Fangsters

by Matt Drabble

  Detective Inspector Rybeck stood within the machine, once the call was made, and the wheels cranked, only then did the machine cough and splutter before staggering into its utilitarian life.

  The casino was neon lit, bright and garish, the gambling machines chimed noisily with their sirens song, a perverse mockery considering their reason for attending. No-one had yet been able to separate the lighting from the rest of the electronic orchestra. It had been a cheery addition to an otherwise all too depressingly familiar crime scene, but after two hours, it was driving everyone mad.

  Rybeck had taken the call from Ghost earlier; Ghost’s unflappable façade had been dented for the second time in as many days. Whereas his attitude over the lack of a victim at the Jenkins house had been one of uneasiness, now he was downright rattled. His voice over the comforting distance of the telephone had appeared to be normal, but Rybeck knew a swan when he heard one. Everything calm on the surface and a mad frenzy underneath and secured out of sight. Ghost had informed him that an employee called Alfred “Tank” Burton, had attempted a “hostile takeover”. The phrase felt to Rybeck like a carefully constructed attempt at levity, but he wasn’t buying it. He’d taken the details and put out the call calling it an altercation on the casino premises without giving names. He knew that Ghost would be long gone and living up to his name, there would be no traces and no evidence of his presence or involvement. Due to Tank’s occupation, the investigation would proceed along familiar lines, as the detectives assigned would find no shortage of motives or suspects. Rybeck knew more of Tank than he was supposed to, as it was his responsibility to vet some of the more senior members of Jimmy’s crew when directed by Ghost. Tank was capable and competent, he was a large man who enjoyed his size and used it to its full advantage whether it was required or not. Tank had a talent for violence, but as was the case with most of the employees selected by Ghost, he was usually able to control his temper. There were three arrests that had never shown up on Tank’s record. Rybeck had intercepted them himself, having the arrests quashed on the grounds of Tank being one of his confidential informants.

  Rybeck had made sure that he had been the first on the scene at the casino. He knew that Ghost was meticulous, but he believed in leaving nothing to chance and he had always prided himself on doing any and every job right. He had slipped carefully into the Regal Casino through the front doors, which were now newly damaged from the outside to show a forced entry. The interior was large and dark, and Rybeck found himself not for the first time, wishing that police officers in the UK were armed as standard. He passed slowly through the reception lobby and into the cavernous casino with only a torch for company, the only light in the blackness emanated from around an open door at the rear. Rybeck found his way with the high powered beam guiding his way. He discovered the large body exactly where Ghost had instructed him, this time the body had actually existed.

  Tank wore signs of violence, his expensive suit was torn in several places, Rybeck knew him to be a man of taste and ego and not likely to parade himself in a less than perfect poise. He shone the torch around the scene; there were signs of a vicious struggle everywhere. A metallic display area had been flattened and one of the broken poles was now protruding from Tank’s wide and powerful chest. A quick search of the area showed him that there was no blood pooling around the fatal wound. He could also see the telltale dark signs of older blood stains in other places of the crisp white shirt that Tank wore. Using all the time that he thought he could afford, he satisfied himself that there was no immediate evidence lying around. Rybeck retraced his steps back out into the car park to await his colleagues.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  April 2012

  Eddie hammered the door loudly, the bell now long discarded. His ham sized fist caused ripples in the doorframe as he pounded with increasing panic.

  In all of the years that he had been part of Ghost’s and Jimmy’s family, he had never known such an aura of instability and danger as permeated now. Normally the organization ran like clockwork, and the schedules were meticulous in the extreme; Ghost knew the strings to pull and when to pull them. Jimmy was a force of nature, but one who could be guided rather than controlled, without Ghost’s steady hand it was frightening how quickly the monster had slipped its leash. When Jimmy had heard the sketchy details about Tank’s death, he had flown off the handle and declared war on the Parkers. The policeman Rybeck, had only been able to furnish them with a vague outline of what had happened due to the fact that he was in the middle of the investigation. Jimmy had rung Rybeck’s mobile over and over again until the detective had finally picked up and barked tersely down the line. Eddie could have told Rybeck that speaking harshly to Jimmy at this stage was not the best idea. Jimmy had flown into a rage, screaming abuse and threats until Rybeck had hung up. Eddie cowered on the large sofa in Jimmy’s office, wishing that the plush fabric could swallow him whole. Jimmy had taken it upon himself to deduce that the Parkers had bought Tank and that the big man was a traitor who had turned on Ghost. Jimmy was also incensed beyond measure that someone had made an attempt on Ghost’s life, and that would not stand. Eddie loved Ghost as much as Jimmy did, but he knew that nothing should be done without Ghost’s consent and more importantly, planning. Jimmy had convened a war council, and his mood had darkened further when there were gaps in the attendance. Johnson was missing, as was Castle, and Kofi and his boys had still not been located. Whilst Eddie missed the steadying influence of the older Johnson, he did not miss Kofi and his boys one little bit. Kofi was dangerous pure and simple, Eddie had been surrounded by violent men all his life, but Kofi scared him on a primal level. It did not take a psychiatrist to realize that Jimmy was drawn to Kofi as a younger version of himself. A link to simpler times when instinct ruled all and actions were taken without the distraction of thinking.

  Kofi was a small, physically unimposing man, skinny to the point of emancipated, his cheekbones were razor and his black eyes sunken. His face was rat like and always drawn and pale. His clothes were never clean or pressed and hung limply from his slender frame. He favoured mainly a tracksuit wardrobe, but he was the least athletic person Eddie had seen working for Jimmy. The faces in his small crew always seemed to change, and Eddie never seemed to be able to recognize them on the rare occasions that he had the misfortune to be present when they met with Jimmy. Ghost had always despised Kofi and his band of misfits, and Jimmy was always careful to avoid having them all in the same room at the same time. As much as Eddie’s skin crawled around Kofi he would never dream of leaving Ghost alone with Kofi or any of his crew. Eddie knew that he was not the smartest man in the world, but he knew not to pour gasoline on a fire.

  Eddie banged harder on the door, it was an expensive town house in a quiet suburb, anonymous and nameless, and it suited Ghost to a tee Eddie had always thought. He knew that he and Jimmy were the only people who had this address as Ghost guarded his privacy vigorously and forcefully. Eddie knew that this was his sanctuary and that he should only ever be disturbed in the direst of circumstances. However with Jimmy about to go nuclear, the circumstances did not get any direr. Eddie was about to give up when he saw a shadow in the hallway behind the frosted glass. Suddenly the door exploded open and rough strong hands grabbed him and dragged him inside.

  Jess watched Eddie from a safe distance having followed him all morning; he had driven erratically at first, circling back several times. His driving suggested that he was being careful to not be followed and not taking a direct route. However, when she had found herself carelessly too close to him at a set of traffic lights, he appeared distracted and not paying any attention to the cars around him. If he had been watching then he would have spotted her several times, his driving seemed to be well rehearsed and practiced, but his mind was clearly not focused as he performed on autopilot. He had eventually pulled up to a swanky address in Cherry Lane, Riverside, an exclusive suburb in Fresh Haven. The houses were expensive, the streets safe and the lawns manicu
red. The cars were luxury and tasteful and the registration plates current, one of which belonged to her quarry. She felt a stab of resentment at the wealth smeared across the landscape, this man did not belong to these people, and he was wolf amongst the sheep in ill-fitting skins. Abraham “Ghost” Kane had obtained this monetary privilege through violent crime, preying on the misery of the innocent. She had never bought into the idea of criminals only being violent amongst their own. Of them making the streets safer and ruling their empires with a fairer justice than the authorities had to offer. Over the years, her idea of a commercially successful biography on the man behind the kingpin of Eagleport’s underworld had evolved into a desperate need for exposing a criminal. She knew vaguely that her frustration over her lack of project progress had begun to cloud and colour her judgement and objectivity, but that did not alter the facts in question. She would bring this arrogant man who walked above the law down to earth with the fiercest of crash landings, and if she found herself richly rewarded for her noble efforts then she was sure that she could live with that.

  She watched as Eddie waited patiently for the front door that he knocked on to be opened, after a short while of inactivity he resumed trying the door intercom. The Canon digital camera was in her hands and ready to snap the house's occupant. She was intrigued as he still waited when most people would have given up on the premises being occupied. Then he began knocking on the door, normally at first, but soon his knock morphed into hard banging. Whatever the reason for his being there, it was obviously important. Eddie’s normally placid face was creased into worry lines of panic, and he was soon hammering away. She knew that Ghost was a private man who lived his moniker and Eddie knew this better than anyone. Suddenly the door flew open, and figure from the house shadows lunged forward and grabbed Eddie fiercely. She only had time to thank her reflexes as the camera was up and firing before Eddie disappeared inside and the door slammed shut.

  She turned the camera around to view the LCD screen and access the memory to see just what images that she had managed to capture. She scrolled through the camera’s SD card to get to the most recent shots. She had learned long ago to always have the camera set to capture a constant stream of images via the high speed continuous setting. She needed to only focus on the target and then hold the shutter button down as the camera fired multiple times in seconds. What she managed to capture was a still frame collection of the door opening, the hands protruding, grabbing Eddie, and pulling him inside. She selected one of the later shots that showed a man in the door way. She zoomed in on the figure and waited as the camera compensated. Her home office was awash with images of Ghost, and she recognized his figure immediately. He looked terrible, his face was a bruised swollen mess, and his clothes were scruffy and wrinkled. She had never seen the man looking less than perfect in all the time that she had been stalking him. The injuries were bad enough as she had never heard any tales of anyone crazy enough to take him on physically let alone successfully. She zoomed the image in further, tightly on his wounded face. She felt her heart skip partly in fear and partly in excitement. It was the expression on his emotionless granite face that caught her breath tight in her chest. It was the first emotion that she had ever seen him portray, and the man looked scared.

  Eddie’s head sang as it bounced off of the wall, the grip on his shirt front was iron and relentless, his senses rattled, and his thoughts struggled to catch up. A face that used to be Ghost’s forced its way into his vision and his head was forced upwards by a rough hand under his chin. Suddenly an invasive hand was forcing fingers into his mouth stretching lips apart and ruthlessly probing his teeth with their tips. Ghost’s face was a puffy mess; his left eye was completely closed whilst the other was bloodshot. His bottom lip was split, and there was a large gash above his right eye. Slowly the iron grip released him, and he relaxed his feet back to level on the floor, Ghost stepped away from him cautiously. Normally Eddie would have never submitted to a physical buffering, but he could no more raise a hand to Ghost than he could stop breathing.

  Ghost stepped away from him and staggered down the hallway still without speaking, Eddie followed him into the kitchen as Ghost lurched and stumbled. Eddie instinctively reached out to catch his friend but Ghost flashed an angry arm backwards slapping Eddie’s concern away. Eddie had been in the house only twice before and for mere seconds on both occasions as he dropped off clandestinely deliveries. The kitchen was expensive and appropriate for a man of Ghost’s scrupulous nature; the surfaces were metallic and gleaming. The units were cold and spotless; everything looked new and was still scrubbed within an inch of its life. There was nothing out of place, and the whole area sparkled like it had stepped out of the pages of a lifestyle magazine. There were no personal touches to be found anywhere, no photographs, or letters in the open. The six mugs on the cast iron tree were all plain and functional, Eddie considered himself to be tidy, but this house always made him scared to even step on the immaculate floor.

  He finally saw his friend for the first time, illuminated by the light through the patio doors that led out onto the perfect decking and landscaped lawns. Ghost looked terrible, Eddie had never seen his friend look so lost, his clothes were dishevelled, and his hair was messy, uncombed, and unwashed. Ghost’s eyes were glassy and glazed, despite the daylight streaming through the patio doors and windows, all of the kitchens bright lights were blazing. Ghost stumbled to the large pine dining table and sat down heavily on a sturdy chair. An almost empty decanter sat lost and lonely in the wooden oasis, Ghost slopped the brown liquid up to his mouth and gulped the remainder. Eddie had never seen the man look so much as unsure and now before him lay a broken mess; the complete domineering self assurance was gone. Eddie was terrified, his world revolved around a central structure of order and structure. Whatever was capable of doing this to his friend was something to be feared, truly feared. Ghost slumped forward on the table; Eddie walked to him and scooped him up. Ghost was a large powerful man but Eddie carried him like a child. Eddie walked into the lounge and laid Ghost on the luxurious leather sofa and covered him with a warm blanket. Eddie walked to the curtains to draw them and darken the room; he reached up when Ghost spoke for the first time.

  “No, not dark, no dark” he slurred.

  Eddie left the windows unobstructed and turned on the table lamps for good measure, with the room bright he sat down silently in a plush armchair to wait.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  June 1995

  Drake dunked his face under the clear frosty water; the night sky was clear and dotted with a million sparkling stars blinking in the infinite blackness. He yanked his head back out of the water as it ran from his porcelain skin in falling droplets, the river turned murky at his feet as the blood washed away baptizing him into a new dark world.

  He was finally free; he had spent the last few months furtively building his strength through a series of trial and error experiments. The rats offered a temporary fix, a quick burst of small but sustainable energy. Cats and the occasional dog that he had the good fortune to stumble across, had offered a larger meal and the energy had lasted a good while longer. He still had to maintain his air of inferiority whilst under his saviour’s roof. He felt his strength growing, but it was still not enough. Wherever his landlord was gaining his sustenance, it was not here amongst the rats and Drake was learning that their abilities were in direct relation to their diet. He had tried following the strange mumbling tramp on several occasions when he ventured out, but he moved like the wind and disappeared into the night without trace. Drake knew just what he needed to try and find for his menu, but he would have to leave the underground shack and he had not been willing to leave without first gaining every scrap of knowledge about his new life first.

  The books had helped to a large extent, the images seemed fairly self explanatory, but he knew that he would have to have the text decoded and expertly translated when he left. Inside those dusty old pages lay his future, everything that he had
built in his past life would have to be built again. He had the knowledge and the experience, and now he thought clenching his powerful fists, he had the tools to raise a kingdom that would span the world.

  Eventually he had found his salvation; a vagrant had wandered far from his usual haunts, perhaps seeking treasures as yet undiscovered by his brethren. The man, or what was left of him, had arrived in Drake’s tunnels; he came mumbling incoherently to himself, a mind washed free of rational thought. Drake could smell the mentholated spirits that hung in a dark cloud around the man. He could hear the slow shuffle of dragging feet, and he could feel the heartbeat from some distance away. Drake’s stomach clenched in ravenous demand and his mouth salivated in anticipation. He used all of his not inconsiderable powers of concentration to focus. He could feel himself slipping into an almost bestial state and fought hard to maintain cognitive reason, he knew instinctively that he could not afford to become a wild animal. He stalked the man easily through the pitch black sewers; his vision expertly adjusting to the darkness. He stepped lightly and soundlessly, his movements were mere whispers in the night, he was a predator of the apex variety. He followed the man sometimes at twenty feet behind to test his tracking, and sometimes at only inches to test his stealth, both were flawless. Finally, when he had decided that he had denied himself long enough he pounced, the man’s confused and weak struggles meant little to Drake. The bum stank, his skin crawled with lice and other assorted parasites, his clothes were rank and disintegrating with age, and his head and face were covered in a thick matted soiled hair. When Drake bit down into the man’s throat however, the crimson explosion was instant and gratifying. Drake felt his canine teeth expand as they anticipated the feeding and he tore into the flesh like a ravenous beast. The blood pumped and sprayed as he severed the artery and he drank deeply of the nectar of the Gods. It was some minutes later when Drake felt himself return, he was disappointed with his lack of control at the last, but the rush was undeniable. His whole body thrummed with power, he could hear insects scratching, and rats gnawing from what felt like miles away. For the first time since his rebirth he felt his heart beat and the ingested blood flow through his veins again, he felt his adrenaline surge as his motor ran through the red zone unchecked. He knew now why the heart was the key, the secret of the power, once the heart was destroyed, then he could not function. The pounding through his veins gained from the bum’s blood gave him this knowledge, the feeding on smaller animals only provided a temporary reprieve and limited power. If he was to regain his kingdom and his throne, then he would need to feed on humans on a regular basis.