The Other Side of the Mirror

by Lex H Jones

  “Exactly,” Carl nodded. “You want it to be Dice because you have your own reasons for hating him.”

  “Who else would kill her? She didn’t even have friends, how could anyone have known her well enough to want her dead?”

  “Was she an addict?” Carl asked as he started to look through some of the drawers in the bedside cabinets. He chuckled to himself when he came across a Bible. Like anyone in this shit hole had use for false hope and words that lost their meaning before the last millennium.

  “She wasn’t into drugs,” Felicity said defensively.

  “Not necessarily drugs. Gambling, maybe? Drink? Anything she’d owe someone for and have forgotten to pay up.”

  “If she was, it can only have been since she came over the river. Dice doesn’t let his girls drink or do drugs. Says it makes them ugly, which I guess it does. He’d doesn’t even know that I smoke. He’d slap the crap out of me if he did.”

  “When did she move here?”

  “About a month ago,”

  “Not really long enough to build up any serious debts, unless she was incredibly stupid.”

  “She was the smart one of the two of us. She wasn’t an idiot,” Felicity insisted, again with the defensive tone.

  “I appreciate that you want to look out for your little sister and honour her name, but at some point you have to be honest with me, alright? If she was a Meth-head who was a complete fuckwit, then I need to know because it might help with this. Painting her as a saint is next to useless.”

  “She wasn’t a saint,” Felicity scowled. “But she wasn’t an idiot either. She wouldn’t run up a debt that she couldn’t pay off. She knew the risks, especially over here.”

  “I think you’re right,” Carl nodded as he found something in one of the drawers. “She knew the game, she wasn’t a fool.”

  Carl lifted a small box from the drawer and opened it, sliding out a strip of plastic which contained seven raised plastic bubbles, inside of these were small yellow tablets. Three of them had been removed, the foil at the back of the bubble already broken. Underneath each of the tablets was a letter, in the sequence; “M, T, W, T, F, S, S”

  “Birth control pills, marked for each day of the week,” Carl explained, although he had the feeling that Felicity already knew.

  “She knew what she was doing,” Felicity reiterated. “Lot of guys won’t wear their gloves with an escort...but she wouldn’t risk...”

  “I assume Glass told you?” Carl asked as his eyes met Felicity’s.

  “She was pregnant,” Felicity nodded.

  “Her pills didn’t work. Why wouldn’t they work?”

  “Those things are only like ninety-seven percent effective anyway,” Felicity informed him.

  “Has she slept with enough guys for the statistics to come into play?” Carl enquired. “I guess you did say she was a high earner.”

  “Not through numbers, she was quite exclusive. She had a small rotation of clients who liked...specialist stuff. She was young enough that the schoolgirl outfits didn’t look tired, you know? Guys like to think they’re fucking a virgin, taking their innocence and all that messed up shit,” said Felicity, taking a long inhalation from her cigarette and blowing the smoke back into the room, letting it join the rest of the filth in the air.

  “She’s only been here a month, even if she saw a different guy every night, the odds of the pill not working...” Carl mused. “We can’t rule it out, but something seems off. Maybe she was sick, doesn’t it stop working if you get sick?”

  “Yeah, it can do,” Felicity nodded. “What does this have to do with anything anyway?”

  “I dunno, maybe nothing,” Carl shrugged. “Do you think she told anyone she was pregnant? Like Dice, maybe?”

  “She always ran away when she got in trouble...didn’t even look where she was running sometimes,” Felicity said quietly, her eyes glazing over as she stared off into the emptiness of memory.

  “You think she’d run back to Dice if she got into this kind of trouble? Not the best older brother figure to have, but if he was all she had...”

  “If she was pregnant, then even if she went back to him, she’d lose her entire client list... no-one wants to fuck a schoolgirl with a kid... he killed her! The bastard killed her!” Said Felicity, holding her hands to her face.

  “Look, it’s late and I have work to do,” said Carl. “Why don’t you find somewhere to stay tonight and I’ll call you when I know more. You should get some sleep.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re not going to be following your own advice?” Asked Felicity, handing Carl a black card with her number written in pink, next to which was a picture of a kiss imprinted in red lipstick.

  “You sure Amber was the smart one?” Carl smiled.

  Chapter Six;

  Hard Eight

  T he Steel Gate Bridge had been constructed in the late fifties, replacing the old iron one that had rusted away to nothingness, almost as though nature had wanted it gone. The bridge crossed the river and linked the West side of the city with the East. Like every other man-made construction in the surrounding area, it was a cold monstrosity built entirely for necessity and with no time taken to make the thing look even slightly presentable. It was dark and heavy, the old, dirty steel barely even reflecting the gloomy streetlights that ran along its sides. The bridge was about two hundred feet from one end to the other, easy to walk across and barely used by traffic. Truth be told it was barely used by anyone. Not much call to move from one side of the city to the other, except through desperation. Like Amber. Poor, dead Amber. Washed clean by the Styx, like so many others.

  Carl stood at the East-side of the bridge and felt the cold air fill his lungs. He put his hands in his pockets to try and stop the wind biting at the flesh of his fingers, but it did no good. Wind was so damn cold it went through everything, straight down to the bone. Across the other side of the bridge, Carl could see bright lights, yellow and pink and blue, luminous and tacky as holy Hell. The neon lights that led the way to the cesspool of corpulent excess and hedonism that was the West side of the city. Crime with a more expensive price-tag, that’s all that could be found there. You wear a suit to work and think that makes your enterprise legit, but people still suffer for you to take home your paycheque. Nothing legit about that—not as far as Carl was concerned.

  He often wondered if the entire City had secretly died and gone South for its afterlife. A kingdom where one’s wage was measured in the number of innocent souls it cost; the more the better. Take a few girls and turn them into whores for a few bucks a night, you’re a pimp in the East side. Take a whole school full of girls and call it an agency, charge a few hundred a night, you’re a businessman in the West side. Same crime, different price tag. Demons bartering for a better life with the souls of those they’ve damned along with themselves. He who has the most wins. Nothing more, nothing less. Welcome to the City.

  With a prolonged sigh, Carl stepped forward and began to walk along the bridge to the West side of the city. He hated going over there, hated it more every time he had to. The East was a shit-hole, he knew that and wouldn’t deny it to anyone. But it was home, shit-hole or otherwise. At least people were honest about what they did, who they were. They didn’t hide behind expensive clubs and drive cars that were worth more than a cop’s annual paycheque. You knew who the good guys were, few as they might be. In the West you couldn’t trust anyone you met. The friendlier they seemed, the nicer they came across, the more of an asshole they’d turn out to be when the mask dropped.

  Knowing that this was what you were stepping into was worse when you didn’t have a choice. Carl needed to speak with Dice, and on no day of the week was he likely to be found in the East side. That meant Carl going to him, however painful. That also put the ball in Dice’s court, meeting him on his own turf this way, but it couldn’t be helped. It was a conversation that had been destined since the night the latest dead girl washed up from the Styx. One more pair of life
less eyes staring up at whoever would find them, begging for an answer to the mystery of their death. Carl had been the one to find her, so the answers were his to find. For that he’d step into the West side a hundred nights in a row if he had to.

  The Styx lay beneath his feet, cold, dark and foreboding as he crossed the bridge, carried along by the same icy wind that bit through the skin and down to the bone. Carl glanced over the side of the handrail and looked down into the black waters below. The way the moonlight reflected off the surface of the moving water, it gave the appearance of thousands of ghosts being swept along in the undercurrent. Lost souls, taken to whatever fate the Styx had in store for them at the end of its flow. No Ferryman for them, just the dark and the wet and the current. There was no dignity in death, not in the City. Just blackness and cold.

  With one final step against black steel, Carl now found himself facing the luminous, oppressive presence that was the West side. The neon lights bore into the flesh and the soul, their silent voices whispering you to come and find what they had to offer. Women, drugs, games of chance, pornography, whatever you could want was to be found inside the buildings these lights hung from. Sell your soul one step at a time, carve it into little chunks and serve it up on a cheap platter to the demons waiting behind each counter and bar. Carl felt himself shudder as the light shone upon him. He didn’t belong here and he knew it. The touts for the strip clubs he walked by tried to convince him otherwise as they made their play to tempt him inside, but he didn’t even give them a response. Don’t get into any conversation that might end with you or the other guy breaking some bones. Sound advice, a good way to live. Conflict had its place, but entering into it without good cause was pointless.

  The Three Lions Casino was easy enough to find, even for someone who didn’t know the geography of this side of the City. Two enormous spotlights shone into the sky like calling cards for those willing to come and throw away their money, drawing them in from miles around. Once in view of the place, it was impossible to mistake for any other casino. To start with there were three enormous statues of lions outside, made of what looked like solid gold, but could easily be stone and paint. The building itself was made out to be an old English castle, with a great big Union Jack made from red white and blue light bulbs centring the front. Elegance and cheap excess combined into one with such little effort; the soul of the West side given form.

  The outward appearance of the Three Lions was a theme that continued through the interior. Old English was the order of the day, with suits of armour, more Union Jack flags, and portraits of the kings and queens that had ruled England through the ages decorating the walls. Strange theme for a Casino, but Dice was the man to thank for that. He wasn’t actually the least bit English, but he’d studied in Oxford for a year during college. When he returned, he’d picked up this phoney accent and a taste for all things British. It had stuck this long, and now it made him money from idiots who failed to realise that they never won anything from the slot machines or card tables. Let them pay, everyone here had money to waste after all. Carl entered the casino and was greeted by a woman wearing a short black dress, her name tag itself a Union Jack with the name ‘Amy’ inscribed on it.

  “Good evening, Sir!” She smiled over-enthusiastically, earning Carl’s instant contempt. Friendliness without genuine meaning was worse than being rude. At least rudeness was honest.

  “I’m here to see Dice,” Carl replied without the use of a smile.

  “Do you have an appointment with him?” Amy enquired.

  “How’s this?” Carl asked, reaching into his coat and taking out his police badge.

  “Not good enough, I’m afraid,” Amy shook her head, her smile dropping and revealing the condescending expression that she had probably held on her inside face since the moment of his arrival.

  “This any better?” Carl asked, moving his coat back and revealing the gun holstered at his shoulder.

  “Security!” Amy screamed, at which point a large black man dressed in a tuxedo ran over to stand between her and Carl.

  “I need to see Dice,” Carl said without flinching, staring up at the man who was at least a foot taller than him. “Police business.”

  “He’s not available tonight,” the large man said with a snarl.

  “I’m sure he can make some time,” Carl insisted.

  “You’re done. Go bother someone else,” the large man replied, putting a hand on Carl’s shoulder as he moved to forcibly eject him from the club.

  The first blow hit the large man in the stomach before he even saw it coming. It was so hard and fast that he doubled over in pain, every square inch of air being forcibly ejected from his lungs as his ribs pressed against them. Violence wasn’t Carl’s first choice of action in any situation, but knowing how to use it was an inevitable learning curve in the City. This ape was bigger than him, sure, but he probably relied on that size far too much. Knowing where to hit and how to hit it was worth more than how hard the blow actually was. Carl knew both, as the ape would now attest in his efforts to re-inflate his lungs. It was a painful task that he would never complete, as being hunched over in the way that he was, meant his head was perfectly placed for Carl to drive it down into his raised knee. Carl felt the bones in the man’s nose break against his leg, and the wet seep of the blood that instantly flowed from it. He let the man drop to floor where he remained curled in the foetal position, struggling to breathe even more so than before as his nostrils began filling with blood and broken bone. Carl wiped the worst of the warm wetness from his leg and looked back up at the horrified Amy, then repeated, “I’d like to see Mr Dice, please.”

  The girl didn’t hesitate and instead took Carl into the main Casino hall, keeping several feet in front of him and almost tripping over her own heels in an effort to do so. Carl was led to a large table on which a game of Craps was being played by one gambler whilst a small crowd, mostly made up of loose-looking women, stood and watched. The rules of the game were beyond Carl, but he wasn’t particularly interested. Gambling had never been a hobby of his, so why bother to learn? As he watched the player toss the dice down the long green-carpeted table, he noticed how eagerly the women at his side clutched his sleeve, fondling him like slaves at a Harem. Was it the fact that he was evidently winning the game, or did he have some other source of attraction that Carl wasn’t yet aware of? The guy himself wasn’t bad looking, but he wasn’t a head-turned either. He had one gold tooth which looked stupid on a white guy with long hair, particularly one wearing a blue suit with a pink shirt.

  “That’s Mr Dice,” Amy said nervously as she nodded towards the man playing the game. “Please don’t tell him it was me who brought you to him, or I’ll lose my job.”

  “If I asked you to suck my dick to keep that secret, what would you say?” Carl enquired.

  “I’d ask if you had a hotel room nearby,” Amy said with a nervous smile.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Carl sighed, turning his attention away from the young girl and back to the gambler, who was evidently just the man he had been looking for. He moved through the small crowd until he had a spot on the edge of the table, from which he was only several feet away from Dice himself. Once more the dice were thrown to the sounds of cheering and words of praise, at which point Carl chipped in, “What kind of dumbass plays at his own Casino? Gotta know you can’t win for long, right?”

  “You can always win here, my friend. Loosest games in town,” Dice smiled, ever the professional. He reached into his pocket and took out a red playing chip, then tossed it over to Carl. “Here, play a few games on me.”

  “I’m not much of a gambler. I prefer paying money knowing that I’m guaranteed to get something in return,” Carl replied, tossing the chip back.

  “Then what are you doing in a casino?” Dice asked, his fake British accent cutting into Carl’s eardrums in a way that made him want to punch a man for the second time this evening.

  “I need to talk with you, as it ha
ppens. You got a minute?”

  “I think there’s a fair few ladies here who have that privilege before you, mate,” Dice smiled, putting his arms around the girls to his left and right. “Maybe another time, eh?”

  “If I can avoid coming to this shit-hole again, I will do. So indulge me,” Carl said with a forced smile, taking his badge from his coat.

  “Oh, what the fuck...” Dice sighed. “Who let him in here?”

  “You want to do this here in front of all your friends, or in private?”

  “How about not at all? I think that’s a better option, don’t you?” Dice chuckled but didn’t even raise a smile from the stone-faced Carl. At the sight of this he sighed and conceded, “All right, let’s make a game of it. If you can roll a hard eight, we’ll go to my office and talk about whatever you want, mate.”

  “What’s a hard eight?”

  “Two fours on two dice. One roll.”

  “Fine,” Carl nodded, walking around to the table and taking the two dice in his hand.

  He stood just beside Dice, and shook the small red die in his hands, before tossing them across the table. They each hit the wood at the end and then bounced back to a stop, one landing with the number three faced up, the other the number five.

  “Ooh, that’s an easy eight. Almost, but not...” Dice started, but stopped short when he saw the barrel of the gun now pressed against his forehead.

  “I got eight bullets in here,” Carl said with a low grin. “And if I pull this trigger they’re gonna hit you hard. That’s my hard eight. Get it? I can be a fucking smart-ass too. Now take me to your office.”

  Chapter Seven;

  Damaged Goods

  “S o to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Dice asked as he sat down at the desk in his office.

  Carl looked around and was surprised at the room in which he now found himself. He had expected something overly lavish like the rest of the casino, filled with faux British memorabilia and furnishings. A desk that cost more than some people’s living rooms, perhaps, or a lamp embedded with actual diamonds. Instead Dice’s office turned out to be rather simple. A nice leather chair, a desk and a wall full of television screens showing the scenes in the casino below. Carl assumed that Dice had his own security room full of the same, but evidently he liked to keep his own greedy eye on how much money he was stealing from the idiots downstairs. The sight of these screens put a different focus on the seemingly simplistic room, as it was now obvious to Carl that Dice needed little else in the room when his attention would be solely fixed on the moving black and white images.