Yellow Mama E zine

The Korean Girl

 

By Albert N. Katz

 

 

           Hell, Mina didn’t know I existed and, if she did, wouldn’t have recognized me, what with the mask and all. Julio had no reason to hit her with the gun—but he did, and I just stood watching blood drip from her lip. All for three hundred lousy bucks.

          Teresa and the kid were at the apartment. Just the four of us. Seeing us enter, she moved to her bedroom to finish nursing. Julio counts out one hundred, my share he says, the asshole. But I didn’t want a cent, not with him hurting Mina. “Take it!” Julio demanded and I shook my head. He got mad. Really mad. Shouts. “I know you got the hots for that Korean bitch. One day you’ll thank me for showing you how to treat gooks like her.”

           That’s when I shoved him. Watched him strike his head on the edge of the table. Blood pouring and he not moving.

           Teresa hearing everything had rushed over, and without a word picked up the money; puts it into her pocket.

           She told me what to say when the police came: I told them that Julio and I were having a tiff over this girl I really liked, and when he called her by a racial slur, I shoved him. Not hard, but he lost his balance and hit his head. I didn’t mention the convenience store, the three hundred bucks. Teresa swore we had come home straight from school.

          Everyone bought the story. Death ruled accidental. Even better, when word got out that I had pushed Julio because he had insulted Mina, she came around to thank me. And, well, we’ve been seeing a lot of each other these days.

 

 

        After 43 years working as a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology, Albert N. Katz (he/him), retired from academia and started a literary career. His neo-noir, crime, or mystery stories have appeared (or slated to appear) in magazines such as: Black Cat Weekly, Close to the Bone, Illustrated Worlds Magazine, KRL, Mystery Tribune, Punk Noir, Starlite Pulp Review, and Yellow Mama. Other stories have appeared in various mystery- or crime-themed anthologies.

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        Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Ángeles. His artwork has appeared over the years in Medusa’s Kitchen, Nerve Cowboy, The Dope Fiend Daily, and Rogue Wolf Press, Venus in Scorpio Poetry E-Zine.