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Pick A Domain For My New Novel “Wayland” Contest

jelewis8 — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:17:39 +0000

You may or may not know that for the last year I’ve been working on a novel entitled Wayland. It is the story of a man who travels across the ruined landscape of America with a young boy. Unlike Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, this is not the story of a hopeless post-apocalyptic future, but is rather the story of the redemption of a monstrous man who nevertheless strives to be good in the face of his sins. While the story does contain what amounts to a zombie outbreak, the bulk of the story focuses more on the main character’s childhood (told in flashbacks) and his relationship with the young boy he is traveling with.

Themes of the novel revolve around information theory, recursion and computer programming, psychic landscapes and geographic neuro-networking, and epigenetics (the study of the development and maintenance of an organism orchestrated by a set of chemical reactions that switch parts of the genome off and on at strategic times and locations).

To help me begin the prep work of pitching and selling the novel to publishers, I want to set up a website for the book. And that’s where you come in.

CONTEST: Submit a domain name that is evocative and to the point.

RULES: To submit, you must @fringeblog on Twitter OR leave a comment in this blog entry by no later than October 13, 2009. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. You must be a citizen of the United States and at least 13 years old to enter the contest. Contest is valid from September 23-October 13. Contestants are allowed no more than five entries each.

Valid entries must contain an available .com domain name. Due to the nature of domaining, I will only be able to verify whether domains are actually available at the end of the contest. I will choose from the pool of submissions one domain that I feel works for the novel.

The winning entry will become the new domain for Wayland.

THE PRIZES: A signed copy of Wayland, a copy of 28 Days Later DVD ($16.99 retail value), and a $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com. DVD and gift certificate will be sent to winner no later than October 30, 2009. Copy of Wayland will be sent to winner when book becomes available for printing, either through a registered publisher or through an independent publishing entity.

WAIVERS/LIMITATIONS: Winning entrant agrees to waive all present and future rights to the domain. By entering contest you agree to allow Fringeblog.com and the author to use your name in advertising, marketing, publicity, and informational materials related to the book Wayland.

Fringeblog.com will not be held liable for any damages or injury to persons or things as a result of the acceptance of offered prizes.

Email or Twitter me for more information or questions.

Chapter 19 – Jailbird

jelewis8 — Mon, 04 Apr 2005 19:45:46 +0000

Shake my head clear. Nothing. No sound, just thirst. Need a drink. God damn it all, I’m all dried up, no wonder I can’t move. Something lumpy and remotely padded underneath. My hand brushes something on my left. No, hell, my right. Something cold. Metal. There’s spots covering the darkness, gray spots, and I’m sure I’m staring at a wall. A freezer, a basketball court concrete floor, a cement factory wall. Could be anything.

No. There’s voices outside. I can hear ‘em scratching, like mice. There’s a clang, muffled and dirty, and some shouting.
Those spots turn to pale white, and I flicker my eyes open, and instantly shut them from the piercing pain of being peeled out from their sockets by the damn light. Son of a—I know exactly where I’m at. Hell. I’m in Hell. Or more precisely, a New Jersey municipal jail. Merciful God, I’ve finally done it.
I lie as still as I can and try to assess my current state. Feeling nothing but dull aching pain from nearly every part of my body I consider precious real estate, I’m guessing I won’t be going home just yet. I’m in too much pain to die, I think. I hope. Breathing’s still a jerk each time, and there’s a bruise the size of a Chrysler where my liver and kidneys used to be; New Jersey police work in violence the way Renaissance Italians worked in oils or opera.
The shouting gets closer and there’s some scuffling, and I hear splashes of hobnailed shoes hitting echoes on shiny concrete. Some guy’s cursing God, Jesus, and someone’s mother, and I hear my door open—it’s gotta be my door, it’s too close, but hell if I’m opening my eyes to look. There’s more shuffling, a thud, and the door slams shut, and immediately those shoes turn away. Better things to do.
I wait for the shoes to leave, and the new guy quits rattling his new cage door.
“Jesus Fuckin’ Christ on a stick, those fucks! Lemme take you for a ride, sweetheart, I’ll show you how to use one of them fuckin’ nightsticks. Right up your hairy Wop ass till you taste the fuckin’ oak door! God damn fuzz!”
“Why don’t you just shut up,” someone directly below me drawls, and it’s not a question. The new guy turns around. Amazing what you can hear when your eyes are closed.
“Yeah, and who’re you, shitfish? Say whatever I damn please. I’m in fuckin’ lockup now, buddy–ain’t nothin’ left to do! What they gonna do, fry my ass for talkin’ dirty? Ha!”
Swell guy. I open my eyes again and adjust to the light. Taking stock of my surroundings, I can see I’m on the upper bunk. I turn over to face the open space that comprises my cell, and I’m surprised by its size. Must have put me up in the deluxe four-person suite.
“Nevertheless,” the voice drawls, and the bed underneath shudders with shifting movement. “you will put your pretty little self down and behave like a man oughtta.” Sounds like he might be from Omaha.
There’s silence on the other end now, and I wonder what he’s looking at. The other man presumably, and maybe he’s wishing for a different cell.
“Y-y-yeah, sure. Whatever you say big fella. I got no fuckin’—got no beef with you Mister. You know, it’s them cops. I get carried away, you know, can’t help myself. They just make me so damn crazy, them cops do. You understand, right?”
The bed shakes again, and I can hear the new guy sigh like he’s just eaten a hearty meal and is now too satisfied to move. Or too scared, one. I move over delicately, the way I might when holding a bottle of rich, Hennessey’s maybe, and flop my chin over to look down on the scene.
The guy just come in is small, wiry, a lightweight with a sharp chin and the jawline of Frenchman, some kind of beat up patched coat jacket covering his thin frame, city stains all up and down his shirt and trousers; no tie–can’t expect a man like him to wear a tie–and his shoes look worn. A trenchman if I ever saw one.
He notices me and smirks as he looks up at me looking down at him. He sits down with his back up against the cage wall and stares for a couple of seconds. I know what I must look like to him.
“Goooood damn, boy, they sure beat you senseless,” he breathes, with a glance at the man in the bunk below me. “What’d they catch you doin’, scalpin’ niggers down on the waterfront?” He laughs, but a movement from the bed stops him, and he looks up at me again. “Ah, hell. You know what I mean. You a purebreed?”
I don’t nod and I don’t say anything to him. Let stupid dogs lie and chatter. I’ve got better things to do now. I put my mind out of the cell I’m in and set to figuring what I’ve gotta do next. I don’t have a lawyer, though I know someone who could do in a pinch. I know enough about the law to keep me out of trouble, or at least in most cases, so if I had to talk my way out, and I just might, I could do it.
Jail time isn’t called hard time for nothing. Sounds cliché, I know, but truth is, everything really is hard in here. Beds, seats, walls, the men who throw you inside, the men who are already inside, and the men who’ll come in after you. All hard, including the faces and especially the fists. Sometimes the shoes.
Well, that was lockup for screwups, fighters, brawlers, and the feelers. Felony’s not as bad. Fewer people to a cell, they let you have your cigs and matches, if you’re not crazy. I got a murder one rap hanging on my pretty head, so I’m feeling pretty satisfied with myself. I might have just beat someone up, but no, they got me on putting a couple of pills in a couple of wharf cops, so now they’re giving me the four-star treatment, so to speak.
The problem with jail is the sound. There’s a constant hum, and you don’t know if it’s you, or the men in the tank or the deputies talking and laughing and smoking and reading the funnies, or the lights, or maybe it’s just inside your head and there’s something inside just reaching to get out, to break free and clear of the long gray bars and the heavy tread of clanking officers. But it’s not a sound you hear with your ears so much as you hear it with your eyes–I know, it sounds crazy, but I know, I’ve been there–you look around and all you see is emptiness, men whose lives are hollow vessels, waiting to be filled up with the law. Not justice, mind you–justice doesn’t happen in jail (except maybe in rare cases)–just, the plain and awful truth of waiting and learning about time and patience and the clarity that comes from it; I tell you, it starts to hum.
And so you sit there, and maybe, if you’re an optimist of sorts, you might hum along with it, to keep your spirits up.
Most men I know aren’t optimists.
Me, I look at reality. Truth is, I got lucky. They pick me up in Bayonne, they pick me up in pieces. Here, at least I got a fighting chance. I’d better, anyway.
I figure I got some time before the DA comes to reel me out. There’s something about the peace before the storm that comforts. I admit I’m not a religious man, but I’ve got my beliefs about God. I take this whole mess like I’d take the picture of a thousand head of cattle running past like God Himself was after ‘em. Terrifying, but strangely beautiful too. And I can look at what’s in store for me, try to make my own way, or I can try and give it up. You know, like Woody might say to me, let go of my mind, make my body free. So I’ll try to do that. Just give it up and be.
There’s a grunt below me, and the bunk shakes
The Captain, who I know a bit from his days as a deputy, happened to be out, so I got stuck with Mr. Sharkey, who looked just like his name. I remember being dragged in, not even able to stand up, so they dropped me into a wooden chair that sat opposite Mr. Sharkey’s desk. He had a razor blade face, bloodless cheeks, eyes that were dark like a doll, and thin arms I knew could handle themselves in a fight. Burger. This guy could go burger all the way and come out on top.
Mr. Sharkey looked at one of the men who brought me in and asked, “Did we do all this? I thought we had a little more restraint.” One of them leaned forward and said, “He was like this when we found him. Someone else put him through the ringer, sir.” He said “sir” with a sort of awe you give to a man with a gun pointed at you, or a snake about to strike.
Mr. Sharkey leaned back in his chair and studied me, and I took the opportunity to flex myself a little bit. I was still pretty out of it, and he smiled when he saw me stretching my shoulders and tightening my stomach with the effort of breathing.
“Did he say anything?” he asked, and there wasn’t an answer, so I guess one of them shook their head.

Chapter 18 – Continued 2

jelewis8 — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 11:44:13 +0000

I am just about fool enough to try and make a run for it when another cop squeals up, siren going off like a wet cat, and then another one behind him. Other end of the alley is about the same picture: cop convention. There’s a whole lot of yelling going on, and I’m stuck in the middle. I know the story, how it will go with my boys in blue; how it always goes with people like me. I can sense everything I might’a thought good about them dissolving away in a white anger, hatred at the way they worked, working the law, twisting it so even when they were inside it, they were outside it.
Then it strikes me, like a slug from a champion boxer, and maybe for the first time since that day in New York City when I saw her face for the first time, I start thinking clear.
“Freeze and put your hands in the air!” yells one of the deputies. I smile, though I know I probably look like a movie monster freak.
“Which one you want?” I ask, and the guy pulls a confused face out of his chest of drawers. “Which one, freeze or put my hands up?” I ask him. He motions with his gun. I raise my hands slowly. “I’m Ferret-Eye Jack, Private Investigator,” I say. “Can I show you my badge? It’s in my left breast pocket,” I tell him, and he nods.
“Do it slowly, Mister.” I reach in and pull out the white and brown wallet stitched up with cheap leather, and let it fall open so he can see the state seal. “Throw it down next to my feet,” he tells me. “Cuff ‘im,” he says to the cop who’s come up behind me.
“As I was saying, my name is Ferret–” I start to say, but the other cop grabs me roughly from behind, forcing my arms behind me. He shoves me forward and tells me to shut my mouth, which I do, since I can’t even breathe because of the sudden, sharp pain his wrenching movement causes inside my chest. Like a burning desert in there.
He pushes me forward, and the first cop kind of nods. “You’re a PI,” he says, looking at my badge again. “That really don’t mean jack shit here, now does it? You’re under arrest for murdering two cops, doncha know? And damned if you didn�t resist arrest too.”
He gives a Significant Look at the cop behind me who instantly punches my side-my drinking side. I can feel my liver sliding westward and my lungs seize as I try to pull air from the vacuum. He hits me again and there’s spots and I–

Chapter 18 – Continued

jelewis8 — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 03:49:36 +0000

I’ll ache and moan and bitch about it, but what do I have that I didn’t deserve in some way. It’s not the clients I let down, though there’s plenty of ‘em to last me for a couple of years. And it’s not some jaded morality that I pretend to have. Some kind of what comes around goes around bull that’s just aping the history of the world, the cycle of the sun, whatever. No, it’s because I’m not the sharpest guy, and it bites me in the butt more often than I bite it. I don’t like pretending I’m someone I’m not. So if I have to take a few licks for it, well, that’s okay by me.
But in the meantime, I’m going to use my quota of complaints.
After five minutes I start feeling wet behind my ears, literally. I pull the cloth off and wring it tight over the sink. I promised Hank I’d call him. What time is it? 8:10. Time enough.
I shamble to the telephone and dial Hank’s number, but the switchboard picks up. Hank’s out on assignment. I say thanks and hang up. Avery’s supposed to call me at 8:30, so I hunker down on the floor and start perusing the papers I abandoned last night. My mind’s in much better shape this morning. Stuff makes more sense.
I pick up a folder labeled “Contract File #388922-113b – State/Villig & Hennessey – June 14, 1952″ and open it. It’s not too thick, about half an inch, and the first sheet is a cover letter from Villig’s office to the New Jersey state office. It’s a thank you note for the contract award acquisition. Nothing here. Next page looks like a copy of a purchase request, with a paperclip holding on acquisition planning notes in loose leaf. Acquisition of what? This is going to be hell to go through alone. I always hated the bookwork. That’s the worst part of this private dick business. That’s something they don’t tell you about in books and movies. We do paperwork like Reds do wholesale slaughter. Not as much as the cops, but more than they give us credit for.
Of course, if you’re me, you’d rather be cocking steel against a bastard’s liver. Hell, that’s anybody. Anybody in this business, at least. It sure would be nice to have some help sorting through this paperwork though. I think of Frannie, Frannie who beats anyone at punching holes in the switchboard, routing calls like I piss people off, which is to say more than the average joe. I wonder

Chapter 18

jelewis8 — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:21:21 +0000

CHAPTER 18 – THE PIKE
I slept last night like I’ve never slept before. I had dreams of men with masks chasing me through the streets of New York, past Broadway, past the Bridge and into the New York City Library. I was accosted by a cop who asked me my name and then spit on my shoes when I told him I didn’t know. Then I was suddenly at home, but it wasn’t my home, it was like it had been turned into a bar, and Woody raised a glass at me and I looked in the mirror, but I had turned into a stranger. Woody came up behind me and yelled into my ear, “You’re never going to make it old buddy!” and I laughed, and he laughed, and together we pulled back to drink, he from a shot glass and me from the bottle that materialized in my hand, and then I forgot where I was supposed to be, and I yelled back something about finding Aries. Woody sneers at me and then it goes black. I woke up feeling pain in about two hundred of the two hundred and ten bones in my body. I figure with my ribs being possibly broken, I could legitimately count the broken ones as extras.
It’s nine in the am. I’ve still got about forty minutes to kill before Hank and I are supposed to meet. I extract myself from my couch, instantly regretting the action. It’s all I can do to keep from shrieking. The pain in the lower left hand of my chest hits home like Mickey and all his major league friends. And I’ve been hit with a real bat before. This one hurts worse.
I am breathing so heavy I’m afraid I might drop a lung, so I pause there, bent double and panting, panting so I can gain the will to stand all the way up. I have to tell myself it’s for my complexion, but my brain knows better than to believe that American Beauty Pageant crap. This is gonna be one mother of a day.
As I bend straight and breathe in, I can feel it, like a rip in my lung. Oh God! I am sweating profusely, and I wipe my forehead with my palm, exhaling slowly and building up the will to take another breath. I do, and it hurts like hell, though I may be imagining it lightening up. The third and fourth breaths are similar, and by the time I finish counting to ten, I’m standing straight up and breathing in a way that you think of geriatrics as breathing. Hand on upper stomach, helping to push that mass of pectoral flesh that seems to weight a ton upon my lungs. Ache. Breathe. Push. Breathe. My spiritual mantra for the day. Woody would be proud of me.
I make it to my little washroom, and take a look in my face for the first time since last night. Nothing a little plastic surgery can’t fix. These days anyway. Five years ago, I’d have oatmeal for a face the rest of my days. I could handle that. It’s those pearly whites I took for granted that’s got me pushing back a stifled groan of anger. Can’t get too worked up there, Ferret. Easy now. They got dentists who can replace any tooth in your mouth, and some you don’t have as well. Life will go on.
The rest of my face is pretty puffy, so I wet a cloth and set it on my face. I lean back slightly and let it drip onto my neck and chest, and into my ears where it makes me squirm. Like Frannie used to do to me. She’d stick her tongue inside, just inside, and wiggle it around and that got me so crazy I’d yell. Just moving like that sends spikes into my chest and sides, and I double over too quick. Bad move.
I guess life is like this sometimes. There’s nothing to do but let it ride. I’ll start to heal up in a day or two. My joints and muscles will stiffen and my skin will open up a bit, start letting in that air that turns everything a nasty pink and green color.

Chapter 17 – Continued 2

jelewis8 — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 16:48:33 +0000

“He’s kind of hard to get a hold of. Jittery. Doesn’t want to sit down very long, you know what I mean?” I say. Avery nods, and I hand him my glass. “Can I get another one?” He pours another half glass and gives it back to me. For only the second time in my life, I feel comfortable, despite all my bruises and missing teeth. “Avery,” I say. He looks up, questioning with his eyes. “I haven’t thanked you for saving me back there. I was in a jam, no doubt about it.”
“Forget it. Those cops,” he says. “They had it coming, you know?”
“I guess,” I say, and toss down the rest of the last glass I want for the evening. I’m at a place now where I can stop drinking and still go to sleep with a clear conscience. No real compunction to, just a sense that it’s the right thing to do. Get some sleep with a clear head, wake up with my wits. It’ll be a first for me in a long while.
Avery shifts in the chair. “You want to look at that box of papers we took from the wharf cops? That is, if you’re not in too bad a way.”
I nod. “Sure. Bring them on up. I’ll be here.” He stands up and stalks to the door, and again I am amazed at his size. When he’s gone, I give my old buddy Hank a call. He answers almost immediately.
“Hank, it’s Ferret. Shut up and let me talk. I need you to check New York force employment records for a guy named Avery. I don’t know his first name. But he worked there as recently as three years ago. He’s about thirty-three years old, built like a train. I know it’s not much to go on, but try and dig up what you can.”
“Is everything all right?” he asks.
“For the moment, though there’s going to be some inquiries about a couple of wharf cops that got plugged in the private office of one Ernst Villig. They’ll say they were investigating his murder earlier this evening, but that isn’t true. If you hear anything, can you let me know?”
“What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Jack? You killed two police officers?” Hank sounds a bit upset.
“Listen, it’s not me. I gotta go. I’ll tell you more later, when I can.” I hear him start to say something but I hang up on him and sit back down in my chair.
Twenty seconds later Avery pushes the door open with his foot and steps inside the office with the box.
“You sure you’re up for this?” he asks me. I nod.
“I’ve been hit before. You don’t have to worry about me. Let’s have a look.”
I clear some room on the floor in front of my desk and he sets the box down between us. I pull out a small stack of papers of different colors; some look like carbon copies, some are white and bonded

Chapter 17 – Continued

jelewis8 — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 03:32:41 +0000

He settles back, folding his arms across his chest, watching me sip gingerly at the whiskey straight. He’s got the look of a man who hasn’t seen much of the world, but what he has seen he doesn’t like. I know the feeling. It’s something this place does to you. Like that old saying. You don’t change the devil. The devil changes you. I wonder how much the devil’s changed me since I’ve been here on the East Coast. Nine years. That’s a long time to grow callous and cold.
“Back when I was a cop, just a kid really,” he says. “I was walking the two a.m. beat. You know how that is, right?” I nod. “It was November. Colder’n a grave digger’s backside. Out on the streets, you hear a lot of things. Things like kids screamin’, mothers hushin’ down to bed. Kind of comforting, but it’s also like a skin cream-kind of smoothes you out, makes you miss some other things that you shouldn’t.”
He leans forward, I guess reliving the moments. “So anyway, I’ve got the beat, and I’m bored as hell. It’s a twelve to eight shift, and I’m already out of gas. Christ! What a job. Anyways, I hear a gunshot, and then another one, and it’s coming from the building just across the street from me…just a rundown hostel, wasted and overdue for demolition. So hey, it’s New York, right? That stuff happens all the time.”
“So I go in, talk to the night clerk. He says he heard nothing, of course, and so I tell him to watch the door and make sure no one leaves. The elevator’s busted, so I take the stairs up to the first floor, check around. Nothing. Second floor’s just as quiet, and I don’t know if there’s anything there I can do. Third floor though. The hallways were fallin’ apart, wallpaper lying in sheets near the floorboards. And I hear this crying. Some kid. Old familiar sound. Except she’s just crying and no one’s hushing her down. Instead there’s just a man shouting obscenities. Those paper thin walls. People, they’ve got no idea how sound carries through those things.”
So I go over to where the sound is. I’m nervous too, man. I knock on the door and there’s a bunch of movement inside, and then I hear some guy yelling ‘Who is it?’ And who knows if he’s pointing a gun from the other side of that door. But I say as calmly as I can, ‘It’s the police.’”
He yells out, ‘You got a warrant?’ and I almost laughed because I was so nervous. I tell him no, but that some gunfire was heard and that I needed to check to make sure everything was alright. By the book, you know? Baby’s screaming, but he tells me to come inside, and so I do.”
“What happened?” I ask him. I think it startles him, because he stops, looks at me like he might be upset at me for interrupting him. “What?” he asks. “What happened? What happened next?” I ask.
“The man had a gun in his lap and was holding his little girl up to his chest, bouncing her a little to try and soothe her. Beside him, on this dirty mattress, was a woman with a hole in her neck. Blood soaked sheets and mattress. A hole in the plaster where the other bullet had missed. That man looked at me and I looked at him, and he told me that they were fighting, that she had pulled a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill their daughter. I didn’t see any knife, but I just stood there, not even sure what to do.”
“He kind of held his hand out, like he was reaching for help, and he said, ‘Give me a hand. My little girl needs to be fed.’ It was like I was in a daze, because I helped him to his feet before I realized what I was doing. I told him that I had to place him under arrest. He placed his kid on the bed beside her mother, I snapped the handcuffs on him and called the precinct.”
“While we waited I asked him to tell me what happened, but he said he wouldn’t say any more without his lawyer. I doubt he had his own, living in a place like that. So we sat there, waiting for the cops, this man sitting in the corner with handcuffs on his wrists, holding his daughter and letting her suck on a rag soaked in milk.”
Ten minutes later the detectives showed up and the man was whisked away, along with his little girl.”
I sit in my chair, silent and holding my empty glass between my fingers, waiting. He took a deep breath, stood up and went around to the other side of my desk and finally sat down, the only sound the leather settling in with a whiny hiss. I know he’ll come out with it eventually; I’ve learned to wait on people, to let them say what they’re really getting at. I like to think I’m a good judge of what people want, that there’s something hidden in deep in every word, every sentence. People are wellsprings of untold stories and truths and lies and everything else in between. Everything that ever has been and is and will be is contained inside the mouth and thoughts of everyone that lives and breathes.
Avery nods, like he’s reading my thoughts. “Well, aren’t you wondering what the moral is? What it’s all for?” he says. “I was waiting for you to tell me,” I say.
“Morals are for the radio. This was something that happened to me. Maybe the most important thing that happened to me when I was a cop. What I learned was that you can get to know someone by sitting down with them for ten minutes after they’ve just killed someone. It’s enlightening.”
“And what did you learn from Eddie?” I ask. “That,” he says. “That is what you’re going to find out.”

Turnpike Blues – Chapter 17

jelewis8 — Wed, 08 Sep 2004 06:49:43 +0000

Last time…
“What else was there?” I ask. We pull up to the street below my office. He parks and kills the lights and we sit in the darkness.
“How much do you know of Eddie and Jimmy?” he asks me, turning in the half light. I can see a small sparkle in his eye. Not malicious, just…alive.
“I know less than I’d like. Those two…I can’t quite figure them out,” I admit.
He turns in the seat to face me directly. “Would it interest you to know that they came into town the Thursday night before Aries was murdered?” He asks.
I stare hard at him. “You’re yankin’ my leg, right? They didn’t get in until Saturday.”
“No way,” Avery says, emphasizing the “no” part. “I saw them myself. Guess what else?” I shake my head, questioning. Avery smiles. “Eddie has a gun collection,” he says.
CHAPTER 17 – BINDINGS
“Are you saying they are involved?” I ask him.
“Not involved. Involved is a love affair. Involved is insurance fraud. No, they did it, and I think I know why.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself. How long have you known?” I ask him, and he stares straight ahead.
“Known what? That they were in town? Or that they did it?”
“Both. Indulge me,” I say. “But maybe we could take it upstairs? I need a drink and a towel.”
We pull ourselves out of the car, I more painfully than I was expecting-the ride over has stiffened my joints and bruises; it hurts to even breathe. I’m not looking forward to the second floor climb to my office, but up there I can lie down.
Avery hops over to my side and puts his arm around my shoulder, and together we half-stumble up the short landing stairs and I unlock the front door. I get inside and try to make the first step up on my own, but something’s not working right, like my legs are there but not doing nothing. “I might need some help up,” I say, and Avery nods. He and I climb up the stairs like this then slide down the dark hallway to my office door. He hits the buzzer, God knows why, and I glare at him as I fish my keys out and unlock the door.
Inside, I flip on the light and we head over to my couch, this old beat up leather-clad train stopper. I inch up on my elbows and look over at my washroom. Avery gets the hint and goes in. I take stock of my situation. Desk is five feet away, and so is the bottle. I’m struggling to even sit up when I hear water running and some splashes and then Avery comes out with a wet cloth.
“The hell are you doing?” He asks me. I motion toward my desk.
“Second drawer down. Should be a couple of glasses in there as well.”
Avery hands me the towel, and I take it from him, saying thanks, and settle back into the cracked cushions. “Now Eddie and Jimmy,” I say. He opens the drawer and pulls out my stash and two shot glasses. He looks around for a place to sit, and I tell him to take my desk chair. “Eddie and Jimmy,” he says. I say, “Tell me what you know.”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” he says.
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I say.
He pours a long one and gets up to hand it to me. “Eddie’s a rotten kid. You can tell in his face.”
I say, “Yeah, I know. I’ve seen the way he looks at me. Still, it ain’t a crime to look mean, and it sure as hell ain’t a crime to own a gun collection.”
“I know,” he says, shaking his head. “What I mean is, when you think of Eddie, you don’t want to look in front of you.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that you better be looking behind you,” he says. I tip my head back and feel the burn following my throat all the way to the sweet bye and bye. He takes my glass and I motion for another. He pours it halfway.
“You still haven’t told me anything I don’t know. College boy’s a psychotic waiting to happen. So what’s his gun collection have to do with anything? And at least make it a single, for Chrissake.” He fills the rest of the glass up, sheepishly smiling as he sits on the corner of my desk, facing me. Guess the man doesn’t like the feel of leather.

Turnpike Blues – Chapter 16

jelewis8 — Mon, 02 Feb 2004 20:45:56 +0000

Last time…
The cop stands there, I guess thinking. I mumble some more and try to struggle, but I’m barely standing on my own power, that and my ability to speak is somewhat hampered by the fact that my jaw doesn’t seem to move on its own. It’s my imagination, I guess, because I cough, and dark blood splatters out onto the pavement. The cop steps back, and says, “This man needs medical attention. We can go in my car.”
“We ain’t takin’ him to no hospital,” says White Man. “Get on.”
It’s about this time that things get confusing. I lurch forward, and I say, “Help me,” in the strongest voice I can muster, through broken teeth and blood, and he stares at me for a microsecond and then grabs me and then there’s a flurry of movement. I see legs and arms someone gives a shout, and then there’s a gun and I’m falling and there’s a pair of shoes and then another with white pants attached to them and then I’m looking up and I see the cop holding White Man’s shoulders. I see an arm, a gray arm coming into my view, and it reaches under the cop’s arms and then a glint of metal, the gun, and it turns and it fires, and the cop stops moving, and goes limp, and White Man slowly lets him down, turning him over, laying him on the pavement.
Rough arms pull me up and White Man says, “Go park that car. We’ll dump it later. I’ll get him inside.”
I see Gray Man pick up the cop and then White Man half drags, half carries me up the steps to the front door of Building 120, and he produces a set of keys. “Got a set of these, don’t you?” he says. The door unlocks with a ponderous yawn, and we step into the darkness.
And now, the continuing adventures of Ferret-Eye Jack…
CHAPTER 16 – REMAINDERS
So I’m sittin’ here, thinkin’ about how a week ago, or nearly, I was wakin’ up from a bender with a phone call from a black man about his kid getting murdered. How quickly things change. Now I’m sittin’ with half my teeth dangling in my throat, leaving the other ones in a piano key arrangement, except they guys who just worked me over aren’t exactly musicians, if you know what I mean.
Even after Aries came up as the target, it wasn’t enough. Now I’m in Ernst Villig’s office-the late Ernst Villig-with two monkeys who just killed a cop rifling through these files, looking for something. I’m guessing the same thing I was looking for.
Now that we’re inside, they?ve got me tied to a chair. I’m feeling a little better now, though my ribs hurt like hell and like I say my face isn’t looking like it used to. Before, I only had one or two bruises. Most of ‘em were from friends, or at least guys I knew. These guys, though?
My right eye is almost completely swollen shut, but I can see fine out of my left. I’m not coughing up blood, so I guess it was just my teeth gettin’ knocked in. I can feel a few missing, but instead of being angry, I just feel sad. I had some nice teeth.
White and Gray have these boxes and file folders out all over the place, most of them just thrown on the floor. They seem pretty methodical, these guys, and I wonder who they work for. Might as well ask ‘em.
“Who are you guys?” I ask. I make do with the pain in my mouth, and it comes out all right.
“Shaddup,” Gray Man says.
Easy enough, I suppose, but I’ve been worked over once already. Twice in a day wouldn’t make me break into a sweat, even if these are the guys that did it. I press on.
“Who are you working for?”
“Shaddup,” says White Man.
Before I can ask ‘em something else, Gray Man wordlessly hands his partner a box with a label on the top. I can’t read it. White Man grabs it and pushes aside everything on the desk. He pulls out one of the folders and spreads it out, laying his hands over it like a little kid at Christmas.
“This is it,” he says.
“This is what?” I ask. They both look at me at the same time.
“SHADDUP!” they both tell me together. I am about to speak again, but White Man makes the universal sign of death, the hand motion under the chin, and I get the picture. They obviously are keeping me alive for some reason, otherwise, why wouldn’t they have killed me right away, or killed me when they killed the cop. They’ve got orders, but from whom?
“He wants to know, doesn?t he?” I ask. It’s kind of a hack trick, bluffing like you know something to get ‘em to tell you what you don?t know, but sometimes it works. “He told you you’d find them here. And me. Right?” They look at each other, I guess with a knowing glance, and White backhands me, hard, against my left temple, and I’m seein’ spots of black along with the image Gray shoves in front of me-a photograph, portrait sized, of the man whose only name was a brass tag on a false policeman’s uniform. This time, he’s dressed in checkered slacks and a light sweater, and he had a cigar in his mouth and a piece of paper in his right hand. He’s smiling at someone, someone just outside the frame, and the building behind him I can tell is the Veggie Store.
“You know this joe?” White asks me, and I shake my head.
“I don’t know. I figured he was a friend of yours.” Gray grunts and snatches the photograph away from my face and back into the box. White laughs, sits back on the desk and looks at me. He’s confident, but then again, he’s got muscle and grits to back it up. Me, I must look pretty pathetic right about now. Fishing for answers with my hands tied behind my back.
“You know, for a Injun, you sure ain’t got sense. What you thinkin’, takin’ money from a nigger? Ain’t nothin’ there but trouble. How much he payin’ you anyway?” White grins, his eyes white like his hat. Gray continues to sift inside the box, picking up documents, scanning them and then dropping them like leaves to the table. “You know, they say the best lie’s the one you never tell. You know how you do it? You let someone else do the lyin’ for you. Heh. Found anything yet?” Gray shakes his head, and White gently pounds his fist against the desk surface. He cracks his neck, leaning just away from Gray, and through my one good eye I can see a scar above right eye, exposed by the dim lamplight, just under the brim of his hat where the shadows normally hide. Anything I might be able to save for later.
“Why are you keeping me alive?” I ask. “Gotta be a reason for that. Who wants to see me?” White bends down in a conspiratorial fashion and holds up his finger to his mouth.
“Shhhh. It’s a secret, see?” He starts to laugh, but there’s a shot and he lurches back, and his white suit suddenly isn’t so white where his breast pocket is. Another shot, and I duck, rolling so my chair and I both fall on our sides, and I can see White lying sprawled and then I see Gray, or his feet anyway, spin around, hit in the shoulder. I look up, and he draws his gun and then his face goes blank from another shot. I can see red blood pumping out of a fresh hole in his chest and he moves his hand to cover it up, but it just flows out red and dark and ugly, and he raises the gun again but another shot knocks him over. He hits the desk and the box and papers on it and they fall together, and now it really is like autumn leaves, his blood soaking his gray coat, turning it black like coal, and other parts going wet and shiny, and pieces of paper going mottled red, floating gently down to the floor. Gray stumbles, lands on his knees and then hits the floor face first, a sickening crunch, and now that everything is quiet, a piece of glass falls and crashes to pieces inside, and there’s a crunch of footsteps outside.
I wriggle around, trying to see something, anything, but I?m too beat and tied up to do much but squirm, and the door out in the hall opens up. Footsteps, heavy but quick, reach the office and the door is pushed open. Man, I swear, it’s just like the movies. I can see his frame, but his face is obscured in the shadows. Having just seen a picture of him, though, I recognize him. But that doesn’t mean I’m not surprised.
“Avery?” He steps in, and he’s even larger in life than I had first imagined him. That night in front of the Veggie Store I could see he was big, but now, standing in the lamped office, he-he’s huge. His chest is a barrel, and his head is shaped like a square block of wood. He even has sideburns neatly shaped like decorative stains on his oaken face. He looks concerned and in two steps is down at my side, lifting me and the chair up.
“Who the hell are you? Who’re these guys?” I ask him. He shoots me a mild look, possibly as an excuse to show off his pearly face, but more likely to figure out why half my face looks like a circus balloon.
“Are you alright?” he asks. “Jesus, they worked you over something good.” He withdraws a knife from some back recess, clicks it open and cuts me loose. “My name’s Campbell Avery. And you’re lucky I was tailin’ you tonight.”
“You? You were my tail? I thought those guys were,”
“You know, for an Injun, you’re not too bright are you?”
“Hey, you know what? Why don’t you shut the hell up? I’m not exactly in shape here. Just who the hell are you anyway?”
“I told you. Name’s Campbell Avery. I was Aries Verona’s bodyguard.”
I stand up at this, and he does too, and he?s about a head taller than me (and I’m six foot one). I stare at him for a second or two and he looks now about as harmless as he looked like a gorilla when I first saw him on that dark street a couple of nights ago. Amazing what five words does to fix the picture. It’s like bumping the radio antenna. Suddenly it’s a clear picture. Well, as clear as the mud in Bayonne Bay.
“Her bodyguard? No one ever mentioned a bodyguard, not her father, not her brother, not the police,” I say.
“Police don’t know about me.”
“Why were you following me? How are you mixed up in all this?” He glances toward the door.
“Look, you want to grab whatever he was looking at and scram before we become a police matter?” Avery looks at my face again and then says, “Forget it. I’ll get the stuff. You look a little worn.”
“Thanks, you’re a real humanitarian.” I bend over White and pat his pants. He’s got a wallet in his back pocket. Nothing much, just a driver’s license, a couple of bills, a spare key. “So you’re telling me you followed me all the way from Bayonne? How long have you been on this?” I pat White’s jacket and inside is something hard. I pull it out and my breath catches in my throat. It’s a shield, a Bayonne badge. I look up at Avery and he nods.
“I mean another police matter,” he says with a grim shake. He shoves the remaining papers in the box Gray was rummaging through and tells me, “C’mon. I’ve got my car.”
“What about mine?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it. You parked far enough away no one should notice it. We can come back later. Besides,” he turns from the doorway. “you’re in no driving shape.”
I follow him out and he leads me to an old Ford, even opening the passenger side door for me. I shake my head and mumble out a sardonic, “Thanks,” he says to me, “Don’t take it as a favor from me. I’m just a heavy you misjudged.” That shuts me up. I did have him figured all wrong. He could be playin’ me, but then again, why would he have shot those two cops back there? How the hell was he mixed up in all this? A bodyguard who didn’t do a very good job of his client doesn’t usually stick around to fix his mistake. If it was a mistake.
We get going and I tell him, “You still haven’t answered my question. What’s your involvement with the Verona’s?”
“Mr. Verona hired me to watch his daughter. You know how it goes. Someone needs protection, it usually means they’re in danger. Anyway, I’m from New York. He knows me from a couple years back, kind of asks me to do him a favor. “Just watch my daughter,” he says, but he won’t say what she’s got into. Knowin’ her, it could have been any number of things.”
“He wouldn’t have told you why, and you wouldn’t have asked. I get you. So what happened?” I’m being pretty caustic, I know, and I can tell I’ve hit a mark when I see his face in a passing light. It’s glazed over with a pain you see in soldiers after they’ve been told their mother or father is dead, or a dog after you kick him. There’s always a little bit of guilt there, like it was the dog’s fault for being there, or the soldier’s fault for not being there. Avery sighs.
“I liked her. I liked her a lot. Not like a dame, but just a person, you know? She had something goin’ for her. Not the usual kind of thing you look for in a woman, but she was never bored, and she never asked for nothing, least not that I could tell. She lived rough, but it was honest.”
“How long were you employed by Verona?”
“I began working for him in April. Just over four months. Anyway, nothing happened for a while. Couple of months go by, and she?s doing what she does, which is to say, some of it I can?t divulge details.”
“Sex?” I ask. I notice turnpike mileposts whipping by on my right, and I can tell we’re heading back toward Fenton.
“Mostly drinking. Some drugs, a few men. I just did what I was told, just watched out for her, took her to and from parties, that sort of thing. Well, around June she started seeing the black fella. You know, on an intimate basis. I heard of such things, whites carryin’ on with blacks. They call it miscegenation down South.
Anyway, couple times, those boys, Eddie and Jimmy, they come up from Princeton. I knew Eddie from back when he was a kid burning small animals.” I look at Avery in surprise. “Yeah, who knew, right? He’s not quite right in the head, I don’t think.”
“So I would see Jimmy and Aries together. He had quite a thing for her. Lotta back and forth between ‘em, but by the time August ran around, things had gotten rough. Jimmy, when he saw her, would mock her, call her a whore, then he’d come back later and apologize. Aries just ignored him for the most part, or tried to. She had her own boy, and I guess she knew Jimmy wasn’t for real anyway.”
“I didn’t know Jimmy and Eddie came up that often. I was under the impression that they only came up at semester end,” I say. I settle into the seat and feel under my eye. It’s puffy and tender, probably starting to turn purple.
“Are you kidding? It was almost every weekend, sometimes Thursdays even.”
“How involved in this were you?” I ask him.
“I wasn’t always in the same room, so I don’t know what happened behind closed doors. When we were out-well, I drove her around, I would go into the clubs with her but stay a distance away. I was a bodyguard. When we were at the Verona house, I would usually stay one room away. Occasionally she asked me to just be with her. She liked having someone else around.”
“Were you romantically involved?” Avery looks at me but then averts his eyes. “No. I mean-no. But I had grown fond of her.” I want to press him on this-he’s still a suspect, and if he was her bodyguard, he’d have been in a good position to do her in. In fact, he still hadn’t told me about Friday morning.
“Okay, skip that for now. Tell me what happened Friday morning. When everything went wrong.”
“First, what I have to say may implicate certain people. I’m just not sure how it would go over, bein’ who they are.”
“Don’t worry about that.”
He doesn’t do any of the normal, clich’d movie bits to show he’s nervous, like licking his lips or running his hand through his hair. He just sort of looks straight ahead at the dark road, and I can see the wheels spinning inside his head. I can tell he’s nervous, and his hands aren’t even shaking.
“Well, that morning I woke up around eight. I won’t go into Aries’ room, not unless she invites me in, but her door was open, and so I looked in. She wasn’t there. I searched the house and then I went out to the garage. All the cars were there, but Aries wasn’t. What could I do? I went back to bed, thinking she had just slipped out but would be back. It’s the worst thing I did that day, and I hate myself for it. Every time I wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t…”
He trails off and I am content to keep my trap shut. Whether he’s responsible or just takin’ on blame, it’s a delicate matter.
“Anyway, we got the call around nine that morning. Mr. Verona fired me immediately, and I thought about leavin’ town.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Something didn?t feel right. You know, too many things went wrong that morning, like you said. Why would Aries, of all people, be in danger? And why’d she choose that morning to ditch me, knowing why I had been hired, knowing she was in danger? Why’d she end up dead?” He shakes his head. “No sir. There were too many questions that nobody seemed to be answering. After getting fired I went down to the scene and hung around all day. I talked to the cops, and was able to get into the store before they carted the body out. That’s lousy police security, if you ask me, even if I was her bodyguard. They didn’t even check with Mr. Verona if my credentials were legitimate.
“Inside, the scene was a mess. Cops everywhere, not one fingerprint duster. He didn’t arrive until almost ten o’clock. Ten o’clock! By then fifty men had come and gone in that place. And they still managed to miss the shell.”
“Yeah, I picked it up that night I first saw you outside. Say, where’d you get that uniform anyway? I figured you for a watcher. A hired gun. Then when you disappeared, and my office got ransacked, I assumed you were working for somebody. Somebody.” I wonder why I’m telling him this. “You seem to know your way around. Around a crime scene, I mean. You’ve got the lingo and everything.” I am not sure how I feel about this.
“I used to be a cop in New York.”
“Yeah? I used to live there.”
“It’s brutish. New York’s the reason I became a bodyguard.”
“All right, well look, back to the murders. You decide things aren’t kosher, so you stick around town, do a little snooping?”
“That’s right. I knew you were on the case, but with the way the cops were being, I didn’t trust anyone, even you, with some of the information I had.”
“What kind of information?”
“Nothing solid or incriminating. Just insinuations. Coincidences.” Avery takes the exit heading into Fenton. “Where do you want me to take you?” he asks.
“My office. I can get cleaned up there, and we can finish talking.” I give him the address. “So, what kind of coincidences are we talking about here?”
“Well, before Friday I had begun to suspect we were being followed. I had seen a fella on a motorcycle a week before when I was driving her to a western bar out on the Plains. He followed us all the way to the 73 mile marker and drove past as we pulled in. I couldn’t see his face, but he looked about average height and build.
“I saw him again later, back in Fenton. On Wednesday he drove past the Verona house a couple times, once in the morning and once in the evening. He may have found a place to watch the house all day. I should have been more alert.”
“What else was there?” I ask. We pull up to the street below my office. He parks and kills the lights and we sit in the darkness.
“How much do you know of Eddie and Jimmy?” he asks me, turning in the half light. I can see a small sparkle in his eye. Not malicious, just alive, like a caged animal.
“I know less than I’d like. Those two-I can’t quite figure them out,” I admit.
He turns in the seat to face me directly. “Would it interest you to know that they came into town the Thursday night before Aries was murdered?” He asks.
I stare hard at him. “You’re yankin’ my leg, right? They didn’t get in until Saturday.”
“No way,” Avery says, emphasizing the “no” part. “I saw them myself. Guess what else?” I shake my head, questioning. Avery smiles. “Eddie has a gun collection,” he says.

Turnpike Blues – Chapter 15

jelewis8 — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 17:19:29 +0000

CHAPTER 15 ? BEATING THE MAN
I don?t have a lot of patience for bull. I pick up my gun and investigator license from the front duty desk and get into my car and wait for Fat Man and Tall Boy to jump into their Chrysler. I can?t find my bottle of Jack?s, and I wonder if it got confiscated while I was getting pounded in there.
I follow them down about a mile and a half to the wharf entrance. There aren?t a lot of people there, but I can see a couple of blue boys with their thumbs in their pants, looking for all the world like two small boys on a playground of men. It?s not physical size, it?s just demeanor. Wharf cops make us all look small.
Toward the end of the wharf a buncha guys are standing around, some near a car that?s got a big puddle of water around it. Some of it has run down and collected around the body of Villig, which is now covered by a canvas sheet. Others are further in, and part as we come through slowly. They park, and so I do the same, right behind them. I step out of my car and over to Villig?s car. I?m just lookin? at it, trying to peer through the windows, but it?s kinda hard to see, what with little beams of light glaring off the windows.
A shadow appears in the window, and Tall Boy behind me says, ?It?sa damn shame.? Someone comes up to him, and says, ?Here?s the registration. And the vehicle identification. We also found a metal tool box in the trunk, empty, and a spare key, magnetically attached to the underside of the bumper.?
?Thank you,? Tall Boy says. I turn around to face him. I must have a look on my face because he smiles, kind of wan, and says, ?We do our jobs.?
?Yeah,? I say. ?A hell of a lot better job than the Fenton precinct boys. You wouldn?t believe what they missed on a recent murder investigation. I got knocked around for criticizing their operation.? He gives me a grim smile.
?You get that a lot, don?t you??
?Only when I?m sober.? Tall Boy?s eyes narrow. ?What?? I ask.
?Surprise, surprise. This car belongs to an Eva Mendoza.? I stare at the paper and then up at his face. ?Who do you suppose that is?? he says.
?What?s the address??
?Lakeside. West Orange,? Tall Boy laughs. ?Who said spics could own a fine automobile as this? And a bleeder at that.? He hands the card back to the sergeant. ?Sergeant, run the name through state, see what you come up with.? The sergeant nods and walks away. Tall Boy notices me staring at him.
?That bother you?? he asks. I look at him square in the face.
?What? Name calling? No. I just thought you were a better man, that?s all.?
?I?m not so bad, once you get to know me.? Tall Boy shakes his head. ?No, the only thing wrong with it is that everybody?s doin? it. You know. The niggers, the spics, the slants?hell, they practically started it.?
I turn back and walk around the back. ?I?d like to pop the trunk,? I say without commenting on his previous statement.
?It?s clean, but if it?ll make you feel better,? he says. I nod and read down under the cold metal that?s still drying in the cool night and pop the latch open. Water drips down the edges and into the interior. ?Hey, gimme a flashlight,? I yell. Fat Man comes around the side and hands me his stick.
The inside is dark, mottled with old leaves, and the bare metal is sludgy with grease and dark water. I check the top of the trunk lid, but it?s a bare metal slab, nothing to hide there. On one of the side panels is a latch, and a strap that looks like it once held something in place; there?s a slash mark at the end of it, and the end itself is somewhat more ragged than the rest of it. The strap, which is leather, is damp on the surface; I feel the end, and it is dry.
My search doesn?t reveal anything else, so I turn off the lamp and close the trunk, hand the light back to Fat Man. He stuffs it in his pants and smirks, and Tall Boy says, ?Find anything?? I shake my head.
?Alrighty. Now that we got that over, we uh, we do need to talk about what you know about the victim.? Tall Boy ambles over to me and I turn and stare at the mound of canvas covering Villig.
?He?s a?was a construction contractor, for the state. Wife and two kids, decent income, nice job. Beyond that? You know more than I do.?
?Where?s his office? We?ll need to take a look at it.?
?Aren?t you supposed to look that kind of thing up??
?It?d be a lot easier if you just told us. After all?? Tall Boy spreads his arms out and he shrugs, his shoulders and face with a kind of distanced magnanimity that I have grown accustomed to seeing in cops? faces. They think they?re doin? you a favor when really they?re foulin? up your day.
?Sure. Whatever. 120 Melinda Avenue. Building 211.? I know I told him the wrong building. I don?t want them getting there first.
?Alright, Mr. Jack, you?re free to go.?
?Actually, I was wondering if I could take a look at that lockbox your boys fished out. You mind?? Tall Boy looks at Fat Man and shrugs, looks back at me and says, ?Sure. Why not? Kerry!? he yells to the sergeant who had spoken to him a couple of minutes before. Kerry appears beside him and he asks, ?You fellas put the toolbox in process yet??
?Not yet, boss. We?re taggin? it now.?
?Bring it over for a sec. Just do it,? Tall Boy says after Kerry gives him a questioning look. Kerry heads over to a group of men who listen to him and then one of them hands him the box. I can see right away it?s not got a latch on it, or any way to secure it. Which means that someone opened the trunk and pulled something out before they pushed the car?
No. Wait. A. Damn. Minute.
Kerry brings the box over and opens it up. Inside is empty, but I?m not surprised. I nod, and Kerry closes it back up. Tall Boy says, ?Finished?? I nod, and reach out my hand. He shakes it, and I say, ?Maybe I?ll see you boys later. Good luck finding this guy.?
I get into my car and slowly turn around and roll out of there. I can see Tall Boy and Fat Man standing together, backs to the drowned car, watching me leave. In my mind, all I can see is that strap with the knife-cut end, damp on the outside, dry on the inside.
I jump on the interchange and head south and then get off on 73 for Union. It?s about when I pull onto Fairmont that I suspect someone?s tailing me. I do a few turns, nothing too suspicious, but that confirms it. A black Plymouth, what model or year I can?t tell. I don?t want to tip them off, so I continue on to Villig?s office, except that when I pull onto Melinda, I park as soon as a spot opens up, somewhere between Buildings 145 and 144.
I lose my lights and bend down and crawl across my seat and open up the passenger side door. My tail?s sitting at the end of the avenue, or rather is slowly riding down the grade, looking, I presume, for me. I race, crouched down up a couple of cars and then, because I have no choice, I dash out onto the sidewalk, for a few seconds in full view of the lamp from across the street, and then I?m back in the shadows, between a stairwell and a garbage can.
I need to get between the buildings so I can sneak around back. I glance around the corner of the stairwell and see my tail, still coming slowly my way. He?s at my car and now going past it, so it?s now or never. I sprint low, holding onto my flapping coat until I reach the shadowed shelter of the alley between building 144 and 143. I run quickly down the thin corridor, which is pretty clean except for a pile of wooden crates near a side door. I round the back and it?s a similar story: the alleyway is formed by the building on one side and a high wooden fence about five feet across?just enough room for a couple of bums to walk through without scuffing up their elbow patches.
Me, I race down, like Peter Lorry running from the police in M. I like Peter Lorry. He?s got these great roles, and a fantastic face to fill a part that a man twice his size could never do justice to. He?s a victim, but not hapless or crazy; just looking for the answers in all the wrong places. He could be me, I suppose. I pass building after building, running from shadow to shadow, jumping across the lit spaces where the alleyways intersect. It feels good. Exhilarating. I keep count as I pass each office. 140. 139. 138.
I pass 133, and out of the corner of my eye, as I cross the alley, I see a car, the Plymouth I think, and I?m so scared that he saw me that I imagine a man looking right at me from the passenger side window. In a split second I?m through the light and back in the shadows, but I can?t shake it; he saw me, and he?s coming after me. I slow down when I reach the next alley, peek my head around, but there?s nothing. I tap dance across, trying to stay hidden, and now I?m winded and breathing hard, and I can?t hear anything but my heart pounding in my head and my hot breath coming out like ripped organ notes from a page of music, so I ease up and walk, trying to measure my steps the way I used to. It?s not quite the same. I can?t hear anything, but that could be because I?ve got blood rushing through my ears, obscuring what could be a Very Bad Noise. The kind of noise you only hear once before it goes through you and then you die.
The kind of noise with a thin blade and an evil hand that wields it.
No wonder alleys are the criminals? play ground. They?re dark, quiet, and keep secrets well. I can?t imagine this alley?s seen much action, but right when I think that, I see a man in front of me, step out of the shadows. He?s in a white suit, with a white, wide-brimmed hat. I stop, turn, but there?s another man, in gray, and he?s got something in his fist.
I stop, turn my back on the Gray Man and face the White Man. I hold up my hands, pacifying.
?Look, fellas, I?m a law?? and then I feel my arms wrapped around my back, held behind me and the fella in white slugs me in the stomach.
?Shaddup. You?re no law abidin? citizen. You ain?t no lawyer,? says the man in white, and hits me again. Between my inability to breathe and the sudden sensation of weightlessness, I barely hear him say, ?And you ain?t no law dog.? I cough, and though it?s dark, I can see splatters land on the pavement, dark and wet and heavy. ?Well, shit pal, you just bought yourself a new pair-a shoes,? the White Man says, and something like a steel toe boot hits me behind one knee and I collapse, feeling the weight of the pavement on my knees and my stomach feels like hammered beef. I notice, in a brief moment, like you notice a particularly bright star for a second before it winks out of existence, that I have papered the White Man?s shoes with blood, though I can?t tell if it?s from my stomach or mouth. I hope it?s my mouth.
I hear a faint voice behind me say, ?Let?s drag ?im in.? They worked me over good, so I know they?re professionals. Professional at what, though, I?m not sure. They pull my arms over their shoulders, and together, the three of us lurch down toward more darkness. Occasionally, the White Man utters a curse, complaining about how heavy I am or how his suit?s getting ruined. The Grey Man just grunts, and after what seems like a thousand minutes of shadow and light alternating, they pull me into the adjoining alley leading back toward the light and the street.
They pull me out and I?m coherent enough to see the building is 120. Well, at least I made it back to Villig?s office.
There?s a car coming up the street toward us, and the monkeys flatten me against the wall and slouch beside me, acting nonchalant. Me, I act like a one-night performance of the 1812 Overture, with my stomach the bass drum, my ribs the xylophone, and my head a punching bag for a guy who can?t play anything at all.
The car slows down and stops on the street next to us, its lights on. Suddenly, a light from the driver side window shines on us, and I hear a voice say, ?You boys doin? out here?? like he forgot ?What?, and the White Man yells back, ?Just takin? our pally home.? There?s a pause, and then the door opens, and we can?t see anything because of the light, and anyway, my right eye is swollen pretty bad. I see feet, and then the man moves into the shadow of one of the parked cars and I can see him dimly, like a Blue Angel. I believe this is the first time I?ve ever been happy, I mean really happy, to see a cop.
I mumble out, ?Help me,? but it sounds like ?Happy? I guess. Gray Man steps on my foot, not too hard, just enough to keep me occupied.
?Looks like he?s had one too many. You boys from around here?? the cop says, and the White Man says, ?Sure, what?s it to ya??
?It so happens I patrol around here. I see a man with a black eye and I wonder what?s going on. There aren?t any bars around this part of town. Where?d you say you came from??
?Just a buddy?s house. You know, cards, gambling, drinks. Shorty here had a few too, if you know what I mean.? White Man laughs, but it?s short and fake.
The cop says, ?What happened to his eye?? He sounds doubtful. ?I suppose he fell off a chair.?
?Jimmy says something, Shorty took offense, they went at it. Nothin? to it. You shoudda saw Jimmy.?
The cop stands there, I guess thinking. I mumble some more and try to struggle, but I?m barely standing on my own power, that and my ability to speak is somewhat hampered by the fact that my jaw doesn?t seem to move on its own. It?s my imagination, I guess, because I cough, and dark blood splatters out onto the pavement. The cop steps back, and says, ?This man needs medical attention. We can go in my car.?
?We ain?t takin? him to no hospital,? says White Man. ?Get on.?
It?s about this time that things get confusing. I lurch forward, and I say, ?Help me,? in the strongest voice I can muster, through broken teeth and blood, and he stares at me for a microsecond and then grabs me and then there?s a flurry of movement. I see legs and arms someone gives a shout, and then there?s a gun and I?m falling and there?s a pair of shoes and then another with white pants attached to them and then I?m looking up and I see the cop holding White Man?s shoulders. I see an arm, a gray arm coming into my view, and it reaches under the cop?s arms and then a glint of metal, the gun, and it turns and it fires, and the cop stops moving, and goes limp, and White Man slowly lets him down, turning him over, laying him on the pavement.
Rough arms pull me up and White Man says, ?Go park that car. We?ll dump it later. I?ll get him inside.?
I see Gray Man pick up the cop and then White Man half drags, half carries me up the steps to the front door of Building 120, and he produces a set of keys. ?Got a set of these, don?t you?? he says. The door unlocks with a ponderous yawn, and we step into the darkness.