Button Man: A Short Story

Crime doesn't pay. Unless you take cash.(Note: "Button Man" is a short story. It is also available in the author's 10-story collection, Daggyland #1.)* * *This short story first appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. New York City is the center of world fashion. Funny thing is, the men who manufacture those gorgeous clothes are a cut above thugs.When Frank returns from the Korean War, he lands himself a job in the Garment Center, an insular cesspool filled with graft and corruption. If you want to keep your job, you keep your mouth shut.Then one day, Frank's buddy Phelan comes to town. He's as pure as the driven snow. Incorruptible.The fashion world is about to get a shake-up.In this Runyonesque tale set mostly in New York of the 1950s, innocence clashes against the reality of the gritty marketplace. * * *"D'Agnese writes the most unusual and interesting books." -Bookviews Joseph D'Agnese has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, This Old House, and many other publications. His science writing has been published extensively in Discover, Seed and Wired, and was twice named to the annual anthology, Best American Science Writing. His crime fiction has appeared in Shotgun Honey, Beat to a Pulp, Plots With Guns, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. One of his short stories won the 2015 Derringer Award for short mystery fiction, another was shortlisted for the 2014 Derringer Award, and a third was chosen by bestselling author James Patterson for the prestigious anthology, Best American Mystery Stories 2015.