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    Fender Bender: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Fender Bender: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Fender Bender: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Fender Bender: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller

    By James Dargan

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    FENDER BENDER, A NEO-NOIR CRIME THRILLER

    Soon after the tragic death of his wife and child, oncologist Sidney Matrux seeks revenge - the only problem is the person responsible for their demise has direct connections to the Metropolisville Italian mob. What will Matrux do, and if he's brave enough to do it, what of the repercussions?

    FENDER BENDER is a NEO-NOIR CRIME THRILLER anthology set in America's most dangerous city, Metropolisville, a place that makes Detroit seem like Disney Land.

    More books in this anthology crime series to come: FAT CAT, GUN SMOKE, SPUTNIK BABY, PIG KILLER and BUTCHER BOY!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Dargan
    Release dateMar 16, 2017
    ISBN9781386929925
    Fender Bender: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Author

    James Dargan

    James Dargan was born in Birmingham, England, in 1974. Coming from an Irish background, he frequently writes about that experience. As well as England, he has also lived in the United States, Ireland, and - for the best part of fifteen years - in Warsaw, Poland, his home from home from home.

    Read more from James Dargan

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      Book preview

      Fender Bender - James Dargan

      PSYCHOANALYSIS

      Sidney Matrux is sitting opposite psychiatrist Daniel Goldberg, in the middle of one of his therapy sessions. The forty-five-year-old oncologist has had a hard time of it for the last few years: maddening depression, thoughts of suicide and the need to realise fantasies of killing someone were the reasons his physician passed him on for treatment. This is Goldberg's – one of the best minds on Freudian psychoanalysis in Metropolisville – hardest case ever. Matrux doesn't look like the kind of man who has the mind of a potential psychopath, but they usually don't fit the description of a Charlie Manson anyway. A happily married man with a young son who is his world when he's not in the darkness, Goldberg has his work cut out this time.

      So, Sidney, tell me about the last week? Goldberg says in his beige tweed jacket and red bow tie over a white shirt, legs crossed, notepad on his lap and pen in his hand.

      I don't know where to start.

      Start wherever you think you need to.

      It's been hard.

      "Go on?"

      I had the thoughts again.

      The ones with the knife?

      Yes.

      "And?" Goldberg says, scribbling something in his notepad now.

      But there was more to it.

      Continue, please.

      The last dream I killed someone.

      "You did... Who, Sidney, who did you kill?"

      A man.

      A man, you say?

      Yes.

      And who was this man – was it the same method as the old woman in our last meeting, the woman you maimed?

      No, it was much worse.

      Worse... go on, please, go on, Goldberg says, writing maniacally again.

      This time I stuck the knife in the man's head. I turned it in his skull until I could hear the bone cracking.

      Was he dead by this time?

      Yes, oh yes. Certainly.

      And can you see a difference between the dreams of when you have a knife and when you have a gun?

      No.

      "But there is a distinction – remember what we talked about?"

      Yes, but that hasn't helped me, Dan.

      It hasn't helped you because you don't want it to. Relating past events to the here and now can help a lot.

      Can we just talk? Matrux says after he's blown his nose.

      Have you got a cold?

      No.

      So what do you want to talk about?

      It's a bit awkward, actually.

      That's what I'm here for.

      And out of the scope of what we've been talking about for the last eight months.

      You have to remember, Sidney, after knives, guns and disembowelment, I'm up for anything. A nervous laugh follows from Goldberg's patient. "Go on then, tell me?"

      It's about Sally?

      Your wife?

      Yes.

      I hope you didn't kill her? Goldberg asks rhetorically with an air of intellectual irony. Matrux just sniggers. So go on?"

      I think she's having an affair.

      "An affair?"

      Yes.

      Since when have you suspected this?

      For some time, though I didn't tell you. Things have come to a head this last week.

      Things have changed so much in a week?

      I'm not saying they've changed, I've just got my suspicions, that's all.

      So tell me more?

      I found some text messages.

      What kind of text messages?

      Incriminating ones, that's what, Matrux says as he looks at his therapist with the eye of the tiger.

      Without proof, I won't be able to help you, Sidney, Goldberg says, eyes down to his notepad and scribbling incessantly again.

      Here, Matrux replies before he takes a slip of folded A4 paper from his trouser pocket and gives it to Goldberg, that's everything I saw. The Jew reads the word processed print off from Matrux's handwritten copy he managed to steal after accessing his wife of seventeen years phone for ten minutes while she was having a shower. He's had his suspicions for a few months. He thought his wife loved him. They have a child together.

      These texts could mean anything, Goldberg says, placing the piece of paper down on the coffee table between them.

      You really think so? Matrux says. He grabs the paper and starts reading off examples of the texts his wife 'supposedly' sent: CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN... NEXT TIME, BRING THE WINE... HOW COME MY HUSBANDS NOT LIKE YOU?... WHAT TIME ARE WE MEETING?..."

      Maybe it's a joke, Sidney?

      Don't make fun of me.

      I'm not. I really think you've taken this all out of context. You need to talk to your wife.

      Maybe I should just kill her, Matrux then says, winking sadistically at Goldberg.

      Now you're talking like I don't want you to.

      I know.

      Since he's been treating Matrux, Goldberg hasn't had any incidents he could say were 'dangerous'. In fact, behaviourally, it's the best experience he's had with a patient since Clinton Popper back in the early 2000s: the East Coast millionaire with a compulsion to masturbate while watching Japanese Anime cartoons. That episode ended smoothly with Goldberg getting a $300,000 cheque off the Atlantic City mogul after he turned his attention to South Park for his sexual gratification.

      And maybe you should just relax a bit, Sidney, Goldberg says, the pen in his hand working overtime again.

      "But that's what I don't want to do."

      But it would be better.

      "You're a shrink, make me not do it?"

      Don't do it, Sid.

      I'm Sid now, am I?

      Sidney then, Sidney.

      Is this what I pay you for?

      "What do you mean?" Goldberg says, the hand holding the pen still working for its daily bread.

      It's always been formal between us.

      That's the therapist-patient agreement.

      Somewhat Hippocratic, don't you think?

      If you think so.

      So how should I act then, if I should act at all?

      "Confront her about it, but not in the way you want to. Talk to her."

      And that's your advice?

      Yes.

      Sometimes I wonder why I pay you what I do an hour for the privilege.

      Just do as I say... Now, can we get back to the dreams...

      SPIDERMAN

      Just get the fuck outta here, kid, Joe Ruggerio, owner of Uncle Paolo's Pizza Stop, says to the seventeen-year-old Marty Ganzaria, his new pizza delivery boy, dressed in a Spiderman outfit, holding a green, white and red placard saying: BUY ONE PIZZA

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