In the Cabinet (Part Thirteen)

 

In The Cabinet

A Jack Collier Short

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

Last week's entry can be found here.

 

Day Thirteen: Would the last one to leave please turn out the lights?

 

            I avoided the task all day.

 

            I opted to spend the time of my last day in the office cleaning out my desk and drawers. This required getting some boxes, and packing material since the knives John and Mina had sent were valuable and I didn’t want them damaged any more than I already had done. That took the rest of the day and I didn’t actually have time to call until about 6 o’clock or so. I thought about postponing it longer, like about three weeks after I got to Virginia, but that wouldn’t really be fair.

 

            I sat down at my desk, pulled the phone towards me and dialed. Amazing how long it can take a phone to connect when you don’t want the person on the other end to answer. It also takes them an amazingly long time to actually pick up the phone. You’d think that the time would shrink, since this is the opposite of the sort of nervous anticipation that comes with calling someone you want to talk to. If I were calling a pretty girl, one might expect this, but I wasn’t calling a girl at all. I was calling a woman, or rather THE woman. I was calling the one woman that still had something I considered a hold over me. It was her money that had gotten me this office after all, I owed her an explanation.

 

            “Salutations?” Her voice was so bright it almost blinded my ear.

 

            “Hi Char.” I said.

 

            “Hello my darling.” she replied, with a tone so breezy I felt like battening down the hatches.

 

            “I’m afraid I have to deliver some bad news to you.” I told her.

 

            “Would this have something do to with you turning the business over to Debbie and her leaving town?” She asked.

 

            “You heard about that huh?” I asked.

 

            “Indeed I did my dear.” She told me. “So would it be that you decided you wanted to annul your office?”

 

            “Yeah it would. I’m leaving town tonight, and I don’t think I’ll ever be coming back.”

 

            “Well, this was to be eventually expected.” She said in the same bright tone she said everything. “

 

            “Was it?” I asked.

 

            “Yes. You can only take so much darkness before you need to step into the light.” she told me. “Have you lined up other work yet or are you just running screaming into the night?”

 

            “I’ve more or less lined up other work.” I told him. “Or, maybe not. I might just be running into the night.

 

            “Your talents should not go to waste my dear.” She said. “You have so many talents.”

 

            “Yeah.” I said, knowing what she meant by that. “Talents.”

 

            “Is there more bothering you than that dear?”

 

            “What the hell am I going to do, Char?” I asked. “I can’t help but feel like no matter what I do I’m going to cause someone else to get hurt.”

 

            “You can only control so much.” She said. “You can’t be responsible for what other people do.”

 

            “I suppose.” I said.

 

            “Very well then.” She said. “I wish you well in your future endeavors.”

 

            “Thanks Char.” I told her.

 

            “I’ll see you when I come back to America again.” She said.

 

            And with that, she hung up on me. It seemed kind of rude at the time, but looking back now I probably needed that kind of abruptness. I leaned back and put the phone back on the hook, leaning back in my chair and turning a slow circle towards the window. I looked out the big window and noticed that it had become dark. I looked around the office and found that I had indeed turned the lights on. Somewhere along the lines I’d taken the two boxes of things I wanted to keep from my office down to my car, because I couldn’t see any evidence of them here before me.

 

            I sat in my office and looked around it, coming to the realization that I was actually going to leave this place forever. I was going to leave the Detroit area and I wasn’t going to look back. I got up from my desk and walked across the room, wondering if I should say goodbye to anyone. There was no one left to say goodbye to though. Liberty had taken Jenicia back to France with her, and everyone else I knew was dead or gone. With Eddie’s death, the last person I knew and still talked to from my old days that had been left in the state was gone. Everyone I knew here had left already, leaving me the last one to leave Detroit.

 

            As I walked out of the office, I switched off the lights, just like they always asked.

 

            I walked down the stairs for the last time and I started to go through a list of all the people I knew who had died in just the last year. It was a long list and I had to keep going after I’d gotten into the car and started on my way. I was on I-75, going south and headed towards Ohio before I’d gotten done with the list.

 

            Christmas, that’s the big one isn’t it? Of course Easter, Patrick, Kwanza, Chanukah, and Sam were all gone too. All the big shows were gone now. There were those totally innocent victims as well, like Sandy Cloose, Peter Rabbit, Becky Hain, I might even be willing to put Hewie Homunculus in that list. The thugs, Hardrock, Coco, Joe, Opus, Chester Cat, his buddy the Professor and the other four that made up those six I killed with one blow. Killers like Amy Cook of course, along with Knock, The Fat Man, and my old friend Tom Noonan. Then there were just the dummies like Piggy, Jabber Walker and his little crew Borogove, Rath, Jubjub, Tove, Bander and the rest of the names I never bothered to learn. Of course we have to discuss a supreme dip shit like Smith. The Freedoms, poor little Columbia and her father Tom. I couldn’t help but feel I was leaving some names off this list, but that just proves how long of a list it was. And that was just in the last year.

 

            I’d kind of had the idea that it was this place that had killed them. Being in Michigan, a state that was itself dying had caused them to die with it. I should have been happy to leave the place, but to be honest I could only really feel a great sense of regret. I had lived while so many had died, and everyone I’d tried to protect beyond Jack the cat had been killed. Of course the fact that the one eyed warrior was another Jack probably had more to do with his survival than my total inability to protect a single person or their interests.

 

            There was a lot of failure behind me, and I didn’t really want to have anything do with it any longer. As I drove towards the sign that welcomed me to Ohio, I was just praying something on the Hudson wouldn’t explode and keep me in this state. If I could just get across the sate line, I felt I would be okay from there. I wouldn’t have to add my name to the list of the dead. I could see the border coming up, but frankly I’d become tired of the game and didn’t want to play anymore.

 

            There was a large sign, pointing out that one was about to enter Ohio. It was lighted, being the only bright object in the area besides the headlights on my car. There was the border, and I would cross it in about ten seconds. As I drove towards the end of Michigan, but hadn’t quite reached it yet, I decided that I wouldn’t be narrating my story any more either.

 

This ends “In The Cabinet”. We are no going on a biref hiatius, but lease join us in the new year.

In the Cabinet (Part Twelve)

In The Cabinet

A Jack Collier Short

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

Last week's entry can be found here.

 

Day Twelve: The License Question

           

            I stopped off at a late night vet I know of and had the cat looked at. I was worried about him, but besides a bit of strain he’d be fine in a few days. The owner had taken care of him though, and had even gone so far as to put one of those little tracker chips in his back. It turned out the cat was only from a few houses down the road from where Hain’s house was.

 

            It was late when I went to the old farm house, but I decided to knock on the door anyway. The door opened a crack and a man about a dozen years older than me looked out at me. He didn’t look suspicious so much as cautious, but who could blame a man for that.

 

            “Have you recently lost your cat?” I asked.

 

            “Yeah.” He said.

 

            “Here he is.” I said holding the one eyed black cat up for inspection.

 

            “Jack?” The man asked rubbing the cat’s head and looking at the scarred face where the left eye was missing.

 

            “Yeah, that’s my name.” I said wonderingly.

 

            “It’s his name too.” The man said. “You can set him down, he’s an indoor and outdoor cat. Where has he been?”

 

            “I’m not sure.” I said setting him down and watching as he walked into the house like he owned the place. “I saw him on the side of the road with his head tangled in some cord, nearly choked himself. I cut him loose and took him to a vet to have him looked at.”

 

            “Come in.” The man said and we walked through the living room and into the kitchen where a girl of about ten was already giving the cat a saucer of milk. “How much did the vet cost?”

 

            “Oh, don’t worry about that.” I waved my hand and concocted a lie quickly. “I got it for free. The vet’s tech is a friend of mine.”

 

            “You say he was nearly choked?”

 

            “The rope was pretty tight around his neck.” I said. “Some one just left a tangle of rope at the side of the road or something and he must have gotten caught in it.”

 

            “You chasing things you shouldn’t again?” He asked reaching down and tugging one of the cat’s ears. Jack looked up with his one yellow green eye and winked. It might have been thought that he was just blinking, but it looked so much like a wink I couldn’t shake the thought. “That’s how you lost your eye my friend.”

 

            “Is it?” I asked.

 

            “There was a badger bothering the live stock about three years ago and Jack decided to prove that those were his sheep and the only person to harass them was going to be him.”

 

            “Did he prove it?” I asked.

 

            “Oh yeah.” He laughed. “The next morning we find Jack dragging this badger about twice his size back to the house and he’d lost one of his eyes.”

 

            “Well, it is comforting to know that all things named Jack and be content that they are the baddest of the bad in their field.” I said scratching the cat behind the ears. He responded by rubbing up against my leg.

 

            There wasn’t much to say after that, so I left them waving to the cat as he ran out of the house and watched me from the porch. It is fairly nice to know that if your name is Jack, you can be content to be the baddest bastard in the area. I decided that I would let him be the baddest thing on four legs and I’d remain the baddest on two. With each of us content with being the baddest in our weight class, it would never have to come down to an exhibition bout to find out who was the baddest of them all. I would win anyway, cats can’t use guns.

 

            After that, it was my turn to go to the hospital. It occurred to me that I was going to have to explain why I had taken about seven hours to come to a hospital to get this taken care of. I kept trying to work out something as I got to the hospital and started towards the emergency room, which is all that was open at that hour. When I sat down though, I decided that telling a near version of the truth and that the police were already aware of everything might do.

 

            “How did this happen?” The internist asked me as he looked at my hand, which was already less swollen than it had been earlier.

 

            “A person who is already with the police decided my hand would make a good testing ground for a leather and lead sap.” I told him as he examined it.

 

            “The police have already been informed?” He asked.

 

            “The police already have him.” I told him. “I just need some x-rays to see if anything is actually broken.”

 

            I won’t go into the rest of the trip to the hospital, as it’s about as dull as you think it might prove to be. It was a lot of sitting around waiting for someone to remember I existed, have them take a couple of pictures, look at the pictures and then give me the good news. The good news was that Knock hadn’t actually managed to break anything. Most the bones in my hand were cracked or hairline fractured, but nothing was broken. I was given a splint made up mainly of Velcro and plastic and told to go home to bed. I also got a prescription for something to ease the pain, but I decided that sleep was probably all I needed and went home to bed.

 

            When I got up I arranged my things into easily packed piles and places. This is actually no great feat as my things are usually set up to be packed at a moment’s notice. I got my note book out and looked up Mrs. Pendleton’s address to tell her to pack everything away for me. This time though, I was going to have her send everything into storage for a while. I kind of thought a while would be forever, but I didn’t tell her that. I packed all my clothes that would fit into the matched suitcases my mother bought me a few years ago and put them in the car. I then left my place, wondering if I should call the landlord or just keep paying until the lease ran out. Things being what they were in Michigan, he might as well keep getting paid for the place standing vacant rather than it just sitting empty and not earning.

 

            I got to my office right around noon, which is an odd time to get to the office and find myself alone. In a normal day, Debbie would be typing away at her computer. She would never sit at that desk and type at the computer again. I almost wanted to sit down at her desk and look at the computer, just to see if I could figure out what she’d been doing all those years. I decided not to though, I mean I’d stayed in blissful ignorance all these years, why not extend it for the last few hours I would be in this stupid state.

 

            I walked into my office and found an envelope on the desk with my name written on it in Debbie’s handwriting. It was a fairly thick envelope, and when I opened it I found what I had been expecting. Debbie had gone to the bank and gotten about ten thousand in cash from the account and put it on my desk with a note. It was a private note, but mostly it told me simply that it was for me to travel on if I decided I needed to just go hide for a while.

 

            I heard a knock on the door and realized that I had to go get it for myself. I got up and deposited the cash into my trench coat pocket when I passed it. It was a good thing I did because Assistant District Attorney Mandelbaum was the sort of man who would just yank an envelope of money out of a person’s hand without making sure he had a proper warrant to first. He marched past me and went into my office without saying a word. Crammer was with him, but no other bulls had come along. Crammer also didn’t just march in, but looked at me while we stood on the threshold.

 

            “They found part of a Webley-Fosbery.” He whispered as he moved past me. “If I were you I’d do everything up to an including accusing us of planting it.”

 

            “It’s not on you.” I whispered back. “I’ll have to get mean though.”

 

            The two of us walked back into my inner office, and Crammer had presence of mind enough to close the door behind him like he would have if Debbie had been there. I sat down and looked at them, getting ready to ask what they were doing there. Mandelbaum started though, amazingly free of bombast this time.

 

            “Where is your gun?” He asked me folding his hands.

 

            “In your property room.” I informed him. “And sadly, it going to be destroyed. That’s an antique you know. You can’t get Marleys any more. The company went out of business in forty-nine.”

 

            “Not that one.” Mandelbaum said, and I thought he must have something up his sleeve. “The Webley-Fosbery Automatic revolver.”

 

            “I don’t own a Webley.” I said shaking my head. “The company owns it.”

 

            “Where is it Collier?” Mandelbaum asked, starting to look annoyed.

 

            “No idea.” I told him.

 

            “Your gun is missing and you didn’t report it to the police?” Crammer asked cautiously.

 

            “It’s not my gun, and it’s not missing.” I said.

 

            “It’s your detective office, and your gun!” Mandelbaum barked.

 

            “Wrong on both counts and please don’t shout.” I said raising my finger. “I signed the company over to my former secretary yesterday, she became my boss. I turned the gun over to her as part of her property. You’ll have to ask her for the gun, but you’ll have to go to Chicago and I suspect you’ll need a damn good reason to ask.”

 

            “We’ve got a reason.” Mandelbaum started to shout again but I raised my finger at him and he lowered his voice half way through. “As you know, Knock is dead, and we found a piece of a Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver’s handle scale at the scene of his murder.”

 

            “How do you know it was murder?” I asked.

 

            “Because you put a shovel through his face!” Mandelbaum shouted.

 

            “Then what does part of a gun have to do with it?” I asked. “I mean if I’m being framed for a killing, why a part of a gun you can’t even acquire? I mean if you’re going to have the Troy Police plant things, why not have it be something more substantial? If you’re going to plant evidence to frame me after all.”

 

            “How dare you suggest that?” Mandelbaum actually screamed. After realizing what he was doing he returned to shouting. “You are slandering the finest police department in the country, if not the world!”

 

            “What does the Kansas City Police Department have to do with what I just said?” I asked, and I could help but notice that Crammer actually started to laugh. He had to put his hand over his mouth, but his shoulders kept shaking.

 

            “This isn’t funny!” Mandelbaum resumed shouting.

 

            “Damn right it’s not.” I snapped back. “You walking in here with some cock and bull story about a piece of a gun.”

 

            “I have it right here.” He reached into his pocket and tossed the plastic evidence bag on my desk.

 

            “You can prove it was me?” I asked raising my left hand from above my desk for the first time and extending my finger at him. “Good enough for a court? Good enough to prove the word murder? Homicide isn’t murder Mandelbaum.”

 

            “What happened to your hand?” Crammer asked. “Why is it in a splint?”

 

            “One might suggest it’s in a splint to prove self defense. If you get a search warrant for Saint Joe’s, you will find that the report shows that my left hand was done over pretty well with a leather covered sap.”

 

            “Knock had a leather sap in his pocket.” Crammer said. “It had blood on it.”

 

            “Probably mine.” I told him. “You want to cuff him? I can shove my socks in his mouth and we can discuss this like civilized human beings.”

 

            “Sit down Mandelbaum.” Crammer said softly.

 

            “Crammer.”

 

            “Sit down.” Crammer said and pointed at the seat and then looked at me. “Okay, tell me.”

 

            “Everything I know?”

 

            “Everything.” He said.

 

            “Sam Hain and Knock are your murderers.” I said flatly and sighed. “They wound Hewie up on a bunch of drugs to get him to do over Becky Hain, but it was Sam and Knock. When you guys started to get close on Sam, Becky came to be hoping I could find the real killer. Sam and Knock thought she had figured it out and got Hewie to cut her up like he did. They then gave him a suggestion to kill himself through some post hypnotic trance or something. Knock explained all this while he was doing his work on my hand.”

 

            “Did he?” Mandelbaum asked.

 

            “Yeah.” I nodded. “He said it didn’t matter anymore because he was going to kill me anyway. Which he decided to do after realizing that he was going to have to kill everyone connected to the case. He killed that doctor, killed Eddie the Bear and he says he killed Sam.”

 

            “With the car bomb?” Mandelbaum asked, and it occurred to me I should try and play poker with him. He was so bad at covering his thoughts I could have made a fortune on him.

 

            “No.” I changed my tone to one of condescension. “The car bomb was a dodge, it was Sam’s brother or cousin or something. He killed Sam yesterday before he took me out to the woods.”

 

            “How the hell did you know that?” Mandelbaum demanded.

 

            “Didn’t I just say?” I asked, turning my head to Crammer. “I did say he was a chatty fucker didn’t I? So anyway, Knock decided that I should sign a confession which is why he smashed up my left hand. When I explained that it wasn’t going to happen, he decided that we would go for a trip to the woods. He had the grave pre-dug for me and I just had to do a little extra work before he killed me. I hit him with the shovel instead, you know the rest.”

 

            “Did he say where Sam’s body is?” Crammer asked.

 

            “He said he was going to deal with it later, I suppose it was somewhere on hand.” I shrugged.

 

            “He was using Hain’s house as a base?”

 

            “I was only in the garage.” I said shrugging again, because it felt good. “I suppose he could have.”

 

            “You’re still withholding evidence.” Mandelbaum snapped. “You left the scene of a crime and you drew a weapon on police officers. I’m going to have you license revoked!”

 

            “You missed the part where I struck a pissant assistant DA.” I said.

 

            “I can’t get corroboration on that.” He growled and looked at Crammer.

 

            “No.” I shook my head, “I mean right now.”

 

            I shot up out of my chair with my fist back, but Mandelbaum was in such a hurry to avoid my punishing blow he tripped over the chair and fell on his ass. I looked at him on the floor and waved a dismissive hand at him before sitting back down in my chair. I looked at Crammer who looked at the ADA and then at me.

 

            “Forget it.” I said shaking my head. “I’m leaving the state anyway. Revoke the license if it’ll make you feel like a man, I won’t need it anymore. As for leaving the scene, my hand was smashed up. I had been put through the wringer as it was. For crying out loud if the story we’ve just discussed is true, and that’s not an admission by the way, then I nearly cut a guy’s head off with a shovel. Any jury in the world would let me off and probably give me a big slice of your ass for compensation. In fact if we were to face our judgment from an almighty that might or might not exist, I wouldn’t be blamed. But I’m not taking you to court, because I don’t intend to stay, I’m leaving the state and I’m not coming back. I shall of course be telling the papers it’s because of the constant harassment I’ve suffered.”

 

            “You’ve suffered harassment?” Mandelbaum demanded.

 

            “Yes.” I nodded. “Not only have I caught your serial killer, and disposed of him, but I explained how he committed his crimes. My reward is to have my license revoked. Such grateful thanks. That should really encourage private citizens to help you in the future.”

 

            “No one’s going to take your license.” Crammer said standing up. Clearly he was ready to go. “Can you prove what you just said?”

 

            “No.” I said rubbing my forehead with my left hand, which caused some pain so I stopped. “I have no evidence whatsoever. However, now that you know where to look and the killers are all dead anyway, it should be fairly easy to piece it together.”

 

            “Yeah.” He nodded, “Probably. C’mon Mandelbaum.”

 

            “Crammer.” He muttered.

           

            “Now you fucking idiot.” Crammer barked.

 

            They left together, Mandelbaum the one in tow now. I watched them go and decided that this case was well and truly wrapped up. Oddly, I thought that I probably would find that I had a license still intact if I needed it. I couldn’t think of a reason why I might, but you never knew.

 

            There only now remained one unpleasant task, and then I could drive down to Langley and hang out with Alice for a while. Or maybe I could go do something else, there were other offers and some of them would take me far away for sometime. I looked at the phone and decided it could wait just a little while.

 

 

 

This is part twelve of thirteen, come back next week for part thirteen to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The Cabinet tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.

 

In the Cabinet (Part Eleven)

 

In The Cabinet

A Jack Collier Short

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

Last week's entry can be found here.

 

 

 

Day Eleven: Jack The Cat and the Murderer

 

            It may not be a surprise to you that my trip took me back to the house I’d been at when Knock decided to use my left hand as a testing pad for his sap. The sick fucker behind all this had probably watched from the window as Knock smacked my hand, which was now swollen and blackened. I would have to go to the doctor, get an x-ray at least. I squeezed my fingers closed, which caused an incredible amount of pain. The hand would close and open though, which meant I could go ahead with my plan. As I rested it on the steering wheel and hooked my thumb around the wheel, I noticed the arthritis in my right hand was hurting as well. That was nice, it’s always helpful when both sides get together and pitch in. Teamwork, that’s what I like.

 

            I noticed something different when I pulled up to the house though and I felt a new anger growing up as my lights passed over it. I got out the car and approached he large oak tree in the front yard. From one of the lower branches, a cat had been lynched. It was a completely black cat, hung by a formerly white piece of rope that looked like it might have started out life as a clothesline.

 

            I couldn’t stand to leave it there, besides there was the chance that it might not be dead yet. Of course it would be, with its legs waving in the growing wind, but I was going to make a stand with this one. Alive or dead, I was going to cut this animal down and I was going to take it into the house. There are some things I can’t stand, and some bastard hanging a cat is one of them.

 

            I’d never replaced my jackknife after I’d broken the blade off in Chester Cat’s thick skull. At this point though, I wasn’t terribly worried about that fucking monster seeing that I had the bowie knife on me. I pulled the knife out with my sore left hand and took hold of the cat under its chest at the rib cage. I can’t really explain why, but something inside me made me want to treat it as if it were still alive. I gently cut the rope away and set the cat down on the ground before slipping the knife back in place.

 

            As I pulled the noose away, I noticed that one of the cat’s eyes had been taken out sometime ago by violence. The place where the eye would have been was puffy and pink, missing a lot of hair but having more than enough scar tissue to replace it. I was going to kill the fucker, that should be clear by now, but I decided after noticing that fact it was going to take a bit longer and it was going to be a great deal nastier. I was going to make this a grisly, nasty kill, with lots of blood and screaming. I picked the lifeless animal up in my arms and stroked the cat’s soft fur as I walked to the front door. When I opened the door and walked in I heard a voice coming from where I thought the study was.

 

            “That seems to have taken longer than it should have.” The voice came from my right.

 

            “I came as fast as I could.” I said walking into the study and setting the cat down on a black velvet chair that the cat was likely never allowed on in life.

 

            Sam Hain wasn’t ancient, but he was old. A ring of white hair crowned his head, but his face was fairly free of wrinkles. He looked at me, setting his pen down on the paper he was writing on. He leaned back in his large throne like chair, which had imps and goblins carved into the wood. His eyes fixed on me and his tongue moved around inside his lips.

 

            “Jack Collier.” He announced, and I could hear the lilt of his Irish origin in his voice. “The private detective.”

 

            “Here Peter Quince.” I responded, taking a step towards his desk. “Why the cat Sam?”

 

            “Not why Rebecca?” He asked lacing his fingers together and laying his forearms down on his desk as he leaned forward. “Or why all those other victims?”

 

            “Why the cat?” I asked. “We’ll get to the others. We’ve got time.”

            “Have we?” He asked smiling. “Aren’t the agents of justice winging their way to us now?”

 

            “No.” I shook my head. “No one knows you’re here but me. Why the cat?”

 

            “If one is going to perform a scorched earth campaign, one must scorch the earth?” He smiled at me. “Have to keep one’s hand in, you know.”

 

            “Let’s start with Hewie.” I tried to keep my voice from growling.

 

            “The little queer?” he asked leaning back again and resting his left hand on the desk, right at the edge. “Who cares about him?”

 

            “He cared about you.” I said reaching into my coat and touching the kurki’s handle. “He loved you.”

 

            “That’s the little queer’s problem.” He said trying to smoothly move his hand to the desk drawer.

 

            My hand snapped out of the coat and swung the huge wedge shaped blade of the kukri down at the corner of his desk. I didn’t do it as fast as I could though, giving him time to pull away, and the edge cut away a bit of the corner of the desk instead of his fingers. I smacked him across the face with the back of my left hand, which exploded into pain that I couldn’t dare how. I reached over and opened the drawer myself. A small chrome pearl handled S&W sat in the drawer. I tucked the kukri back into place and hooked the gun out of the drawer with my pinky stuck through the trigger guard.

 

            “Lame.” I said tossing my right hand up and letting the gun slip from my finger and cascade over my shoulder. “All this time, being such a scary guy, and you go and reach for a dinky little gun?”

 

            I turned and walked away from the desk and towards the cat. Somewhere along the line, the cat had actually started breathing again. The animal’s single yellow-green eye was open and looking up at me. It wasn’t sitting up yet, still building up it’s strength for that I suppose. I think it may have only just woken up in fact.

 

            “I am not a homo.” He announced suddenly. “It’s not my fault if Hewie decided he was gonna run away with me or something.”

 

            I picked the cat up gently and stroked its head. It purred softly, but didn’t rub its head against me because it would have to move its neck to do so. I suspected the cat probably had quite a sore neck, but it was alive. I probably would have found it funny that the one person I thought I had no chance of saving was the one person I’d managed to save.

 

            “You know, it’s the fact that you’ve decided even at this late stage to deny things that annoys me.”

 

            “I’m not denying anything.” He snarled. “I got Hewie and Knock kill those people for me. I even got Hewie to go against his nature and fuck my daughter before killing her.”

 

            “But the only one you actually killed was the cat?” I looked down and stroked the animal’s head. “And didn’t even manage to do that?”

 

            “I managed to get Hewie to kill himself, granted he went to your office for whatever reason.” He smiled broadly. “That’s killing someone, getting them to do it themself.”

 

            “Whatever reason?” I asked.

 

            “Yes.” He nodded, “How did you get involved? I’ve read about you in the paper a couple of times, but I wasn’t aware we had any connection.”

 

            “You don’t remember me?” I must say I was a little surprised. “I was Becky’s best friend for all of high school and a bit beyond.”

 

            “Oh.” He shook his head and then shrugged. “Are you one of the boys who hung around fucking my daughter?”

 

            “No.” I said. “Becky and I were never fucking. I was the one she always came back to.”

 

            “She said she was going to see that friend of hers from school to get me out of trouble.” He said rubbing his chin. “That actually was you?”

 

            “Yeah.” I nodded. “That was me, like I said before.”

 

            “She pay you in blowjobs then?” He said it so calmly, so matter of factly, that it was supposed to elicit an explosion of rage from me. I decided it wouldn’t.

 

            “No.” I shook my head and said in the same soft tone he’d used, “You got your little lover boy to kill her before we could discuss payment.”

 

            “I told you, I’m not a fucking sissy faggot!” He shouted and pointed his finger at me. The cat leapt off my lap and ran under the chair.

 

            “No.” I said remaining calm. “You’re quite a butch faggot and something of a sick mind controller who likes whipping little boy rumps and sticking them with all kinds of needles and things. You give the gay community a worse name than Cruisin’ does, and yet you can only kill the cat and can’t do that right.”

 

            “Listen you.” He growled. “When Knock gets back we’ll cut you into little pieces together. I’ll kill you myself though.”

 

            “Is that what you were waiting for?” I laughed. “Unless Knock can bounce back from having the top of his head ripped off in an hour and a half I don’t think he’s coming back in time.”

 

            “Dead?” He asked. “You killed him?”

 

            “Jack the Giant Killer.” I told him. “Seven with one blow and all of that. Chief badass for the Tri-County Detroit Metro area.”

 

            “Did he tell you I was here before then?”

 

            “No.” I shook my head

 

            “How did you figure all this out then?” He asked looking very confused.

 

            “You know, everyone has this idea I’m dumb or something, like I’m just not the sharpest pencil in the box.” I complained. “But you know, even if I were as stupid as you take me for I can at least master pattern recognition. I mean Christmas pulled the exact same trick in December. Who was in the car, another innocent by stander?”

 

            “No.” He shook his head. “My brother died last month, and after we yanked his teeth out we used his body to make a close enough match to my DNA. Knock put his body in there, wired up with a hundred pounds of explosions or so.”

 

            “I see.” I nodded. “So why Becky then?”

 

            “My daughter would tell anyone anything, particularly over some sweated sheets.” He growled at me. “I couldn’t have her blabbing about what had happened and she’d already gone and gotten her old boyfriend involved.”

 

            “I told you.” I said. “I was never her boyfriend.”

 

            “Fuck bunny then.” He snapped. “Her daily source of protein!”

 

            I got up and walked around to the desk. He looked at me defiantly and I thought I saw his hand jump. I smacked him hard across the head and then grabbed his shirt and smacked his head against the desk. I then threw him across the desk and listened as a lot of objects fell both on him and the floor. Objects of glass shattered and brass ones made clanging noises. I heard a groan and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror.

 

            “Are you overcharged with awe?” I grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet.

 

            I couldn’t hear his reply because my ears were filled with a thudding sound, like that of a watch when placed under a cloth. My left hand grabbed the bowie knife and it plunged straight into his heart. My right hand clutched at the kukri handle, and it swept across his neck. There was a spray of blood, but not nearly as much as I would have imagined. His body convulsed a few times, but after a second or two his eyes rolled up and breath rattled out of him.

 

            I heard then, quite suddenly the sound of a train. The rattle of wheels on rails, the cry of the whistle and the rumble through the floor. There were tracks half a mile from here, and I wondered for a moment if it was just a ghost train that had come for Sam’s soul. A look of peace came over his face, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. The train kept rolling though, and I decided that it was probably just a supply train taking transmissions to a Ford plant.

 

            I have no way of calculating how long I stood there, watching as the blood seeped out of him and onto the floor. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen, but nothing at all happened for a long time.

 

            The cat had managed to stand on its own and was rubbing against my leg and making some meowing noises. I reached down and patted it on the head, and then I went to the kitchen to see if there was anything to feed this animal. As it turned out there were several cans of Fancy Feast, which I guessed meant that this had been a spur of the moment killing. I gave the cat a can on a plate and let him or her go at it. I hadn’t decided to go to the effort of discovering its sex, so I would have to say him or her for a while.

 

            The front door opened and five men in white jumpsuits came in. One of them looked at me and then at a device in his hand. He wore a holster on his hip, the top of which hadn’t been snapped down. He could have drawn and shot in about half a second if he wanted to.

 

            “Collier?” He asked.

 

            “That’s right.” I nodded as I took a step into the dining room, which was on the left as you came into the house.

 

            “We’re supposed to remove something for you.”

 

            “In that room.” I pointed over his shoulder to his right at the door to the study. “One body, I want the knives back please.”

 

            “We supposed to do anything to make it look like an accident or anything?” The one who was talking asked as the other four moved efficiently behind him.

 

            “He doesn’t ever need to be found.” I told him at the black cat leapt up on the table between us. “He’s already supposed to be dead.”

 

            “You want us to kill the cat too?” He asked nodding at the animal.

 

            “Do you want to?” I was a little taken aback by the suggestion.

 

            “No.” He said shaking his head. “But you’d be amazed what people ask me to do in this job.”

 

            “No, I wouldn’t.” I said picking the cat up. “The cat goes with me though.”

 

            “Okay.” He nodded and a thought struck me.

 

            “Hang on a second.” I said and walked towards them. “Can you make it look like he’s been dead longer than he has?”

 

            “We could cover up how long he’s been dead.” The guy said. “Is there a freezer in this place?”

 

            “I think so.” I thought, trying to remember. “In the basement.”

 

            “Let’s go look.” He walked past me and towards the basement door.

 

            There was a large chest freezer that was mercifully empty besides a few frozen pizzas and a price club sized box of flavor ice, but those are in every chest freezer in the Midwest. They dragged him downstairs and then went through the house wiping things they thought they might have touched. I mentioned the kitchen and they started in there as well. It might have been instructive to watch them go at it, but I had other things to do tonight still. I picked up the cat and left with him curled under my arm.

 

This is part eleven of thirteen, come back next week for part twelve and every Thursday until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The Cabinet tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.

In the Cabinet (Part Ten)

 

In The Cabinet

A Jack Collier Short

By Brett N. Lashuay

 

 

 

Last week's entry can be found here.

 

 

Day 10: Knock, The Mountain Troll

 

            I’m not exactly sure how long we were at it, but the sun had started go down before we gave up. When he wasn’t smacking my left hand into a pulp, he started going at my back or legs. It felt like he’d smashed my left hand into jelly, but I was able to hold things with it later so it must not have been that bad.

 

            “Please.” Knock said holding his hand up in a gesture of pleading. “If you don’t want to think about yourself, think about me.”

 

            “What?” I looked at my bloody and possibly mangled fingers.

 

            “Think about how this is affecting me.” He said holding his hand to his chest in a manner that looked almost effeminate. “Do you think I like breaking your fingers like this?”

 

            I looked into his face a moment and under the mask of concern and worry, saw only malice.

 

            “Yes!” I nodded vigorously.

 

            “Well, you’re right, but I might have hated it.” He said as he brought the sap down on what had once been my hand again.

 

            “Fuck!” I shouted.

 

            “You’re not going to confess for me?” He asked.

 

            I had to take a second to breathe and over come the pain. I was about to try and hit him again, but I found I only had enough strength to talk at the moment.

 

            “Nope.” I shook my head.

 

            “I guess we’ll have to do this the other way then.” He sighed. “I can do it the other way, but it’ll cause more trouble.”

 

            He grabbed me by the collar and yanked me up to my feet. I stood up and grabbed at my left hand. The fingers moved, even though the fingers and palm were blackened from the leather and the bruises. He threw me into the doors and yanked them open while I stood there. He slipped the sap into his pocket and picked my Webley up from the top of the car. He tossed it into his left hand and aimed it at me.

 

            “Get in to the front seat.” He told me. “I don’t want you behind me having any bright ideas.”

 

            “Sure.” I said getting into the car and buckling the seat belt.

 

            He got into the car, keeping the gun in his left hand aimed at me. He started the car and we drove out into the country. Eventually we got out to thirty-eight mile road, then started to turn down one road then another until we stopped under a lone street light that had been erected. He turned off the car and opened the glove compartment. He nodded to himself and took my ipod out of the glove compartment and slipped it into his pocket.

 

            “I’ll take care of this myself I think.” He said smiling at me. “Let’s go.”

 

            He opened the door and I opened mine to get out.  We walked out of the car and stood together under the light. He kept the gun in his left hand, never changing it to his right or failing to point it directly at me.

 

            “Over there, into the field.” He said waving with his right hand.

 

            I started to walk in the direction indicated, looking to my left to see the sun drifting below the horizon. The clouds would probably cover the sky completely soon, but for the moment there was a strip of sky where I could see the last remains of the setting sun’s light. I sort of wanted some rain, but all I got was clouds and wind.

 

            “Across the field and into the forest there.” Knock said from behind me.

 

            As I walked through the field, I saw plants and remembered their names. The names for different kinds of thistles and autumn flowers came to the front of my mind as my eyes happened upon them. It wasn’t anything I could control, or anything that would get in the way of my thoughts as I went. It was just something that went on as a background process.

 

            We walked to the forest and I could see where he was leading me. There was a shallow ditch about eighteen inches deep, two feet wide and nearly six feet long. A shovel was stuck in the mound of earth that had already been dug up for what was undoubtedly supposed to be my makeshift grave. I looked at the shovel and the hole and then looked over to Knock.

 

            “Nice hole.” I said.

 

            “Get in and dig.” Knock said.

 

            “No.” I said.

 

            He didn’t argue, just pointed the gun at my feet and fired. The bullet tore up the ground and turf between my shoes and threw dirt onto my pants. I looked at the ground and then at him as he cocked back the hammer again. I looked at the hole and turned towards the shovel. I got into the hole and stuck the shovel into the dirt. I then leaned on it.

 

            “Why?” I asked softly.

 

            “Hmm?” He asked taking a few steps closer.

 

            “I said why.” I told him. “Why all this?”

 

            “You wouldn’t even begin to understand.” He said as I tossed some dirt onto the pile.

 

            “Oh, come on.” I said, trying to egg him on. “Try me.”

 

            “Dig.” He commanded, talking a few more steps towards me. “Come on.”

 

            “What’s the skinny?” I asked sticking the shovel into the ground and leaning on the handle.

 

            “Hop to Hop Sing.” He said standing on the dirt mound. “Just be glad that I’m going to take good care of your car and this gun. I like them, good car and a good gun.”

 

            When I was a kid, about ten or so, I got a cap gun for my birthday. Something went wrong with the gun though, a spring I think, and I asked my father to fix it. He opened the gun and put the spring back, or whatever it was, and announced it fixed. When he closed the gun and checked it, he had to fire it a couple of times to make sure it worked. The gun was a child sized revolver, and it was small in his hand. Looking at my gun in this mountain troll’s hand, it reminded me of that time. It was different, but it looked enough like that to cause me to have a moment of recall.

 

            I picked up the shovel, grabbing the end in my left hand and holding my right hand near the head. He stuck his hand out and shot the ground behind me. I turned my head to look and heard the hammer draw back again. I looked at his hand, extended out as it was, and swung the shovel as hard as I could. The point of the shovel smashed against his left hand, and another round fired from the gun. He screamed as the gun flew from his hand. He held his hand up displaying the fact that the dropping of the gun was less than voluntary. Three of his fingers were missing and a chunk of hand under the knuckles was missing as well.

 

            I stabbed the shovel forward and caught his leg right under the knee. His screaming restarted and he reached for his leg. I then swung the shovel up and smacked his face with the pan. He fell back and I leapt up onto the pile and put my foot on his chest. I lifted the shovel over my head, ready to bring it down on his neck and take his head off. It would be one single stroke, and then it would be over. With a yell I brought down the point of the shovel and missed my target.

 

            The shovel hit about five inches too high and went through his mouth instead of his neck. The shovel smacked something hard and stopped in place, actually bouncing a little off the part of his skull that I hit. I tried to push, but it wouldn’t go any further. His eye opened wide and he reached for my leg. His voice cried something unintelligible, while his jaw flapped down on his chest, his teeth shimmering in the dark.

 

            His fingers closed on my calf, squeezing so hard I had small fingertip sized bruises there later. He kept making that gurgling crying sound, which sounded like the death cry of a bull hippopotamus. It was a sound that had all his lung power behind it, but the throat it was yelling from was blocked by the part of his tongue that I’d sliced through. I yanked the shovel away from his face and lifted it up again. I decided to bring it down on the exact spot, but I missed again.

 

            The point of the shovel went through his forehead this time, but again refused to go the whole way through. His hand tightened around my leg and I shook him off as I leaned forward. His fingers still held my cuff though, because he never did know when to give up. I grabbed the end of the shovel’s long handle, shifted my weight and stepped on the pan of the shovel. I turned the handle and I gave one corner of the pan a good solid kick. The top of the head split open as I stomped the shovel as hard as I could. The brain splattered on the ground and his hand let go of my leg. I lifted the shovel once more and this time I hit my target and split the brain in half. I then lifted the shovel over head and brought the flat pan down and splattered it. I slipped back, tripped over Knock’s arm and fell down into the hole, which was at least sort of soft from the freshly turned earth.

 

            “Didn’t they tell you?” I asked him as I panted. “I’m Jack the Giant killer. Seven with one blow, bitch.”

 

            I got up and looked to my left, where my gun had fallen. I pick it up and looked at the handle. The scale on the left side of the gun had been broken and the top half had fallen off. I would never find it in the dark like this. It didn’t look like it would be able to be fired without cutting my thumb from the shock. I put the gun into its holster and then walked towards what was left of Knock. I went through his pockets and started to reclaim my belongings. I pulled the keys from his pocket and stuck them in my coat.

 

            “Got my gold, well brass plate anyway.” I then patted my side where the gun was. “Got the hen that lays the eggs. Well, gun that shoots the bullets anyway. Now to get my harp.”

 

            I pulled the ipod from his pocket and walked back towards the car. I got into the car and started the engine. I got my cellphone out of my pocket and scrolled through until I found Crammer’s number as I drove to the corner so I could read the street signs.

 

            “Yeah?” Crammer’s voice came.

 

            “Knock’s your man.” I said. “He smacked my hand into a pulp trying to get me to sign a confession admitting to everything. When I wouldn’t he took me deep into Armada to kill me.” I told him the two street corners and explained where they could find Knock’s body.

 

            “You wait there for us to get there.” He said.

 

            “I can’t do that.” I said. “I know who the killer is, and you’ll never be able to touch this person because they’re supposed to be dead already. Can you claim that an anonymous source gave you this information? Just say that one of your snitches saw him?”

 

            “What are you going to do?” He asked.

 

            “Go work it out.” I said. “If you can’t hold them responsible, I’ll make sure they get to someone who can.”

 

            “I’m going to trust you on this one.” He said. “But it could get you in more trouble than it may relieve.”

            “Shit happens.”

 

            “Usually to me.” He said. “Talk to you later.”

 

            “Yup.” I said and finished the conversation like I always do. “Bye, bye.”

 

            When he hung up I hit the engine and started away. Years of driving those back roads from a desire to be alone gave me a perfect map in my head. I stayed off the main roads and just went down the old dirt drives to stay out of the way. I made it back to the office without being seen, and I thought it was a little suspicious that Crammer didn’t call to bawl me out for leaving the scene of a crime.

 

            I got to the office where Debbie was still on the phone to someone. She looked up at me as I entered the office, told who ever it was goodbye and hung up. She looked at me with a bit of horror on her face. I touched my forehead and looked at the blood.

 

            “Been a bad day.” I said holding my left hand and working the fingers

 

            “I guess.” She said. “Crammer says whatever it is, he’d better not find out about it.”

 

            “Okay.” I nodded and took the gun from its holster. “Here, you can have this as a going away gift.”

 

            “Your gun’s broken?” She said, concerned.

 

            “Yeah.” I said. “It’s no big deal, just like the Marley. I mean my grandfather only gave me this gun the day I got my license because he said a detective would need the best hand gun ever made.”

 

            “Jack.” She said.

 

            “I don’t think I’ll ever want to shoot it again anyway.” I took a step towards my office and stopped to tell her, “You can call Crammer again and tell him that I’m just going to leave town. They should be able to figure everything out without me.”

 

            I went to the office and looked around it for a moment. The light from across the street shown in through the window. I walked to the bathroom to have a look at myself. I was the very mask of the red death. My face was dabbled and sprinkled with Knock’s blood. My shirt had been sprayed with the red horror, and for a moment I wondered if anyone was going to let me just go or was I going to be hung from the battlements in the morning.

 

            That didn’t really seem to matter right at that moment though. Now was a time for some old school vengeance. It was a time when a man like myself would have to do something thoroughly unpleasant to cleanse the land of darkness or some crap like that. I kept a change of clothes in the office for just such an occasion and I used it, leaving the blood splattered gear in the bathroom.

 

            I walked to the cabinet and opened the drawer where I kept the knives from Mina and John. I took my coat off and tossed it to one side, letting it land on the floor. I grabbed the bowie knife and used the straps on it to tie it to my shoulder holster under my right arm. I tied it up in such a way that the handle was down by my waist so that I could just reach in and grab it. I then picked up the kukri and stuck it into the holster for the gun, tying it down as well as I could. I walked out to the outer office and looked at Debbie, who stopped typing and looked up at me.

 

            “You’re going to have to tuck that one on your left a little better.” She said.

 

            “I’m going to come back in a little while.” I said. “Will you be here?”

 

            “No.” She shook her head. “I’m going to Metro right now, I’m going to fly to O’Hare and my sister is picking me up. I’ll get a place there and come back to tidy up in a while when I get a place and everything.”

 

            “Okay.” I nodded. “I’ll mail you the keys or send them here or something.”

 

            “Just hold on to them.” She said. “I’ll tell them to change the lock if I decide to close this office. I might keep it open. You know, just in case.”

 

            “Thanks Deb.” I said and walked through the door. “You are quite possibly the only person left in Michigan that I actually like. I just thought you should know that.”

 

            I adjusted the kukri as I went down the stairs, and got into the Hudson. I drove carefully, making sure not to break the speed limit as I went. I did my best not attract any extra attention than normal. My only hope was that no one had a call out for me and my car. I couldn’t be sure if Crammer was calling those shots, or if his word was going to be good to me. If anyone was on the look out for a dark blue classic, specifically a Hudson Super Six, I was going to get nailed.

 

            I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and scrolled through for a number. Finding the one I wanted took me a moment while I drove, because I had to keep my eyes on the road as well. When I found the number I hesitated before pressing the button that would send my call. I always hesitated before calling her, and three times out of four I put the phone back down before calling. This time I couldn’t just put it down though, I needed her this time, so I pressed.

 

            “This is Alice.” She said answering a call that clearly was coming later than a call would normally.

 

            “Hi Alice, its Jack.” I announced.

 

            “Oh, hi Jack!” She said, and I was almost happy to hear the smile in her voice. “What’s going on?”

 

            “You remember how back in the old days you guys would get something on a guy or get a beautiful agent to seduce him to get him to join up?” I asked.

 

            “I remember some of the older agents talking about how they’d seduce men and get them to join.” Her voice got playful. “Are you saying you’d like me to come seduce you? I’m in Washington right now, but maybe we could get together later this week?”

 

            “That’d be too long.” I said. “And it’ll be easier than that for you. What I need is a bag team to come take care of a body for me.”

 

            “What do you mean Jack?” She asked. “We don’t do that sort of thing.”

 

            “Don’t play dumb.” I told her. “We both know you can get a bunch of guys to come clean up a place. This is important.”

 

            “How important?” She asked.

 

            “Well, as I started saying, you could probably need a guy who has a legitimate excuse to go around with a key fob reading seven with one blow.” I told her. “I find myself out of a job and probably without a license to detect privately very soon. I think I’m going to need the protection the Agency could provide.”

 

            “So you need a new job and a place to hide?”

 

            “I need a reason not to have to hide.” I told her. “But I could probably use a job.”

 

            There was a long pause, and then she spoke again.

 

            “Do you have an address where I can send them?”

 

            “Yes.” I said and gave her the address.

 

            “Okay.” She said. “It’ll take them an hour or more.”

 

            “That’s okay.” I said. “I’ve got a use for the time. I’ll need to start right away, the longer I’m around here the more I’m likely to get hit up for something.”

 

            “Can you come down to Virginia tomorrow?” she asked.

 

            “Yeah, I think I can do that.” I said. “Unless something changes and I just keep driving.”

 

            “When you get ready to go, give me a call.”

 

            “I’ll call you from the road if all goes well.” I told her. 

 

 

 

This is part ten of thirteen, come back next week for part eleven and every Thursday until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The Cabinet tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.