The Newspaper Man
The second Jack Larson story appeared in the September 1994 issue of Kracked Mirror
Mysteries. Story copyright 1994, William D. Cissna. An excerpt from the short story is
included below; the full story will be included with the upcoming full-length Jack Larson
novel, The Ides of March, due in 2013.


   If you live or work around a particular area long enough, you get to know, or at least
recognize, most of the local characters. At my apartment, where I chiefly sleep and
sometimes eat, I could tell you which doors on my floor have people living behind them, and
maybe even what some of them look like. That's about it.

   But in the five or six blocks that make up what locals call "uptown" Mount Lebanon --
where shops, banks, offices, the township building and local transit come together -- I feel
like one of the regulars after having my office up there for three years.

   As a regular, I've become familiar with the more exotic strollers of our suburban
sidewalks. The uptown area has faltered in recent years, like many other older retail areas
mortally wounded by the bizarre American enthusiasm for shopping malls. Then again, that's
what lets me afford a third rate office off the main street.

   So the people who come up here regularly now either like the peculiar mix of remaining
store fronts, have some kind of business here, or are peculiar themselves, and where they
are doesn't much matter to them or to anyone else except the most straitlaced.

   Several of the elderly women who burrow into the aging, cavelike apartments back behind
my office make their periodic appearances uptown when supplies run short or Meals on
Wheels isn't delivering. The biddies gather together at the minuscule green grocer's or the
drug store just down the street, yammering away at each other or just to themselves, taking
an eternity to shop and even longer at the checkout.

   Then there's the interesting young man who sold newspapers every morning on the corner
between two office buildings. No matter what the time of year or actual conditions, the only
utterance anyone ever heard from him was, "Looks like rain, dunnit?" In all fairness,
sometimes it did look like rain. He disappeared one day, but I understand he now shares his
observation downtown at Smithfield and Liberty. Moving up in the world.

   My personal favorite, though, is the newspaper man.

   This poor soul can be found daily haunting the restaurants uptown. A short, elderly fellow,
made shorter by a hunchbacked stoop, he hovers until some customer leaves booth or table
without taking along his or her newspaper -- then the hunchback pounces like a cat on an
unsuspecting mouse. He adds the orphaned paper to the several he often already has under
his arm, and hobbles on to the next stop.

   I saw him at his car one day, disheveled black overcoat, ratty gloves and all. Somehow it
didn't surprise me that every inch of space in the ancient four-door Plymouth, other than the
driver's seat, was piled high with newspapers. He was a newspaper morgue on wheels, or a
portable fire waiting to happen, depending on how you looked at it.

   It did surprise me, though, the hot June morning I responded to a knock at my office door
and found him standing outside in the hallway.

   "Mr. Larson?" he asked, in a warm basso voice that took me offguard.

   "That's me, Mister ...," and of course I didn't know his name.

   "Phelan. Julian Phelan, at your service." And damned if he didn't bow.

   "Come in, Mr. Phelan," I said brightly and directed him to one of my two guest chairs.
"Something I can do for you?"

   Leaning his cane against the wall, he said, "Hear you're a detective."

   "That's what my license says, anyway."

   The old man sat and smiled warmly. "I've seen you around. You'll do."

   "Excuse me, but for what?"

   "Want you to find somebody."

   "Really?" He must have seen the disbelief on my face, as he took on a set look and
shifted forward in the chair. "I mean, what I do costs money," I stuttered.

   "How much?"

   "$300 a day, plus expenses."

   The man didn't even blink. He just reached into one of the deep pockets of that
unbelievable coat and came back out with a thick stack of bills. He counted off five hundreds
and five twenties and handed them to me. "Enough?"

   I tried not to gape as the remainder of the wad disappeared back into the coat. "You carry
money like that all the time?" I asked.

   "Don't think much of banks."

   "Why's that?"

   He looked up at me with eyes suddenly full of sparkling humor. "'Cause I used to own
one."

   I had to ask.
Jack Larson tales
- by Bill Cissna
To read the first
Jack Larson short
mystery, "Follow
the Money," click
here.

To read the third
Jack Larson short
mystery, "Users
and Losers," click
here.

To return to the
main Fiction page,
click here.