"Joey Cacuzza Loses His Election," by Thomas Pluck, in Low Down Dirty Vote 3, edited by Mysti Berry, Berry Content, 2022.
This is the third appearance in this space by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer.
Joey is an enforcer for the New Jersey Mafia. He is also the lover of it's most important capo, Aldo. And Aldo wants him to kill a masseuse who could reveal some embarrassing facts about him.
Problem is, Joey is developing something like a conscience. The cause of this inconvenience is his niece Nicky, a high school student who is what you might call woke. She has Joey thinking, not only about the issue of killing a guy only because he might cause a problem, but also about Aldo's support for a mayoral candidate who is a terrible choice.
Can Joey resolve these issues and stay alive doing it? Clever stuff.
It's really hard to be truly original in short fiction, much less short crime fiction. I love how Thomas wrote this--challenging and funny and a soupcon of "omg is he going there?"
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