Chester Earl Costagravas needs to get hold of some wedding money before his Julietta leaves him for someone offering her a better reception. First, there’s the thousands of dollars on the table, just begging to be heisted, at Dr. Bohansen’s weekly poker game. Then there’s the stolen Yogomani lamp that Chester Earl’s buddy Ralphie says is worth a lot, created by the Chinese during the Tang dynasty before they got around to inventing fake orange juice. Julietta’s mother and foster brother, Foster, are no help—they’re under indictment for driving up to a museum in Albany and attacking a ceramic buffalo with baseball bats.
Oh, and it’s 1999, and Ralphie says this new year, this Twenty-hundred, will bring calamity and confusion.
So, when Chester Earl’s kid brother comes to him terrified with a story of watching a head-shot suicide that left no body, Chester Earl must think of a solution for everything.
And he must do it quick.
They often call Chester Earl “SPEEDO.”
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Jim gives an overview of the book:
Chester Earl Costagravas needs to get hold of some wedding money before his Julietta leaves him for someone offering her a better reception. First, there’s the thousands of dollars on the table, just begging to be heisted, at Dr. Bohansen’s weekly poker game. Then there’s the stolen Yogomani lamp that Chester Earl’s buddy Ralphie says is worth a lot, created by the Chinese during the Tang dynasty before they got around to inventing fake orange juice. Julietta’s mother and foster brother, Foster, are no help—they’re under indictment for driving up to a museum in Albany and attacking a ceramic buffalo with baseball bats. Oh, and it’s 1999, and Ralphie says this new year, this Twenty-hundred, will bring calamity and confusion. So, when Chester Earl’s kid brother comes to him terrified with a story of watching a head-shot suicide that left no body, Chester...
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Bohansen ran out of breath. He looked up and over and he saw Winnie at the bottom of the staircase. She was moving slowly toward the group of men. She had on her cranberry top and white panties again. Out in front of her, she was holding the big Winchester Magnum Greenhead from the closet in the extra bedroom. She advanced into the foyer, one hand around the shotgun’s trigger guard, and her left arm stretched way out to hold the shotgun at the front of the hand-hold, right below its green vented barrel.
The midget-punk was growling now, and trying to bite.
From the floor, Bohansen turned and yelled up, “Winnie, shoot them. Shoot them both. Winnie, kill them.”
The tall one yelled, “Winnie, don’t, we gotta go.”
About Jim
Jim DeFilippi was born and raised in Duck Alley, on Long Island, and has been writing and living on a dirt road in northern Vermont since 1973. He is a husband of many years, a father of two, a grandfather, a retired school teacher, a special-needs bus driver, a Vietnam...
Note from the author coming soon...