by Brian Parker
“Don’t bullshit me, kid. What sorority?”
“I won’t charge you. It’d be a freebie since you’re a cop. You look like you’d be a blast to fuck.”
“Do you see the news vids? People die every day down here. Street prostitutes usually don’t last more than a few days. Is that sorority important enough to you that you’d risk getting murdered for it?”
“I—”
“Shut up.” I pulled out my phone and said, “Andi, video from my last prostitute job.”
I held the phone flat and holograms of the crime scene photos from two days ago projected in the space between me and the girl. The images flipped rapidly through the mundane location photos and then slowed down when the close-ups of the body began. Sick fucker had pulled the prostitute’s intestines through her anus while she was still alive.
Where was the Paladin that night?
The girl retched and looked away. “That was three blocks from here, just a little bit further up The Lane,” I said. “Casey Bond; she was pledging a sorority too. That was done to her while she was alive, screaming for her mother at first and then for a merciful end to her pain. We have witnesses.”
I reached out and grabbed the girl’s chin, forcing her to look me in the eyes. “What sorority?”
“Sigma Tau Epsilon.”
“Which school?”
“Tulane.”
I released the girl’s chin. “Andi, stop the playback. Thanks.” As I slipped my phone back inside my coat, I whistled for a cab.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving your life.”
An orange and blue taxi halted at the curb and the door slid open. I grabbed the girl by the elbow and tried to steer her toward the car. She wouldn’t budge.
“I won’t get into STE unless I get a guy to pay for sex with me.” She slid down to her knees and pawed at my crotch. “You don’t know how hard it is for a girl with a prosthetic to get accepted into a sorority. Please. Let me suck your dick, right here.”
I looked around the area, but didn’t see anyone watching or any cameras set up. “Where are they?”
She found a spot on the ground that seemed extremely interesting.
“Where are they?” I repeated.
“One of the sisters is a computer science major. She hacked into the camera up there to watch.”
I followed the direction she’d nudged her chin. Son of a bitch. The sorority had hacked into the city’s security camera network. These goddamned hackers were getting out of control.
Her head fell forward into my leg and she began to cry softly. For a moment, I considered getting into the cab with her and riding a few blocks to make the watching sorority girls think she’d successfully landed a john, but pushed the thought aside. It wouldn’t teach the girl a lesson and it sure as hell wouldn’t affect the sorority.
I tilted my fedora back and stared directly at the camera. Then I pulled off my glove and stuck up my middle finger, mouthing the words, “Fuck you.”
More department sensitivity training was coming my way, I’m sure.
“Hey, let go of me,” the girl squeaked when I grabbed her upper arm in a vice and pulled her to her feet. Then I physically dragged her toward the cab.
“It’s for your own good, kid.”
“Ow! You’re hurting me.”
I laughed at her naivety. “This is nothing compared to what you’d experience if a real john came along or if one of the district’s killers got to you.”
I shoved her hard into the open doorway and she fell across the seat before sliding down to the floorboard. Somewhere along the way, her leg had detached, so I picked it up and tossed it inside as well.
“You’re an asshole!” she screeched, clutching her leg.
“You’re welcome,” I answered and slammed the door.
“They saw it come off,” she sobbed. “They saw it come off… I’m done.”
I ignored her and reached through the open front window to tap on the navigation screen. A woman’s face appeared. “Where would you like us to take you?”
“This is Detective Forrest, NOPD. This passenger is to be returned to the Sigma Tau Epsilon house at Tulane. No deviation in the route is authorized.”
The girl screamed obscenities from the back seat.
“Are you paying the fare?” the taxi dispatcher asked, glancing from me to the girl cursing loudly in the back.
I sighed and swiped my credit chip over the green scanner. “How’s that?”
“Everything appears in order. This passenger will be returned to Tulane. The estimated travel time is thirty-seven minutes. Do you require a confirmation of drop off?”
“Yeah, why not?”
I leaned inside. “If I ever see you down here again, I’ll arrest you and send you out to Sabatier Island for a few days.”
“Fuck you! You ruined my life!” she squealed.
I pulled my head out and patted the top of the taxi. The car pulled slowly into traffic and I genuinely hoped that I’d never see the girl again.
In one last defiant gesture, she spit out the window at me. “I hate cops!”
“Heart of gold, buddy,” I congratulated myself and walked toward the coffee shop where I was going to meet Drake.
“Andi, add Sigma Tau Epsilon to the list of sororities actively trying to get their pledges murdered.”
“I didn’t know we had a list,” Andi replied.
“Start one then. And add the sorority that Casey Bond pledged.”
“It’s already been shut down by Xavier.”
“Thank God. Put it on there anyways.”
“You got it, boss.”
“Thanks.”
I pulled the duster close to my body to ward off the chill of the steady drizzle. It was in the low 30’s and would probably snow—or more likely ice—overnight, creating a nightmare for commuters, even with automated vehicles.
Snow in New Orleans. Ninety years ago it would have been unheard of, but after the Russo-Chinese-Indian war everything was out of whack. It wasn’t uncommon to have a few storms every now and then down in the Big Easy.
Easytown, the district where I worked, was a slum in the eastern part of New Orleans. Six square miles of reclaimed land that used to be the bottom of Lake Borgne. The land was built up by squatters at first, the derelicts of society. Then the city added it to their neighborhood map, paved a few roads and opened it up for settlement, full of promise.
Poorly-built houses, run-down apartment complexes, warehouses and the clubs along Jubilee Lane were the only thing Easytown boasted these days. The district’s clubs offered every vice imaginable, for a price. If it couldn’t be found on The Lane, then it wasn’t a lucrative pastime for the business owners. Pay ’em enough, though, and they’d get you anything.
As I continued walking down Jubilee Lane, awash in the glow of neon lights from the various clubs, I was wary of the sights and sounds coming from the clubs. For the most part, the business owners did a good job disguising the horrors that awaited the unprepared, which is why we had so many murders down here. To a seasoned Easytown veteran like me, everything was a threat—which may explain why I was constantly in trouble for allowing situations to escalate.
“Hey, cop!” a patron yelled from the line in front of Club Megasonic, one of Tommy Voodoo’s thumper joints. “Go fuck yourself!”
I stopped and turned slowly toward the kid. He had to be sixteen, maybe eighteen if I was lucky, wearing a synth-leather jacket and sporting a ridiculous spiked hairstyle that I’d seen a few of the kids with recently. Noticing that their hair looked like a porcupine made me feel old.
Again, I couldn’t let a little thing go. Call it a chip on my shoulder. Call it a need to be in control. Didn’t matter how you labeled it, I wasn’t willing to let some punk get over on me.
“What did you say to me, kid?”
“I asked how much money you earned sucking dick in the alley,” he replied, grinning like an idiot.
His budd
ies laughed and slapped him on the back. From my peripheral, I saw the doorman edge toward the entryway and reach inside.
“Taunting an NOPD officer is grounds for immediate arrest, jackass,” I stated.
The doorman reappeared holding a pulse blaster. He was within his legal authority to keep the crowd under control, so this could get ugly if I didn’t end it quickly.
“What are you gonna do about it, old man? We got the numbers on you.” He flashed some shiny metal object. “And we got the tech. You ain’t gonna do anything.”
“You’re right. I’m gonna ignore your comment and chalk it up to stupid youth. You kids have a good night.”
I turned back toward the coffee shop and started to step off the sidewalk when the kid continued, “That’s what I thought. Pussy. We woulda mopped the floor with you. Bloodhounds rule this joint!”
“Bloodhounds!” the others cheered.
That did it.
I whirled back around and took two rapid steps toward the line. “Did you say ‘Bloodhounds’?”
“Yeah! We rule this shithole!”
“Never heard of you,” I answered.
The ganger who’d been talking slid a silver weapon of some kind from his sleeve and aimed it at me. “You ain’t heard of us?”
I held up my hands and the old wounds in my back began to ache. A few years ago, several gangers found out where I lived and jumped me at my old apartment. They stabbed me twice in the back before I was able to disarm them.
I gestured for the doorman to put his gun down. “Whatchu doing, bacon?”
“That man over there has ten or fifteen terawatts of fuck you pointed at the Bloodhounds.” I added as much sarcasm to the last two words as I could manage. “You should probably put down the weapon.”
As one, all four of them turned toward the doorman and I pitched forward, pushing the muzzle of the weapon toward the other gangers. The kid squeezed the trigger and the small gun erupted with sound as shotgun pellets tore into two of his fellow Bloodhounds. I kept one hand on the weapon to control it and knife-handed his larynx. He released the weapon and slapped at his throat, uselessly trying to uncrush his windpipe.
The fourth ganger started to pull another weapon out of his belt and I shot him in the face with my .45 service pistol.
It was over in less than six seconds. That’s how fast and brutal Easytown was; people who didn’t keep their wits about them ended up dead.
I watched as the Bloodhound with the crushed larynx began to turn blue. He was really hamming it up. “If you relax, you can get a breath. All you’re doing now is killing yourself.”
His legs began convulsing. “I can’t assist you with committing a suicide. That would be unethical. Ah, shit…”
I straddled the kid’s chest to keep him from moving around too much and pulled out my pen.
“Goddammit!” I shouted. “This is my favorite pen, asshole.”
Once the push-button and ink cartridge were removed, I jabbed the metal cylinder into the soft flesh beneath his Adam’s apple and pushed through the rubbery flesh of his trachea. A raspy rush of air in and out of the tube told me I’d hit pay dirt.
“Stop struggling, you dumb fuck,” I told the ganger. “Look, you’re already the last of the Bloodhounds, if you’re going to rebuild the gang and come after me in some sort of strange twisted revenge story, then you’re gonna have to survive the night. If you struggle and this pen tube comes out, you’re going to drown on the blood that it’s keeping out of your lungs.”
I shrugged exaggeratedly. “You die, there’s no revenge on the pussy cop that did this to you.”
The air crackled with static electricity moments before I felt the breeze coming off the fan motors of a police drone. “Citizen, I am on site to assist,” a metallic voice echoed loudly, rattling my ear drums. “You will surrender all weapons or face immediate repercussions.”
I turned and stared down one of the six barrels on the drone’s minigun. I’d seen the devastation that the standard police drone’s two miniguns could do. I didn’t want to spook this thing or I’d be dead before my body hit the pavement. That would really ruin my day.
“I’m a police officer,” I answered.
“Present your badge and face for scanning.”
I angled my mug into the dim street light and smiled at the drone’s fisheye lens. The floating monstrosity had settled down onto its thin, spindly legs. I reached slowly inside my duster for my badge and held it up for inspection.
“Detective Zachary Forrest, you have been cleared to conduct operations in the Easytown Precinct. I am ordered to assist as necessary. Do you require assistance at this time?”
“Call an ambulance for this asshole and the morgue for the other three.”
“Yes, Detective Forrest.” The drone paused and then said, “Emergency medical services are on the way to your location. ETA seven minutes.”
I worked a set of handcuffs onto the ganger with the field-expedient tracheotomy and pushed myself up by pushing down hard against his chest. If I kill the little fucker, he can’t testify against me, I mused.
“You had to fuck up my evening, didn’t you, asshole?” I accused the Bloodhound instead of giving in to the urge to finish him off. “I was all set to have a nice cup of coffee and discuss work with my partner. Now I’ve got a mound of paperwork that I’ll have to complete.”
I started to walk away, thought better of it and turned back to the perp. “If I miss breakfast because of this shit, I’m going to find you at the hospital and disconnect all the machines they’ll have you hooked up to.”
He gurgled at me. With any luck, he’d be mute for the rest of his life and become a contributing member of society.
I’ll probably see him again in six months back down here on The Lane.
By the time the ambulance arrived, I’d gotten into an argument with the club’s manager about who was paying to clean up the blood and I’d given a recorded statement on my involvement to the N.O.S.T. courier that the department sent over. As a bonus, I was thoroughly soaked with melted snow from standing outside for over an hour. The novelty of the city’s first snowfall of the season had worn off; I was ready for summer.
“Alright, you need anything else from me Fourteen Sixty-three?” I asked the police drone still hovering nearby.
“No, Detective Forrest,” it responded. “However, I have been instructed to remind you that the precinct’s chief of police, Robert Brubaker, has ordered that all Easytown police officers have drone support when interacting with potential criminals—”
I chortled and then snorted at the end of the laugh. “Everyone in Easytown is a criminal, Fourteen Sixty-three. I wouldn’t be able to take two steps down here without drone support if I followed the chief’s order.”
The drone’s fisheye reflected the neon from Club Megasonic’s sign, distorting the establishment’s name. “Every citizen in Easytown is a criminal? What is the nature of their offense?”
I held up my hands. “Whoa! Stand down.” Me and my big mouth. “It’s an expression. Everyone in Easytown is not a criminal.”
“Understood, Detective Forrest. Do you require any further assistance?”
“No, thank you,” I answered “You were a lovely dance partner, Fourteen Sixty-three.”
“I didn’t dance—”
“It’s another expression. Never mind. I don’t require further assistance.”
The drone’s fans engaged and it lifted off slowly, the legs retracting inside its body. I watched it lift off for a moment, then glanced at my watch. I was over forty-five minutes late for my meeting with Drake.
“I should have known you’d found trouble, Detective,” Drake’s voice boomed through the small crowd of onlookers who’d gathered around to watch the medics clean up the bodies.
Sergeant Greg Drake was a bear of a man at six foot three and two hundred forty pounds of solid muscle. He’d played middle linebacker at Tulane and been scouted by the NFL, but a hamstring surgery
during the Scouting Combine had kept him from participating. Then, they’d simply forgotten about him. He joined the police force and was eventually promoted into homicide after several years of walking a beat in Easytown.
“I couldn’t help myself,” I replied. “It was justified though. They drew on me. Some new type of blast pistol that I hadn’t seen before.”
“Where was the Paladin?”
“I wondered the same thing,” I answered bitterly. “Why is it that the dude can be all over Easytown, but when a cop needs assistance, he’s absent?”
“Because he’s a goddamned criminal, not the hero that everyone makes him out to be. But, he doesn’t want his actions on video,” Drake stated, pointing at the street camera.
I nodded in agreement. “Hey, you ever hear of a gang called the Bloodhounds?”
“No. Should I have?”
“That’s where these four were from. They were yelling out the name of their gang and they certainly didn’t have any qualms about starting a fight right out here in the open.”
“We should stop by and talk to the gang task force to see if there’s a new gang on the street and what their intentions are. I’ll go by tomorrow before my shift,” Drake offered.
“Sounds good.” I looked at my watch. I was out of time. “Dammit. I’m sorry, Drake. I’ve got to go meet Avery for dinner.”
He held up his hands. “Understood, Detective. Genevieve tells me I drink too much coffee anyways.”
“How’s she doing?”
“As good as can be expected,” he replied. “She’s not in the completely uncomfortable stage yet, but she’s expanding her nest again. She had three more pillows delivered tonight before I left the house. Before too long, I’m gonna be on the couch.”
I chuckled at his situation. His wife, Genevieve, was six months pregnant with their second child. She’d started out with a few extra pillows under her stomach and between her legs. Then she began adding more and more around her body until Drake said he slept on a side of the bed barely wide enough for one of his ass cheeks. The new additions might well push him off the bed until the baby was born.