Chris Rogers, Author

Poe's Grave by Stacey Keith

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July in Baltimore. A killing heat.

It roasted Marty the minute he stepped foot outside his office. It sweated him of hope. Two blocks down, the Greene Street bus stop shimmered like a mirage. Marty knew he didn’t stand a chance of getting there without an alluvial overflow of wetness dripping down his crack. And a mouthful of the grit five o’clock traffic whipped up. Or the wince of white-hot sidewalk nuking the bottoms of his ancient Oxfords. For a second he stood blinking in disbelief: Marty Childs, bookkeeper. Age forty-six. Sporting creased uppers and a baggy, summer-weight suit. Circle of hair scruffy from neglect. And a pain in his gut that felt like a midget pounding him with a polo mallet every time he took a breath.

Gasping, he thumb-wedged an antacid from the roll in his pocket and popped it in his mouth. Calcified chalk. He ate another before realizing the long tail of foil signified an end to the roll. Still, the pain griddled him. He braced one hand against it. Grunted. Behind him, a revolving door went thwack, thwack, thwack, churning cool air into the hellish clambake of summer.

"Hey, Childs! You all right?”

Marty worked his grimace into a tight smile. He knew who the voice belonged to without turning around. Evan Kitchfield. Software wünderkind, second floor. Six months ago Marty’s Dodge Stratus had kissed the bumper on Evan’s BMW Alpina Roadster. Now Marty’s sixteen-year-old daughter drove the Stratus and left roach butts in the ashtray. Marty took the bus.

“Say, you don’t look so good.” Kitchfield disarmed his car alarm from a keychain remote. Waiting by the curb, the sleek convertible chirped like a giant bird of prey. “You need to sit down?”

“Kitchfield.” Marty forced himself to straighten. Already a bead of back sweat traveled southward, heading for the Great Divide. “I’m fine. Fine. Little indigestion. Probably my wife’s cooking.” The bitch. He attempted a roguish wink. “So. Haven’t seen you around much lately.”

“Yeah, my partner and I have been busy. Developed a new line of software. Gene mapping, DNA debugging. You know it?”

Marty shook his head.

“Well, it’s a daisy. Took us months just to get the sequencing. And then, of course, I’ve been on book tour.”

Mouth gone dry, Marty repeated the words “book tour” and inflected a question mark.

“Didn’t I tell you? Sold my first novel, Belosi’s Brain.” Evan checked his watch. Taller than Marty, he gazed at some distant point on the horizon above Marty’s head. His hair tapered back in finger-swept layers, brown as a pair of docksiders. His red shirt gaped open at the collar. Never had Marty known him to wear a tie.

“Hooker & Kent are publishing it. Shamelessly autobiographical, you know. About a software mogul who discovers a way to program his own brain. Say, didn’t you mention something about selling a novel once? An orphan, right? Or was it twins….”

“Naked Before Mine Enemies.” Marty said the words slowly, as though returning from a drugged sleep. “Historical. Written from the perspective of Henry of Bolingbrook’s dog.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” Evan smiled. It was a shiny smile, white as restroom tile, but it failed to light up the eyes. Marty could tell Evan was already bored, already five minutes ahead of him. Not surprising. Marty was accustomed to being marginalized. But then he saw why Evan had dismissed him. A woman straining a spandex top, St. Pauli girl pretty, clipped up in high heels. Her breasts bobbled as she walked. Lust-sick, Marty watched her plant a lingering kiss on Evan’s cheek, one that left a perfect pink print. Her lacquered nails skimmed his flabless waist.

“See you around, Childs,” Evan said as he opened the car door for her.

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