Hard Boiled Christmas
A Jack Collier Mystery
By Brett N. Lashuay
Day Ten: Cliffhanging
My head was spinning, my ears buzzing, and all I could be sure of was that I didn’t actually pass out or anything like that. My vision started to clear after a moment and the pain in my head started to thud heavy and deeply. He had hit me above my hairline, which meant that I wouldn’t have a visible bruise. I would therefore not get any of the sympathy from beautiful women that so often comes from having a big bruise on the side of your head. I would just have the pain and irritation that comes from having a big bruise on the side of your head. All of the drawbacks and none of the benefits. That’s my life.
If nothing else this was indeed shaping up like every other time I’ve had to deal with Christmas. She’s lovely, and she can make you feel grand during the good times, but she can be such a headache when times aren’t good. The headache was already here, and I hadn’t even been on the job a full twelve hours yet. Of course that wasn’t actually a record, but it did mean that things were going to be interesting.
“I should probably apologize for that.” Church said as he leaned back again. “Bad phrasing, I can see that now. Never mind, no real harm, right Opus.”
“No harm.” He said as he began to stand up, gasping for air. Clearly I was either a bad shot or he had been wearing protection.
He looked as if someone had smacked him in the chest with a hammer, which was probably how he felt. He walked to the blue brocade chair and sat down, trying to breath. There wasn’t any blood though, which probably meant that he was indeed wearing some sort of preventative. Debbie opened the door, her disconnected keyboard raised over her head to be used as a blunt object at any moment. The spring shaped wire bounced around behind her as she raised it up. She looked at me and then at the other two and back at me with a look of concern.
“Jack?” She asked.
“It’s okay Debbie.” I said holding up my hand. “Nothing to worry about.”
I worried that she might come rushing into my office and strike Church about the head with her keyboard. She would then most likely finish Opus off as he stood dazzled by her savage beauty. The problem there was two-fold. One is that I’m the heroic one around here and two, if she broke the keyboard then what would she tap at like a coked up rooster looking for the last piece of grain on earth?
“We’re fine.” I said. “Just a slight misunderstanding.”
“Okay.” She said and closed the door behind her as she went.
“You are trying to figure out who did this?” Church asked, even though he didn’t really mean it as a question.
“That’s right.” I said nodding.
“Then you can do it for me.” He said reaching into his inside jacket pocket with his let hand. I noticed as he did that he was gripping the handgun by the barrel.
He tossed a white envelope onto the desk between us. It didn’t look to be overstuffed, or full of used bills. I picked it up and opened it to check the contents. There were some new hundreds in there. I touched the edges of the envelope and without touching the money spilled it out onto my desk. I then began to crumple up the envelope and watched carefully as Church shifted in his chair, as he always did, but never once let his grip on the barrel of the gun shift even a little. I took a pen from my pen cup and pushed the bills around the table, counting out all ten of them.
“Retainer?” I asked.
“Right.”
“You know the Fat Man sat in that chair earlier today and made a similar offer.” I said placing the envelope onto a small metal tray I keep on my desk for my keys and wallet.
“I’d heard that.” He watched me take a book of matches from my desk. “But I’m willing to bet he didn’t offer anything in the way of money. He promised you a check, and I have cash in hand.”
“That’s true.” I said striking one of the matches and touching it to the crumpled envelope. “So what exactly do you want?”
“I want you to find out why and how that fat bastard did this to her.”
“What if it wasn’t him?”
“It was.” Church said as the envelope caught fully and burned on the desk between us. “He tried to frame me.”
“But what if it wasn’t?” I asked. “Can you be sure that’s even her blood on the baseball bat?”
“I’m finding out now.” He assured me. “I’ll know by morning.”
“But you don’t know.” I told him. “And it might have been someone else, that guy could have been moonlighting. Or the Fat Man might have had a supply of her blood on hand and smeared it all over to see that you got caught because he can’t have the culprit running the streets this close to the show. Even if they can’t have the show, they can have the candlelight vigil. But they can’t even really have that if the attacker is still out there.”
Church nodded slowly, his fist pressed against his cheek to help support his head. Clearly some of my words were hitting the mark, if not all of them. He seemed to understand that the investigation would take longer than he had thought. He looked like he was considering something for a moment and then finally nodded again.
“Very well.” He said starting to get up. “Investigate until you find whoever did it.”
“Hang on.” I pointed at the chair. “Sit back down.”
“What?” Church asked, sitting back in the chair.
“First things first.” I held out my hand. “The gun.”
“What?” He asked.
“How far do you think you’ll get with that ruse?” I asked still holding my hand out. “Opus shoots someone, you make sure I get the gun from him, then I shoot him and then you have not only the powder burns on my hands, but my prints on the gun that shot the person Opus shot. You then put a whole bunch of money in front of me, but I’ve caught on to that situation already.”
“To what end?’ Church asked.
“I don’t care.” I said, leaning forward with my hand out. “Give me that gun.”
For a long moment, I think we were both wondering if I could make him give it to me. Could I take the gun away from him? Church is not a punk, and while Opus is, he had Church with him. I could have possibly taken the gun, but it would have cost both of us.
Church looked at me and then slid the magazine from the gun and ejected the round from the chamber before handing it over. I took a handkerchief from my drawer and wiped the gun clean of prints. I made sure to rub it all over, breathing on it to get a nice shine and then set it down in front of Church on the cloth. He looked at the pistol and then at me.
“It was an insurance anyway.” He shrugged and picked the gun back up, handing it over to Opus and then giving him the expelled round and clip. “Just to make sure.”
“Yeah, great.” I sassed. “Now we talk about this.”
“I promise the gun was just to make sure.” He began.
“Not that.” I shook my head. “When did you first meet Christmas?”
“You start with me?”
“No.” I said shaking my head. “I started this morning, and I haven’t taken your money yet.”
“So who are you working for?”
“Christmas.” I once again told someone. “The Fat Man might be paying the bills, and he might be splitting with you, but I’m working towards her interests as I understand them.”
“As always.” He said darkly.
“When did you meet her?”
“When I was just getting started.” He said rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I ran some of the joints where she first got started. In fact, much as that silly old fart would like to think otherwise, I got her started. I’m the one who got her the money to buy the costumes, told her which groups to steal her act from, I helped her every step of the way.”
“When you were small time?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He said nodding, almost proud of the fact. “I had nothing, she had nothing, but we had each other and we built each other up strong.”
“So why did she leave?” I needled him. “If you were building each other up?”
“Because I was in those days and sometimes am still a violent individual who cannot control his impulses.” He admitted as if he were reading it off a card a therapist had given him. “I never hit her, I was never mean to her, but she didn’t like the way I ran things in those days.”
“Lots of broken bodies in the streets do tend to put a lady off.” I agreed.
“I was fine with it though.” He shrugged. “I gave her the money to go north, let her do her wandering thing with her little friend, and then she came back and we got married. We were quite happy for sometime after that. She tempered me to a great degree I think.”
“And then later things went wrong again.” I said, also not a question.
“Well, you know all about that.” He said.
“Yes.” I agreed. “I do.”
“But I would never hurt her.” He said. “You understand that don’t you?”
“You weren’t quite giving me that impression last time.” I said.
“But you also know that I haven’t even tried to see her since then.”
“That’s true,” I admitted, even if I only sort of knew this.
“We have been talking though.” He said. “After the divorce, we started talking.
“I didn’t know that.” I said.
“We’ve been sort of friendly.” He said swallowing. “Just a bit.”
“So who would want to smack her like that?” I asked, trying to see what he’d think.
“Fat
“Done?” I asked, shaking my head.
“Oh, he didn’t mention that, did he?”
“Mention what?”
“She was tired of it.” He said shifting in his chair again. “She wanted to quit. She wanted to slow things down, go back to doing a smaller show. You know, the same thing she’d been talking about for years?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, “I knew about that part.”
“She sounded like she was really ready to do it though.” He held his hands out as if supporting a silver platter. “If she told him that she was done with his child molesting ways and that she wasn’t going to let him treat her like a whore any more, who knows what that fat pimp might do?”
“Well that’s a point.” I said.
“She’s wanted out for years.” He said. “She was starting to sound desperate about it lately. I told her that she had nothing to worry about. I thought that having me around would keep the Fat Man in check. I guess I was wrong.”
“So why not just go shoot up the Fat Man?” I asked. “His distribution system is powerful enough that it can do without him, and the next guy might not have a thing for kids.”
“Can’t kill a man unless you know you should.” He said standing up. “You find out who it was, and we’ll make sure it’s taken care of.”
“And my fee?” I asked as he walked to the door.
“You tell me what it cost and I’ll make sure you get it.” He said over his shoulder as Opus opened the door for him.
I watched the door close and looked at the money on my desk, still untouched by my hands. I looked at the ten bills on my desk and then at the door as Debbie came in. She looked over her shoulder as she sat down in the blue chair next to the one Church had occupied. It was as if she was afraid even to sit in the same chair his warmth still resided in.
“Are we in trouble?” She looked beautiful and sultry and scared. However, she also looked like she was prepared to keep going if I would but say the word.
“Are we ever in anything but?” I asked leaning back in my chair and looking at the patterns of light on the ceiling. “Just keep the place open. Just keep accepting the odd job if it comes.”
“Pardon?’ She asked.
“Nothing.” I said still looking at the ceiling. “There’s a thousand dollars on the desk, it’s your bonus.”
“I thought my bonus was going to come with my next check.” She sounded a bit puzzled.
“It will.” I said, twitching my feet as they dangled. “This is extra special money for you to spend on presents for your parents and your sister’s kids or something. Maybe you could buy yourself a new vintage dress, or a pair of old shoes, or something else like that.”
“This is what Church paid you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” I looked at her, I wished for a moment I could just kiss her and tell her it would all be all right.
“And you don’t want to touch it and you don’t want it found anywhere near you.” She was not asking now.
“That’s right.” I confirmed, “So now it’s something for you. Extra special bonus money for you to get outfits that I like looking at you in.”
There was a sound of her hand whooshing through the air. When I didn’t get the slap I was expecting I heard her feet in her old shoes walking towards the door. Interesting fact, shoes from the forties sound different than shoes made later do. These are the sorts of things you find out when your secretary has a thing for vintage clothing.
“See you in the morning.” She said as she closed my office door behind her.
I sat up, and was glad to find that the money was indeed gone. I shook the burned envelope out into the garbage can and wiped the ashes away with a tissue. When I set it back down, then nothing might have ever happened. Besides my nerves, the tiny powder burns on my hands, the pain on the side of my head, and the feeling that I was in deeper trouble than ever, I might have just come back to the office and found it empty.
But as I said, I would have to account for the pain at the side of my head, and the jangled nerves, and the high rate of my heart beat. With those items needing to be explained, I had to admit that Church had indeed been here, and I had indeed been hired by him to some extent. Or at least I’d taken his money, and that was the same thing in many important respects and I wasn’t sure he knew that there was a difference.
This is part one of twenty-five, come back tomorrow for part two and every day this month until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The HBC tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.
Hard Boiled Christmas
A Jack Collier Mystery
By Brett N. Lashuay
Day Nine: Church
I didn’t spot the headlights of any old Buicks in my rearview mirror as I drove back, but my corduroy-wearing friend might have kept his lights off. Just because you can’t see anyone, doesn’t mean they’re not around. This is what the paranoid have to tell themselves all the time. You always know there might be someone around if you’re crazy. I however, am fine. I am not insane, because usually there really are people following me.
When I got into the parking lot I slammed the door good and hard, just to make sure my annoyance with how the day had gone was properly registered with all members of the team. If Debbie wasn’t going to be there, I at least wanted the motor department of my business to know that I wasn’t happy with the way things had gone. I had nothing so far, and it wasn’t looking like I was going to get anything anytime soon. As I came up the stairs I noticed that the light in the waiting room was still on. I checked my watch and noticed that Debbie should have gone home some time ago.
Debbie almost never works late, save for a very rare occasion when we’ve got something really hot and I can’t be both at the office and elsewhere. We didn’t have anything hot though we had something cold. We had something as cold and lifeless as the remains of a turkey dinner left out in the December snow. Of course the fact that there was no snow, and there was no turkey, and the light was on did indicate that perhaps things weren’t quite that cold.
“Hi Jack.” Debbie said as I opened the door and looked at her behind the little curved reception desk we had built for her so she could hide behind it if she needed to.
The dark wood was all that stood between her and Opus in the waiting room. Opus’s attention was singularly fixed on Debbie as she leaned back in the chair and smiled at me, stretching her arms back to allow the fabric of her blouse to strain against her ample breasts. The singularity of Opus’s vision was my fault on two parts. First, I’d hired Debbie and taught her the best way to distract an opponent. Second, I’d taken his right eye a few years ago when his boss was bothering Christmas again. I often though I should have kept it, got it put in a solid glass cube or something, so I could pull it out and wave it at him at times like this. Instead I’d thrown it into the
While Opus was looking at Debbie with his one eye, I kneed him in the groin. The movement distracted him and he turned his leg to block my knee, which is when I hit him in the neck with my left fist. On his way down he met with my right fist and spun before hitting the ground. I put my knee into his back and patted his sides, feeling the gun under his left arm. I took his gun away from him and stood up quickly placing my back against the door.
“Stand up nice and slow.” I instructed him.
“You didn’t need to do it like that Collier.” Opus said rubbing his neck as he stood. “I was just going to tell you the boss wants to talk to you.”
“That’s nice.” I said thumbing back the hammer and hoping that he hadn’t put the safety on because I’d totally forgotten about it. “You could call and set up an appointment like anyone else, we have business hours posted.”
“Yeah.” Opus nodded, “But he’s here now.”
“Where?” I asked looking around quickly. “I don’t see him. Has he learned the hypnotic power to cloud men’s minds so they cannot see him?”
“He doesn’t wait in here like I do.” Opus grumbled as he rubbed his neck.
“Well you go into the office like I do.” I said hefting up the gun. “Or I’ll plug you and risk the damage to the carpet.”
I wasn’t about to have him sitting here ogling my secretary as I talked to his boss. Who knows what someone like Opus might get up to while we talked anyway? He might debauch her and make an assault on her questionable virtue. If anyone was going to ogle Debbie, it was going to be me. If anyone was going to assail her and attempt to partake of her charms I certainly wasn’t going to let it be that creep.
“Take the safety off first.” He said turning around and opening the door to my office.
The office was dark, and as I walked in I saw the silhouette of Church standing behind my desk, looking out the window at the street below. I noticed, or at least I surmised by the tilt of his head, that he was looking at the street in the same way that I do. He was looking away from the gaudy displays down to the part of the street that didn’t show itself with a flourish of trumpets.
I could make out his tense shoulders, hunched up higher than he normally kept them. He was wearing a suit, as he always did, but it was easy to tell that he was tense in it today. Church might look like a street thug that’s been stuffed into a suit and had economic theory explained to him, but it would be folly to dismiss him like that. There are a lot of plots in the cemeteries filled with people who decided that Church was just some dumb thug, and he was still here.
The fact that Church still existed in a world where life expectancy for new recruits was twenty minutes said something. The fact that he rarely ever dealt with anything that actually happened on the street anymore said quite another. If one saw him without the suit jacket or shirt, they would notice that his torso and arms were littered with tattoos bespeaking of his former thughood. With the coat though, he was almost a respectable citizen, one who had even been married to Christmas for a while.
It was the divorce of Church and Christmas that had first brought he and I into conflict. He thought she should stay with him forever and ever, and I thought otherwise. In the end he had sent Opus to convince her that she should come back home. After explaining things to Opus, I went to his home and delivered the message that she wouldn’t be coming home. I’ll give Church’s doctors this much, they certainly made his nose look more or less like it did before. You’d hardly know his nose had been broken with what remained of the chair that I’d split his scalp open with.
Opus switched on the lights to announce our entry and began to walk towards the back of the client chair. Church turned and looked at Opus and then at me and seemed to smile for a moment before walking around my desk and sitting down in my red leather chair. Opus switched on more lights as he walked to stand behind Church and I sat down behind my desk.
“I suppose the Fat Man has been to see you?” Church started.
“Yes.” I said setting the gun down on my desk but keeping it close to me if I needed to make a grab for it.
“He’s hired you?”
“No.” I said shaking my head.
“But you’re investigating what happened?”
“Yes.” I nodded.
“There has been a development.” Church said after rubbing his chin for a moment. “A person known to be in the employ of the Fat Man was found trying to break into my car.”
“Odd that someone would try such I thing.” I said to him, just to be saying something.
“Yes.” Church nodded. “Doubly odd because he had a blood covered baseball bat wrapped up in a garbage bag with him. I suspect that he was planning on placing it in my car and having me arrested for the crime.”
“Suspect?”
“Yes.” Church said. “Opus shot him before he could explain why he was trying to break into my car while carrying a blood covered baseball bat.”
“I’m surprised he could get anyone with his total lack of depth perception.”
“You don’t need depth perception to shoot.” Opus said.
“Yeah, but you do need a gun.” I said placing my hand on the pilfered pistol.
“Yes.” Opus agreed nodding carefully.
“Have you given the Fat Man notice that you have the remains of his employee?” I asked.
“I am sending him the relevant pieces needed for identification.” Church said as he shifted a little in his chair. “That should be enough of a message for him, don’t you think? Just leave the head and hands in a nicely wrapped parcel on his doorstep. Very festive, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.” I said. “Festive. No note about who it came from?”
“Since he sent his little monkey to frame me, I’m pretty sure he’ll know what happened without the addition of a guess who card.”
“So why come tell me all of this?” I asked.
“Because I need something that only you can deliver.”
“What’s that?”
“A certainty.”
What with him mentioning being certain about things in the way he had a moment ago I decided not to risk any possible mincing of words. Opus jumped to my left, meaning to come around my desk on the shortest route possible. My hand snapped to the gun and lifted it up. It all happened so quickly, since I had been waiting for it, that to an observer it would seem like it all happened at once.
I turned and fired a single round at his chest, and then I remembered all about distraction. Church’s fist struck the side of my head, and then something smashed my hand and something else hit the side of my head again. I think I might have been dazed for a few moments, but I certainly wasn’t knocked out. I didn’t blackout, there was just a buzz in my head for a moment.
As the universe swung around me from the blows, I was at least pleased in the knowledge that I had been right. This was trouble, wide and deep, and I was stuck down at the bottom of it.
And it was dark down there, I must say.
This is part nine of twenty-five, come back tomorrow for part ten and every day this month until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The HBC tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.
Hard Boiled Christmas
A Jack Collier Mystery
By Brett N. Lashuay
Day Eight: Mithras
To call Armada the middle of nowhere would be to say that one would ever bother finding the middle of such a place. I have heard people call it the ass end of the universe, and while I can’t think of anything that disqualifies it, I can’t help but think there might be worse places to end up. However, when pressed, I’ve never come up with anywhere less interesting than Armada. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just a whole lot of farm country, broken up by farm country, with more farm country just for good measure.
The Old Gods Retirement Home was a large building that truly was in the middle of nowhere. A farmer must have sold one field, but kept the three surrounding it. Except for the grounds, which were mostly taken up with parking lot and a small amount of grass lawn, there were plowed fields on three sides. The earth had been turned and left to freeze in the fields. It looked at though someone had just dropped this place on the street, without worrying about what would be on any side of it. Across the narrow strip of road was more frozen field. There were trees for wind breaking, but that was about it, mostly all you could see was the frozen fields.
I found myself again wishing it would snow. Snow would cover all of this up. It would blanket the bleakness and keep it from sight, making living in this state at least bearable. As it was, there was nothing but the depressing
I walked to the building, hoping that something in there might cause me not to want to kill myself. I wasn’t sure how much of this depression I could take before doing the sensible thing. The building was modern at least, built within the last five years if I was any judge, although it was one of those places that always looked newer than it really was. I could tell that no one ever stayed here very long, no one ever got comfortable. There was a lack of use about this place, which didn’t help my mood any.
It was clear to me as I crossed the threshold, that while this might be a pleasant enough place, it was a place where you went to be forgotten. Visitors didn’t come here often. In fact no one came here very often. This was a place where those who had once carried great importance now dwindled out their last days. It always made me a little mad, seeing these places and the people abandoned in them, but they also always made me feel a little helpless as well.
“Mister Collier?” A young woman in a decent but not ostentatious business suit asked.
“Yes.” I took her hand and shook it. “I’m here to see Mithras.”
“Yes I know.” She said trying to smile. “We’ve put him in a room. I mean, he’s waiting in a rec room for you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like…”
“It’s okay.” I waved her excuses away. “Which way?”
She led me to a dark room, where an old and withered man sat in a wheelchair. While there was a bright sunlight shinning through the windows, he was placed just beyond the beams of light. He was very close, but had put himself just beyond the kiss of the light. It was as if he had once been a close lover of the sun, but after some argument, he could no longer bear to even be within its direct sight.
I found as I entered the room that I was alone, the young woman was gone before I could even ask her name or throw her in front of me if I had to make a break for it. I never even got to inquire as to the age of the building or any of the other little things I wanted to discuss with her in order to postpone this moment. Instead, I was being thrust right into what promised to be an unpleasant interview.
“So, you’re him.” The old man said leaning his head back to look at me. “You’re the great detective.”
“I’m not sure about great detective.” I said.
“Oh, I’ve read all about you.” He said with a sickly grin. “You’re the one who saved her when that thug she married decided that he could just take her back. You’re the one who smacked him so hard he didn’t even try to smack back.”
“I think you’ll find he did make an attempt.” I tried hard not to bristle. “His little friend Opus is missing an eye because of that attempt.”
“Bah!” He actually said ‘bah’ and waved with his hand. “He was just trying to look good for his soldiers. If he’d really wanted to, he’d have splattered you.”
“Or maybe I would have splattered him.” I suggested, and there must have been something in my tone because he stopped and examined me again.
“Maybe.” He rubbed his smooth chin. “Maybe.”
He looked at the floor, and his eye fell on the box of light that the window let in from the sun. It made the room hot, the direct light falling on the dark carpet like that. You couldn’t do anything about it beyond closing the curtains, but he clearly wanted to look at the light. He seemed to consider something for a moment and I thought that maybe I should begin when he clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously.
“But that is not what you came to talk about is it?”
“Sort of.” I said, trying not to just stand there with my hat in my hand, but helpless to find another position. “I came to talk about Christmas.”
“Haven’t seen her for years.” He snapped and turned away for a moment. “Was that all?”
“When did you meet her?” I asked, trying to keep my tone firm and not let the annoyance I was feeling creep in.
“When she was just a kid,” He leaned back in his wheel chair, “Not really a kid you understand, she was fully grown when we met, but a kid nonetheless.”
“I know what you mean.” I nodded.
“She was so beautiful, so unspoiled, so malleable. You could do anything with her then, you could put her anywhere, because she could flex herself into any space.” He looked at me and a cloud covered his face. “I am not speaking in sexual terms young man. I am speaking in terms of raw talent.”
“I said nothing.”
“You thought it.” He said, and had he given me a word edgewise I would have admitted that he was right. And besides, I would have described her like that and I would have meant it in sexual terms. “She was the most talented person I’d ever met, she was smart and clever and people just wanted to be around her. I took her from that obscure little cultural desert I’d found her in, and I helped put her on the stage. She took my act, and did it better than I ever could. She mastered it in ways I never even knew existed. She found nuances in her first performance that I’d not seen in all the years I’d been doing it. She was beyond brilliant.”
“And then she overshadowed you.” I said.
“No.” He shook his head as vigorously as he could, which wasn’t much. “I got old and tired and I slowed down and had to retire. I did not get forced out, I was too old to go on is what happened.”
“So you didn’t drop out because your star was declining.” I asked and then went further than I should have. “Because the impression I got from Miss Yule was…”
“Solstice Yule?” He asked with a laugh. “That silly slut? If she ever told a story that was only half true it would be the truest thing she’d ever said.”
I felt an urge to slap him one, but he was just a weak old man and the satisfaction I’d feel from belting him wouldn’t be worth the hassle. I then thought that he probably knew this and that renewed my wish to give him five across the eyes for hiding behind his frailty. Instead, I filled my chest with air and tried to strive on in as much of a non-violent way as possible. Sometimes in this business it’s like a puzzle game, you’ve got to come up with the right combination of words in an exact order to get the information you want.
“So then you tell me.” I decided was the best way to get him to talk. “How did you meet her?”
“Is that important now?” He asked looking up at me with surprisingly tired and sorrow-filled eyes. “I mean her story is almost over now.”
“So tell me how it began.” I said, trying another cog in the configuration.
“I was the biggest star in
“She went north?” I asked.
“Only after she destroyed me.” He said, resentment dripping off his tongue. “She left me, but she stayed in
I decided not to point out that he was directly contradicting himself, because it would have thrown off his stride and I very much wanted him to keep going. He was licking an old and abscessed wound now, and it would only get him to spray bile if I distracted him.
“So she got your show canned and left for the north?”
“That’s right.” He said curling his lip back to show yellow teeth. “She went north, deciding to do to Solstice what she did to me. Miss Yule however proved that she had a sort of popularity that can’t just be copied. Christmas couldn’t really compete with Solstice the way she did with me, so the little bitch just teamed up with her. After a while of that, she just wore Yule out, she couldn’t keep up with the pace. Yule could drink, but nobody drank like Christmas. That slut could drink and fuck and then drink some more.”
“When did she start drinking?” I asked, trying not to show I was bristling.
“Usually just as she was waking up.” He said with a laugh. “Shameless whore would either suck a dick or a bottle first thing.”
I didn’t slap him. Let’s get that clear before we go much further. A slap requires a lot more power than I gave him, and it’s generally accepted that a slap is across the face. I stood and tapped the side of his head with the back of my hand. Just a quick sharp tap to inform him that I was in no mood. I then leaned forward and took a fist full of his jacket.
“Would you like to try that again?” I growled the words.
“She always drank, alright?” He said holding up his hands to defend himself from further blows. “Far as I knew she drank from day one.”
“And her other addictions?” I asked as I released him
“When she went north.” He said holding his hand to his head. “Despite what she might try to claim, Solstice was on a lot of that stuff in her day. She had to quit because she couldn’t get it anymore. It’s not easy to come by you know.”
“Yeah.” I said. “I’ve noticed that.”
“She got you hooked too?”
“I got a taste of it you might say. Just a taste from her.”
“Yeah.” He smiled a shade and nodded. “They say crack and smack are bad, but they are kiddie stuff to the attention aren’t they? That shit gets into you and just won’t let go, you’ve gotta have more and more.”
“But I got over it.” I said. “I got over it and I moved on.”
“Not everyone can.” His voice was sadder than Solstice’s sigh had been earlier that day. “After she went north though, there isn’t anything I can tell you that a trip to the library can’t. I never saw her again after she left
“Yeah.” I said.
“You will find out who did it, right?” He asked, looking away from me and at the door.
“Yeah.” I said.
“Good. When you find them, make sure everyone knows that they did it, make sure they get it good.” He turned his head to me and I could see there was something like a tear in his eye. “Just because I’m an angry and bitter old coot doesn’t mean I ever wanted anything to happen to her. All I wanted was for her to come back, but she never did.”
He started to roll away and left me in the room alone, standing in the blistering hot sun. It was ice cold out there, but in this room and under the sun like this I felt like I was baking in my coat. I waited for him to go though, not wanting to watch his progress as he rolled away from me. After a length of time I felt was sufficient, I turned and left the Sternwoodianly heated room. I didn’t look at any of them as I left, opting instead to just look at the floor.
I didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to see them. If I even so much as glanced at any of these old-timers, anger would spring up in me and it would well over. It all seemed so terribly unfair. Each of them had been worshiped in their time, each of them had once been one of the brightest stars, but now they were stuck here, waiting for the end. What kind of way was that for them to end up? To be relegated to some small retirement home in the middle of a frozen field in Armada? Someplace where someone only visits when they need something.
The cold air cut into me like daggers as I went out the doors, my overheated condition causing me to feel the cold more. I felt my arms tense for a moment but I forced them to swing as I walked towards the car. The sun shone down so brightly that I found I had to pull my sunglasses out and slip them on. I looked around for anyone who might be following me, but there was nothing. I might have been the only one who knew this place even existed. I felt like I’d been told something in there, but I couldn’t quite come to grips with what it might be.
I looked at the building and then at the sun, which was coming close to the end of its pathetically short winterized journey. By the time I got back to the office it would be dark, and Debbie would probably have gone home. I counted that as both a blessing and a curse. I couldn’t go to the office and get sympathy for my worthless trip of a day, but I could sit around in the dark and sulk about it. Sulking sounded like a good idea and I’m not too proud to say I didn’t wait to get back to the office to start. In fact, I sulked all the way there.
This is part eight of twenty-five, come back tomorrow for part nine and every day this month until we're done to see what happens next. If you get lost, one of the tags here should help you. The HBC tag will take you to the story while the Jack Tag will take you to Part One of every story we post here.
