The Madam's Gold Coins by Roy Dorman
from Seven Deadly Sins: a PUNK NOIR Magazine series
Jonathan Avery had everything.
A condo on Lombard Street in San Francisco, a yacht in a marina near Fisherman’s Wharf, and enough inherited money to last his lifetime.
Comparatively, Artie Connor, the handyman who did maintenance at Jonathan’s condo complex, had nothing.
Well, almost nothing. Artie did have something Jonathan wanted badly.
“My great-great-grandfather got these from a madam who ran a whorehouse here in San Francisco,” he’d told Jonathan, showing him two 1850s-era ten-dollar gold pieces. “He saved her life one day when a dissatisfied customer threatened to kill her.”
Jonathan could have bought as many gold pieces as he wanted from a coin dealer, but he was obsessed with Artie’s coins because of their colorful history. And he meant to have them.
One day, Jonathan asked Artie if he could see the coins again. When Artie brought them over, Jonathan leveled a Sig Sauer at him.
“I’m taking those coins, Artie. I’ll tell the police I was showing them to you when you pulled this gun and you were shot in the struggle.”
“The madam also gave my great-great-grandfather this pearl-handled derringer,” said Artie, shooting Jonathan in the chest.
The Madam’s Gold stayed with Artie Connor.
This story appears as part of Seven Deadly Sins, a PUNK NOIR Magazine series, originally published July 2025.
Bio
Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 70 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had flash fiction and poetry published in Black Petals, Bewildering Stories, One Sentence Poems, Yellow Mama, Drunk Monkeys, Literally Stories, Dark Dossier, The Rye Whiskey Review, Near To The Knuckle, Theme of Absence, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, The Yard, and a number of other online and print journals. Unweaving a Tangled Web, published by Hekate Publishing, is his first novel.
PUNK NOIR, the online literary and arts magazine that looks at the world at its most askew, casting a bloodshot eye over the written word, film, music, television and more.
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A feel good story... and sin, oh yes!