September 8th, 2016. 2:30PM
Detroit, Michigan
Three hundred miles away, Jacob Gigu?re took a long drag on his cigarette. The glowing ember was perilously close to his finger, which could feel its heat as his lungs felt the Newport cool that they craved. It's the menthol, he thought, not the nicotine, to which he was addicted. This was probably a ridiculous notion, and he knew it... but it seemed more plausible than anything else in his life at that moment, so he clung to it.
The furious orange of the smoldering tobacco caught his attention, so he gazed into it after he drew the filter away from his mouth. The lambency fascinated him. In it, he saw chaos, rage, insanity and animosity... all were very familiar to him. He felt the fervor and bridled torment of the flame desperately seeking birth, bound in chains and irons from which it could not possibly hope to escape without some foreign intervention. He understood its longing for birth, its begging for some loosely wadded paper on which to feed or for a sip of some invigorating accelerant to set it off... anything to quiet its insatiable thirst; to set it free and further it along in its epic quest for ruin and for destruction.
There would be no relief for the fire this day, though, and none for him, either. It would die a slow and lonely death, fading out with no pomp and no circumstance atop a pile of recently deceased comrades on a filthy slab of concrete just outside of his car. Perhaps it would shine its brightest in the moment before it disappeared forever; or perhaps that honor is reserved solely, in antithesis, for the cold and damning power of the dark before the dawn. Would he fade so uneventfully, too?
Fearing the loss of himself to its depths and feeling the sting of searing flesh upon his fingers, he dropped it lazily out the slightly lowered window of his Chevrolet sedan. It fell with little inspiration, and was thus cast out of his life forever... cast out, as he had been from the world at large.
With nothing on which to dwell, now, his mind resumed its frenzied churning... dark thoughts pulsing in fits and starts that were jarring and disconcerting. Feelings and emotions cycled without pattern or definition... swirling, swirling, swirling, in confusion and discord. Over clouds of black and shades of gray he teetered, his psyche breaking down in cascading faults and failures like tepid plumes of water spilling over the thunderous crest of mighty Niagara. Hopes that had long since turned to ash stirred and coalesced, cremains of dreams and broken promises bequeathed to none and promised to all.
Through the cold and musty void spun those words; those spears of pride and honor that refused to settle with the dust. Those two words that twirled, sparkled and pierced the veil. Sinister and cruel, they stalked him in the dusk of all he was like demons out for blood... stalked and caught him now, when life had forced him to his knees, and preached to him a dark parable of rest and resignation. They called to him from the abyss, from the tomb of what could be and what had been, in tongues of fire billowing smoke. Silent and vociferous in thunder and quiescence... immortal and surcease in triumph and in tragedy...
Double indemnity, they cried... the aphasic scream of sorrow... the sullied virgin of virtue... the rusted glitter on the gold... double indemnity...
The rain sounds nice on the windshield and double indemnity... strangers wandering by and double indemnity... the reels of a slot machine spinning on his phone and double indemnity... seven, seven, seven and double indemnity... arbeit macht frei and double indemnity... the power of Christ compels you and double indemnity... the goddamned bitch and the papers and double indemnity in the darkness and fire burns double indemnity the fucking whore and what an excellent day for double indemnity I can't believe it's real in double never wanted this to happen indemnity smell gin and piss with double indemnity watch for the sounds moving through double an albatross, by God indemnity hate slow moving in motion double crutch like wasted away indemnity filing island in the woods double indemnity in the trunk with -- fuck.
Have to stop... have to focus.
He ran his fingers through his greasy hair, feeling the filth in it -- smelling the smoke in it. Smoke, menthol and he wanted another smoke. He took one from his pack, which was running low, and lit it before the last one had a chance to burn out. Looking at his phone, above the spinning reels, he noted the time... two-thirty PM... a half hour, he'd been awake, now, double indemnity... a half hour spent treading water on the cusp of madness.
Where the fuck was he? Looking around, he saw nothing that he recognized. He had woken up sprawled out in his fully reclined driver's seat -- at least it was his car, double indemnity -- his head pounding, his eyes burning.
In a momentary lapse of judgement, he made the mistake of looking at himself in the vanity mirror. The man he saw in it looked pathetic; pale, slimy and unshaven. Inflamed and irritated blood vessels in his eyes confirmed his suspicions that he had been drinking last night. Based on how he felt, he had drank a lot... he was dizzy and nauseous still, and there was an odor wafting through the window that he was quite certain must be coming from a pile of vomit on the concrete where his cigarette butts were stacking.
Apparently, he had passed out with his keys in the ingnition and the car running. Perhaps he had the intention of driving away in a drunken stupor... thank the gods, he hadn't done that... at least he hadn't done that.
Upon waking, he had quickly turned the vehicle off and pulled the back seat forward, stashing the keys and other items that would spell trouble if a police officer happened by in the trunk. Then, he moved into the passenger seat and double indemnity. Still, he was worried that a cop would happen by... was surprised that one hadn't already while he was sleeping.
While he wasn't sure exactly where he was, it was quite obvious that he was in the parking lot of a seedy-looking dive bar, probably the one in which he had spent the prior night. Vaguely, he could recall loud country music and rock... could taste the pungent flavors of Jaegerbombs and Martinis... could smell gin, in fact, though this was a mystery because he hated gin with a passion. Slowly, though, double indemnity, details started coming back to him.
There had been a woman... a chubby woman, no less. She was drinking gin and -- shit, had he been sucking face with her? He wiped his mouth and came back with rouge on the back of his hand... that's why he tasted gin, shit. That's why his shirt was all disheveled and half-unbuttoned, too, the skank had run her hands all over him.
Suddenly, he wanted a shower. How long had it been since he'd had one, he wondered? Two days? Three? Four?
That's right, he thought -- she jammed her hand up my shirt and felt my gun in the shoulder holster. Did she jam it down my pants as well? She thought I was a cop... a very drunk and sloppy cop, I guess, and she bailed out and ran. Maybe because the baggie belonged to her? Christ, he hoped the baggie had belonged to her. It was on his dash when he came to, empty, save for the powdery white residue that stuck to its sides. Certainly, it was hers... he hadn't fallen so far -- had he?
Either way, the damned thing was in the trunk, now, with his keys and his Beretta 92. He had a permit to carry, of course, and the gun was legal -- but better not to have to explain all of that if a cop came asking why he was loitering around some seedy country-western bar with a firearm while probably still drunk in all the ways that count. If he had the keys on him or in the ignition, that amounted to physical control, and physical control amounts to driving while intoxicated -- even when there's no driving involved. Even with them in the trunk, there could still be questions.
There wouldn't be any questions about the baggie, though, just the popping of a test capsule and a sudden rush of blue before a nice long stay as a guest of the county -- or the city, depending on where exactly he was. All in all, everything added up to gotta get the fuck out of here as soon as possible.
That wasn't advisable in his condition, though, he would have to wait it out just a bit longer, double indemnity. He was a prisoner to his thoughts until such time as he felt comfortable to drive, and his thoughts were wholly
unkind to him, now, as usual.
In an effort to quiet the screaming in his head, he tried to reconstruct the past several days, which were all a blur to him in the hazy afterglow of liquor and God knows what else. He remembered the padlock on his office door... remembered getting the papers... remembered punching a hole in a particularly fragile wall... remembered going to the bank and draining his account, the account of his business not his wife's... remembered making it rain on some whore with no top on... remembered slamming shots like they were water... remembered wishing it would stop, remembered putting the Beretta in his mouth, remembered pulling back the slide, remembered clicking off the safety, remembered his racing heart and sweat running down his face, remembered... remembered wanting to run away.
The sound of a slamming door jarred him, his heart falling at the thought that it was his imaginary cop finally happening by. It wasn't, but that made the moment no less sobering. It turned surreal when he realized the face of the man getting out of the car a few spots away was very familiar to him, indeed.
"Shit," he chuckled quietly, "It's Dan Tripp!".
He lowered himself in his seat a bit, an attempt to make himself inconspicuous born of habit and of instinct. In another time, he had invoiced Misses Tripp for six hours of surveillance -- many of which were spent melted into his seat with a pair of binoculars to his eyes, waiting for Dan to leave work and travel to a place just like the one at which he sat now. She was sure he was having an affair... coming home late, smelling of cigarettes and booze, spending inordinate amounts of money and generally acting out of character.
Jake had staked out his office, followed him from there to a bar -- where he was going -- but not to meet with any secret concubine of the female predilection. It had been a male colleague, and the conversations he had listened-in on, posing as a fellow patron, were about financial troubles and not illicit sexual desires. They were about the hell that would be paid when Misses Tripp learned of the money they had lost in the market, about divorce born of disappointment instead of infidelity. He had told her about this, as it was what he had been hired to do, and she had gone ghost-white pale with embarrassment and shame before cutting a check against an account with insufficient funds, perhaps to her surprise.
That was long ago, though, and it was obvious that this visit to the local honky-tonk wasn't related to the vicissitudes of Wall Street. Dan Tripp was nervous, fumbling his keys as he tried to lock his car and looking over his shoulder constantly as he hurried his way into Bottoms Up, a name as rich in double-entendre as the establishment was in vice.
If he had his camera, he would've taken a picture of the man serruptitiously sliding the golden band off his left ring-finger as he marched -- a courtesy to a former client of Gigu?re Investigative LLC, no charge for this coincidental service. As it happened, though, he didn't have it with him... and Gigu?re Investigative was as good as defunct, anyway, so fuck it.
He supposed he could've taken a picture with his phone, but the man was inside before this occurred to him. Plus, that would've meant exiting out of his slots game, and he was winning for a change. If only he had such luck with the ones that took real money...
The momentary thrill of catching a philanderer in the moments before his pants would be down, literally and figuratively, having passed, Jake realized he wasn't feeling very much better with the passage of time. How long until he would eventually feel up to driving? Even when he did, where the hell was he gonna go?
What the hell was he gonna do?
What becomes of the broken-hearted?
Where do broken hearts go?
To double indemnity, he imagined... it seemed the last viable option. A sad realization, but one achieved through a logical process of thought and reasoning (depraved though it may be) that satisfied all of the prerequisite conditions and wrapped everything up in a convenient, bite-sized morsel with a pretty little bow and glittery ribbon on top.
Selfless, noble, honorable, charitable, merciful -- necessary...
Now there was only to decide where, and to flesh out the background a little bit. Shit, he had that covered pretty well as it was with the apparently wild night that had delivered him to this place... maybe he shouldn't wait, maybe he should go now -- before his blood-alcohol content dropped any further.
Did his BAC negate double indemnity, though? Fuck, he didn't know... did anything other than .00 make it gross negligence? That would sure screw the pooch... would change everything... make it selfish instead of selfless.
As he considered this, he felt the strange sensation he realized was that of his lap vibrating. It took longer than it should've for his clouded mind to piece together the fact that it was his slot machine ringing -- his phone, rather, ringing. Looking down, he saw a number he didn't recognize... an Indianapolis number.
Puzzled, he thought for a moment -- or tried to think, it was tough against a backdrop of double indemnity. The reality of the happening seemed to thrust him back further into the haze... back into confusion.
Unable to reason anything out, he simply swiped the screen to answer. Should he answer Gigu?re Investigative? No... this was his personal phone... the business phone was shut off, probably because he hadn't paid the bill in, well -- a while.
"Hello?" he offered quizzically. There was silence for a moment, then --
"Jake," a familiar voice... deep and full.
"Speaking"...
"Jake, it's Donnell... Donnell Hughes."
"Launchpad?" he replied, memories circling... swirling together with the shadows of drunkeness with double indemnity, forming an abstract like the inept doodling of an autistic child on a perpetually moving canvas made of fluids mounted in nothing.
"Chucky's in trouble, Jake," the disconnected voice replied sternly. "They found another body in Booger Woods."
"Booger Woods," more memories... memories of the sun, of the heat, of the running... running... memories of the cold, dead and clammy flesh... memories of the slipping skin, the smell of rot, the dried blood... the thumb -- oh God, it's missing its thumb and I can see the bone in there...
"They arrested Chucky, Jake, they think he did it."
"Chucky?" more memories...
"He's being arraigned tomorrow morning in Garthby, I'm going up there to represent him... can you come?"
Jake didn't answer immediately, still lost in the afterimage... lost in the fog of liquor and depression, the fog of desperation and resignation. The world seemed to be flying by him, now, in contrast to the slow motion in which he had lived just moments before his slot machine rang... moments of double indemnity, and what am I gonna do about the baggie, and Dan Tripp and why the fuck do I still taste martinis?
Then, the answer came to him -- plain as day, obvious... obligatory... "Of course," he said. "Yeah, of course, Donnell."
"Good... at the courthouse, ten o'clock... I plan to get there at eight, you should come early too. I'll meet you there, Louie will be there as well."
"Louie..." more, swirling...
"We'll talk more then, I've got some loose-ends to tie up and then I'll be on my way."
Loose ends, he thought... loose ends and double indemnity... it would have to wait... have to wait until after...
"Jake?" Launchpad asked... Donnell asked... "Are you okay, buddy?"
"Yes," he answered, snapping himself back into reality by sheer force of will. "Yeah, Donnell, I'm good... I'll see you in the morning."
"Great..."
"Donnell?" he said, more swirling.
"Yeah?"
"Look, I know the last time we --"
"Don't mention it, Jake," he interrupted, "it was a long time ago... we were just kids..."
Swirling, swirling and relief... "Thanks, Donnell... Chucky will appreciate it, too..."
This time, the pause was on the other end of the line, then, "Yeah, no problem."
Then, the tone... call ended... the slots were back... the cob
webs were back... The Butcher was back...
...and double indemnity? It would have to wait... have to wait until it was over... he needed to go home for a few things...
Fuck, that would mean having to face her again... he hadn't wanted to do that
THREE
Joshua Banks