THUGLIT Issue Two (12 page)

"All this shit just to find a decade-old laptop that the company has made its money on four times over. You ever think we'
re in the wrong racket?" I ask,
signaling for him to turn left.

"Ah, what else could we be doing?"

"I don't know. Real shit. You ever thought about being a private investigator?"

"Busting people for disability fraud? Hell no! Those guys beat the system man, good for them! If I got out of paying child support to my loaded ass ex-wife, I wouldn't want some jerkoff sitting in his car to take pictures of me and ruin that!" he was joking. Kind of.

"Nah, man. I mean like in the pulps, you know?"

"The what? What the fuck ever man, we're here. Let's do the job we get paid for and take people
's shit away from them," he says with a laugh as he exits
the vehicle.

There a
re no other c
ars in the parking lot as we mak
e our way towards the large double doors. "Why couldn't our refrigerator repo
s have doors like this?" I ask
.

As
is
customary of Rental Center
employees, Mike
l
eaves
the van running to keep the cab air-conditioned. In the darkness of the outskirts of town, the lights beaming behind us
are the only source of light we have
. All the lights in the parking lot had been broken a
long time ago. A siren bellows
off behind us somewhere in the distance, our footsteps keeping perfect rhythm with the hum of the van.

"This feels weird," I mutter to him as we come up on the door. My partner has no reply. His eyebrows are arched over his eyes and his mouth is slightly opened, like he's expecting a sudden shock as we pull the doors open towards us. Inside, all the religious elements and seats have been pushed against one side of the wall. A group of people in black robes stand over
a salt outline of some Cthulhu-
looking bullshit surrounded by candles. I don't like any of this. Some kind of music is playing over the loudspeaker. It sounds like a guitar and some drums slowly trying to find the courage to stand up against a violin that won't stop repeating itself. Looking at Mike I can tell he's lost his heart for this particular assignment. His eyes dart around trying to input signals into his brain, but the big guy's mind just won't accept it.

"Words can hurt you now, Mr. Black," one of the men calls out with his head still lowered. The echo of the building gives his words a solemn tone, adding to the fan-fucking-tastic fact that this asshole knows my name and he's quoting lines I was fed the last time I got laid. Mike is done. I can hear him beating his retreat in the parking lot.

"Just give us back the fucking laptop, alright? What the fuck does a cult even need with a laptop, man? Did you have to Google this shit?"

"You can leave, or you can find out exactly how much faith you put into magic since your moment of weakness," he shouts over the music as he lowers the hood from his face. He's covered in Nazi biker tattoos. I am at a serious fucking loss for words.

"What in the fuck is going on?"

Two of the men charge toward me, chanting or humming as their fruity robes float fruitfully behind them. As my brain slows everything down, I feel relieved to be completely free of thought. I notice my fists clenching up and instinct takes over. I drive my fist hard into the face of one of the neo-Nazi wizard monks.
There is a brief moment of searing white pain as the powerful impact travels up my arm, but it's gone just as my brain recognizes it. The other man grabs at my collar and neck. I try to yell out for Mike, but all I manage is a grunt and wordless bark. As I wrestle with the fucker, I notice his buddy getting up and staggering towards us. I'm surprised the guy can even stand, but before a moment passes he's broken into a full sprint back to the melee. I raise my knee in an attempt to crush this guy’s balls. I'm about ninety-nine percent certa
in I've doomed this guy’s first
born to being retarded, but he shows no sign of stopping. His buddy manages to slam his elbow into my ribs. I shrink down from the pain, but manage to find a lower center of gravity. I get up with a shove and heave the big bastard off of me.

In the corner I spot my salvation. Shoved carelessly against the wall is a large wooden crucifix. I run to it, snapping off the end of Jesus' feet to make a pointed object. I pick it up by the Lord's head and use it as a makeshift sword. Before the big guy can get his
center of gravity under control, I run to him and shove Christ into his guts. Shit and blood-froth gush from the entry point, running down the face of the martyr. The warm sensation flowing down my hands snaps me out of my fight-or-flight hypnosis and I turn towards his partner.

"Fucking stop!"
I scream. He's taken back as his friend sputters up blood and falls uselessly to the floor behind me. "It's just a fucking laptop, goddamn it! What's wrong with you people?"

"What’s wrong, Mr. Black, is that you were supposed to follow the girl into the club. We were supposed to kill your partner here. You would've been burned alive in the fire with the rest of the garbage and our ritual would've been complete."

I'd forgotten all about the talkative one. "What in the fuck are you going on about, man? This is seriously fucking happening? You're fucking kidding me."

"We're as serious as the dying man at your feet," he says as he reaches for something in his robes.

His crony is running back toward me. This time when instinct grabs me, it's the other side that wins out and I run. I'm rationalizing as I make my way upstairs. It's not that I'm afraid, I just don't know how to hurt these people without killing them. Also, I seriously hope Mike called the boss and had me clocked in. I deserve overtime pay for this shit.

At the top of the steps I find myself on a small balcony suspended by metal beams. I'm surrounded by light fixtures I'm assuming won't work. Behind me I hear Broken Face shambling up the steps. As soon as he reaches the top of the stairs, I slam my weight into him and give him a shove over the rail. The twenty-foot fall feels like it takes several minutes to watch. He crashes to the ground with a thud and I can hear bones crushed under the weight of muscle and fat. He doesn't appear to be getting up. A gunshot rings out and one of the lights nearby topples over.

I'm disappointed by my "oh shit a gun went off" pose but I manage to uncurl my gnarled fingers and lower my hands from in front of my face and lie flat on the balcony. Guns are never this loud in the movies. 'Bang' doesn't really do it justice. As the ringing in my ears slowly fades back into the sound of my own heartbeat, I hear Mike screaming. Peering over the edge of the scaffold, I see him trying to tackle the gunman. My heart screams for me to take back every bad thing I've ever said about the human race. The gun goes off again as Mike gets his big hands around the man's head. I see Mike stumble back, dragging the smaller man with him. His leg is bleeding and he's howling like a hurt animal, but he manages to sling the cultist across the floor under me. He's dropped his weapon somewhere. I feel myself jumping off the ledge before I've come to the conclusion that it's the right thing to do, but I do my best to try and land on my would-be killer. I curl up as we make contact and put all my weight directly on top of the shitstain.

I'm dazed and can't breathe, but my brain won't let me rest until I've seen that the enemy has been stopped. His face is smashed and he's coughing blood up between pieces of fractured teeth. His eyes are sunken but alive. He's going into shock. "Fuck you!" I spit before I collapse. As my body shuts down, I see Mike tearing at a hole in his leg, blood running between his fingers. My mind is going black to the mess all around me.

Mike had called the police. The sirens were like an alarm clock that you get used to. They did nothing but annoy the piss out of me for the first few moments, and finally I remembered the proper response to hearing sirens. Mike had called the police before he came in. So much for my overtime pay. Wait, proper responses? Sirens? Shit.

"Mike!" I shout, pulling my face up off the floor, "We have to run!"

It's no use. Mike is out. Crawling and pulling myself to my feet, I stumble forward to him.  I stick a finger under his nose—he's breathing, but it's shallow. Wrestling with his torn pants, I finally rip a piece of cloth I can use as a tourniquet. As I finish tightening the knot, I get to my feet and find a window broken enough for me to fit through. I feel like I'm not strong enough to carry my own weight. The cops will be here soon and they can help Mike and the psychos. I've got a bitch to get some answers out of.

I don't bother trying to look inconspicuous. This far out
of
town, this late at night, and everyone becomes suspect. I feel sick and heavy. Immediately I attribute it to the twenty-foot fall and the ass-bea
ting I took leading up to that—
but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't consider all that magic bullshit. I'm afraid I'm going to throw up a lizard or something. The club isn't far from here, just a few blocks, but every little step is agony. My breathing is still fucked from the fall, but even if I could
take a decent breath
, it wouldn't help since every
inhalation
drew a sharp pain from the ribs that prick broke. All the pain I didn't feel earlier is in full effect.

Smoke rises up above the buildings a few streets down. The streets are filled with an awful stench. It takes me several moments and then I realize that what I’m probably smelling is human
flesh. The concert. Sirens over
take my thoughts. Lights flashing and vehicles racing down the streets. Up ahead I see her. She's in the back of an ambulance with a blanket around her, huddled with a group of people I assume are survivors based on their zipper pants and mesh tops. Did she not know? Was she just some kind of victim in this? I wanted that to be the case, but how the hell would they have known what to say if she hadn't told them all this shit? She has to be in on it, right? And where the fuck is the laptop?

"Hey," I shout out over the noise. "What the fuck?!"

The emergency responders are too busy to notice, but I get her attention.

"Oh my God! You made it?" Her words are hoarse. Unable to stand she falls back on her tight ass into the ambulance.

My mind put a bite to her words, an admission of guilt that she had known where I was. The anger gives me the strength to move towards her with intent rather than injury. "Yeah, I fucking made it! No fucking thanks to you! Now what the fuck is going on?" I’m not meaning to scream, but I am.

She looks up at me with big beautiful brown eyes. "I thought you wouldn't come, I thought you were going to ditch me," her words come out like a shamed whisper.

I'm suddenly feeling sorry for her instead of angry. I hate when women do that. Looking at her now, covered in human ash I can't help but take pity on her. All the shit I've just dealt with seems somehow silly compared to what this poor thing has had to endure. I'm overcome with an urge to take her in my arms and protect her. When I lean in to kiss her crooked lip
s, I hear her whisper,
"Sleep."

As I'm blacking out on the pavement, she lays her laptop bag on top of me. "Here baby. Don't you want to get rid of it now?" she whispers before she walks off. My eyes flutter and I fight to stay awake as I watch her perfect ass bounce with her hips while she walks away unscathed.

I'm not sure what day it is, but I gather from my surroundings I'm in a hospital bed. Judging from my comfort level and the amount of instruments that indicate I'm in a decent hospital, I can only assume I was on the clock when my accident happened and this one is on their coverage instead of mine. The laptop bag sits on my bed tray. Opening it, I power it up to check out the time and date. I feel like maybe I deserve a look at the piece of shit that cost me my day off. I open the web browser and it displays a page on how to become a licensed private investigator.

"Feeling alright?" Mike asks, using crutches to enter my room.

"Yeah. I think I've had it with Rental-Center, though. Pretty sure after they stop giving me morphine I'm gonna quit."

I sink back into my bed and imagine my front office door.

Private Investigator: Kalvin Black
.

I'll spell it with a K. It makes it more serious.

PART II of
THE HARD BOUNCE
by Todd Robinson—
coming your way from TYRUS BOOKS in January 2013.

(continued from THUGLIT Issue One) 

Chapter Two

Soaked from the rain, we did our best to dry off with bar napkins. The flimsy napkins kept shredding, leaving little white pills on our clothes. Junior kept smirking, looking like he had something to say.

“What?”

“He’s not gay; he just likes fucking dead things?”

I held it in as long as I could, but one loose snort later and we both exploded into laughter. Junior doubled over, howling. My ribs ached from the force of my own guffaws. The guilt still gnawed, but I needed the laugh right then.

It was easy to cut the giggles, though, when we realized one of us had to clean up the pile of shit outside.

“Rock, paper, scissors?” Junior asked, wiping away a tear.

“Of course.” If it was good enough to settle negotiations when we were eleven, it was good enough today.

“On shoot. One, two, three, SHOOT!”

Rock.

Junior made paper.

Shit.

“I’ll get you the shovel, garbage man,” Junior said. He hooted evilly as he trotted to the utility closet. I really hate it when Junior hoots.

*****

An hour later, the show closed and I was only about two-thirds done. The crowd exiting the building my way covered their faces and made disgusted sounds as they passed. They were all smart enough not to make any comments. I had a shovel.

The cleanup left me glazed in vinegary old beer, ashes, and some viscous crap I didn’t even want to attempt identifying. It also left me deeply, deeply pissy. By the time I was down to the last shovelful, the storm had transitioned from drizzle to summer downpour.

Carefully, I pulled a cigarette from my pocket, mindful not to contaminate any part that was going into my mouth. The wet paper split and tobacco crumbled under my fingertips. I was just about to let loose with one of the longest, loudest, and most profane curses in the history of language when I heard a woman’s voice from the doorway behind me.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malone?”

I turned, wanting to see who was speaking before I answered.

“Are you William Malone?” she asked.

I gave her the once-over. Too small to be a cop. Definitely too young to be a cop in a suit. Usually only cops call me Mr. Malone. “That’s me,” I said, staying right where I was.

“Kelly Reese,” she said, extending her hand in a sharp, businesslike gesture.

I didn’t take her hand. “No offense, but I wouldn’t do that right now. Not unless you plan on getting some serious vaccinations later,” I said, trying to wring rain and muck out of my shirtfront.

She didn’t get it at first. Then the wind shifted and she caught a quick whiff of what I had been dealing with. To her credit, she managed to cover her reflexive gag with a demure cough. “Oh,” she said through watering eyes.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Reese?”

“I’d like to talk to you about possibly hiring your firm.”

My firm? “I don’t know what you’ve been told, Ms. Reese, but we’re not lawyers.”

“Maybe it would be better if we spoke inside. You’re getting wet.” The wind blew her way again, and fresh tears sprang into her eyes. She subtly made with the scratchy-scratchy motion instead of pinching her nostrils shut. Classy chick.

“I am wet. Can’t really get much wetter.”

She nodded sickly in agreement. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she finally covered her nose and mouth, unable to take the stink anymore. I guess class can only hold out for so long.

“After you,” I said. I could feel my ears burn with embarrassment as I turned and followed her up the stairs.

Everything about her screamed “out of place.” Her dark, curly hair was cut in a perfect bob. Most of our regulars looked like their hair was styled by a lunatic with a Weed Whacker. She was also in a dark blue suit that looked like it cost more than the combined wardrobe of everyone else in the bar.

Whether your collar is blue or white, in Boston, you stick with the crowd that shares your fashion sense. The city’s got a class line as sharp as a glass scalpel and wider than a sorority pledge’s legs. The old money, reaching back generations, live up on Beacon Hill and the North End. They summer in places like Newport and the Berkshires.

They see me and mine as a pack of low-class mooks. We see them as a bunch of rich bitch pansies. Kelly Reese’s collar was so white it glowed. Still, it didn’t keep me from checking out her ass as she walked up the stairs ahead of me. Ogling knows no economic boundaries.

“Want to sit down here?” I indicated a table at the end of the bar.

“Is there anyplace quieter? More private?” She asked, wincing at the volume of the Dropkick Murphys track bellowing from the jukebox.

“Don’t worry about it. Nobody else can hear us over the music.” As it was, I could barely hear her.

“This—This is fine, then.” She looked around the room like she’d found herself on the wrong side of the fence at the zoo.

I sat in the gunslinger seat, back to the wall. She rested her hands on the tabletop but quickly pulled them back onto her lap with a sick expression. The table was sticky and dirty, but there probably wasn’t a cleaner one in the place. Princess would just have to make do.

“Would you like a beer?”

She smiled nervously. “Uh, sure.”

I waved at Ginevra, the heavily tattoed Nova Scotian waitress who was built like she should have been painted on the side of a WWII bomber. Ginny gave me the one-minute finger as she downed a shot with a table full of middle-aged punk rockers, then walked over to us. “Whatcha need, hon?”

“Two Buds and a shot of Beam.”

Ginny wrinkled her nose and looked around. “Christ, what the hell is that stench?” She leaned closer, following her nose down to me. “Damn, Boo. You been washing your clothes in a toilet again? Whoo!” She dramatically waved the air away from her face with her checkbook.

“Yeah, Ginny. Thanks. Thanks for the input,” I said, my ears burning again as she walked off to get the drinks.

Ms. Reese raised an eyebrow. “Boo?” Was it a tiny smile or a smirk that touched on her face?

“Long story,” I said and quickly got up from the table. “I’ll be right back.”

I took the stairs two at a time up to the 4DC Security office. And by office, I mean the space next to liquor storage, complete with desk, separate phone line, and one dangling light bulb. All the comforts of home, if home is a Guatemalan prison.

Tommy Sheralt, the alcoholic lunatic who owned the joint, cut us a deal on the space. We got a desk, Tommy got a discount on our rate and the guarantee that we won’t tell the customers that he cuts the top-shelf liquor with rotgut.

In the desk, we kept spare sets of clothes for such emergencies, though our usual emergencies involved bloodstains.

I stripped out of my foul clothes and into a clean pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. I still reeked. Junior kept a pint of cheap cologne in his drawer, and I tried to cover up the rest with an Irish shower. I was trading in smelling like a bum for stinking like a Greek man-whore, but it was a step up. Finally, I cracked a bottle of Crème de Menthe and gargled, spitting into the wastebasket while quietly resenting Ms. Kelly Reese for making me give a shit.

When I walked back downstairs, Junior was doing his best seductive lean-in on Kelly. I hurried over and caught the tail end of one of Junior’s knee-slappers. “And the farmer says, ‘That’s the fourth faggot rooster I bought this month!’” Junior cracked up while Ms. Reese tried her best not to look completely horrified.

“Good one, Junior,” I said and clapped him on the back. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Huh? My bad. Didn’t know I was stepping on toes here.” Junior winked at Kelly with as much subtlety as a bear on a unicycle. Kelly gagged on her beer. “By the way, Boo, we need another bottle of Johnny Blue at the bar. Came in with the Bud,” he said, nodding to the bottle in Kelly’s hand.

Well, well
 
.
 
.
 
. Ms. Reese just got a whole helluva lot more interesting.

Johnny Walker Blue wasn’t sold at The Cellar. Would have been like offering Kobe beef at Taco Bell. Junior just informed me that our little Ms. Reese had come with a police presence.

I didn’t have to look at the bar itself. From where I sat, I could see the entire room reflected in the long mirror running across the far wall. He blended in better than the prom queen across the table from me, but I knew immediately who Junior was talking about. He sat nursing a beer and stared straight ahead, all the while watching our table out of the corner of his eye. Big guy with a white beezer haircut and an old black nylon jacket on despite the heat, which told me he was packing. His air was “don’t fuck with.” Old school tough.

“You got this covered?” Junior asked, tipping his head back toward the bar and the cop.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “You can head back downstairs. I got it up here.”

“You sure?” I knew he was only about a third concerned. The other two-thirds were curiosity and just plain nosiness.

“I got it,” I said, a little firmer.

Junior nodded and walked toward the front, giving the cop’s back a long lingering glare.

I checked the cop in the mirror one more time before I turned my full attention back to Ms. Reese. “So, do you own a bar?”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“You said you wanted to hire us. We do bar and club security. That’s what people hire 4DC Security to do.”

“No, I don’t own a bar.”

“Club, then?”

“No.”

The game of twenty questions was wearing thin. “So assuming you haven’t mistaken us for a ballet troupe, what is your business with us, Ms. Reese?”

“Kelly,” she said.

“What?”

“Please, you can call me Kelly.”

Even that small offering sounded patronizing. She seemed to have been torn between disgust, condescension, and sheer horror since she walked in the place. It was all probably unintentional, but it was crawling under my skin like a fat tick.

“Okay, Kelly, what’s your business?”

“My employer would like to hire your services.”

“And just who might your employer be?” I said, popping down my bourbon.

“I’m not at liberty to divulge that at this time.”

“You’re not…” I laughed a little too loudly and glanced in the mirror. My outburst made a white beezered head turn at the bar.

Gotcha.

“Let me explain something to you, Kel. I don’t know whether you’ve seen too many spy movies or just have a hard-on for old noir, but I don’t work for phantoms and this cloak and dagger bullshit you’re feeding me is going right up my ass. So you can cut the shit and talk to me straight or you can go piss up a rope.” I stood from the table, ready to walk. It was one part my shitballs of an afternoon and another part poorly repressed class rage. Either way, it felt good to let her have it.

Her voice shook a bit when she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Malone. I’m just following my employers’ wishes at this time. I didn’t mean to get you angry.”

She looked much younger then my original assessment right then. On the table in front of her was a small pile of napkin bits. She’d been nervously ripping off pieces and rolling them into little balls. She wasn’t just being snobby. She was legitimately scared to be there. And of me.

Hot shame filled my chest. Kelly Reese made me feel like a bully. Remember that thing I said I fucking hated? Yeah…that. “Listen, I…I’m sorry,” I said. “You didn’t deserve that.”

“No need to apologize,” she said, but her eyes didn’t leave the table.

“I’m not having the best day, as I’m sure you can smell.”

She forced a tight smile. “You do smell awful.”

“Thanks. Ask anybody. Any other day and you’d be overpowered by my smoothly masculine musk.”

“No doubt.” The smile came a little less forced.

“Can we start from the top again? And this time straight?”

“I’m just here to find out whether or not you’re available for hire.”

“For what?”

“My employer’s daughter has been missing for a week and a half. He would like you to try to find her.”

I drained the last of my beer. “I don’t know who you or your employer has been talking to, but that’s not what we do. Like I said, we do club security and every now and then we’ll pick up a bail jumper for shits and giggles, but that’s it. Hell, more often than not, we know the guy we’re picking up. Missing persons usually go to cops like your friend at the bar.” I tipped my empty shot glass at the cop. The cop saw my gesture and closed his eyes, disgusted. I gave him a hearty wave.

Kelly Reese raised an eyebrow. “Well, with observational skills like that, you might be the right person for the job.”

“The flattery is certainly helping, but again—”

“However, my employer knows that going to the police could mean the situation leaking to the media. Unless it becomes absolutely necessary, he would like to avoid that.”