The story so far: City homicide detective Ronnie Hurtler investigates the murder of billionaire CEO Ollie Caroon. Meanwhile college student Veronika, who supports herself through a sexcam business, has made contact with Ronnie and is offering him ‘special services’, including help locating the late Caroon’s huge bitcoin stash.
It’s only a matter of time before the Gravedigger killer strikes again, however…
CONTENT WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER:
Explicit violence
Backseat crawlspace is fine. Quite roomy actually. These SUVs get bigger all the time. You’re more lithe and slender than they think, and you can fit quite comfortably into this restricted space. Snuggle down and make yourself unobtrusive.
Parking garage at 11pm, all alone. There’s only one downside with your plan. If the target opens the rear door, or even takes a quick look over the front seats into the back, then you’re busted. Discovered with your ass hanging in the air and with no real way to make a quick exit. Could you please wait a moment, sir, while I struggle painfully to my feet so as to make my escape?
They’d be surprised to discover you, exactly you, and then later say that of course it was you, they always knew someone like you was capable of this. Make a campaign of it.
Still with the steely calm. Proud of yourself. Hacker supreme, card-carrying member of the electronic-intrusion elite. Your card-reader reverse engineered to door-opener and car nullifier. Clever-clever shit. Pays to have friends in the black-hat underworld, n’est-ce pas?
Settle down to wait now. Maybe have a little snooze, why not? Shows aplomb. Shows professionalism. And you do want to prove to yourself that you’re a real pro. Even now.
But you’ve done it that one time and you’re no longer an amateur.
Can’t get away with it forever. True. But who needs forever? Another hour or so should do it. This hour is so blue.
Ronnie’s talking to the uniformed cops who talked to Vince Lowestoft just after he was shot in his store, right before his trip to the ICU. And long before he plunged a pen into Ron’s neck and then croaked in a fury of cop hate and resentment.
Twin beat schmucks: Officer Dum and Officer Dee. Biracial oafs who live for the ingestion of carbs in every possible format. An immense eminence of torso squeezed into the XXXL version of the patrolman’s dark-blue tunic. Forearms like pink and ebony hamhocks rest on the table, tattooed in the barb-wire-n-roses motifs so recently in vogue among footsloggers in the city PD.
Ronnie’s treating them to bagels and footlongs at an allnite everything-diner, with a follow-up option for glazed donuts if they play ball. For that sugary goodness they have to deliver the goods on Lowestoft’s exact post-kneecapping words on the afternoon of the Caroon murder. As Skipper J.J. said to the homicide crew, it’s really not much to go on, but it’s literally their only lead.
“Eh, detective?” says Officer Dum, the Black one. He wants to make small talk. Officer Dee, the Caucasian one, is at present fully engaged with a cream-cheese-and-lox bagel and will sit the pleasantries out for now. “Eh detective, I heard this Lowestoft guy got you right in the face with a pen, an’ him all lyin’ there on a hospital bed in Intensive. That true?”
Ronnie has to lean in to hear him. The diner staff is currently in a screaming match with the homeless woman on the other side of the bathroom door. Keeps banging on the door and yelling that there’s cops in the place — a clear bluff, given that all parties present are well aware that no action will be taken in any direction by said cops. So the ruckus goes on while the cops yum-yum their food and shoot the shit with their new friend the detective.
“Lowestoft got me in the neck, actually,” Ronnie says, speaking up over the din. “But we were in a hospital, in the ICU, that much is true.”
“How come you riled him up so much that he would stab you?”
“Since he was already so royally pissed at the police department’s mis-handling of his case, I could argue that it was you two that riled him up so much. In this particular case you uniform guys did all the cop-hostility foreplay. I was simply fortunate enough to get there just in time for the moneyshot. Got rage cum all over me as a result.”
Sniggers. The flatfoots tag each other in and out of the convo like amateur wrestlers. Now Officer Dum is chowing down on his tasty bagel while Officer Dee is in the chat seat. “So what can we really help you with, detective?” he says, dabbing at his creamy lips with a napkin.
“Most of all, I want to know what kind of description he gave of the shooter in the store. I think it’s unlikely to be the same guy who shot the CEO, but it’s basically the only thing we got.”
As they nosh one-handed, the patrolschmucks pull out notebooks and consult their interview notes for the day in question. He sees in the mirror behind the booth that they have nothing written in there, only titty-and-gun doodles. But they’ll be happy to improvise some kind of reconstruction from memory for just as long as Ronnie keeps the stodgy treats coming. They set down their notebooks like they’ve memorized all the deets and are all set to testify before a judge.
“Sure,” says Officer Dee. “Well, he was pretty pissed at us, that’s true enough. We were hard pressed to get a description from him.”
The cop makes as if to consult his non-existent case notes again. “He said the shooter was Caucasian, though quite dark, average height, twenty-thirty-forty years of age, hundred-fifty pounds. Or more.” He’s not even pretending to consult his notes at this point, so Ronnie takes this description for what it’s worth.
“One thing I do remember well,” says Officer Dum, looking up, taking a short breather from his second bagel. “He said the shooter was ‘an insouciant motherfucker.’”
“Yeah, that’s right,” says his partner. “‘Insouciant motherfucker’ was his exact words. Funny phrase comin’ from a big lunk like Lowestoft.”
“Wasn’t exactly insouciant to plug the guy in the kneecap with a Glock,” says Ronnie.
“Well, that would depend entirely on how you did it,” says white guy Officer Dee. Black guy Officer Dum nods along. “There’s maladroit kneecapping, and then there’s insouciant kneecapping. I seen both varieties.”
Ronnie, Dee and Dum all take a moment of silence in which to ponder this insight.
Just at that moment a solemn and slender middle-aged white man in an ill-fitting suit walks into the diner. He’s the kind of guy who sets off loud alarms in anyone whose cop radar is set to receive, even at minimum setting. He pauses in the doorway until he clocks the trio in the corner booth, then switches to active seek mode.
His face is lined like an undertaker’s, and his tall cadaverous build and solemn demeanor suggest a mortician, but it’s apparent from his bearing and the conspicuous bulge under his rayon jacket that he’s some kind of agent. Federal or even worse. Probably the very worst kind, the city specials.
He makes a beeline over to the booth where Ronnie’s sitting and speaks directly to him. “Detective Hurtler, Commander Bill Simons would like a word with you at your earliest convenience. On a Special Corruption and Crimes Unit matter.”
The uniformed cops’ eyes go wide and they look down at the counter, getting busy with their starchy repast. They have no desire to know anything about whatever’s gonna happen next.
“At my earliest convenience?” repeats Ronnie.
“Right away, please,” says the undertaker, and motions with his palm towards the door.
You haven’t snoozed any, but you have been slow-breathing, zenning-out in the rear footwell of a chunky SUV in a shadowy corner of a parking garage. Blasting out Massive Attack on the earbuds. Chill now, ready like a motherfucking ronin.
No need to live in a lean-to
Your troubles must be seen to
See through money like it’s paper
With faces I remember…
I must be crazy, see I’m Swayze
You kidding me? Who does this? Who blasts out vintage English trip-hop while waiting for an assassination target to arrive?
Only the stone-cold professionals, that's who. The ones who’re both crazy and Swayze at one and the same time. Stone killers like you.E nun me ne ‘mport,
Fin a quann’ staje ‘rind a ‘sti braccia
Nun me ne ‘mport
Si cu’ me rimman’ ancor’
Si cu’ me rimman’ ancor’Listening beyond the beat, zoned entirely out, your heartbeat and respiration have slowed to pre-comatose. You’re in that place of clarity. Though your limbs are stiff and aching, no pain's allowed to stick to them. Time passes. Tick-tock.
Click-clock. The target is here, unlocking the door, and your pulse hasn’t even quickened. Music off.
Is this what you were born to do? Everyone once thought that your talent was quite another thing. But you’re a natural at killing. It’s like your passion. Your metier. And you aren’t even shocked at this aspect of yourself.
There he is, the target, plumped into in the driving seat, ready to start the car.
You ease up into a squatting position, careful to stay left, away from the seatgap in the middle where you could be seen. Your head leans left, so you catch a glimpse round the seat back next to the window. He’s futzing around with the car, trying to get it to start. But it’s been bricked. You bricked it. Hackety-hack.
Your breath is slow and soft. His is ragged and loud. He’s swearing, frustrated, unhappy. He puts his head back towards the headrest. He’s feeling in his pocket for his cellphone. Now–You loop the wire round his neck in a swift precise movement. Pull and twist. His neck is garrotted to the seatback. He starts squirming, but each struggle chokes him tighter.
Now for the killing blow. This is what you’ve taught yourself to do: twin stiletto blades, once, twice, on each side of the neck.
Squitch-squitch. That meat resistance. In deep. Your latex gloves sprayed with blood. He shimmies and quakes, but he’s mostly gone now, you think.
You yank up the catch on the left back door. You tumble out. Your legs are soft and jellied, but they find their firmness quickly. He’s in the front, arms weakly flailing and slapping, stanching the squirt, kicking, his feet up to the steering wheel. Somehow his left foot catches on the horn.You forgot to close the rear door. No matter. You stride confidently towards the exit. The cameras will see your facemask, your dark glasses, your chameleonic skin, the black hoodie.
Let them look. The carhorn sounds constant as a scream. You cross the floor in a storm of noise. Five, six, seven paces, and now you’re in the stairwell. Footsteps coming quick from below, you go up.
The firedoor slams behind you and the screaming car horn is all but silenced. In the clack clack of your feet up the stairs you check in again on your breathing, your heartbeat. Normal, calm, regular. You roll off your bloodied gloves; you’ll elbow open the latches on the doors to exit at street level.You get a flash of yourself, out of body, a small neat figure in a black outfit moving fast but unhurried. Mystic contender for a laurel crown on the shores of a distant lake on some long ago sunrise. Having killed the king, one becomes the king.
Nah, hard pass on that kingship, thanks. Fine just as I am.
But this on the other hand – you were made for this, babe.
Assassination is totally your thing. You’re a pro.While many particular lives and stories unwind across this city to later intertwine and ensnare the tellers, the art of storytelling has grown especially great among those downtrodden and resilient folks for whom passing down tales is both a pastime and a simple matter of survival.
Many of these stories bubble up from beneath the city, rising from the mouths of subterranean dwellers hoping to remind the world above them that times like these have come and gone before, time and again, and that the words which are spoken in any moment in history shape both our future and our past in ways that can’t be foreseen or even back-projected with any certainty.
Fleeting thoughts tossed out into the digital ether will be swept away merely; nothing will remain of that scrolling and the doom of it all. Information is exchanged, memories etched on tongues, in dark places under bridges where trolls once dwelt and now our unseen abject multitudes gather. Here is where the real history is spoken and remembered. Words heard over honking cars, spoken in dripping gutters, looking into silvery flames of boxcar braziers, hearing the crackle, smelling the smell of hot dogs.
Wheelchair Charlie McGurk’s speaking in the gruff voice of a seasoned storyteller, with rocky timbre and a Belfast brogue:
“Whitey, he says, ‘Bundle the bugger up in the boot of the car’ – sorry me dear, I mean the trunk as ye yanks would say – ‘and take him out to the Flats’. And I says to him: ‘And sure, what am I to do with this lad out there on the Flats?’ And Whitey says ‘Boyo, use yer imagination, only I don’t want to see him coming back again from this excursion, get me?’ And so I– “
“Wasn’t that kind of a racist name he had, this guy, this Whitey?” asks Alicia.
They’re huddling round a small oil can fire in the flat space beneath the overpass. Alicia’s box shelter is wedged up beneath the ledge and she’s not eager for the darkness and the loneliness that await her inside. So she’s willing to listen to any number of old war stories as long as she’s got company. She likes the old Irishman’s stories anyhow, wonders how she might tell them herself, what details she’d omit and which she’d embellish. Thinks someday she’ll tell the story of this city’s fall–if she survives it.
“He wasn’t a racist fella at all,” says the old guy in the wheelchair. “Oh sure, he hated the Blacks. But he hated Anglos too. Hated everyone who wasn’t Irish, in fact. And hated nearly all of the Irish too, for that matter. He wasn’t a fella who had a lot of love in his heart, was Whitey.”
“He sounds awful.”
“Sure, he wasn’t so bad. He channeled his profits into buying arms for the Provos, the Provisional IRA I’m talkin’ about now, and they shipped the weapons across the water so they could kill Brits. So he had his good side too.”
He passes her a hotdog and motions to the plastic bottle of mustard by her chair. The stars come out from behind a cloud and a satellite skims past, looking down from orbit on their supper and their campfire, but it can’t hear the stories from long ago from up there where it is in silent space.
“I guess I get it,” Alicia says. “I’ve got a fuckload of hate for a lot of dumbfuck sorts of people. And I’m not even doing anything about it. Just being useless, I guess.”
“Aye,” Charlie grunts. “It’s only you haven’t been challenged to be useful yet. That time will come. Remember then that it ain’t so black and white, lass. Your hate won’t save you then, that moment when the aul shit hits the fan, but it might just show you something that’s worth moving toward.”
A freight truck shuttles by overhead and sends muddy water showering down from above. The stars offer no heat. Alicia sighs, shivers. “I’m cold.”
“Tell me a story,” Charlie says. “It’ll take you somewhere else for a time, me darlin’.”
END OF CHAPTER 5 - all-niter at the everything-diner -
AMATEUR continues here…
Credits
Photo credit: Adrien Fu at Unsplash
Lyrics from Massive Attack feat. Almagretta - “Karmacoma (Napoli Mix)”
Oh boy that murder scene 👌
The murder scenes are to die for. I love you guys.