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    Tommy Top Hat
    Tommy Top Hat
    Tommy Top Hat
    Ebook46 pages36 minutes

    Tommy Top Hat

    By Scott William Carter

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    About this ebook

    One tragic day in a shopping mall, Kevin Husby turns his back on his infant daughter for just an instant - and the unthinkable happens. Someone abducts her. Twenty years later, divorced and alone, Kevin is living a hollow existence in New York when he meets a mysterious homeless man in a top hat.

    SCOTT WILLIAM CARTER's first novel, The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a "touching and impressive debut." His fantasy novel, Wooden Bones, is due out from Simon and Schuster in the summer of 2012. His short stories have appeared in dozens of popular magazines and anthologies, including Asimov's, Analog, Ellery Queen, Realms of Fantasy, and Weird Tales. He lives in Oregon with his wife, two children, and thousands of imaginary friends. Read more about his work at www.swcarter.com.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFlying Raven Press
    Release dateDec 13, 2010
    ISBN9781452370781
    Tommy Top Hat
    Author

    Scott William Carter

    Scott William Carter is the author of Wooden Bones and The Last Great Getaway of the Water Balloon Boys, which was hailed by Publishers Weekly as a “touching and impressive debut.” His short stories have appeared in dozens of popular magazines and anthologies, including Analog, Ellery Queen, Realms of Fantasy, and Weird Tales. He lives in Oregon with his wife and two children. Visit him at ScottWilliamCarter.com.

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    • 1/5
      I don't know what to write about this book. I don't know what the meaning or even what the story was about other than things happen in the blink of an eye. I really just don't get it. Sorry.

    Book preview

    Tommy Top Hat - Scott William Carter

    Tommy Top Hat

    Scott William Carter

    Contents

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    About the Author

    Preview of Ghost Detective

    Smashwords Edition. Electronic edition published by Flying Raven Press, December 2010. Copyright © 2010 by Scott William Carter.

    All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This short story 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.

    For more about Flying Raven Press, please visit our web site at http://www.flyingravenpress.com.

    Tommy Top Hat

    I DEBATED FOR A LONG TIME how to tell this story, or whether anybody would believe me if I did.  It's obvious it will be read as fiction, even though it shouldn't be.  And how do I tell a story whose ending is the beginning?   Where do I start?  I ultimately decided I had to tell it, because Tommy would want it told, because Tommy might think it would make a difference, and then it was obvious where I should start.  I should start with Tommy.

    I met him in Central Park on September 21, 2024, the same day I got canned from my job as a motorman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  The oaks and maples—the ones that hadn't burned during the April riots—were just starting to turn scarlet and gold. The weather the last few weeks had cooled, but that Saturday was the summer's last hurrah, balmy and bright, and kids in swimsuits were splashing around in the Giuliani Fountain.  Tommy, a six foot four Native American with a wiry build and long, raven-black hair, was wading in the fountain with the kids. 

    Usually I wouldn't have given this scene a second look—you see a lot of strange things living in New York for ten years—if not for his clothes:  he was dressed in a shiny black tuxedo and top hat.

    I sat down on a metal bench at the edge of the concrete, placing my sweat-stained uniform jacket next to me.  The smell of buttered popcorn from the boxy, robotic vendor across the way made my stomach grumble; it was nearly time for dinner, but I was too depressed to even think about eating. 

    My prospects of getting another job weren't good.  I was fifty-two years old, bald except for fringes of silver hair, and the early onset of arthritis made my hands hurt most days.  Who would hire me?  On top of this, the unemployment rate was twenty percent, and the country was in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.  The situation with China over the inability to forge a new trade agreement had deteriorated badly in the past few weeks, and RadicalX, the underground dissident movement, wasn't helping by demanding (through anonymous letters posted on the Net) that new

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