Dead Bullets: Cold Street

I've decided on a name, let's do this

Dead Bullets

Chapter 2

Cold Street

The night walks by, the usual song and dance when the cops show up. All bluster and pomp, yellin' in my face trying to get me to confess to a crime they know for damn sure I didn't commit, stomping their feet and bouncing through their text book of how you should treat a "suspect". They never take me in though, know they couldn't even if they tried. I'm not sure why they continue to hound me when they know they'll eventually end up with a broken arm, or a smashed face. Cops in this town have learned to stay out of my way.
That is, until I tangled with Detective Mullin.
She...
Well. Interesting Dame. Maybe not the right word. Dame implies an air of frailty, a desirable woman who is in way over her head. I know plenty of dames in my line of work, but Mullin, she is something different. I've known of her for quite a while, but this is the first time I've seen her with my own two eyes.
She stands out among the sea of dark and light blue cops, her outfit showing of flashes of red and orange, her coat reflects the light trickling down the alley behind my office and she kicks at a nearby bin, a seemingly useless effort which yields a small used brush which she picks up and inspects. She hasn't seen me yet but I know she's aware of my presence. Judging by her record she's the only cop in the whole precinct who's worth the money they pay her and she didn't get to be a detective on her looks that's for sure. All to often you see broads climbin' the ranks for no good reason, end up getting good folks killed.
Different times after the world rotated on bullets for so many years.
I suddenly feel nauseous. Tired. Hung over? The cop who I've been ignoring picks up on my blank stare and, with a sigh, simply walks away from me muttering to himself. Finally. I look at my watch, 5:30am. Damn.
I lean on the wall, suddenly awash with dizziness. I reach for a cigarette, my new habit crunching down on my brain and sucking out the healthy juices, replacing them with tar and smoke and fire. If I'm ever going to catch this killer then I need to stop thinking like a man, start thinking like a beast, an animal, the piece of shit who tortured a little girl for weeks then stuffed her in a drain to suffocate or bleed out or be eaten. Sick.
I breathe deeply, my cigarette lights up and reveals the top of her head. I look down to meet her gaze. Her eyes size me up, unwavering and determined. I can't quite tell if she's intimidated or impressed, either way she's very good at hiding her emotions. First time for everything I suppose, woman who can mask herself well. My initial theory holds true, I am not looking at a dame.
"Hmmm" She hums, her voice was not what I expected, hint of irish in her tone "Who are you again?" I'm unconvinced, she's feigning ignorance and she knows damn well who I am. But she's trying to get under my skin and it's already working.
"Law" I say, folding my arms and blowing smoke above her up done hair.
"And your first name..." I see a flash of fire in her eyes.
"You know my damn name." I spit. I realise how tired I am and make a mental note not to lose my composure again.
"Hmmm." She hums again, the irish sprinkle rearing again. She writes something in her little note pad and returns the pen into the back of her hair. She taps on her pad and stares me down. "What are you doing here Mr. Law?"
I refuse to reply. I just stare at her, mapping out the features on her face. Red Coral Lipstick, Orchid Eye Shadow, Apple Red Rouge, Nail Polish too. Her Jacket is expensive, definitely something she would have had to save up for on a detective salary. Her hand is red, bruised and raw.
"Well?" She insists. I blink.
"I live here" I reply coldly, I'm not going to give her anything she doesn't need, they screwed this case up, I'm not giving them any reason to red tape it up again.
"We know you live here, up in apartment 204 Mr. Law." She flips her pad over a few pages revealing a rather lengthy scrawl of information, assuredly about me. "We know you're a licensed private investigator, we know your mother lives up north, we know you're three payments late on your rent and we know that this killing has something to do with you. Did you remove any evidence from the crime scene?"
She's sharp, her intelligence is bad though. I transfer the weight of my shotgun to the other hand, bouncing it as a move it across my chest. The piece of paper left by those goons shuffles further down into the barrel and out of sight.
"My mother is dead" I say abruptly, locking eyes with her.
She seems taken aback and consults her notes again
"I... I'm sorry." She looks down as she responds. Good, I struck a nerve.
"Also, I'm only a single payment behind. Maybe you should get the guy across from me to do his job better, then your information wouldn't be useless?"
"Oh." She seems lost for words and looks over at the guy who's been watching me from across the alley for months now. I look up and give him a short nod, making sure to look as menacing as possible. He's not seen anything worth sharing with them anyway, he's just picking up errant information I've been feeding. Writing letters to dear old ma' upstate and mailing them to an abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere. The rent is at least in the ball park.
I return to studying the detective as she fumbles through her notepad. She wears what look like Converse runners, strange for a lady, but upon further consideration make sense for a police officer. Her jacket begins to sway in the wind as the rain picks up. Her gun, a large pistol. Custom 38 Special maybe? I lean in to get a better look and she perks back up, stepping back and closing up the front of her shiny shirt. She looks taken aback.
"Mr. Law!" she starts, indignant "Could you at least be a little professional? I tho..."
I cut her off.
"I was looking at your gun" I point at her hip and roll my eyes. Take another long drag from my cigarette and drop it to the floor, letting it smoulder at my feet.
"What about it?" She gets defensive, but she knows what I'm about to say
"It's too big for you."
"No it's not!"
I don't have time for this.
"Look at your hand, it's beaten up to shit. Every time you fire that it's damaging your wrist and arm as well. You should stop using a custom job and switch down to the regular 38. Heck, even something smaller?"
"I'll have you know..."
I really don't have time for this. I let her talk and stare through her head.
My mind swims and I remember that I'm very tired. I blink and she's still talking.
I rub my face and she's still talking.
The evidence left for me runs away with the falling rain as this woman probes me for information I don't have. Maybe the reports were false. Maybe she isn't all she's cracked up to be. Or she figured it out in the few minutes before she approached?
Maybe I need to leave.
She's gone. They're all gone. I'm in the alley alone.
It's 7am.

Hello

Hello there world.

Dead Bullets: Soggy Bread

Cigarettes. Piled up.
How many are there?
How long have I been here?
Two packs. No. Where did they go?
Why am I smoking? I've smoked two packets through while on this case and I've barely scratched the paint.
This car is making a beeline for the river and if I don't pull the door off soon then it'll slip through my fingers. Another mess spinning down the drain, taking all of my dough with it.
Soggy bread.
It must've slipped off my desk when I slipped away and landed in the puddle. Roof's dripping, should get that looked at. Passed out? I'm not sure.
Solve case. Get money. The puddle has siblings now, Billy Bucket and William Washcloth. They're both pricks, can't even do what they were made for. Billy spills water and William only soaks up so much before he gets full and useless. Wring him out and he'll complain, even rip. Find one of his twins and it's all ok for a few tries, then death again.
I can smell whiskey. It's me? Probably the reason for my current state.
Cigarettes and Whiskey. My office smells like a toilet. Wait. It's only me. I peel my face off the ink blotter and brush my hair out of my eyes. What time is it? Am I still alive? Did I drown in my whiskey? Or choke on my cigarette? Or maybe Billy and William finally betrayed me and they're the reason I drowned. I doubt Billy could have actually held enough water to drown a grown man but still, with William's help maybe it was possible. I reach for my eye but only succeed in poking myself. Coordination off, whiskey definitely involved.
Little girl. Dirty bastard. Little girl down a drain and no one can find out why. Cops cry foul, throw their hands up and quit. Protect their own pockets and serve their own interests. 'Don't piss off the Kingpin', they say to me 'He'll have you whacked Reece'. My beard is covered in crumbs, pre-soggy bread no doubt.
Brush. Brush is gone. Lost in a stupor. Thrown from the balcony into the alley where my butts pile up to the fire escape. Thrown away for what? Why would I forsake my brush? And why have I been smoking? I've never smoked, never put the pipe in my mouth. And now I'm ripping through two packets, drinking whiskey, wondering about soggy bread and worrying about whether I'll get revenge for a little girl I've never met.
Phone rings, brings me back to reality. Fan swirling lazily above my head, crumbs catching the soot sprites which live in my roof. Phone's still ringing. I pick it up.
'Reece?' She says, I burble a grunt at her and lean back in my old chair 'Reece where are you?'
I pause to think of whether her question was rhetorical, it's not like the line she called was portable, clearly I'm in my office, sitting in my old chair trying to clean the cobwebs out of my brain.
'Office' I reply 'You called the office'
'I need that money Reece. You said you have the cash at the pub 45 minutes ago' she pauses as if to wait for a response, I don't indulge her and I have no intention of filling the awkward silence.
'Well?' She insisted
'How old are you Vivian?' I asked
'What?'
'How old are you?'
'23' she replied proudly, as if this particular age meant anything to me.
'Ok. Being 23 I feel like you would have learned about the powers of deduction by now?'
'Of course I have!' She spat back 'I'm not an idiot Reece!'
'So if I'm not there then obviously...' This time I pause for effect. The silence went on longer than it would have taken most to put the pieces together. Then again I never assumed Vivian was blessed with an abundance of intelligence.
'You don't have it do you?'
'Bingo' I hung up the phone and moved to pull the connection out. My chair buckles and one of the wheels snaps.
Hello floor.
Hello soggy bread.
Hello puddle.
I've been here before. Still drunk, like all the other times I've found myself sprawled on the sticky carpet. Not so sticky now thanks to the puddle, which had begun taking on a milky porridge colour, more slippery than anything else. Mushed chunks sucked on my arm and soaked into my sleeves. Never much cared for business shirts anyway, but the game requires a certain look and that look should be equal parts professional and intimidating. Something about a man in a coat and tie with a bad attitude seemed to claw at the fears of crooks in this town and I make every effort to be that fear in the flesh. Though I suspect in my current state I wouldn't succeed in intimidating a cat let alone the piece of shit who killed that little girl. What was her name? Tina? Geena? Goldie? Mind draws a blank, too focused on remaining conscious.
Phone rings again.
Fuck off Vivian.
I let it ring out and the answering machine kicks in. I reach out and swat at the desk, trying to push the answering machine off onto the floor but I just hurt my fingertips and scare a mouse back into it's hole in the wall.
'Reece!' a shrill cry rings through my dusty office and then silence. The machine gives out and the speaker blows, a small but much desired break for me. I'm not helping anyone down here. My brain does it's best to roll me over but I just struggle with my jacket for a little while.
Hours pass.
I awaken again, this time it's to the sound of a gunshot. Outside.
Move body move. Get going.
I roll to the side, three or four times and force myself to stand, groping at the wall for anything to assist in my ascent. I find the closet door and hold tight to the handle, righting myself and rearing to full height.
Head rush, stood up too quickly, but no time to deal with that now. To the door, go!
I nearly slip in the soggy puddle but my new found determination keeps me from falling over as I grab my 37 Stakeout from the umbrella stand and burst through the door, knocking the 'L' off of the sign on my door. It now read 'Re__e _aw'.
No time. Stop thinking about the door. MOVE!
I race down the stairs, kicking out the door at the bottom and rushing into the night air.
3am.
3am and a dead body in the alley below my window.
There's a note, perp must have left it behind. For who?
'Stay away Law. Keep your nose out of the Kingpin's affairs. The girl was an accident. Let it go. Or else.'
The last bit was written in blood.
They don't realise what they've done. My resolve bolsters as it started to rain and I pump the Ithica, holding it steadily in my hand.
'The Law always wins.' I tell the night.