by Paul Slatter
And he did begin to fuck her hard as he licked all the delicious flavored Cheesie grease from her million dollar breasts as she ground down, filling herself with his cock as Dan lapped like a dog with his paw on the edge of a ripped open empty bag of chips, getting every sticky morsel with long hard strokes of his tongue. Adalia moaning, Dan in double ecstasy and unable to speak, and eventually in the heat of passion they both came together, Adalia feeling every inch of her body shudder as her muscles tightened and the nerves along her back and down her legs tingled calling out to her as her wetness flowed out onto Dan’s balls. Dan feeling himself involuntarily unload as the muscles in his groin pumped his sperm into her the same way they had each time his mother had treated him to a papaya and he’d taken the whole thing to his room.
It was about the second time Adalia had come that night when Chendrill got the phone call as he lay asleep back in Dan's mothers bed in the suburbs on the other side of the city. Not knowing the number, he hoped it was Archall Diamond calling to taunt him, telling him he’d survived as Chendrill had himself the night before.
And as he lay there feeling Tricia's warmth beside him, listening to the breathing of whoever it was on the end of the line, nothing could have surprised him more when after a few seconds of picking up the few words she spoke through the tears he realized who it was and sitting up said, “Daltrey?” as she cried harder through the earpiece.
He got up again and walked naked to the window and looked outside on the off chance she could be sitting there. Then wondering what the hell was going on, he said, “Where are you?”
“On a boat, hiding—like a coward.”
It was hard to work out, this girl who he'd used to know intimately and who he believed, like everyone else, had burned to death just over a week before was now crying to him down the telephone. He stayed calm trying not to ask questions, yet still said, “Let me know where you are and I'll come see you.”
“I'm on a boat.”
“In dock?”
Then there was silence for a moment before he heard her simply say, “Yeah.”
Then even though he already knew she wasn’t, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“I've been better,” Daltrey answered as she choked back the tears.
Chendrill asked, “What's the name of the boat you're on?” And again heard Daltrey's silence. Then he said, “People think you're dead. There was a body in an…”
“Alley,” Daltrey finished for him. Then she said, “It should have been me but it wasn't… It wasn't and it should have been.”
***********
Charles Chuck Chendrill walked through the darkness of the park, dropping further towards the water’s edge. In the distance, he could see the sun silhouetting the mountains as it lifted the morning sky from darkness. If he was right, Daltrey was sitting on one of the hundred odd boats tied safely to the floating wooden docks held tight by the steel posts smashed firmly into the seabed below.
He stepped out onto the dock, feeling it move as the rig adjusted itself to his weight, and headed into the maze. In amongst the tears and words she’d tried to speak she’d said that the boat was blue, but in the darkness blue could also mean black or brown or green. Then in the distance, he saw it with its twelve-volt light burning dimly in the galley.
He sat on the edge of the small bench in the yacht’s galley and stared at Daltrey as she used the sleeve of a man’s fleece she’d found in the closet to wipe snot from her nose. Small droplets of tears were falling on the formica table, her hair on the side of her head burned, old bandages and ointments from the contents of the boat’s first aid kit were still strewn across the small counters alongside opened tins of salmon and empty water bottles.
Daltrey not seeing the mess, Chendrill giving her time.
“He came at me out of nowhere with this flame gun. I felt my hair go first and covered my face, then somehow pulled my jacket over my head, then for a second it stopped and this woman was there and he was burning her face away… she must have been in the alley… She must have been trying to save me, she fell at my feet and all I did was throw my jacket at his face and ran. I ran and tried to get my phone, but it was gone and my gun and everything and I just ran and ran and I could hardly see.”
Then she went silent.
And that’s how it had played out that evening in the alley at the back of the luxury condo building where a realtor named Patrick watched women walking naked from his window. The man had come at her from behind, taking her by surprise. This Russian, who spat fiery death from his fingertips, throwing out a wall of molten flame, singeing her eyelashes and what was left of her already plucked eyebrows. She'd gone down, crawling on her hands and knees, as he'd walked behind her spitting death onto the back of her hair and the thick leather of her jacket. Then she'd curled into a ball as the Russian’s victims always did, covering their faces with whatever they could while the rest of their bodies burned.
Then the girl had come out of nowhere, pushing his arms away and, in the last moments of her sad life, saved Daltrey’s before the monster had stood above this heaven-sent angel who’d spent her life on the streets, selling herself for heroin and sending poison flowing through her veins, ended her harsh tenure in this unforgiving world.
Chendrill said, “The Russian’s dead. His past caught up with him before I could get my revenge for what I’d thought he’d done to you.”
Daltrey looked up, her eyes red and bloodshot.
“He did to me, what do you mean?”
“We all think you’re dead, Daltrey. Everyone thinks it was you in that alley. They found your gun there, your phone, your ID, everything.”
She sat there staring out the side of the small porthole at the picture of Dan lit up in his silver underpants out there in the far distance. Then taking a deep breath, without looking back, she said almost to herself, “Well maybe I am dead. I keep seeing things.”
“You look pretty much alive to me,” Chendrill answered, carrying on straight after with, “you’re upset yes, but your hair will grow back, your burns will heal.”
“What about the girl though, the one who died for me, will her hair grow? No it won’t.”
Chendrill stared at her, this girl who he used to date and who had been scared of no one but who’d hidden herself away in fear and shame. He still couldn’t believe he was here though, here and talking to her when only a few hours before he’d been wondering why he’d not heard about a funeral date. He said, “Can I ask a question?”
Daltrey turned away from the porthole and just stared, the morning sun catching what was left of her hair.
“Why’d you take so long to call?” Chendrill waited for the answer he already knew deep down. The girl needed time, time alone to come to terms with what had happened, time to process her shame and her fear of a man who was never going to rise again—not from the grave, as Daltrey had just done.
Then out of the blue, Daltrey took him by surprise, “I didn’t have a phone—but there were these guys, I was watching them and I could see they were going to fuck with this, this man, and then one hit him across the head and I just burst up and out of here on what must have been instinct. I got to them before the other could join in. Funny thing is, after the fuckers had gone and left the guy on the ground with a fucker of a sore head—I found this phone. He said it wasn’t his and when I got it back here, I found Sebastian String’s number in it and right below his was yours.”
***********
It was just past 6 a.m. when Chendrill got Daltrey to the hospital emergency at St. Paul’s and as they sat and waited to be fast tracked through the junkies asking for ice, Chendrill said, “The Russian you’re frightened of was chopped to pieces.”
Daltrey stared at him, feeling her skin tighten.
“He was?”
Chendrill nodded, stretching out his legs as he did, feeling the pain in his shins, “Yeah very much so, I saw him lying there up in his flashy suite, so you can forget about that fucker.”
He said, “I’ll put a call in this morning to that thief Ditcon and straighten things out for you best I can, but there’ll still be questions.”
Then he heard Daltrey say with a sigh, “I can’t see myself doing the job anymore anyway—not now.”
And to Chendrill, it seemed that she wasn’t wrong.
*************
Chendrill got back to Dan’s mother’s home just after seven to see Dan’s Ferrari sitting outside and the light on in his mother’s room. Letting himself in, he walked along the corridor, hearing his weight creak the old wooden floorboards beneath his feet. He opened her bedroom door softly to see her sitting up in bed reading with her knees up and her small delicate feet with her toenails painted red poking out from under the duvet. Looking up for a second, she briefly said before returning to her book, “I’m starting to get worried about you.”
And she wasn’t kidding, in her eyes the man could keep better hours, even though it was painfully obvious sometimes it wasn’t his fault. But she drew the line at nighttime phone calls from women. Especially if they’re crying, she thought, and still looking at her book she said, “This woman who called all upset, it was so important that you had to go right there and then to help her with her problem?”
It was, Chendrill thought, but kept it to himself, instead saying, “I’m sorry it could have waited I agree, but, you see it was the girl Dan was seeing who everyone thought had died.”
Trish sat there taking that one in, staring at her book, the words now just a blur, this mysterious girl who Dan was seeing who’d been murdered and who recently Dan had suggested she meet for the first time at her upcoming funeral.
“And she called you instead of Dan?”
Chendrill nodded, then sitting down said, “Yeah, it’s complicated.”
“And you’ve slept with her in the past have you, you and my son have both fucked her I suppose?”
Wow, Chendrill thought, he wasn’t expecting that one coming at him from left field. There was no point in lying, so he just said, “A long time ago yes, but it was nothing.”
And regretted it the moment he heard her snap back, “Dan’s nineteen now and was dating her—so you’re saying you left my bed and run out the door for some girl, twenty years your junior?”
It wasn’t getting any better.
*************
It was almost an hour and a half later when Chendrill took the Aston into the flow of traffic and headed back towards the city still ruffled by what had been their first fight and for the first time ever he had been happy that Sebastian had called him with another ‘emergency.’
A fight with Dan’s mother, if you could call it that, an argument more like, comprising of him keeping quiet whilst his new woman vented and threw stuff. Like her son had warned him, the woman had a temper.
He took a left off the highway onto Hastings, passing the PNE on his right, the place looking deserted now with its empty rollercoasters and rides. Years before when he was a cop, he’d been called to meet a man at the exit of their biggest ride—designed to make you puke. A man who had somehow managed to get all his clothes off throughout its duration, throwing them into the air as the carriage twisted and turned until he arrived completely naked and sated to meet a young Chendrill at the bottom. The man saying it was an accident and how he just loved the ride as Chendrill covered him with a towel, declined the offer of them both going around once more, and put him in cuffs.
He hit the lights, trying to remember the man’s name and then remembered seeing him only a few days prior lying unconscious face down on the man’s living room floor. Now though there were other issues, like what he’d say to Ditcon as he’d promised Daltrey he would. The man who’d built his career off the backs of others’ careers was almost the sole reason Chendrill had given up on his. Wondering why he still had the guy’s number, Chendrill pulled out his phone and hit ‘The Thief’ on speed dial, waited for a moment, then heard Ditcon’s voice on the other end.
“Ditcon here.”
Taking a moment, relishing the words in his head before omitting—you stupid fuckhead—Chendrill simply said, “It’s Chendrill, I think you fucked up again—I just had breakfast with Daltrey.”
And hearing the silence as Chendrill’s words churned around and around in the mind of the most incompetent man he had ever met, Chendrill followed it up with, “Oh yeah and she’s decided she’s not interested in working with you guys anymore.”
To which Ditcon, gathering himself, replied, “Thank you for your information. We already know the welfare of Officer Daltrey and we are not at liberty to comment further regarding ongoing investigations.”
Chendrill hung up and let out a long breath, half throwing the phone down onto the soft leather of the Aston’s passenger seat, he said out loud to no one but himself, “Not at liberty? The fucking idiot.” Then he laughed. Why should I be surprised, he thought, the man had worked his way this far up the ladder without getting his hands dirty, so why should things suddenly have changed?
It would take about another thirty minutes for the phone to ring again asking him to come down to the station on Main Street for an interview and about another thirty for someone to look into all the hospital entries over the last week so they could prove they’d done some work and say to him, “We are fully aware of your and Officer Daltrey’s movements this morning,” or some other form of bullshit like it.
He reached Yaletown and parked up on the meter outside Slave Media and took the elevator up to the offices. The place was now a hive of activity since the company’s owner, Sebastian String, had decided—on a whim—to indulge Patrick, an old real estate friend’s desire for a life time makeover, giving him the go ahead to make a film only the writer could understand.
Chendrill reached Sebastian’s office situated in the corner of the building, knocked once on the stained window of the door, and stepped in to find Sebastian tickling the stomach of his dog Fluffy with a duster, who with the slightest movement of his head just looked at him.
Smiling, Sebastian said, “Fluffy loves it when I do this Chuck. Why don’t you see if you can make his leg kick?”
Chendrill shook his head and walked to the window putting his backside against the sill and watched this advertising media wizard in his bright yellow trousers and Italian shoes trying to send his dog into ecstasy. Then he said, “Is this the emergency you mentioned?”
It wasn’t, but there was one—at least in Sebastian’s eyes—and putting the duster down on his desk he said, “Mazzi’s called in sick.”
Chendrill looked at him, waiting for more. Then when it didn’t come he asked, “Is that it?”
“No. I think a sash window came down and banged his head last night when he was working late. Either that or he made it up and fell over because he’d been drinking.”
Chendrill waited again, this news being nothing new when it came to Mazzi Hegan, who he knew from past experience to be a party boy—and falling down drunk came with the territory. He said again, “Is that it?”
It wasn’t. After waiting in vain and wondering if Chendrill was going to ask if the man was okay, Sebastian carried on, “Well last night I was all alone and I didn’t want to bother you because I know you’re tired, so I let it go, but I’m not sure if you’d heard on the radio about this man who crossed the border a few nights back? Well, I’ve had this thought and its worrying me, it’s about the situation with the company and Gill Banton—you know, with Slave taking over the contract she had with Marshaa. Anyway, I was worried because I heard some noise outside my door last night and I thought it could be this guy who crossed the border, maybe he’s come here to hurt me.”
Chendrill stared at him for a moment, taking it in. He’d not heard on the news about the man stealing a U.S. Cust
oms officer’s 4x4 and crashing it across the border two nights prior, but he did know about the incident more than anyone, because it was him. He said, “I can tell you, Sebastian, you have nothing to fear from this man.”
“But how do you know Chuck?” Sebastian asked, wanting to believe Chendrill.
“Because I know the guy who did it and his problem is not with you or connected in any way with you.”
Sebastian stared at Chendrill with his mouth open, then he said, “You know him. How? How do you know him?”
“It doesn’t matter, just relax and know you’re cool with this guy. However, if you’re worried at night at your place call the police, it’s what they’re there for and then call me.”
“I don’t want to be a pest Chuck, you know what I’m like. I’ll only ever call if it’s important.”
Chendrill did know exactly what he was like and at times wondered if the $1000 a day plus expenses was worth the ‘emergencies’ he had to deal with every other day—after all incidents such as ‘someone’s looking at my bicycle’ hardly categorized as an emergency. He did, though, get to drive the Aston Martin which was looking good below the window as all the pretty girls were passing alongside it.
He felt the side of his face, which was still sore, and thought of Dan’s mother. Chances are she’d have calmed down by now, but you couldn’t tell. Like she’d said after she’d slapped him, ‘at least you know I care.’ He looked back to Sebastian, held up the phone Daltrey had called him from a few hours earlier, and said, “I’ve got a question for you though Sebastian. Last night a man was mugged around the marina close to your place and he dropped this; strangely though it has yours and my phone numbers on speed dial.”