‘I Can’t Tell You That’ by William Kitcher

Mistaken Identity

From Pulp Literature Issue 48, take a stab at a truly odd job with this excerpt of ‘I Can’t Tell You That’ by William Kitcher. Want to know what happens next? Find the full story in Issue 48, Autumn 2025!

I Can’t Tell You That

by William Kitcher

Of course I was suspicious. A guy gives you a grand and tells you to go to a bar out in the sticks. I was suspicious of anything Darrell said, especially when I didn’t know if he knew I’d screwed him around on the last job. So I went to some town that could have been in one of the Dakotas but was actually in Ontario. Somewhere between Nowhere and Armpit.

The main drag was short. On one side of the street, separated by empty lots, were a grocery store, a pharmacy, a bar, and a gas station that was closed and looked like it had been closed for twenty years. Behind the stores were an abandoned railroad track and a vague attempt at a forest. The other side of the street had half a dozen houses, none of which had lights on.

I parked in front of the bar and made sure I locked all the doors.

I went inside, and the only humans there were a bartender and one guy sitting at the bar, drinking beer. Next to an old cash register, which had probably been there since the bar originally opened, sat two cats. They turned briefly to me and then went back to being cats.

At the back of the bar were a pool table and a dartboard. It seemed to me to be kind of dangerous to have them near each other, especially with alcohol involved. I sat, ordered a scotch, and waited.

Some guy came in. I didn’t like the look of him, but then again I don’t like the look of most people. “Garrett?” he asked. He was still standing there so I looked at him. “Are you Garrett?”

I shook my head.

The guy went to the bar and sat beside the other guy. “Are you Garrett?”

“Yeah,” said the guy, and that surprised me because I’m Garrett.

The two of them talked for a while, then left. I went to the door and watched them. They walked until they got to the gas station, then stopped and talked. Then the newer guy took a knife out of his jacket and stabbed the first guy. He dragged the body into the woods behind the gas station. When the guy appeared on the street again, I popped back inside.

The guy came in, talked quietly to the bartender, and then left. The bartender picked up a phone and called someone. I couldn’t hear what he said.

After a while, two cop cars and an ambulance drove past and stopped in front of the gas station. There were no sirens or flashing red lights; I guess it wasn’t that important.

Some other guy came into the bar. It sure was a busy place for a one- or two-horse town. He was a slightly seedy forty, with an advancing forehead. If he’d been wearing a trench coat, he would have looked a bit like Dick Tracy from the old comics. He said to me, “You’re Garrett.”

Find the full story in Pulp Literature Issue 48, Autumn 2025

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William Kitcher’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, the US, and Wales. His comic noir novel, Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep, was published in October 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing, and is available on Amazon.