KAREN’S KILLER BOOK BENCH: Welcome to Karen’s Killer Book Bench, where readers can discover talented new authors and take a peek inside their wonderful books. This is not an age-filtered site, so all book peeks are PG-13 or better. Come back and visit often. Happy reading!

~~~

THE CONTEST
Noir Crime Thriller
BY JEFF MACFEE

BLURB

~~~

THE CONTEST
Noir Crime Thriller
BY JEFF MACFEE

Excerpt

Thanks to your tremendous display of skill and  intelligence you, 

GILLIAN CHARLES 

have won entry into 

SEBASTIAN LUNA’S CONTEST EXTRAORDINAIRE
Please call the number below to arrange transport to Dallas,
Texas, before September 1^st, 2000, where you, and only you,
will be admitted entry to The Bazaar, for a chance to win the ultimate prize. 

Congratulations, Gillian Charles. 

You deserve this. 

Gillian set the award aside. She fished through the snarl of  objects inside, once as essential as black coffee and scrambled  eggs. She found her trusty compact binoculars. A pocket  calculator, the number 7 worn away. A nearly stripped roll  of duct tape stuck to a walkie-talkie with a snapped antenna.  A flattened matchbox. Her Victorinox Swiss army knife, the  blade sharp enough to split skin. Weathered papers tattooed  with ASCII and Morse and Braille translation. Additional  trophies and awards, proof of contests she’d won on her  bullheaded path to the Bazaar. And underneath the hardware  of her success, photographs. A snapshot of her with her  parents, she just a baby, Mom hovering, Dad heroin-riddled  and strung out. A later 4×6 of the house on Lemon Ave, a  cozy brick-and-wood affair secured during one of Dad’s  infrequent employed periods; June out front dribbling a blue  Champion basketball, the kind of carefree play Gillian could  no longer associate with her sister. 

And, at last, the photo. 

Their handlers had insisted on a picture, eager to capture  the over-achievers before the Contest ate them whole. The  original Bazaar just a building in the background, blurry, a  four-story Victorian nightmare. In front, four kids between  the ages of ten and fifteen. All heights and weights, different  genders and census checkboxes, the faces excited or pensive.  And, off to the side, with that squirrelly look halfway  between amusement and disdain, Sebastian. His buttoned  orange vest and voluminous purple pants and the newsboy  cap he’d doff as if fresh from the 1930s. 

She looked at herself. Braids pulled back from her  doorknob forehead. The smile she kept on a short leash. Big  eyebrows and elephant ears, at least she’d always thought.  Young Gillian looked straight at the camera as if she knew  she would win. Because she had known she would win.  Right up until the moment she’d lost. 

Tommy stood behind her to the left. His chin raised high, as  if to exaggerate his height. A hard part carved in his gelled hair.  Big ears and thick eyebrows, same as Gillian, but otherwise in  a league entirely his own. His grin all mouth and mismatched  teeth and a joy that leapt into three dimensions. He seemed  ready to take on the world. He had taken on the world. 

She thought of the man who’d visited her apartment. The  beer he’d chugged and the way his fingers danced against  the neck of the bottle. The sweat and the nerves and how  he’d paced. He hadn’t done anything wrong, except win the  Contest. Climbed the ladder to the very top rung and now,  he was falling. Easy to see from the outside, which made  Gillian uniquely suited to help. 

Staring at the photograph only made her regret sending  Tommy away. She set it aside. 

Under the group snapshot was another artifact. Her old  Discman, a CD still inside. She knew what the disc held.  Other than the paper invitation, it was only thing she’d  taken from the Contest. 

She plugged in the Discman, and the CD spun. She dropped  the ragged foam earpieces in place and heard Sebastian, the  man interviewing each of them, asking what they hoped  to be. Sitting on the floor, she listened as he asked, and the  kids answered. Leah: “None of your business,” a response  that even now made Gillian smile. Tommy, the kiss-ass, told  Sebastian he wanted to be him. Then came Ellsberg. 

“I don’t know,” said Ellsberg. And Gillian could see him,  back then. So goddamn young. Confident but fragile all at  the same time. 

“You don’t know?” Sebastian said, slightly annoyed.  “How can you not know?” 

“Well,” the hesitant response. “I thought I might like to  be in plays.” 

Ellsberg had written a play, a fact he’d revealed to Gillian  just before the interview. The production was about a boy –  a boy with a German accent – who’d constructed a playmate  from scavenged twigs. The twig-boy came to life. Resembled  its maker. This caused all kinds of trouble: mistaken identities,  otherwise avoidable confrontations. Gillian remembered  finding the idea weird, but even as a kid she was struck by  the immensity of the thing. Ellsberg writing a whole play,  crafting an entire life from his imagination – that had blown  her mind. 

Sebastian laughed. His laugh that sounded entertained,  from a distance. “An actor? I see. And what play would you  be in? How many years will you toil away in this regard?” Ellsberg knew he’d stepped afoul. “Well. Or a spy.” 

“Oh?” Genuine interest. Sebastian had gone from cold to  hot. “And how would that work?” 

“I could break codes.” Gaining confidence. “Or make them.” 

“You could, at that,” Sebastian said, in his corner. “I  imagine you could be quite useful to government efforts.  You’d be responsible for national security.” 

“Like a superhero,” young Ellsberg agreed. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sebastian steering now. “You  would be practically valuable. In reality.” A shuffle as he  leaned in. “You’d be responsible for thousands, perhaps  millions of lives.” 

A silent pause in which you, the listener, imagined those  words sinking in. Young Ellsberg absorbing the heavy reality  of lives in his hands. 

“I think you know, Martin,” Sebastian went on. “Who  are you going to be?” 

“I want to be a spy,” the boy said, as if this was the only  answer. “And I’ll be the best there ever was.” 

The audience of the day entertained. This clever boy who  knew his destiny all along, only toying with Sebastian. And  Gillian could believe Ellsberg had wanted it, how he took to  the idea. Only days later playing with her life as if he owned  it. You could draw a long nasty line from there to here. 

She rewound and listened to the question and the loud  silence again. The audio was poor quality, but maybe under  the hiss, a sigh. With years of perspective, after hours  listening to hustlers and scam-artists obfuscate unpleasant  truths, the line didn’t seem so straight. Ellsberg’s pause was  perhaps not an epiphany, but the moment when the boy  abandoned his dreams. Ellsberg the actor, stowed away in a  dusty box, never again to see the light of day. 

Who are you going to be? 

Sebastian hadn’t only stolen the Contest from Gillian.  He’d stolen Ellsberg, and replaced the boy with a creature  who looked just like him. 

She shook her head. Once before, she’d stopped to help  a Contest kid, and look what happened. Charlie Brown  with the football. She’d be an idiot to set herself up again.  Besides, she had rideshare. Hustles. Bria and Chantal and all  the others. The life she’d committed to, here. 

Gillian jammed the Discman back in the box, along with  the famed photo. She reached for the lid and paused. There  was another picture in the box. Gillian, after she won the  final qualifying event. Behind her, Mom, standing free and  clear of walkers and wheelchairs, her daughter proudly  positioned in front and facing the camera. The love so clear,  Gillian’s knees buckled. 

All Mom ever did was support Gillian’s dreams. It wasn’t  her fault those dreams had turned to ash. Gillian owed her  mother, and $50,000 went a long way. 

The kids in the picture stared. They were younger, so much  younger. Gillian saw the bike messenger and imagined a  version of herself at forty, pedaling through the cold streets,  delivering crap destined for shredding or deletion. Her back  sore, her knees shot. Her hopes and dreams ground to dust. 

A hollow laugh. Going back just for Mom? June knew.  June had pegged her one hundred percent. Lie to yourself,  but don’t lie to me. 

Gillian sealed the box, then ventured into the kitchen  where she retrieved Tommy’s business card. She dialed the  number and waited. When he answered she spoke before  he could say hello. 

“When do we leave?” 

~~~

About Author Jeff Macfee…

Links to Jeff’s websites, blogs, books, #ad etc.:

Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/4jTvg0U

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/4jQYiOE

Universal Link:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774517/the-contest-by-jeff-macfee/

Happy Reading!

~~~

Special Giveaway: Jeff will gift a paperback copy (North America only) of THE CONTEST to one lucky reader who comments on his Karen’s Killer Book Bench blog. Good Luck!

Happy Reading!

~~~

Thanks, Jeff, for sharing your book with us!

Don’t miss the chance to read this book!