You see, it’s not a who, but a what. That figure wasn’t Wilkes or anyone human, it was a... map? It all goes back to Castaigne’s. That’s where they congregate. I’d be willing to bet that’s where it all happens. The entire conspiracy revolves about Castaigne’s.
Oh, roll your eyes if you like, imagine me mad, but you won’t hold me forever. One day, I’ll bring the entire rotten charade to an end.
But, what if the Yellow King is a who, after all, or maybe a what? The conspiracy given identity? Perhaps he is real. After all, a symbol has as much meaning as anything else: no meaning whatsoever. Imagine that he is: he might be an even bigger bad than any of us...
Maybe the truth is bigger than any of us can comprehend?
Still, as I said earlier, none of this really matters. But, if it weren’t for bad men like me looking out for people like you, I guarantee you’d imagine it did...
You might think I’m a prisoner here, but none of us are free. I’m just more aware of the truth than you. Perhaps, in some sense, I’m more free than you.
Sleep tight and we’ll talk it over again tomorrow...
2
MIDNIGHT ABYSS By Jayme Karales
I’m sitting in a red El Camino outside of the liquor store by my mother’s old place, and I can’t help but think that this is all so cliché. There’s a cigarette in my mouth, half-lit. Cliché. Bottle of whiskey beside me. Cliché. The only thing I’m lacking is a middle-aged partner with marital problems.
I look up at my reflection in the rear-view mirror and say, “You are a walking caricature, Clay.” I stare at myself, blank faced, and then kill the end of my cigarette using the car’s ashtray. James Ellroy couldn’t have written a more standard gumshoe, I think to myself.
Hall & Oates are on the radio. “Maneater.” Such a terrible song. But it’s catchy, so I leave it playing.
Seems comical… listening to “Maneater” while my partner Darrell arrests this tall, Asian broad in hooker heels a block away. From what I can tell, he’s giving her the typical ‘I am the law’ spiel. He does it with every streetwalker. Thinks the exhibition of power turns’em on.
I can hear her howling at him. Saying something. The closer she gets, the clearer the words become. As she drags her heels toward the car, the woman yells, “Wrong lady. Wrong lady.”
The police scanner screeches. It startles me, just a little.
I look to my right and Darrell has already positioned the woman against the side of the vehicle. “You know ya rights,” he says, and opens the door to the backseat. There are already cuffs on her.
“No, no, no,” I say. “I don’t want her in my—” The woman ducks her head into the vehicle. Darrell shuts the door.
I curl my head to the side, toward her. The woman’s perfume is overpowering. Bright red lipstick is smeared over two flaky slivers of flesh she calls lips. “What’s your name?” I say to her.
“Let me go,” she screams, kicking her four-inch heels into my seat.
“Is that Vietnamese or…?”
Darrell opens the door. I move the brown bag containing my whiskey. He slides into the passenger’s seat.
“What do you got on her?” I say.
He shows me a small bag of heroin.
“Oh, for christsake, we’re gonna drive all the way across town over a sugar packet?” I say.
“As opposed to what?” Darrell says, his arms folded. “Watching you chain smoke ya self to death in this smelly ass car? I’d rather go to—”
The speakers on the police scanner explode with static. Then, a voice chimes in, “…Hardy and Haenick report to 86 Washington Boulevard, Bankston … Caucasian male … reportedly armed with a kitchen knife…”—static.
I remove the bottle of Johnnie Walker from my bag and grin. I say, “How about we polish this off, let the whore go, and disarm a probable schizophrenic?”
Darrell doesn’t look pleased. But he says, “Yeah, fine,” and opens the car door. He steps outside and releases the woman from the backseat. She walks four feet before realizing she’s still in cuffs, and then tails back.
“Idiot,” he says, unlocking her. The prostitute stumbles away. Darrell gets back in the car. We drive off.
Washington Boulevard is not what you’d consider a nice place. It’s been overrun with dealers and johns since the late-1970s. Ever since they integrated the block into the mayor’s low-income housing plan, it’s been a fucking mess. There’s always talk now and again about reinvigorating the area, but nothing ever happens.
“I don’t see nothin’,” Darrell says, staring out of the passenger’s seat window. We’re both eying a block that’s often referred to as The Pink Light District. A name earned for its recent influx of young male prostitutes. They sell their asses, mouths, and just about anything else Boston’s suburban, white businessmen will buy.
“We’re not even there yet,” I tell Darrell, rounding the corner of Washington. He sighs. We’re still a couple of minutes away our destination: the dark part of town.
The Pink Light District is flashy. Full of fags, some junked up—some not. They’re all out carousing the block after 10:00pm. Looking for fun, looking for customers. The convenience stores will even stay open late, just for them. They know where their business comes from.
As we venture along Washington Boulevard, lights start to dissipate. The glitz fades away. We find ourselves in the middle of an abyss that is pure black, pure midnight.
At night, the city resembles a halfmoon cookie. Nobody wanders around these parts unless they’re looking for, or hiding from, trouble. And I hate getting called out here. Hate. Nothing but crazies and kid touchers...
Mötley Crüe is on the radio now, and I can see that Darrell hates hearing their music as much as I do. His upper lip curls with disgust every time Vince Neil’s voice chimes in through the speakers. “Turn this shit off,” Darrell says. And I do.
“Keep your eyes peeled to the right,” I say, and watch my left. For almost an entire block I can’t see shit. Only abandoned homes and crack houses. “He’s supposed to be ‘round here.”
In the distance, there’s a figure—a man wobbling on the sidewalk. “Over here,” I say to Darrell. The way that he walks makes him look like he’s tripping over his own feet. There’s something wrong with him.
My instinctive thought is that he’s injured. Or has some kind of disability, like Cerebral Palsy. I picture my nephew, his unsteady hands failing to tie his own shoes. But as we roll in closer, I can see clear as day that that is not the case.
“Jesus,” I say, but the word is near inaudible. My mind is aghast, and I almost drive past’em, lost in a fog of bewilderment. Darrell turns in my direction. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that he, too, is stunned by the sight to behold.
The man’s face, pale and moist, is caked with blood. Some of it is still running. It all seems to be pouring out of two black sockets where eyes should be. And like the CB suggested, there is a knife in his hand—a kitchen knife. And that, too, is stained with blood.
My stomach goes cold. The kind of cold you feel when you get a certain kind of phone call in the middle of the night. Or come home to see your front door cracked just slightly open.
I swallow a wad of bitter spit lingering at the back of my throat and begin feeling around for my whiskey. My hand does not meet the bottle, but my foot does the brake.
“I don’t know what the fuck to make of this one,” Darrell whispers. “D’you think he did that to himself or…”
“Billllly…” the man screams. His voice is light, like a child’s.
“How do you want to do this?”
“You kidding?” Darrell says. His eyebrows are arched, like the light-up McDonalds sign on 7th Avenue. “I want to take off in the opposite direction and tell the others we couldn’t find this fucker. That’s how I want to do this.”
“What, you only play tough guy for the ladies? He’s blind.” I say.
“Here’s what we’ll do… You come up fr
om behind, pull the knife away, and I’ll get’em on the ground and cuff’em. It’ll take a minute at most.”
Darrell sighs. He knows it has to be done. Protect and serve isn’t a preference, it’s a credo.
He opens the car door and mumbles, “Why the fuck do I gotta do all the heavy lifting…”
I get out of the car. My first thought is to reach for my badge… but it’s irrelevant here. So I go for my gun, instead.
The perpetrator is less than twenty feet away from me. He’s heading toward an old, wooden building. There’s a sign in its front yard that reads ‘Free Flu Shots.’ Darrell has already removed his leather Dockers and begun pacing behind him, silent in the night.
The man is oblivious to his surroundings. His head bounces back and forth as he stumbles forward. The knife dangles limp in his grasp. Small steps, one foot in front of the other—that’s all he’s got in’em.
Darrell, less than four feet away from our perp, gives me a nervous wink to let me know that he’s ready. Each of his arms are outstretched, like he’s prepared to give the guy a bear hug. A pistol glimmers from his waistline.
The entire time I’m thinking, Hall & Oates.
I cock Darrell a thumbs up. That’s when he charges at the man, like he’s Andre Tippet. Two-hundred and ten some-odd pounds of fat and muscle collide with the perp’s buck-ten of bones. In an instant they both go tumbling to the concrete. The tip of the knife bends into the sidewalk. It slips out of the man’s palm, but not before cutting him. He wails from the pain. The sound makes me take an initial step back. But then I find my balls and carry on to the sidewalk, where Darrell is lying atop the perp. His knee is pressed into the small of the man’s back.
“Come on, slap the cuffs on’em,” Darrell says. He sounds agitated. Scared.
I put my gun in its holster. Then I remove the handcuffs from my waist. “Easy, fella,”
I say to the man, who is writhing and twitching like he has Tourette’s.
“Billlllly,” he growls.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’ll see Billy soon,” I say, as I lock his dirty, blood stained wrists together. Darrell and I lift him to his feet. “What’s your name?”
“Billlllly,” the perpetrator says.
“That your name?” I say.
He grumbles something that sounds like a dismissal, and tries to drop to the ground. We catch him, though.
“The fuck’s your deal, man?” Darrell says. We’re carrying him over to my El Camino. All I can think about is how difficult it’ll be to wipe away the stains from the interior.
“Billlllllllllly,” the perp says.
“I don’t think we’re gonna get anything out of him,” I say, and open the door to the backseat. I give the perpetrator a hard nudge into the vehicle. He seems unfazed, still lost in his own little world.
Darrell closes the back and we walk around to our respective doors. I get in and shut mine. Darrell does the same. The keys are back in ignition. Radio flickers on. This time it’s Duran Duran playing. And I fucking hate Duran Duran. So I swap the station over to KROQ 106.7, and we’re back to Hall & Oates. This time it’s “Kiss On My List”. It’s an OK song. Not my favorite, but I can tolerate it enough to drive this gory-eyed fuck to the emergency room.
Darrell picks up the CB and says, “En route to Bankston General Hospital with the perp. He’s bleeding out pretty bad, needs immediate medical attention.” But the report doesn’t go through the receiver. The machine is not lit up. Typically there is at least two glowing red lights that let me know it’s working, but they’re blackened.
“The fucking thing is off,” I say, and reach for the switch. But it’s turned on. The scanner is dead.
“Well, Clay, that’s just lovely,” Darrell says. “Let me g—”
“Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of a royal cunt,” the perp says. I look at him through the rear-view mirror. He’s grinning. Facing forward—in Darrell’s direction—and smiling.
Darrell sets the CB down. He looks back to the perp, a tired expression on his face, and says, “How would you like to lose your tongue, too?”
“I can smell you,” the perp says.
“I can change that,” Darrell says, and belts him across the nose with his right fist. I almost flinch from the quickness of the motion, but I’m used to that from Darrell. The perp’s head bounces against the side of the window and for a second I fear it’ll crack. The window, not his head.
“Easy now,” I say to Darrell, who returns his hand to his side. “I don’t want to do any extra clean up.”
The perp slides back to the center of his seat. There is no longer a smile on his face. His lips are curled downward into, not quite a frown, but something similar—and more dramatic. “Billllly,” he wails, his throat raspy. Blood dribbles from his mouth, and then sprays from his nose in a sneeze.
“You called it, Clay. The guy’s a skitzo,” Darrell says, and shakes his head. “Just another lunatic…”
“Billy, your father’s looking for you,” the perp says, and then my stomach drops. I start to think, what the fuck is this creep up to? What has he done?
“Who is Billy?” I say, again; this time sterner.
“Don’t indulge him,” Darrell says, and lights up a cigarette. “The last thing I want to do is spend my Saturday night listenin’ to you to carry on a conversation with this fuckwit about his imaginary friend.”
I poke Darrell with my elbow, and he almost drops his cigarette. “Who the fuck is Billy?” I say to the perp.
The perp lowers his head—toward me—and flashes a bright, blood stained smile. “You ever been to Calgary, Clay?” he asks me, his voice sounding like gravel skidding against concrete. The free-range use of words almost jolts me. But not as much as the way he says my name, or the question itself…
I have been to Calgary. It’s where my wife was born. Ex-wife. But I tell’em, “No,” and he doesn’t look satisfied with the answer.
His bizarre, almost-frown returns to his face and he begins howling once more, “Billlllllly,” as if it pains him to say it.
“I answered your question,” I say, “Now you answer mine; why do you keep saying that name?”
“Billlllly….” the perp says.
“Ya know, it feels like a Taco Bell sorta night,” Darrell says. “How ‘bout we go through the drive-thru?” He turns his head to the perp. “You like the soft taco supreme?”
“I want to put a knife in your throat,” the perp says.
Darrell’s eyes widen.
“I don’t think you know who you’re talking to. My partner here is a decorated war veteran,” I lie, looking in my rear-view mirror. “Killed thirteen guys in the ‘Nam. Two with his bare hands. If he wanted to, he could—”
“Billlllly,” the perpetrator whines, cutting me off. “Billlllllllllly… Billy, say hello to the nice men…” He thrusts his body sideways, spinning his back toward us. There’s a hand between both of his. It’s small and slathered with blood. He flings it to the dashboard. It bounces off of the radio and lands in my lap. A child’s hand lands in my lap.
I slam my foot on the brake. Something in my head parts ways with any foundation of reason, or logic. I’ve been trained to remain level-headed in situations like this. Trained to keep control. But I’m old. And there are not many years left in my career.
Fuck it.
I abandon what I’m taught. And I already know what Darrell’s going to say… Even if the look of horror on his face from the child—toddler’s—hand may be enough to let me know he’ll forgive my actions.
I remove my gun, naturally, and swing my hand to the backseat.
Darrell, prepared for what’s to come, winces. With my finger wrapped over the trigger, I pull the hammer back. The perp grins.
I fire. But nothing happens.
Both confusion and relief wash over me. I suddenly feel like a man who’s killed someone in a dream and woken to a safe reality. “Jesus, Clay,” Darrell says, his voice quiet and sho
rt of breath. He raises his hand to the top of my gun and lowers it with his palm. “What the fuck?” Darrell’s eyes glance down to the hand in my lap, then back up at my face. “At least take’em outside first.” He strips part of his jacket away from his stomach, revealing a pistol near his belt. “And take my gun, it never jams.” From the holster to my left hand, his gun goes. I open my door.
“Billlllllllllllly,” the perp cries. Darrell yanks the backseat open. He grabs the perp by his dampened collar and pulls him out onto the street.
At this point I’m already having doubts about ending this man’s life. The anger is present, but the adrenaline is gone.
Do I really want to kill this guy?
The street is empty. It’s dark. There doesn’t seem to be signs of life for quite some distance.
“Over there,” Darrell says, and points his finger at a broken fence between two boarded up houses. Using his right hand, Darrell shoves the perp to the ground. He lands on his knees. I put my gun away, but continue to hold Darrell’s.
I walk over to the side of my car, the gun in hand, and I point it at the perp. “Who the fuck did you kill?” I say, my voice shaky—but not exactly lacking confidence.
The perp says nothing. He just stares at the ground.
I start thinking, What if he hasn’t killed anyone? But then my mind rebuts, what are the odds of that?
“If you’re gonna do it, you better make it quick,” Darrell says, and starts dragging the man from the pavement to the dying, brown grass between both houses. I follow them, but my head is a clouded mess. I don’t know what the fuck to do.
We reach the gap. Darrell drops the perp and backs away ten feet. The perp remains still. I aim the end of the barrel at the man’s forehead. I know he knows what I’m doing. I can feel it. It’s in the air. But he does nothing. Not a single word is spoken between us.
Child murderer…
My finger locks around the trigger of the gun. I think for a moment, and then pull it.
Walk Hand IN Hand Into Extinction : Stories Inspired By True Detective Page 2