Death of the Extremophile

by Stuart Parker

  *

  As soon as Hope set foot in the foyer, Stacey Gurner sprung into his arms. She kissed him shamelessly and there was the faint taste of sweet apricot on her lips. Hope was going to compliment her on the taste, but she beat him to it: ‘You taste like tobacco and whiskey.’ She said it as a compliment.

  She slid down off him and modelled her dress with hands on hips. ‘This is how I wasted my afternoon. What do you think?’

  The dress was of a light cream cotton fabric and was decorated in pink and red butterflies. A black belt held it tightly to her hips.

  ‘Fetching,’ said Hope.

  ‘It’s a gift I would have given my mother.’ Stacey hooked her arm around his and gestured at the velvet green door that led further into the club. ‘So, is this what happens when a man puts on his best suit? He winds up in a stuffy old club?’ She tugged and smirked. ‘With a residue like that on your lips I can allow you to come here at least from time to time.’

  Hope pulled her arm into his side. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’

  They left the Underhill behind and walked away into the Bronx until the streets had grown pointedly more crowded and dangerous and then they looked for a place to drink.

  The bar they chose did not have a name, or at least not one anyone had bothered to put to signage. What drew them to it was the sight of four separate drunks throwing up against its walls; it might not have been as auspicious as a four leaf clover, but it was eye catching.

  The bar was a smoky dive, but no one seemed to mind, least of all the bartender, who was leaning over his own glass of beer as though it were whispering to him, and he didn’t much appreciate the interruption.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Beer,’ said Hope, sensing from the tone of voice that he would not be exerted far beyond that.

  The man straightened to a considerable height and his eyes fell into a stare. His fingers idly rummaged through his thick black beard. ‘Do I know you?’ he said. ‘You look familiar.’

  ‘He’s famous,’ said Stacey. ‘He paints New York’s VIP flagpoles – the ones that hold highest the Star Spangled Banner.’

  The bartender nodded. ‘Okay, that’s it. Well, you deserve a clean glass.’ He grabbed one close at hand, spat into it and wiped it clean with a brown tinged towel. Then he poured.

  ‘It’s not the quality of your glassware that’s brought us here,’ said Hope.

  ‘That a fact?’

  ‘Just as high as I go up to keep the flag flying right is just as low as I want to go to drink with the kind of customers who will have to defend it one of these days when the Nazis come calling.’

  The bartender finished his pouring and wiped the outside lip dry with his rag. He grabbed another glass and returned to the tap. ‘So, what are you saying, my friends?’

  ‘We want to drink with the right kind of crowd.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘Eggs so rotten they float.’

  ‘I get you but it depends on what kind of bad you are looking for. Out on those tables there’s bad with women, bad with cops, bad with drink and just plain bad to the bone.’

  Stacey leaned across the bar. ‘Just as well we didn’t come here looking for good. Got a phone?’

  The bartender pointed to a corner.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Hope caught her wrist as she headed that way. ‘Who are you calling?’

  Stacey smirked. ‘I get the feeling Hammer will fit right in here.’

  ‘You sure that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Can’t say that I am. But I do know you won’t have to concern yourself about mixing business with pleasure. For a gentleman like yourself, they are indistinguishable, aren’t they?’ She continued steadfastly on for the phone.

  The bartender was amused. ‘Looks like you’re being called to arms, my friend. Hope you’re up for the challenge.’

  ‘I hope this bar is up for the challenge,’ said Hope.

  The bartender poured the beers down the plughole. ‘It sure is. So what will you really have?’

  17. ‘The unfortunate aspect of it was I didn’t need to wear a disguise.’

  Stacey Gurner and Hammer Coller had matched each other for the quality of their hangovers. Watching them lolling about in the back of his Ford in the throes of sleep, Hope was mulling over the thought that no matter how expensive the champagne or how cheap the vodka, the hangover was the same. He was racing through the traffic to get to his office before this particular brand of socialism irreparably messed up his car.

  A tight corner stirred Stacey from her snoring. She looked at the morning in progress outside the car and yawned.

  ‘After a night of drinking,’ she murmured, ‘New York looks to me like a woman does to a man after they’ve just made love: all the beauty has inexplicably drained away.’ She rested her head against the glass, belched and giggled. ‘And ugliness is a hell of a thing.’

  Hope did not have anything to say about that. And he did not want to risk waking up Hammer for nothing. He was close enough to his office that he could start looking for a park, or at least the chance to manufacture one: he squeezed the Ford into what space existed between a Pontiac and a Chrysler, nudging the Chrysler along to create some more.

  Once parked, he set about getting his two passengers up to his fourth floor office. It was Stacey Gurner who he took first and who offered the most resistance, and it was not because she was the six foot tall, muscle-bound and unconscious.

  ‘I’m not going home,’ she snapped, her fingers digging into him as he carried her to the elevators. ‘No matter what. I’ll even go with you.’

  ‘I’m taking you to my office,’ said Hope. ‘Remember, you’re working for me as an assistant? So, that’s what I want you to do: assist.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I need you to keep an eye on Hammer while I go stake out a location. If Shipton finds out Hammer has been spilling the beans to the cops, he’ll send out every single gun wielding crazy at his disposal. Hammer would be a dead man. And he’s way too valuable to let that happen to.’

  ‘Can’t we just tie him up?’

  Hope got her into the elevator where he propped her against the back wall and slid closed the door. ‘He’s on our side, remember. That’s no way to treat a friend.’

  Stacey nestled her head onto his shoulder. ‘If you want me to stand watch over him, you had better tie me up then.’

  Hope smirked. ‘I won’t be long. And then I’ll thank you with dinner. Somewhere so nice you’ll be able to see your reflection in the cutlery.’

  ‘What, not someone else’s leftovers adhered tight?’

  They rode the elevator up to his office and he carried her through the door. He tucked her into the fold out bed where they had spent their first night together. He kissed her on the lips and her eyes closed. ‘I really won’t be long. Sweet dreams.’ He then went and collected Hammer. A monstrous weight upon his shoulder, his knees threatened to buckle with every step. By the time he got him into the elevator, perspiration was streaming down his forehead and his back was aching. At the fourth floor the elevator doors opened with a bell and Hammer took a swing from deep within his unconsciousness - a boxer wired for a fight.

  Hope laboriously positioned him at the foot of the longest sofa chair in his office and rolled him out. His shoulders and back sighed with relief when it was done. He spent some time then ensuring there were plenty of provisions of water, cold soup and boiled toffee on the coffee table between the two sleepers and left the office in a hurry.

  Down on the street he nudged the Chrysler further out of his way and climbed into his Ford. He launched it for the next destination with a harsh acceleration; the directions Hammer had given to Dr Cyanide’s Cocaine Ranch were on the seat beside him - which might have further explained why his two passengers had been riding in the back. He perused the scribblings once again: they included mention of a left turn at a dilapidated roofless farm
with a headless blue letter box post, a right after an old box iron bridge traversing a dry river bed and a long stretch through barley fields. And as the journey unfolded, Hope became more and more impressed that more or less the directions were playing out on the back roads two hundred kilometres out of New York as they did in the memory of a drunk if not punch drunk boxer.

  Sunset Ranch in Suffolk County was the actual name and it was a sprawling property with a large, modern ranch house set amidst corrals and out buildings and barns on luxuriously lush green fields and with a stream of easy white smoke placidly rising from its black stone chimney. Hope invested a good hour in parking his car out of view and finding a vantage point where he could carry out the kind of recce the Buster and the Treatment would make a move on – it was from a thicket of trees on a rise across the unsealed road running by its north corner that he sketched the ranch’s layout and jotted down number plates of cars that came and went and the descriptions of anyone that side of the whitewashed fences from the jockeys exercising the dozen or so racehorses in stable to the fashionably dressed men and women who came congregating on the ranch house’s patio, smoking and sipping drinks in tall glasses with wide wicker chairs to sit on.

  It was all very idyllic and wholesome until suddenly, with the emergence of a tall, slim white haired, leathery skinned man, the atmosphere changed dramatically. A fading Hope perked up at that point, certain that he was seeing the Doctor Cyanide Hammer had described. Oslo Meyer was the doctor’s real name. A doctor who had grown sick of the blood on his hands in the operating theatre and hired thugs to get blood on their hands in eking out an immensely profitable alternative livelihood: a business in all those kinds of drugs hospitals refused to entertain but that had driven him to.

  Meyer was smartly dressed in a white silk shirt, darker cream trousers and polished black shoes. The gold on his fingers and wrists was shimmering. He circulated about the patio, acknowledging each of its occupants in turn. The way his amiable chitchat was greeted with stiff backs and nervous nods was testimony to a man feared. He took out a pipe from his pocket and there were matchboxes produced in almost every hand. Before he could make his choice he was summoned back into his house by a man in a white singlet and black trousers at the doorway – muscular and dangerous looking with the flash of a gun in the holster under his armpit, the man was the final proof Hope needed that he had not been wasting his time. This was not a farm that need worry about spring rainfalls or the land paying its way.

  Hope returned to his car and drove a lap of the ranch, taking note of possible entry points and blind spots and then he accelerated away back on the road to New York, satisfied with the day’s work.

  When he got back to his office, however, the door was wide open and he couldn’t help get the feeling something was wrong. He rushed in to find Hammer Coller slurping cold soup at his desk with a sick and sorry expression on his face. Hammer’s pajama top was streaked with it, or worse. Hammer’s forehead was buried in a hand trying to shore up the cracks with the strength of its grip.

  All the doors to the office were just as ajar as the front door, allowing Hope to realise in an instant that Hammer was having a meal for one.

  ‘Where is Ms Gurner?’ he queried.

  Hammer took a while to answer, the voice sounding like it had slipped through one of the cracks in his throbbing head.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said.

  ‘Did she say where?’

  Hammer slurped some more soup. Some of it didn’t stay. ‘I got the impression she was going to go find you,’ he said, wiping his chin. ‘She didn’t much like being here. And I must say, hearing the fact wasn’t doing much for my headache either.’

  Hope frowned. ‘How would she know where to find me? I made the point of not telling her anything specific.’ His gaze narrowed. ‘What about you?’

  Hammer shrugged, continuing to evade Hope’s eyes. ‘Might have told her something. The past few days I’ve gotten pretty good at spilling the beans, haven’t I? Just ask and I’ll spew it all out.’

  Hope went to the phone and called Elsa Gurner. No her sister had not come home yet. No she had not heard from her either. The voice was becoming concerned. Hope hung up agitated. He did not like loose ends and this was starting to feel like one. But there was nothing he could do about it for the time being. He had a meeting scheduled with the Buster and the Treatment in less than an hour and he would have to leave now if he was going to make it.

  He stepped up to the desk beside Hammer and pulled out a silver key from the top of the drawer. He put it down on the desktop beside the bowl of cold soup.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Hammer queried.

  ‘It’s the key to the bottom drawer,’ said Hope, stepping away. ‘You might have been starting to get the impression my office was not much different to the prison cells you called home, but open that drawer and you’ll think differently.’

  ‘Will it cure a hangover?’

  ‘No, and you’d better not even go there until you’re prepared for another one.’

  Hammer replaced the spoon in his hand with the key, looking upon it wistfully – for all the locks in his life he had rarely been given a key to hold.

  ‘I need you to stay here another day or two,’ urged Hope. ‘Keep your head down and give us a chance and we can give you your life back. Alright?’

  Hammer nodded. ‘I trust you. And trust me. The Cyanide Ranch was there as promised, wasn’t it?’

  Hope reached the front door and wrapped his hand around the handle. ‘And keep this shut.’

  Hammer exhaled between his teeth. ‘If I see another door, I’m liable to put my foot through it. I don’t care if it’s made of nice wood and has got your name on it.’ He threw his soup bowl down onto the floor to emphasise the point – even the sound it made breaking was cold.

  Hope left the door as it was and headed for the lift. He could give him his life back but wouldn’t take responsibility for how it turned out.