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Showing posts from July, 2026
Sherlock's Snake (a true story from 'Swapping Lies,' my next book.). ***by Frank Hickey*** At age seven, my parents rip me out of my Flatbush, Brooklyn, street and deposit me into strange concrete Manhattan. I'm scared. "Franky, why can't you sleep?" my actress Mommy asks at night time. "Mommy, I saw a Sherlock Holmes TV show. The bad man used a snake to kill someone." "Franky, you don't have to worry. We're on the second floor.". "Mommy, that's no good! The snake comes through the bars to bite them! "Somebody will come under our window," I whine. "An old German man from Germantown on Third Avenue. The Germans are Nazis. He has the snake under his dirty raincoat. And he'll have his snake crawl up the wall, through the bars and kill me." "Look, Franky. I'm closing the window.All right?" "Maybe the snake's in the apartment already. Or he'll come back tomorrow!" "Just lie still," she enunciates. "You're just a big rag doll, lying all spread out." Us four kids are eight, seven, five and three. That's why Mommy isn't acting this year. Mommy says she's no spring chicken. But she's acting tonight. "Don't move," she says. "Your head feels big and heavy. You legs are all tired out. Sooo tired. Just try to sleep". ***Frank Hickey ***. Somehow Frank survives the snakes and becomes a detective. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at frankhickey.net
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Am I My Buff's Keeper?***by Frank Hickey*** "I'm a Housing cop working in PSA Four," Junior, a stranger, blows at me on my front stoop. "Been just three years, making lotsa collars, overtime." Wide and spongy in the gut, Junior looks and noises like those inflatable childrens' statues blowing in the wind at street fairs. Bright colors pull squealing kids to them. Junior squeals himself. "Got your shield on you?" I ask, all polite. "Naw!" he snorts. "I never carry my piece or my tin off-duty!" Oatmeal-colored hair spills onto a pale forehead. He sweats, smelling like a baby who needs to be burped. The mouth keeps going. "Cop inna seven-five precinct gets held up inna church," Junior spurts. "Find his shield, no gun, they execute him right away!" "I take one mutt out of his car!" he blurts. "Mutt swings at me. I rap him with my cocobolo stick, hardest wood known to man, he goes down. I tell the desk sergeant 'I'll process him myself!' and mutt tries to kick me in the holding area! "Captain passing through," he continues. "Sees me hammer him into the floor and cuff him, shakes my hand, says, 'Good collar, officer.' Puts me in for an EPD and gives me a day off as a reward." His talk hurts my ears. •. *. *. "He's not a cop," Benny says. "Security guard. Part-time. UBATTS, ya really wanna know." The word 'UBATTS' is Sicilian slang for'crazy.' "Junior just moved into my building," I say. "Right away, he starts telling me about his golden adventures as a cop. He's just a guard, a toy cop?" "You betcha," Benny, my private eye partner, grunts. He scans his V.O. and water cocktail. "I know his uncle, a good guy. This kid's driving him crazy, embarrassing him. Don't tell him ya know the truth." "Us cops call these guys 'buffs,'" Benny says. "Buffs come up to ya on patrol and chatter. They pick up our cop slang, maybe a fake shield or some leather. Dangerous, because some carry guns." "You mean, like this?" I ask, digging into my pocket. He rears back. "No gun?" he asks. "Shield," I say. My hand shows him a three-inch gold shield from my guard job at Penn Protective. Blue enamel decorates the center against the scales of justice. "Nice," he says. "Company issue that?" "Naw," I brag. "Went to Times Square and had it made." "How much?" "Twenty-two bucks," I say. "And your guard salary was fifty a week?" he asks. "You pay half for a fake shield. Yup, you're another buff". As usual, Benny scans the bar, looking for beautiful women with his spaniel eyes. "There's more fake cops in a world than real cops," he says. "Does Junior bother ya?" "Yeah, Junior bothers me," I say. "Cause I wanna be a cop, too. Maybe more than he does. Not just a dumb rookie private eye like I am." "So?" Benny asks. "So I could wind up like Junior myself,"I say. "Telling tall tales like a little kid, at age 22. Maybe starting to believe it myself. Fantasy world. I gotta do something, Benny. I gotta make a move". ***Frank Hickey *** Somehow, Frank became a detective. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at frankhickey.net
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When My Dad Didn't Die ***by Frank Hickey*** I'm a rookie private eye when a nightmare splits my sleep, saying that my Dad died. It is only a dream, I tell myself. But it feels as real as the paint chips on my bedroom wall. So real, so real, this echoes through my mind's caverns. Details swing past, cawing like buzzards. They give my nightmare depth and reality. Gray dawn hits. I wake up, shaking. MY DAD DIED, keeps repeating like my own blood pulse. "No, he didn't!" I repeat aloud in the real world at last. Stumbling through my apartment, I shiver naked, trying to calm myself. At 22, I'm living on a silly man-child shoestring. No bank account, credit card, gun or driver's license. Writing unpaid and unknown COPERAS. These stories mix cop work with opera themes of love, loss and song. But the detective work holds me. After a rocky teenage relationship with my Dad, I can always talk with him. He's too shrewd to nag me about anything. He holds more guts than I do. In World War II, he volunteered for fighter pilot training and flew better than his instructors. He wanted combat. Gambling on his skill, he demolished planes while training. The Navy washed him out of flight school for 'suicidal tendencies.' Later, as a sailor in the war, he dove overboard one night and saved a drowning officer The officer outweighed him by 80 pounds. Dad never told us about it. The officer did. In New York's construction landmine, he earned respect from criminals by staying honest. He confronted Jimmy Hoffa, America's most powerful and murderous union thug. "Hey, everyone's afraid of me except this guy, Larry Hickey," Hoffa told his gangster pals. Psychology, I try to remember, tells us that our dreams are psychotic. Is that accurate? I'm not sure. What I do recall is that the prefrontalcortex checks reality while awake. Once we sleep, this cortex works less. So we run wild in our dreams. Waking today overjoys me. My father is not dead, I keep repeating to myself. This good feeling of escape carries me through my subway ride. It follows me into Mr. Wade's private eye office in the World Trade Center. We juggle cases of lost dogs, murder defense, car accidents, slippery sidewalks and everything else. As always, he reigns Buddha-like and richly dressed. He views the wide window overlooking the river. Sunlight catches his black skin against gold cufflinks. "Hickey," he breathes through his mouth. "Ya gotta go to Brooklyn, find a lil Spanish gal and tell her that her father just died". Frank Hickey. Somehow, Frank became a detective. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at frankhickey.net
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