I first met R.T. Lawton and his wife Kiti in New York City a couple of years ago for an MWA event. He’s not the kind of guy you’re likely to forget, or want to forget, if only for having one of the world’s truly magnificent mustaches. Here’s what the Pike’s Peak Writer’s Conference says of him, in what sounds suspiciously like R.T.’s own voice:

“R.T. has 40 published short stories, seven of them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Having a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and a Master’s degree in Criminal Justice, R.T. is a Vietnam vet and a retired federal law enforcement agent. He currently resides in Colorado Springs with his wife, Kiti, who is also his first reader.”

And while we’re on the subject, Mystery Masterclass is leaving Saturdays to become an ad hoc feature. Next week, we welcome New York Minute, a column by new Criminal Briefer Angela Zeman, critically acclaimed author of the Mrs. Risk series of mystery short stories, as a regular feature. –JLW

READ MY SHORTS

by R.T. Lawton

Listen up, I want everybody to read my shorts. That’s right, my shorts. Hold on, I’m not sure what you were thinking just now, but what I’m talking about here are my short mysteries. I want everyone to read my short…mystery…stories. There’s about 15 of them in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, 4 in Woman’s World Magazine U-Solve-It column, and one in the Who Died in Here? anthology.

What about the other 32 published stories, you ask? Well, they went to small press publications, most of which no longer exist. Consider those as apprenticeship, that paying my dues thing all us writers have to do at the beginning in order to become polished enough so we can move up into the better paying markets.

In any case, here’s what worked for me. And while you’re at it, you can steal ideas from this article as it continues, or “borrow” them if you prefer to see yourself in more polite terms. But hey, we’re writing stories about crime here, so get your mind in the proper perspective.

For you total beginners, my first strong motivation came from a short story I read in a magazine. It was so bad, I told myself I could write better than that. So I did and the magazine bought it. Now, I thought I was a writer. The next three rejections proved me wrong. I had to go back to the basics of good storytelling. This became a long process of how-to-write books, writing conferences, critique partners and plain old perseverance, but I was on the path.

Several years later, I went through my story inventory. Yep, all those rejected and un-submitted stories just sitting there on my computer waiting for a home. One manuscript stood out from the rest, but where to send it? AHMM had rejected me a long time back with a form rejection slip which had been Xeroxed so many times that the form was skewed on the paper. HOWEVER, their website now said they were looking for mysteries set in an exotic location. How about the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia for a setting? That’s pretty exotic to most people. I polished the heck out “It Wasn’t Murder,” changed the title to “Once, Twice, Dead,” and Kathleen Jordan took it. Had to be a fluke.

Now, panic set in. What could I do as an encore for this high paying magazine? Research, brainstorming and several Cuba Libres soon took care of the problem. What’s a Cuba Libre? Meet me in a bar sometime.

My next submission had to be something different. Too many authors were writing what I’ll call the standard mystery. I needed a manuscript which stood out from all the others, else run the risk of being a one-story acceptance. What to do, what to do?

Having just read Lawrence Block’s short story collection, Enough Rope, I found I really enjoyed the Ehrengraf series about a crooked lawyer who never lost a case. His clients, guilty as they come, managed to always avoid a trial. Witnesses were somehow found deceased, evidence was subtly tampered with, and in the end someone else took the blame, all was not as it first appeared. Of course, Ehrengraf always received a hefty fee in advance for his nefarious services about to be committed.

An unscrupulous protagonist. I loved it. And, since not many authors were using bail bond agents for characters, I latched onto that profession for my protagonist. Moving right along. Now what type of mystery do I tell?

Well, Isaac Asimov’s Black Widow series involved a group of men in a social club. For each meeting, the men heard a mystery from someone involved in the event, and then they tried to solve that mystery from the provided clues. Unfortunately for the men, the waiter who served them supper was the only one smart enough to come up with the solution. Okay, let’s borrow parts of that and put it together with Nero Wolfe’s habit of using Archie to gather facts and bring them back for the Master to solve any mystery in those stories. Very good, now we need an Archie, a Nero, a mystery and the format.

I’ve always liked the bumbling, I-have-to-go-along-with-what-my-smarter- partner-in-crime-tells-me-to-do character played by Peter Lorre in Arsenic and Old Lace, so let’s make Theodore a short, white balding male with a yellow diamond pinkie ring on his once broken and never properly set, now permanently straight pinkie finger. And, we’ll name him Theodore Oscar Alan Dewey as a practical joke for those readers who like a subtle laugh (his initials spell out TOAD). Our Theodore gets sent off to grab the clues and bring them back to the proprietor of the bail bond company. Of course, the reader now gets fair play with all clues and maybe he or she can solve the mystery before the proprietor, which means I have to throw in some of those little red fishes along with a quantity of blue smoke and mirrors.

The proprietor, Cletis Johnston, turns out to be a well dressed black male with shaved head and a bandido mustache to show character. He wears Shantung silk suits like the Harlem gangsters in Chester Himes’ Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones series. Can you still buy Shantung silk suits? Damned if I know, but they make my character stand out. As you can see, I’m stealing from great authors and you can too.

Back to the Twin Brothers Bail Bond series in AHMM. They’ve bought 8 so far, and one more is sitting in Linda Landrigan’s personal slush pile. Cross your fingers.

Each TBBB story gets told in three parts. Part One sets the mystery. White space. Part Two, Theodore goes out to gather clues, it’s his mission. White space. Part Three, the proprietor solves the mystery and concludes business with the client. All violence takes place off-scene, and the complete story is shown from Theodore’s POV.

Of course there have to be quirks, twists, points of interest, all to stimulate the reader’s mind, surprise him, and keep her reading to the final word. To that end, it seems that the bail firm’s special clients, and they only take special clients, always end up obtaining occupancy in the local morgue, friendly funeral home or else have somehow otherwise been rendered deceased. Some fell from high places (should have checked that parachute), went deep water swimming without the appropriate underwater breathing apparatus (okay, not fully conscious at the time), were dispatched by their suddenly enraged partners-in-crime (so much for thieves sticking together, especially when Theodore whispers in one partner’s ear), got run over by a speeding taxi cab (however, it should be noted that this special client was outside of the well marked cross walk at the time),but in any case, upon the client’s demise, the firm always makes a hefty profit on their under-the-table retainer fee. It’s criminals preying on criminals, and the reader finds himself cheering for our criminals.

For ongoing interior tension, it’s frequently mentioned in the series that the proprietor’s twin brother, a co-owner of the bail bond firm, has been missing for some time. Cletis alleges that his twin argued with him, stormed out of the office and went off on a trip. Did he really, or did Cletis dispose of him? Theodore knows, but he already has one broken and not properly set pinkie finger which no longer bends, so he’s not talking.

Where did the Twin Brothers idea come from, you ask? Good question. Use what you observe in life. When I worked in Kansas City, there were twin brothers who were bank robbers in the Black Mafia. Being twins made it difficult for the government’s eye witnesses to determine which one did what. As their own solution to their arrest problem, Twin Brother as he was known on the street, told Twin, “look here, I’ll take the fall, you keep on robbing and dealing, and put half of everything you make into a bank account for me, then when I get out, I’ve got something.” True to his profession, Twin set out to make money for both of them. That’s how Twin and I got to know each other quite well before I put him away. And, when I thought about it later, the criminal relationship between these two gangsters just fit the Twin Brothers Bail Bond series.