* * * * *
How could things get any worse? Not only was I investigating a cult that recruited adolescents while looking for some crazy client’s long dead sister but now I was directly connected in a murder! Fantastic. Just fan-fucking-tastic.
To be honest I wasn’t too concerned about the junkie or the police. For the cops this was just another dead addict which they might view as a positive thing. Just one less crack-head to deal with. Sure it sounded jaded, but it was the truth. I’ve noticed over the years that the young cops who want to make a difference and right every wrong rarely last. They get too emotionally attached to the job and to each victim.
The cops who do last start to view everything in such a unique, almost-hypocritical fashion that it takes men of great mental and emotional fortitude to live by their standards. Or lunatics. You see, it’s like this. Ethics, morals and the thirst for justice will fuel the police into action if some innocent kid was harmed or killed in suburbia. It was expected of them. However if some pimp, drug dealer or gun peddler ended up with a knife in their back…well, an investigation would follow, with just enough effort put into it to keep up appearances. It was just basic operating procedure. If the cops wasted precious manpower and resources on every lowlife that got toe-tagged, the innocent (and more importantly, taxpaying) citizenry would become easier targets.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t a little unnerved at the moment. Not because I had just killed someone. No, that didn’t bother me. Much. What was really eating me was why I had been assaulted in the first place. What had caused the junkie to single me out? This went beyond bad luck. Something had triggered my sixth sense for danger inside the club and then minutes later, I was jumped. The addict had babbled as if he was ready to use me as a sacrificial lamb and his nearly incoherent nonsense about souls was still ringing in my head!
I stopped dead in my tracks.
A wicked thought began to worm its way inside my brain despite denial’s best effort to keep it out. I felt chilled to the bone as anxiety began to swell within me. The kind of anxiety that put a pressure on your chest and left you fighting for air as you mentally tried to force yourself to calm down. I focused on my breathing as the wicked thought exploded into full fledge paranoia.
The junkie had sounded like a preacher on acid and with the Daughters of All claiming to be a religion, it was too coincidental to ignore. Yet the damn addict didn’t fit the cult’s recruit requirements (which meant being young, female and dumb enough to buy into their preachy bullshit). So how exactly could he tie in with them? Maybe my fatigued mind was just making connections that weren’t there.
No, that couldn’t be it. You don’t stay in the game as long as I have by believing in flukes. Somehow this all fit together. The club, the cult, the junkie, those enormous, dilated eyes. It all smacked of something a lot more sinister than just some religious craze. This connection was something worth killing for and I had a sneaking suspicion of what it was…
And I wanted nothing to do with it.
Every cowardly, selfish and petty instinct I had was screaming at me to walk away from this. Go to the office, clear it out, collect what money I hadn’t pissed away and go on a long vacation. That was my usual habit when I get in over my head and those courses of action had yet led me astray.
But I couldn’t do that. Not with Fiona (damn her damn her damn her!) running through my mind. Thanks to her I was put in a position I hated: dependability. If I backed out on her, who knew what she would do? She wasn’t as familiar with the underhanded, slimy world I was. She wouldn’t last a day looking into some nut-job cult all by herself, especially if they were willing to send deranged junkies after investigators!
Angrily, I lashed out at some trash in the alleyway but even channeling my frustration into that kick didn’t do much good. My head was still reeling as cowardice and guilt battled for dominance. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through it.
Despite living in a world of wireless communication, I preferred using a hard line like a payphone for important calls but in this day and age you couldn’t do that. Sad but true, phone booths were being quickly replaced by digital gadgetry that slipped into your pocket. Easy, traceable, gadgetry. But even with the worry of big brother monitoring the airwaves and cell phone satellites, I had exploited a few loopholes.
For each “job” (con, scam, what have you) I embarked on, I bought one of those travel phones. Prepaid in cash, usable anywhere, nearly untraceable and easily ditched, these were the only cell phones I ever used. Buggy assured me that these types of phone used several different towers or satellites which made the calls harder to trace by the cops or feds. While these phones would never be stylish, at least they were functional.
I scrolled through the bulky phone to my only contact. The contact name was “J. Smith” which was the only name I ever punched into a phone. It didn’t matter if I had a single number saved or twenty contacts, each of them would be named J. Smith. It added a little bit more frustration for the cops if on the off chance my phone ended up in an evidence locker. Anyway, this particular phone only had one contact, so I called J. Smith. As the phone began to ring I resumed my hasty jaunt through the alleys.
“Um…hello?”
Of course it was Fiona’s voice on the other line and I can’t describe how relieved I felt to hear her. My paranoia was getting the better of me and I had been half worried she had been the victim of some deranged attack as well. Naturally that fear had no rational foundation, but could you blame me? It had been one hell of a night!
“Hello Ms. Ambrose, this is Art…Investigator Broker.” I said after clearing my throat.
“Oh thank god!” She exclaimed, then gave an embarrassed laugh, “I’ve called your office like, four times! I was afraid you had just taken my money and split! Your voicemail has must have thirty minutes worth of messages from me!”
I had voicemail? At the office? Huh, who knew?
“No, I’m sorry I hadn’t contacted you sooner but I’ve just been talking to some of my own contacts about your…um…case,” I replied, painfully aware of how rushed my tone was, “But I am afraid your particular case is more complicated than I first expected. We should turn your case over to the police.”
“The police?” Fiona asked, her voice was a balancing act between doubt and anxiety, “I already went to them! They can’t do a missing person’s report on someone who has been officially declared dead.”
“It’s not about finding your sister!” I replied sharply, clenching my fist as I mentally chided myself. This client-employer relationship thing was grinding on my already shot nerves.
Clearing my throat I tried to recover tactfully, “This is about your personal safety, not your sister.”
“W-What do you mean?” She asked, her voice tightening as my own fear spread through the phone.
“This cult that your sister was apart of…I think they might be a front for drug traffickers.” I explained, “This is officially out of my league. You need to go to the police.”
There was silence on the other line.
“First off, my sister wasn’t apart of the cult!” Came the surprisingly firm and resolved clarification from Fiona, “She was…involved is all. Secondly, do you think they have my sister?! Is she in danger?!”
“Your sister is dead, remember?” I gritted my teeth as I replied, jogging faster down the alleyway until I broke out into the street, “Listen, we need to meet up. This will be much easier face to face.”
“Ok…ok…” Fiona sounded like she was having a difficult time absorbing all of this information, “Where should I meet you? At your office?”
I debated my office or apartment but I mentally vetoed both of those options. That junkie who attacked me found me way too quickly and I knew of at least one witness who could put me at the scene of the crime. Considering my disguise, they’d probably never link me to the dead junkie but it was better safe than sorry. Right now, I felt like every
shadow was masking an unseen threat and I didn’t want to lead any tail I might have picked up to my office or apartment. Nor did I want to meet Fiona at her place for fear of bringing any unwelcome eyes down upon her.
“We’ll meet at the Bin,” I instructed as I began to walk down the street as casually as possible, “It’s a bar near the Long Tracks Train Station. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ll take a cab. They’ll be sure to know.” Fiona replied.
“Good. Wait in the cab until I get there.” I finished, “I doubt they’ll let you in without a regular at your side.”
With that I hung up and began to flag down my own cabbie. I was several blocks from Hell Scratch and all the problems involving it. There was enough distance between me and the dead junkie to let me come up with an alibi that involved one of the twenty-four hour businesses here. Of course, that was assuming the law caught me before any other bizarre incidents or addicts appeared and tried to punch my ticket.