Persona Non Grata

by D. C. Grahame

  ‘Frank Vinyar…’ he whimpered. Taking a breath for dramatic pause. ‘He created the Kingdom facade so we could produce and distribute Nip, a hybrid narcotic. With the white mask eliminating the competition and landing on the front page every day. The police and you would be chasing a ghost. Not deducing the real agenda until we’d expanded out of Kingsland.’ Razz explained. Hades lifted the creep off the ground. His anger dispatching all the blood and energy that flowed through the rest of his body straight to his lifting biceps.

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’

  ‘No, but it’s the truth. He has friends, in the capital. They’re funding his little crusade. He brought me to the city, gave me chemists. He even had his dickhead older brother John return to watch his back, much to my protest.’ Razz announced. Hades felt his arms shake, both from the rage and the effort. He slammed Razz back into the stern of the boat.

  ‘You’re lying’ he’s demonic voice resounded, causing Razz to tremble.

  ‘Why would I lie?!’ He screamed back, ‘He has police, lawyers, buyers. He even has real estate lined up in other cities. John’s been feeding him resources from a syndicate in the capital.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that Frank killed Heracles or Mads? You’re lying!’ Hades roared, igniting and charging his fist.

  ‘No, no! He had his new man murder them. He wore the mask just as much I did. I swear. I swear to you.’

  ‘What new man?’ Hades said, his patience now as dead as Razz was soon to be.

  ‘Some psycho who used to work for Kane, paid him a small fortune. He hunted the competition while I made the product.’

  ‘Worked for Kane?’ Hades reiterated, knowing full well who.

  Sunken into a ditch, several yardies continued to fire their weapons. One of them taking a moment to rest his tired grip, pondering the large dark green crate adjacent.

  ‘Shouldn’t we escalate things?’ he asked.

  ‘No. There’s only a few of them. The boys back home want to loot whatever they’ve got in there before we exit.’ another explained.

  ‘Okay, but it just seems like such a waste of an opportunity.’ The first moaned, hearing a strange shrilling noise develop behind.

  ‘What is that? Whistling?’ He asked out loud, turning to see a man in a sharply-dressed suit make his approach.

  The unmistakable face of Goldmolar. In all his typical audaciousness, arrived. Swiftly firing a bullet into each of their heads.

  Surveying the ditch. Molar dropped his pistol and collected one of the automatic rifles now left unchecked. About to fire, he paused noticing the large green crate that rested nearby. Lifting the lid up to see the contents, a broad grin grew on his face, his gold tooth sparkling.

  ‘You are joking.’ He remarked, staring at a military-grade rocket launcher. Like a child at Christmas, he excitably removed it from the case and slid a rocket into its barrel. ‘Why on earth didn’t they start with this?’ He said to himself whimful, firing a missile into the two adjacent black vans.

  The second vehicle caught the gust of growing flames, rocketing upwards thirty or so feet into the air. Admiring its eruption, Molar strolled along the factories edge. Stepping over several cremated Yardies on his tour around the compound. Reaching the far side, he noticed a man coated head to toe in black, Razz now within his gloved hands. ‘Ah, now that’s a shame.’ Molar decreed, placing another missile into the launcher.

  Razz’s face dropped as he looked beyond the vigilante. The dread in his eyes set Hades aback. Hearing the amplifying sound of something piercing through the air expeditiously. Hades turned to see a two-inch-wide projectile, rocket their way.

  It landed and combusted at the beginning of the deck, causing it to explode and its timber to barrel towards the unfortunate pair. The discharge caused the speedboat to break free of its tether and glide across the water top. Bringing the seated Razz to a safe margin. Hades, however, met a big wooden sleeper that crashed heavy into his chest, sending him flying into the water.

  With the deck in flames and dark smoke rising all around, Razz struggled to locate the masked man. He looked to the land to see Molar. Utterly indifferent to the destruction he had just caused. With the sound of police sirens generating from the east. Razz waved westward for a pickup.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Ever punctual, the police arrived on the scene a little too late. The factory was nothing short of a past-tense war zone. With citrus-coloured fumes escaping through its roof. And several bonfire-style blast-sites apparent throughout the vicinity. The police were cautious in their investigation. Treading lightly with multiple crime scene investigators donning heavy-duty protective apparel.

  Detective Marler watched on, both a distance ahead to the industrial carnage and the immediate ground, where a team of massacred Yardies laid.

  ‘Jesus it’s like Syria.’ An officer behind him commented. Marler dismissed the simple comparison, though conceding the scene was terrifying to behold.

  ‘We’re not that unlucky.’ He replied. Keeping his eyes on the bullet-wounds featured on each of the Yardie’s foreheads. ‘These guys were though.’

  ‘We found one of Kingdom’s men escaping in the fields. He said the Yardies attacked them, and that they were working for Tobias Razz, he wore the mask.’ The officer explained, keeping his distance from the corpses.

  ‘Get him back to the station and have him primed for a chat.’ Marler ordered.

  ‘We can’t find Razz.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Marler noted, stepping over the bodies and towards his car.

  Always retrospective, he once again thought. He was tired of arriving at the end of the party. The clean-up crew to unspeakable moments and incomprehensible events. Forever plagued by a single thought in the back of his mind. It was time to retire. Thirty years as a cop and things were only getting worse. He wasn’t making a difference. He wasn’t making a dent.

  Making his way towards the car, parked a fair distance from the factory and the accompanying officers. He could see an agitated Detective Mann on the phone, waiting for him in the vehicle. Pensive in her guise toward him, he wasted little time in climbing in to find out what had her so unnerved.

  ‘You okay? Bad news?’ He asked.

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right.’ She said hesitant, ‘It’s just. I didn’t realise I would have to do something.’ She confided. Marler could see a conflict growing within her. He thought it best to drive the topic back to the Worthing killer.

  ‘Okay. Well, Razz is long gone.’ Marler announced.

  ‘Looks like you were right to suspect him of carrying on with his means of income.’ She said, watching Marler’s mind fall into a labyrinth of thoughts. ‘What is it?’ She enquired.

  ‘Tobias Razz and Kingdom. The white masks. I knew Razz back in the day when he and John Vinyar were in an outfit together. He certainly fits the profile for anonymity, but the explosions, the hysteria. It just doesn’t work in my mind.’ Mugshots of potential candidates began to strobe through his minds-eye.

  Lost in a moment of deep intensive thought, he felt Mann’s hand brush against his thigh and towards his groin. Before he could look down, he felt a brief, sharp pain pulsate through his gut. As he flinched in pain, a second equally coarse sensation ruptured his stomach. Looking down, he watched Mann withdraw her delicate hand. Within its grip a small, silenced pistol and a small dark fume emanating from its barrel. He gently rested both his hands on top of his waist. Feeling the warm, exuding blood explore passed his fingers. He understood now that the once charming features of her complexion were nothing more than a sinister pretence. He could only fathom a single word.

  ‘Why?’ he murmured, weakened.

  Remaining silent, she rested the barrel’s opening against his forehead.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She announced, sounding truly apologetic as she fired a third, final shot. The blood expectorated across the passenger’s door window.

  Following what appeared to be a pre-conceived process. S
he scrubbed the surfaces of the car and made a quick exit. Unscrewing and placing the silencing barrel into her jacket pocket, jogging towards the factory with the gun to her side. With her free hand, she held a radio to her mouth, firing several bullets into the air as she began to transmit.

  ‘Detective Mann, 583. Back-up required. Shots fired, possible officer down, repeat possible officer down.’

  Broken and subdued, Hades stumbled out of the water and onto the embankment. His arms and legs swung either side as a means of propelling himself away from the cold, heavy tide.

  His calf-strapped burner phone dead from being submerged. He attempted in vain to resuscitate it. Frozen from the water, beaten from the fire and miles from anywhere or anyone he trusted. He registered the seriousness of his current predicament. Seeing several police officers sprint away from the factory, guns drawn for reasons unknown. He knew it to be his window to make an unlikely escape. His lungs both sore and dented. He quickly fatigued as he stumbled through the cereal covered fields. Unable to gather any pace.

  ‘Freeze!’ he heard a woman scream from a distance behind him. Too hurt to disobey, he halted and accepted his fate. Dropping to his knees to save his legs.

  With the vigilante captured. Detective Mann approached her prey, stepping into the field to his location. He looked towards her before collapsing entirely. Mann scanned her surroundings. With her gun almost poking his head. She pinched the tip of the mask’s black fabric and yanked it from the vigilante’s head.

  She struggled to comprehend the visual.

  ‘Boss?’ she called to him, believing the face to belong to that of Frank Vinyar. ‘Boss, stay with me. I’ll get a car.’ she decreed, seeing a police vehicle unattended.

  Indy was at this point delirious, entering the early stages of hyperthermia. His body shivered as his vision blurred. As a car pulled up close by, he suddenly felt and welcomed the warmth and pleasant fragrance of a woman cradling him. Like a warm blanket. He buried his face in her person only for her to remove it and place him gently back to the floor.

  ‘Get Red’ he mumbled as his mind began to slip and deteriorate.

  Noticing the officers jog completely out of sight. She lifted his muscular frame off the ground and with some resistance, placed him on to the backseat. ‘Old Market. Frank. Red. Frank.’ he again mumbled, mystifying her further. Jumping into the car and steering it clear of the scene, she picked her pocket, finding her phone. Dialling a number as she hastily made her way to a destination unknown. With no answer, she left a message.

  ‘Gordon. It’s Mann, Frank’s in a bad way at Razz’s factory, I don’t know if this is the plan, but I think he’s in the Hades suit. Someone needs to explain this shit to me. I’m bringing him back to the office now.’ She announced, speeding away from the factory with the air conditioning on its hottest integer.

  Indy felt his body recover like a windscreen slowly de-misting from a car’s heater. His senses and awareness of the situation becoming clearer and clearer. Inside a police car, dressed in the Hades suit without a mask. It was a scenario he feared would one day arrive. Playing possum, he watched and listened as the woman driving answered her vibrating phone.

  ‘Gordon. Yes, I have Frank. We’re heading to the Melancholia now.’ She uttered before pausing to receive an alarmed tone. ‘I don’t understand’ she replied almost innocent. The other end of the call sounded stern and definitive in their speech. ‘I see’ Mann replied, now careful of the bumps in the road, looking into her rear-view mirror. ‘Yes, I understand. Be ready. I’ll bring him.’ She agreed, hanging up the phone.

  Now at the mid-point of the long coastal road. She realised that a peaceful, silent drive was her only sensible option. With Hades or the man she now knew to be Indy Vinyar, out-cold in the back. This would now become a somewhat suspenseful commute.

  She reminded herself that to him, she was still a police officer. Trying to relax, she sat back into the leather cushioning of the car, looking beyond the road to both the sea and the city in the far distance.

  Indy having heard every word, dawned his damp, cold mask and slowly sat up. Like a falcon’s talon snatching an unprepared mouse. He lunged from the back seat. Wrapping his arm around her neck, causing her to grip hold and pull the steering wheel a full one-eighty. The vertical pivot caused the vehicle to flip onto its side and somersault several times down the road. Indy clung tight to the driver’s seat while an un-belted Mann ricocheted into several blunt surfaces. Finishing its acrobatics, the police car tumbled into a small ditch edging the road. Indy looked in front of him to where the corrupt female officer laid awkwardly.

  He threw his feet into the crooked passenger door, stomping it repeatedly until it opened. Crawling out, he grabbed her phone and jogged away from the crash.

  ✽

  Goldmolar returned Razz to Frank like a parent returning a naughty kid from school. Frank, now beyond the point of no return. Awaited them at the foot of the imperial quarter’s tallest building, the Melancholia. Tall and bold and yet modest in its features. An eye-sore but with a strangely endearing quality. Frank liked it because of its brand. The perception that it rested unattended with too few brave enough to become tenants.

  To a point the judgment was correct. Of its ten or so floors, only the top three were occupied, all by Frank’s unknown institution. It had a car park at its feet, somewhat larger than that of a generic apartment building. With a tall metal fence at three of its edges, the Iron Sea water basin against its last. It was the assumption of some that Frank needed the grandeur of the venue. Especially if he was to continue convincing others to do his elusive and troubling deeds.

  Several men continued to load crates of his new narcotic, Nip, onto a large truck headed for somewhere undisclosed. As Molar and Razz made their way to him, he wrote a small to-do list on his phone, a file that was never empty or lengthy. A visual metaphor for his manic side.

  ‘The factory’s done.’ Molar remarked to Frank, failing to note his own explosive contribution.

  ‘We knew that time would come. Are you okay?’ Frank asked Razz with a dime’s worth of concern.

  ‘We’ve got problems. We need to move the shipments out of the city pronto.’ Razz advised.

  ‘And why is that?’ Frank queried, maintaining a composed tone.

  ‘I think Hades knows about Kingdom, that you have been orchestrating events. I think one of the boys blabbed.’ Razz revealed.

  ‘I see.’ Frank replied, giving Molar a fleeting look before returning to the chemist.

  ‘Toby, buddy. You’ve done your job for today, and now we need to keep you safe, get you into hiding. Keep your head down for a while. I’ll take care of the shipments.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s necessary?’ Razz replied.

  ‘With Hades out there, I don’t want to take any chances. Mann said her and Marler were heading to the factory and I’ve told her to make sure her senior doesn’t connect the dots. Ah!’ He transitioned. Noticing the detective exit a taxi at the front gate. Cuts and bruises across her face with her suit ripped slightly, ‘speak of the seductress, and she shall appear.’ Frank continued. Molar, seeing a lack of vigilante on her person, shook his head disapproving at her before turning back to his employer.

  ‘We have some news, Frank.’ Molar announced.

  ‘Right, Razz, go with the boys to the Hoveslade safe house. Entertain yourself, and we’ll regroup later.’ He ordered, signalling Mann to follow the path he was about to lead himself down.

  ‘The news?’ Frank acknowledged, gesturing for Molar to accompany him back inside the warm building.

  ‘There’s something you should know.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Hades. It’s your brother.’ Molar announced.

  ‘You already told me it wasn’t John.’

  ‘Your twin brother.’ Molar declared, causing Frank to cease his determined stroll.

  ‘Say that again.’

  ‘Your brother Indy is the vigilante, Frank.’ Mola
r confirmed. Witnessing the once grandiose and now machiavellian Frank, for the first time in a long time, lost for words. Before he could ask Molar of his certainty, Mann arrived, looking at Frank with an astonished gaze.

  ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or a slightly more brooding version of me. Something to report?’ he asked Mann, seeing the recognition in her eyes as she stared uneasily at him.

  ‘You...’ She murmured, ‘You have a twin?’ She questioned, cradling her injured arm.

  ‘Great detective skills.’ Frank rebutted, taking a moment to gaze at the imperial quarter’s urbanised landscape.

  He was never the angry child of the siblings. His rage showed its face often in the form of jealousy or determination, rarely anger. But he felt deceived, betrayed even. And he felt a physical wave of anger grow from the pit of his stomach. The duplicity he had for a time felt guilty of, was, in fact, the hard currency of his family entire it seemed. And just when he felt he had his brothers respect, their awe. He was the butt of their jokes once more. The clueless one. The naive Emperor. Comic Sans.

  ‘Where is John?’ He almost whispered to Molar.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, shouldn’t you know, given your fee.’ Frank stated impatiently.

  ‘I think Red Remus is helping him.’ Mann interrupted, remembering Hades quivering murmurs at the factory. Frank swallowed his fury and let it regurgitate into another scheming counter move.

  ‘Molar, deal with Red. Detective, I need you to secure something for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Insurance.’ Frank answered, now with determination in his stride.

  ✽

  Grace considered the best future for her and George as she folded his clothes and placed them into his wardrobe. She couldn’t get the night in the hotel out of her mind. Thinking it was everything John had expected to acquire. Back-clawing sex followed by her nestling into his arms. That all would be forgiven and forgotten, his beautiful plan for sure.