RFN Episode The First: O'Shea and Shea

needlemagnoir@gmail.com (needlemagnoir@gmail.com) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 21:19:00 +0000

Episode One: Click to play or Right-click to download

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The brainchild of Dan O'Shea, Radio Free Needle launches today with a Kieran Shea (n'o relation) spectacular.

Kieran and Dan talk about writing and, um, other things.

Then Dan reads Kieran's Charlie Byrne story, which appeared in the Winter 2012 issue of NEEDLE: A Magazine of Noir.

Here's a taste:

PAYING IT OFF

A Charlie Byrne Grind

If his guy moves, I’ll kill him.

Front and center, that was probably the one thought smoldering in the blurry synapses of Neal Henkelman’s massively hungover brain. Waltzing right up to his freezing, thirty-foot Fleetwood camper early on a Saturday morning right as you please I mean, seriously, who was I to be serving papers on a man like him? I thought I had the element of surprise on my side. I was wrong.

Soon as I hit the water-warped wooden step outside the camper’s door Henkelman punched out, tagged my chin, and dragged me inside by my jacket. It all happened with such raw velocity I didn’t even have a chance to blink. Now Henkelman stood six feet away from me, pointing camouflaged Remington 10-guage at my split open face.

I leaned away from the muzzle like it was throwing off sparks.

“Now hold on a second—”

“Shut up! Holly left me a note that some delivery guy came by yesterday and I ain’t ordered shit. And yet here you are, coming onto my property.”

I licked away some blood from my stinging lip, “Your property?”

“Yeah! My property.”

I let my eyes focus and roam around the tight, festering squalor of the camper. Suffice it to say the décor and collective noxious odors were a direct reflection of Neal Henkelman’s blown apart existence. I instantly regretted my engagement with his landlady the day before.

“I think you rent, Neal. Delinquent is the word I got from the woman out front, but still…your property? Bit grandiose don’t you think?”

“Fuck you. You’ve got trouble written all over you. I live here. I live here and I’m warning you right now I’m liable to blow you away you move an inch or try anything funny. I’m well within my rights.”

A shrill feminine voice screeched just outside the camper.

“Neal? What in God’s name is going on in there?!”

Two and half days earlier I stood in Lou DeCosta’s tiny law office a quarter mile from the Atlantic County Courthouse. As I admired the roof of his brand new black Range Rover in the parking lot below, I tried to place the aroma masked beneath Lou’s heavy hand on the aftershave.

“Hey, Lou?”

“What?”

“Did you feed the devil in here recently?”

Lou grumbled, shuffled some papers on his cluttered mahogany desk, and didn’t look up at me. A Jack-of-All-Trades family practice attorney, Lou was a dead ringer for your favorite, Italian uncle, the one who never remembered your birthday and called you droll, aggravating pet names.

“I had a meatball sub at lunch,” Lou said.

I waved a hand in front of my face and stepped away from the window.

“Holy cow, where? Just between you and me? I’m thinking you might want to dine elsewhere, bro.”

“Har, har, Charlie. How was I supposed to know? New place opens up down the street in this economy? I feel kind of obligated to give it a try. I took it on good faith with a name like Luigi’s the guys working behind the counter had roots on the boot somewhere. But Kandahar ain’t Naples no matter what mural you throw on the wall and pricy olives you sell. My stomach is a disaster area.”

“Smells like it.”

“And hey, do me a favor, all right? Leave the flip-flop patois back on the boardwalk.”

“The flip-flop what?”

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Continued in print and in audio

Episode One: https://s3.amazonaws.com/RadioFreeNeedle/RFN_001.mp3