A Well-Timed Death (Booker Shield Book 1)

by Karl Bourdiec

  ‘And that’s how it all works, at least that’s how I see it.’ Finished Booker, although Rob hadn’t really noticed he’d started.

  ‘You weren’t listening where you?’ Booker asked, stopping on a step, the door to Booker’s office was just at the top of the stairs now, it shined bright like a beacon, and smelt like old dish rags.

  ‘I was.’ Rob interjected, pretending to be insulted that Booker would say such a thing.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, I don’t work well with people who lie. I have a name for those.’ Demanded Booker.

  ‘Is it liars?’ Asked Rob, this was an honest question, sadly because of its wording came across as sarcastic. Rob thought maybe Booker didn’t work well with sarcastic people, maybe he had a name for them. Rob wondered what that name was.

  ‘Look, listen here, new kid, I’m the sarcastic one in this double act. Just today, I out sarcastic a cop. You ever did that? No, I doubt it.’ Booker drew in a huge breath, he needed it. In Booker’s eyes, there was nobody as sarcastic as a cop other than, say, maybe an ex-cop. Ex-cops were allowed to be more sarcastic. Even if they leave of their own will, they are still allowed to be more sarcastic.

  ‘Okay.’ Rob answered, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  ‘Were you listening.’ Asked Booker. It wasn’t a real question, not one that needed an answer, it was more a verbal trigger. If you say were you listening people have a tendency to actually start listening.

  ‘No.’ Rob replied with a nod, the nod you can only do with a single word answer.

  ‘I’ll give you the short version. If there’s a wrong place, I’m there, If there’s a wrong time, I’m there. If there are wrong places and wrong times, I’m probably there, and I’m probably the wrong guy to be there, so, wrong place, wrong time, wrong guy. Got it?’ Booker boiled it down to its simplest components.

  ‘Got it. Like bad luck.’ Suggested Rob.

  ‘Not at all like luck, luck comes and goes, this is constant, my thing is constant, bad luck is a single thing, for me something's always wrong. place, time, person, there's always one thing going to shit.’ Booker explained.

  ‘Sounds like bad luck to me.’

  ‘Bad luck is all about perspective, what is bad luck for one person might be good luck for the other.; Booker explained, Rob raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Look at it this way, Black cats are good luck unless you live in Yorkshire then they suddenly are bad luck. If a bird shits on you, that's good luck, don't know how, it just is, wouldn't be to me. luck doesn't make sense, it's random. this isn’t this is constant. a constant in my life at least.’

  ‘What about the cat?’ Asked Rob.

  ‘What about him?’ Booker was confused, which was his normal state.

  ‘Does he have bad luck or good?’

  ‘I have no Fucking clue.’ Booker pushed the door which swung open and closed again within seconds of Booker stepping through, closing in Rob’s face.

  There’s a thin line between things which make sense are a little off, and things which are just beyond the point of sanity. Rob hadn’t decided yet where he was in comparison to the line, but he felt as if he was at least near it, if not past it. He shook this feeling off as well as he could and pushed on up the last few steps where a door sat at the top. It watched ominously down at them like an overlord. The door seemed to have been pushed and squeezed into the fitting, the top too short by an inch or two, the bottom had rubbed away more of the wood than the stairs, some of the beams had begun to show. A spider crawled out of the left-hand side of the door, scurried around the large glass plane in the centre of the door and vanished through the keyhole.

  Rotagitsevni Etavirp, Dleihs Rekoob the door told Rob, he couldn’t make sense of it, a jumble of letters filled a plain of glass. He pushed it and it swung gently open, although it seemed to resist him, Rob found it easy to open, once through, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him.

  Booker Shield, Private Investigator, the door now stated proudly, this made a little more sense. Only a little.

  ‘I thought you were a detective?’ Rob asked Staring at the door.

  ‘I was, I left the police five years ago, wasn’t for me.’ Booker said sitting in his chair which squeaked, he got back up, through his wallet from his rear pocket to the table and sat back down.

  ‘Not for you?’ Rob turned, finally seeing Booker's office. A mess wasn’t really the right word to describe it, Booker called it lived in, Rob would say it was infested.

  Papers seemed to breed here, filling every flat surface, brownish yellow files held more documents, these were all wedged together touching the roof, Rob was sure he’d seen something move out the corner of his eye.

  ‘I think that’s a cat.’ Booker said, thumbing through a file, sipping on his bucks-fizz. The bubbles had dissipated and left a crystal, yellow liquid.

  ‘You think?’ As Rob spoke he drew in air, thick musty air which seemed to be made up of particles much larger than they had the right to be. It moved again, the cat, pushing some papers to the ground, Booker didn’t flinch. There was some hissing from behind a file, it didn’t sound like a cat. It sounded more like a snake, but snakes don’t normally have four legs and are covered in fur. Rob hoped that was fur.

  ‘It’s too big to be anything else.’ Taking another sip, Booker wrinkled his nose up and down, the bubbles had made their way up there.

  ‘Where are my manners? Would you like some bucks-fizz? I make it myself.’ Booker knocked a coffee cup on the table, lip down, dust fell from its white interior.

  Rob sat in the smaller wooden chair, although he sat more on the chair than in. He couldn’t stop looking at the mess, there was just so much to look at. Rob was unable to take it all in.

  Rob sat, the way he sat didn't look very comfortable, his left leg slowly crossed tightly over his right, his hand perched on his knee as if he were holding a handbag. This looked odd and Booker's face showed his opinion. Rob tried again, opening his legs, resting his arms on the arms of the chair he slid down the back of the chair. This looked odd also. As if Rob had been poured into the chair. Rob jumped up, shook off his tight muscles and landed in the chair this time with a small creak under him.

  ‘Would you like some bucks fizz.’ Booker knocked the flat of his hand as he spoke each word to make his point clear. It worked.

  ‘I don’t really drink.’ Answered Rob in a wishy-washy sort of way.

  ‘Sure, you do. Everybody drinks.’ Booker poured the fizzy wine into the coffee cup he’d just knocked clean.

  ‘What’s with all the drinking, you were trying to drink in the car, you’re drinking now.’ Rob asked a question Booker had asked himself to many times before.

  Booker didn't drink because of a broken heart, are because his father left him at a young age. Booker drank for the same reason people who wanted to lose weight ran or why caffeine addicts switch to decaf. Booker had once been called a genius, a word which was so thrown around now it's become meaningless, but like those runners who perhaps were called fat, he decided to do something about it. He was never drunk, he just always teetered on the edge of tipsy. The point before mumbling but after the warm fuzzies you get, where the part of your brain which over thinks gets drunk first and shuts down. Rob could use a drink he was one large over-thinking brain. Rob had pulled a sip from the cup.

  ‘There’s no orange in this.’ Rob spoke up. He was sure bucks fizz had orange in it.

  ‘I ran out.’ Sipped Booker. Sipping and talking was very difficult to do, it had only been mastered by Booker and three ventriloquists, by chance Booker knew all three. He pulled his sip through his teeth, tasting each bubble as it burst on his tongue.

  ‘Then this is just champagne.’ He was right, Booker wasn’t willing to argue. Rob’s skills perception was incredibly sharp, without orange juice bucks fizz was just champagne. Arguably a car without petrol is just useless metal, but people will still say that it was a car. So, logically this was still bucks fizz, with or without
its orange juice. The thought got away from Booker, he finally answered Rob

  ‘I guess it is.’ He sipped again.

  ‘I didn’t think alcoholics drank good drinks.’ Rob stated, he held his mug of champagne like you’d hold a mug of coffee, which was wrong. The thing about being an alcoholic, a good one that is, is never admitting you are one. The trick to being a great one, an alcoholic that is, is by having your rules and sticking to them, and never admitting you are one.

  ‘I’m not one, I’m a social drinker if you’d like, we’re being sociable right now, therefore I can drink. Plus, I have standards, standards are very important to an alcoholic, which I am not. Nice beers, wine and champagne, that’s the rule, I don’t drink all the time, only with meals.’ Booker explained as Rob started to look around.

  ‘Where’s your meal?’

  ‘I have pastries right there.’ Booker did not, what Booker had right there was an empty plate, obviously, something had eaten his breakfast when he was away. ‘That damn cat.’ Booker shook his head.

  ‘You didn’t have anything to eat in my car.’ Replied Rob, thinking he had Booker caught.

  ‘I was chewing gum.’ He wasn’t but that didn’t matter.

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  ‘I had food in my teeth, you want to check.’ Booker opened his mouth as wide as he could, showing his fillings, he did have food in his teeth, that was actually a common thing for him.

  ‘Plus, that wasn’t a beer. Now can we please get to work?’ Booker said picking up one of the yellow folders and thumbing through it. This went on for a few minutes, then Booker picked up another yellow folder, and another.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Rob asked Booker as he’d became a little bored and asking questions seemed to fill in time at work.

  ‘A connection.’ Booker answered disgruntled.

  ‘To what?’ Continued to Rob like a child asking what’s that.

  ‘Another case, here you check the papers.’ Booker threw a pile of papers from the week over to Rob, they landed with a clunk in front of him almost spilling his coffee cup.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m looking for.’ Rob moved around in his chair to read the papers. Booker put down his file.

  ‘Something similar to, but not the same as what we,’ He corrected himself. ‘What I saw in the supermarket.’ Explained Booker, he slid back into his chair and began reading his file once more. Rob was none the wiser but pretended to help never the less, flicking through the papers.

  ‘Is this it?’ Asked Rob.

  ‘What do you mean is this it?’ Booker asked in confusion, of course, this was it. He made that thought vocal. ‘Of course, this is it. What else would you think would happen?’ Booker rocked forward and refilled his cup, a little dribbled over the side. Not to waste it, Booker supped at the side of his coffee cup.

  ‘Car chases maybe? A stakeout? Normal P.I stuff.’ Rob suggested the things he had in mind. Rob didn’t really know what P.I’s did, to be honest, he couldn’t even claim he’d seen them on TV because when he was growing up P. I’s had been replaced by cops and even they had been replaced with people with physiological issues, like photographic memories or the ability to smell really good. This wasn’t like that either.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, you’d be surprised how many things can all be sorted out by reading the newspaper. Somebody has probably already dealt with something like this already this week, got it all sorted out and now all we have to do is swoop in and get our paychecks. Done.’ Explained Booker, he liked it when that happened. It’s a lot like food, food is always better when you steal it from somebody else and a closed case is also always better when you steal the answer from somebody else. Better still if they never find out and ask for some of the money you sort of half stole from them, kind of.

  ‘Does that work?‘ Nothing in Rob’s life actually worked and to find something so simple and easy to understand sounded crazy to him, but also to find out something simple and easy to understand actually worked was sheer madness. He half closed the newspaper to listen to Booker more. Not that the paper made any noise until he began closing it.

  ‘It has done, in the past.’ Booker said, there was a slight pause and Rob went back to reading the paper with a sigh. It had worked in the past, but that was when the local newspapers had actual news in them. Right now, Rob was reading an article about a local man who was growing a beard, there didn’t seem to be a reason for him to grow it except he was going to be in a pantomime. He looked at the photo which came with the article, it was a man with a very large head pulling at the short whiskers he was claiming was his beard. Rob looked up, his lip turned up in confusion, Booker had more hair on his face than this man and this was when Booker considered himself clean shaved. Booker would shave just before getting work, even if he wasn’t looking for work, the moment he touched a razor work would conjure itself in front of him.

  ‘Fine, we’ll go see the dead woman.’ Booker shook out his file and sat it down on a larger pile of files. There was a little glee in Rob's face when he put the paper down, it sparkled in his eye like a kid going to a toy shop.

  ‘Come on come on, we haven’t got all day.’ Booker grunted.

  ‘You’ll have to drive.’ Explained Booker. ‘I’ve been drinking.’ Which was a sort of catch phrase which had never really taken off.

  ‘So have I.’ Commented Rob.

  ‘Not really though.’ Booker had made it to Rob's side of the table now and sunk the final bit of Rob's coffee cup full of special bucks- fizz without any orange juice.

  They headed out to Rob’s car, this time he made sure Booker told him where they were going before he even turned on the engine.

  5

  There was a gentle woosh of the door, almost a sigh of a woosh. This made Booker feel as if this door didn't enjoy its job, Booker didn't really enjoy his job, that was different, he didn't like his job he wasn't good at it, he wasn't made for it, not like this door, doors couldn't do anything but be doors, they were made for it, literally. Behind Booker, Rob stumbled behind Booker. Booker was a walking rake, he had rake like legs which meant when he strolled he could move at the speed of a short-legged man's sprint.

  The short person tall person team was as old as time, Booker would name, Holmes and Watson, Laurel and Hardy and Ant and Dec, in the same breath. He liked the dynamic, it also meant he looked as if he was the one in charge. Which he was, he just wanted to make sure people knew it from the second they looked at him.

  A woman with short Red hair sat behind a desk, Booker presumed it was her desk as she was the one sat behind it, she looked up for a second and give Booker a little grin. Looking down again for half a second, her mind reeled pulling up information about who Booker was from the odd parts of her mind. She jumped to her feet and was on the other side of the counter within seconds.

  ‘Oh no you don’t Booker, visiting hours are over. You can’t go in there.’ The ginger said, her small badge read Doctor H Bennett, the H stood for Hollie.

  ‘You don’t have visiting hours. This is a morgue. Why would you have visiting hours?’ Asked Booker. It wasn’t a real question he was just nit-picking to annoy Hollie.

  ‘No, we don’t, it’s just a nice way of saying you’re not allowed in here.’ Hollie stood in front of Booker, blocking his path. Rob had caught up now, so Hollie eyed him up, sucking at her teeth to make sure her red lipstick hadn’t spread there.

  ‘Come on Hollie, for old times sakes. There’s a woman in here, seemed to be an exit wound in her chest, mass haemorrhaging, looks gruesome.’ Booker explained in the hopes he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Hollie shot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her name what is it?’ Hollie’s toe had begun to tap, it echoed around the hallway. She knew it would and made sure she wore shoes which really made the tapping as clear as it could be. She’d of worn tap shoes if it was company policy.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Booker loo
ked over to Rob, Rob shrugged in reply, he didn’t know either.

  ‘That means you’re not next of kin, not next of kin, you’re not coming in.’ She turned proudly to head back to her desk, she’d come up with that rhyme on the spot and was proud of it too. Hollie gave a little grin to herself, making sure she was far enough away from Booker that he could never tell.

  ‘Come on. Why not, it’s just dead people.’ Booker spoke out. This stopped Hollie in her tracks, with a turn of military precision she was inches away from Bookers face.

  ‘They are not just dead people, they are peoples loved ones, husbands, wives, mother, fathers. Of people still walking around, they deserve a little respect. Respect is something I seriously doubt you actually understand.’ Hollie spoke between clenched teeth.

  ‘Come on, we need the cadaver.’ Booker wasn’t listening. Hollie huffed with such heat it made Booker’s little flakes of hair wobble.

  ‘I just don’t think you get it.’ Hollie spoke softly, she had given up on actually fighting Booker at this point and just wanted rid of him.

  ‘If you care about the living so much, why do you work with all these corpses.’

  ‘It’s about closure Booker, something you wouldn’t get. I work here to help people, you don’t understand it because you just want to help yourself.’ Hollie seemed moved closer to Bookers' chin, although she hadn’t moved at all. Rob pulled at his collar like a cartoon dog wearing a tie.