezed. Not with broken legs or tire irons. With paperwork. Permits delayed. Inspections multiplied. Union grievances that appear like clockwork. And a “consulting” fee—cash, regular, quiet—delivered through a front company with a clean letterhead and dirty hands. He wants me to find the extortionist and make it stop. Extortion has a rhythm. It repeats. It leaves patterns the s...

CHAPTER ONE THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE Present Day Briefing Room – USS Dwight D. Eisenhower 0400 Hours | Combat Information Center Red Sea AO – Near Hudaydah The air in the briefing room was cold enough to keep men awake and just warm enough to make them uncomfortable. Overworked AC ducts rattled softly overhead, pushing recycled air that smelled of machine oil, old coffee, and stress that had been marinating too long. The hum never stopped—servers whispering in racks behind sealed panels, encrypted comms breathing quietly, the ship’s bones flexing as it cut through black water. Fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, bathing the steel bulkheads in sterile white. No windows. No clocks. No phones. Not even watches. Everything that could listen had been stripped away. This was deep-classified. The kind of room where words were weapons and silence carried weight. Chief Petty Officer Lucas Kincaid sat at the edge of the long steel table, forearms crossed, boots planted flat like anchors welded to...