Yellow Mama E zine

The Luck of the Irish

 

by Joan Leotta

 

 

          Pat was smiling. The young officer across the metal table shook his head. Most, even innocents, rarely smiled in that gray airport side room.

         “My colleague’s coming.”

         Pat nodded, still smiling. He knew the colleague would find nothing in his bags, or from the residue test since he’d tossed the gun and even his favorite old gloves into the River Liffey after completing the job. After all, his reputation for being the best was due to attention to such details, not Irish luck as some claimed.

          An older officer sauntered in and settled himself into the empty chair.

          “Dublin police want to see you, Patrick.”

          Still smiling, Pat replied, “They do? Why?”

           “The swab we took of your hands and wrists. That and your proximity to where the Shamrock Bank’s President met his end.”

          Patrick looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

          “Ahh, well, I’ll tell you this much. The small bit of residue we found means you wore gloves when you fired the kill shot, but the gloves were either the kind with the stylish notch at the wrist, or old with a worn spot—the science guys confirmed. And your picture’s been identified, my friend, as being in about the right place to do the deed this morning. We also sent your photo to INTERPOL, and they’ve found folks who say you were close when other bigwigs were eliminated.”

           Patrick maintained his puzzled expression. But inside he was cursing having held onto those old leather gloves—the ones his mother gifted him when she told him he’d enjoy the luck of the Irish always.

           Then he chuckled at the awful irony—his Irish luck running out, in Dublin, and on St Patrick’s Day.

 

 

       Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her work has been published internationally, including in Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, and others, and has won some awards and been nominated for Pushcart and Best of Net. Her greatest satisfaction as a writer is knowing that someone has enjoyed her work. ON stage she performs folk tales of food, family, and strong women and offers a one-woman costumed show as Louisa May Alcott that has been garnering rave reviews. She can bring Louisa in person or on zoom to your group, focusing on writing, the Civil War, and sewing and Victorian Family Life.

 

Joan Leotta
Author, Story Performer
“Encouraging words through Pen and Performance”

Folk, Fairy, and Personal Tales of friendship, kindness, food, family, and strong women.

Now also Presenting Author visits by Louisa May Alcott

As writer, Nominated for Pushcart, Best of Net, Best of Micro fiction, Western Peacemaker Award 

Awardee in Presswomen, Robert Frost, Silver Arts, Dancing Poetry

"Feathers on Stone" poetry chapbook available from me and at

https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/feathers-on-stone-joan-leotta/

 

Other Joan Leotta Books

Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, Finishing Line Press (Amazon)

Morning by Morning and Dancing Under the Moon, two free mini-chapbooks are at https://www.origamipoems.com/poets/257-joan-leotta 

For information on my four out of print novels, collection of short stories and four children's picture books, contact me at this email 

​

       J. Elliott is an author and artist living in a small patch of old, rural Florida. Think Spanish moss, live oak trees, snakes, armadillos, mosquitoes. She has published (and illustrated) three collections of ghost stories and three books in a funny, cozy series. She also penned a ghost story novel, Jiko Bukken, set in Kyoto, Japan in the winter of '92-'93. Available in  Paperback and eBook on Amazon.