THUGLIT Issue Two (13 page)

“And your police escort is here…" I trailed off, allowing her to fill in the blank.

“My friend at the bar is just here to keep an eye out.”

“For what? For me?”

“For anything.”

“I see,” I lied. I didn’t see shit yet. Although my ego deflated slightly that I didn’t warrant the singular attentions of her bodyguard. “But as I said, we really don’t do that sort of thing.”

“He’s just asking you to try.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a cream-colored envelope and slid it across the table. “Here’s a picture and a small retainer, should you choose to take our offer.”

I opened up the envelope and pulled a smaller envelope out. It was unsealed, and clearly held more than a month’s wages in bouncer gigs. I hoped my eyes didn’t do a cartoon bug-out. “Okay, then, we’ll give it a shot,” I said a bit too quickly. Money talks, brother. And in this case it sang a rock opera.

I pulled out the picture.

It was the girl with the dyed red hair.

TO BE CONTINUED IN

THUGLIT ISSUE 3

N
IK
K
ORPON
is the author of
Old Ghosts
,
By the Nails of the Warpriest
,
Stay God
and the forthcoming collection
Bar Scars
. His work has appeared in
Needle Magazine
,
Out of the Gutter
,
Shotgun Honey
,
Black Heart Noir
,
Beat to a Pulp
and a bunch more, and has been nominated for a Spinetingler Award, the Million Writers Award and a Pushcart. He lives in Baltimore. Give him some danger, little stranger, at
nikkorpon.com
.

JEN CONLEY
has
been writing stories for a few years and
her
work has been published in
Needle, Beat to a Pulp,
Shotgun Honey, Big Pulp, REAL, Talking River Review, R-KV-R-Y, SNM Horror
and the anthology,
Bonded By Blood II.
F
orthcoming stories will be published in
Plots With Guns, Out of the Gutter,
and
Shotgun Honey.
“Home Invasion,” published in
Thuglit,
was nominated for a
2011 Best of the Web Spinetingler Award.

MIKE MACLEAN
owes the
Thuglit
crew a round of brews. After doing time in the pages of
Thugl
it
, Mike's "McHenry's Gift" was picked up by
Best American Mystery Stories,
where it shared pages with the likes of Elmore Leonard and James Lee Burke. Hollywood then came calling in the form of legendary filmmaker Roger Corman who hired Mike to pen the cinematic masterpieces
Dinoshark vs. Supergator
,
Piranhaconda
,
Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader
, and of course
Sharktopus
. Tha
t's right world, you have Thugl
it to thank for Sharktopus. Currently, Mike is working on an action/adventure script that will not contain any topless giants, mutants, or f
reakish crimes against nature.
Visit Mike on the web at
www.mikemaclean.net

MARK FITCH
's
work has previously appeared in
The Connecticut Review
,
A Twist of Noir
,
Cezanne's Carrot
, and
Prick of the Spindle
.
His
noir short story,
"
Altar Boys
"
, will be published by
The Big Click
in September and
his
non-fiction book,
Paranormal Nation
, is due out in March of 2013 from Prager Publishers.

KATHERINE TOMLINSION
is a former journalist who prefers to make things up. Her sho
rt fiction has appeared in
Thugl
it
,
A Twist of Noir
,
Pulp Ink 2
,
Drunk on the Moon
,
Alt-Zombie
,
Eaten Alive
, and the upcoming
Weird Noir
. She lives in L.A. and sees way too many movies.

JUSTIN PORTER
was born and raised in New York City. His fiction has appeared in
Thuglit
,
Demolition Mag
,
Plots With Guns
,
Pulp Pusher
,
Steampunk Tales
and the anthologies
Sex, Thugs and Rock & Roll
, and
Blood, Guts and Whiskey
.
His articles have appeared in The New York Times and can be found
at
portersnotebook.tumblr.com
, where he posts new fiction regularly.

PATRICK J. LAMBE
lives, works and writes in New Jersey, the true Cradle of Civilization

B
USTER
W
ILLOUGHBY
live
s
in Kentucky most of the time and work
s
there all the time.
He's twenty-
eight years of age.
He likes his
coffee black,
his
cigarettes in a red box and
his
whiskey straight.
He
coexist
s
with
his
wonderful woman of 5 years whenever
he
manage
s
to find where
they
live.

TODD ROBINSON
(Editor) is the creator and Chief Editor of
Thuglit
. His writing has appeared in
Blood & Tacos
,
Plots With Guns
,
Needle Magazine
,
Shotgun Honey
,
Strange, Weird, and Wonderful
,
Out of the Gutter
,
Pulp Pusher
,
Grift
,
Demolition Magazine
,
CrimeFactory
and the anthologies
Lost Children
:
Protectors
, and
Danger City
. He has been nominated for a Derringer Award, short-listed for
Best American Mystery Stories
, selected for Writers Digest's Year's Best Writing 2003 and won the inaugural Bullet Award in June 2011.  The first collection of his short stories,
Dirty Words
is now available and his debut novel
The Hard Bounce
will be released in January 2013 from Tyrus Books.

JULIE
MCCARRON
(Editor) is a celebrity ghostwriter with three New York Times bestsellers to her credit. Her books have appeared on every major entertainment and television talk show; they have been featured in Publishers Weekly and excerpted in numerous magazines including
People
. She
is also highly skilled at creating book proposals that sell: most recently she worked with eighties pop icon Rick Springfield on a proposal for his memoirs that was acquired by the Publisher of Touchstone.
L
ate
L
ate
At
N
ight
, written by Rick himself, hit the New York Times list immediately upon its release.

Prior to collaborating on celebrity bios, Julie was a book editor for many years.
Julie started her career writing press releases and worked in the motion picture publicity department of Paramount Pictures and for Chasen & Company in Los Angeles. She also worked at General Publishing Group in Santa Monica and for the Dijkstra Literary Agency in Del Mar before turning to editing/writing full-time. She lives in Southern California.