Button Man: A Short Story

by Joseph D'Agnese

( "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.

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 in the 1950s, innocence clashes against the reality of the gritty marketplace.

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"D'Agnese writes the most unusual and interesting books." —Bookviews

73 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2014

About the author

Joseph D’Agnese is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national publications. His work has twice appeared in Best American Science Writing (HarperCollins). His children's picture book, BLOCKHEAD: THE LIFE OF FIBONACCI, was chosen as an honor book for the Mathical Book Prize—the first-ever prize for math-themed children's books. His crime fiction has been selected by guest editor/author James Patterson for inclusion in the prestigious anthology, Best American Mystery Stories 2015, D'Agnese lives in North Carolina.