Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?

By Robert Jeschonek

Johnny Murder, a dead man, shows up on the streets of New Orleans, terrorizing the eccentric members of the French Quarter Open Air Artists and Psychics 'Sociation. Has Johnny come back to life as a zombie? Po'Boy Boudreaux, sax-playing ex-constable of the 'Sociation, won't stop until he finds out, because Johnny killed his girlfriend back in the day. But then self-proclaimed pulp fiction hero Quinto Starbulk gets into the mix, turning the hunt for Johnny upside-down. Can Po'Boy track down a walking dead man on Bourbon Street in spite of Quinto's interference? Or will voodoo magic claim Po'Boy as its next victim? Either way, there'll be plenty of action and mystery in the French Quarter with Po'Boy on the case. Don't miss this exciting tale by award-winning storyteller Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected crime fiction and mysteries that really pack a punch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Jeschonek
• Release date: Nov 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781465823199

Robert Jeschonek

Robert Jeschonek is an award-winning writer whose fiction, essays, articles, comic books, and podcasts have been published around the world. According to fantasy and science fiction luminary Mike Resnick, Robert "sees the world like no one else sees it, and makes incredibly witty, incisive stories out of that skewed worldview."Robert's young adult urban fantasy novel, MY FAVORITE BAND DOES NOT EXIST, is due in 2011 from Clarion Books, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. A collection of his fantasy and science fiction stories, MAD SCIENTIST MEETS CANNIBAL, is available from PS Publishing in England. Robert has written for POSTSCRIPTS, ESCAPE POD, DRABBLECAST, SPACE AND TIME, PODCASTLE, DAW Books anthologies, and many other publications.His credits include STAR TREK fiction published by Pocket Books. His work appeared in three volumes of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS, winning the grand prize in Volume VI. He was also nominated for the British Fantasy Award for his story, "Fear of Rain." His story "One Awake In All the World" was called out in a Publishers Weekly starred review of the anthology DESTINATION FUTURE in 2010.His comic book work has appeared in JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA 80-PAGE GIANT 2010 #1 from DC Comics. He has also scripted stories for various indie comics, including WAR from Saddle Tramp Press and DEAD BY DAWN QUARTERLY and COMMERCIAL SUICIDE in the UK.Jeschonek is based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. His website, www.robertjeschonek.com, features fresh daily updates on the world of writing and other alternate realities.

Book preview

Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?

WHO UNKILLED JOHNNY MURDER?

A MYSTERY TALE

ROBERT JESCHONEK

Busted Books

CONTENTS

Also by Robert Jeschonek

Who Unkilled Johnny Murder?

About the Author

Special Preview: The Masked Family

WHO UNKILLED JOHNNY MURDER?

Copyright © 2023 by Robert Jeschonek

http://bobscribe.com/

Cover Art Copyright © 2023 by Ben Baldwin

www.benbaldwin.co.uk

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved by the author.

Published by Busted Books

411 Chancellor Street

Johnstown, Pennsylvania 15904

www.bustedbooks.net

ALSO BY ROBERT JESCHONEK

Crimes in the Key of Murder

Death by Polka

Six Crime Stories Volume One

The First Detect-Eve

The Masked Family

The Other Waiter

WHO UNKILLED JOHNNY MURDER?

As I run through the French Quarter of New Orleans in the rain, chased by a dead man, I wonder where the hell my supposed long-lost half-brother the supposed pulp hero disappeared to with my gun.

Johnny Murder gains on me, of course, because I weigh almost three hundred pounds naked...which I am...and the next thing I know, I’m being tackled to the sidewalk by Mr. Dead Guy, who seems pretty alive to me.

I feel the barrel of his gun press against the back of my head, and I know I’m going to have to fight or die.  I’ve got the bulk to throw this asshole off me...but can I do it before he plants a bullet in my brain?

You figured it out, says Johnny, breathing hard from his run.  Now here’s your reward, smart guy.

I gather myself up to make one last move.  I’ve got the body of a sumo; now’s the time to use it.

I’m not ready to be dead yet...though Johnny here didn’t let it keep him down.  At least, that’s what Queen Elizabitch and most of the other members of the French Quarter Open Air Artists and Psychics Association thought when this whole mess started.

I’ll admit, when I first got the word about Johnny coming back, I thought it was a big rip of swamp gas.  I never figured that a week later, I’d end up with the man himself poking a gun in the fat rolls on the back of my neck.  Not quite the man himself, I should say.

The daily rain shower had just eased through the Quarter that Sunday afternoon, and I was at my spot on the corner of Royal and Toulouse, not far from the backend of St. Louis Cathedral.  Just as the last cloud rolled away and the sun flowed down like fine white wine, I stepped out from under Father Sees-All the bone reader’s big beach umbrella and started playing Blue Skies on my tenor sax.

I nudged the sax case out on the wet sidewalk with my toe, and sure enough, within a minute, a young couple tossed a dollar bill into it.  I knew more would follow; playing songs about blue skies and sunshine after a shower always brings in the tips.

I love Royal Street, because it’s one street down from the commotion on Bourbon, but it’s so quiet it might as well be a world away.  Not only that, but the acoustics are perfect. A tenor sax in the right spot–-my spot-–can carry all up and down the street, straight from Canal to Esplanade, reeling the tourists right in as they stroll out of the antique and jewelry shops.  I can make a couple hundred bucks in an afternoon if I’m lucky and the weather holds.

And if some squawked-up hoodoo mama like Queen Elizabitch doesn’t come bouncing up to bother me, which she did that very afternoon right smack in