A Well-Timed Death (Booker Shield Book 1)

by Karl Bourdiec

  ‘What’s weirder is we’re dealing with this exact same thing, a girl, Sara Brixton. Same death, same kind of location. There’s got to be some sort of link, maybe mafia?’ Booker explained. Trying to whisper, in Booker's head these two random events were connected in one way or another, that was logical to him, everything had to be logical and everything had to be connected. It was just the rules of his life, the little world he lived in was connected with one long piece of red wool, in Booker’s head, his world looked a conspiracy theorist’s house.

  ‘She’s still alive?’ Rich asked, surprised two people could have huge holes in their chests and just be wandering around willy-nilly.

  ‘Nope, she’s dead.’ Rob interjected. Rob sounded a little too chipper to be telling people are dead, he noticed he did it himself and tried to bring down his tone. A little more sad when talking about the dead was probably more tactful, he still grinned like a Cheshire cat but tried to relax his cheeks into more of a sad smile, a smile which said someone’s dead but they were probably in a better place. A very difficult look to get right and Rob got it incredibly wrong.

  ‘It’s not exactly the same thing then.’ Rich pointed out.

  ‘I guess not. No.’ Booker agreed, in his head it still was, why would it be any different. Two people had huge holes in their chests, that wasn’t something that happened to everyone. There wasn’t a morgue filled with people missing hearts and bleeding out.

  ‘Like, when people have big holes in their chest, they are meant to go down and stay down.’

  ‘Yeah but other than not dying Adam and Sara are exactly the same thing really.’ Booker tried to cover his tracks.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ There was a gentle ring coming from the other side of the door behind Rich.

  ‘I should probably get that.’ Rich said leaving to get the phone and check up on Adam.

  ‘Keep me up to date.’ Yelled Booker as Rich closed the door.

  ‘Pub?’ Asked Booker to Rob.

  ‘Sure, why not.’ Rob saw no way to argue, what was the point.

  11

  The pub was still full of its usual crowd, nobody seemed to have left since Rob and Booker went into the fog of the outside.

  The bar had been cleared, the small plates from their lunch had also moved, but none of the people inside the Mechanic arm had. These people seemed to live here, or at least be haunting the place like ghosts. Trapped in the same place until whatever unfinished business had been finished. Obviously, their unfinished business was the dregs of beer a millimetre from the bottom of their glasses, they chatted amongst them self not really looking at Booker and Rob. Which was good for Booker as he owed most of them either a drink, money or a fight, and he wasn’t sure what he owed who. He hoped didn't owe all three to any of them.

  Rob walked in, his seat was still turned to face the door, just as he had left it. Booker followed on, he was looking at a small piece of paper and his phone, the small piece of paper was long and white with a few numbers embossed into the side he was looking at, Rob could see the numbers from his side, but they seemed jumbled being they were back to front.

  The business cards looked fancy, the type Bateman would compensate with, Brixton was either very self-involved or he had something to hide. Something he wasn't proud of. Something his wife probably complained about. Probably would have, Booker, corrected himself.

  With his thumb, Booker typed in each number looking back at the card after each number was in.

  He reread it to himself, moving his lips in silence, sounding out the numbers, nodding as he checked them off.

  Rob made it to his chair, and with a little jump perched himself onto the seat, it turned him away from the bar which he quickly corrected, grabbing onto the bar to face the rows of cocktail ingredients.

  ‘Robbo.’ Gull yelled, his hand in a towel that towel in a glass.

  ‘Hey man.’ Rob didn’t feel comfortable using Gulls nickname yet, or his real name. Even using “man” felt a little hard, as if he had to push it out his mouth.

  Booker caught up and the two fell silent, he pressed the little green blob on the screen he called a phone and held it to his ear, placing the card back into his coat pocket, it crumpled as he did.

  Booker lifted his eyebrows in the direction of Gull who nodded back and poured him a rum. Rob watched Gull as he scribbled three numbers onto a sheet of paper with his name on it. This tab was going to get long much longer than he could imagine. Possibly longer than the phone number of Brixton.

  ‘Hello.’ Booker yelled into his hand, he pushed his finger into the opposite ear straining to hear through the commotion. ‘Hello?’ Yelled Booker again. Pulling the phone away from his face Bookers face filled with shock.

  ‘He hung up on me.’ Booker wasn’t used to being hung up on, he’d hung up on people. People trying to sell him double glazing or asking about a car accident he couldn’t recall, but he’d never been hung up on.

  Booker pushed himself into his chair using his leg, he didn’t stop staring at his phone, he just moved around with his eyes still fixed on the device.

  ‘Who?’ Rob asked getting a lemonade with a slice of lime handed to him.

  ‘Brixton, Brixton hung up on me.’ Booker wouldn’t stop looking at his phone, never blinking his pupils shook with intensity. Expanding to take the strain.

  ‘Try calling again.’ Rob pulled the liquid through the straw, it fixed in his mouth and ran around his teeth. The phone rang, Rob could hear it even from where he was sitting, it rang and rang and rang some more. Then somebody got the message, an answering machine.

  ‘Hello you have reached the voicemail of,’ there was a clattering noise as if somebody struggled to use a phone.

  ‘This damn thing. Please leave a message after the tone. Beep.’ The phone finished.

  ‘Hello, this is Booker Shield, I’m a detective, you may or may not know your wife is dead.’ Suddenly Booker was struggling to keep a grasp of his phone.

  ‘Give that here.’ Rob had taken the phone from Booker, pressed a button and put it to his ear.

  ‘Message deleted, if you would like to re-record your message please do so after the beep.’

  ‘Hello there, Mr Bixton, this is Rob Thorn, I’m a, I’m a sidekick of a PI.’ Rob seemed suddenly deflated. ‘Could you call us back as soon as possible to answer a few questions, thank you.’ Rob hung up, suddenly his sadness turned into a smug look, simply because he was able to make a call without informing somebody their loved one had kicked the bucket.

  ‘Thank you, Sidekick.’ Booker replied taking back control of the situation. Booker sat, he pulled some napkins from the bar in front of him. Then reaching over he grabbed a pen. On the side of the pen, the name of the bar was printed on, but once you held the pen for a second or two the logo and name would rub off and onto your hand.

  ‘Right.’ Booker pulled the pen lid off with his teeth, spitting it behind the bar. ‘We have three things. One a dead woman, two, a guy who should be dead but isn’t.’ Each thing got a napkin, Booker scribbled the words as he said them, carving one and two in to separate napkins and laying them aside one another.

  ‘Three?’ Rob asked honestly not knowing what number three was.

  ‘We have a husband who won’t pick up his phone.’ Booker put the husband napkin under number one, leave a partially made square.

  ‘You’re saying they are connected.’

  ‘Forty-four percent of homicides are caused by the spouse.’ The fact rolled of Bookers' tongue without effort.

  ‘Fuck me.’

  A nineties pop song played from Booker's pocket.

  ‘Is that him?’ the fact has pushed fear into Rob's heart, which was odd because he didn’t really even think of Mr Brixton until now.

  Booker nodded.

  ‘Hello.’ He said into his phone. There was a silence, for a few seconds, the whole pub seemed to fall into complete death. A plague of it.

  ‘I’m not sure you understand the importance of thi
s call.’ Booker said, there was a mumble from the phone, a mumble loud enough for everyone’s ears. The silence still coated the mechanic arm. Which made a phone call a group activity. ‘I’m not trying to sell you something, I’m trying to tell you.’ Booker fell silent, silent enough for the tone the phone was now filled with to be heard. ‘He hung up on me.’ Said Booker, looking at his phone in complete shock. ‘He hung up on me, I said we should have led with, your wife’s dead, nobody hangs up on the words your wife is dead.’

  ‘Does that mean he doesn’t know?’ Asked Rob.

  ‘I guess he doesn’t, huh.’ Booker chuckled. There was a twisted irony in the fact Brixton didn’t know, Booker didn’t know what the irony was, but it made him chuckle nonetheless.

  ‘Where was he?’ Rob was now asking the questions, he would until Booker noticed he was and tell him off.

  ‘He said he was heading the nineteenth hole with his pals.’ Booker struggled to say, each word looked as if he’d never made that sound before.

  ‘Guess he doesn’t know.’ Rob agreed.

  ‘Or he doesn’t care.’

  ‘Okay back to this.’ Booker said putting his phone away. Rob was dazed, not too dazed, but a little that Booker didn’t seem deterred by the fact Mr Brixton didn’t want to hear from him.

  He shrugged it off anyway, Booker was that kind of an oddball. On the bottom napkin, he scribbled a few little words under Brixton. They read “The husband who doesn’t care, likes golf.’.

  ‘These are all very important clues.’ He explained to Rob, placing it back into the bottom left of the plan. Rob peered over Booker’s shoulder but couldn’t really read a single word of what was scratched into the napkin. Writing on napkins was obviously hard, they just weren’t made for it. Very little ink had made it onto the soft white instead large cuts were etched into the paper. ‘There’s a connection, I can feel it in my balls.’ Booker pointed out, which made Rob’s face crumple up like one of Booker napkins.

  ‘You mean bones.’

  ‘Can you feel your bones?’ Booker asked.

  Rob thought for a second, no he couldn’t when he really tried they just felt like nothing as if he was hollow. He didn’t like thinking about feeling his bones, so tried to stop. Now the thought was there he found it almost impossible to shake.

  ‘Why are these two important?’ Rob pushed his finger into the soft napkin labelled after Sara and Adam. ‘Is it because these two people have huge holes in their chest. ‘Cause other than that, there’s actually nothing they have in common.’ Rob explained.

  ‘I guess that would do it, yes.’ Admitted Booker.

  ‘Glad we got that sorted.’ Rob went back to drinking his cold lemonade, which had watered down now due to the ice.

  ‘But something more, the same location.’

  ‘We can’t be sure of that.’ Rob decided he was the voice of reason in this situation.

  ‘Possibly the same location, the same injury. Even the same age.’ Booker explained more.

  ‘They were the same age?’ Spat Rob, he would have spat his drink if he hadn’t gone off it because of its wateriness.

  ‘Maybe, they looked around it. I’m not great with ages.’ Booker backed down.

  ‘Great so what we know is, we have two dead people, who may or may not have died in the same place and may or not be the same age and defiantly died the same way, maybe, possibly, all of, or none of the above?’ Rob asked with a flock of confusion in his voice.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Great, good hustle.’ Rob said, hearing it once on a TV show he never knew what it meant or when to use it until now. Suddenly the words resonated with him as if they were always there ready to escape into the world.

  There was another nineties song, a different but coming from the same place, Booker's pocket, it glowed through the lining of the grey business pants Booker wore. Rob’s eyes bulged like fly eyes.

  ‘Is that him again, Brixton?’ Rob looked as giddy as a schoolgirl.

  ‘Shh shh shh.’ Booker hushed waving his arm to silence Rob. Rob shut up quick.

  ‘Hello, Detective Booker speaking.’ He said with a forced phone voice Booker rarely used.

  Rob still looked ready to explode with excitement. Booker listened intently on the phone, he nodded and listened and listened some more.

  He swivelled on his chair. He didn’t have much choice of how much he swivelled, it seemed to be just the chair wanting to be in a pretty constant state of motion.

  Rob grabbed onto the little brass pole which circled the bar, stopping himself from doing another large turn.

  ‘Yeah, I couldn’t see why that would be a problem, no it’s not out of my way.’ Booker gave Rob a little knowing wink, what he knew Rob did not, which vexed Rob a little. Rob hated not knowing things. This was a common state, he lived in a world of the unknown, and this was why he simply hated the world. He tried to hide it. Smiling all the time, but sometimes he hated the chaos, that things sometimes didn't make sense. He knew he'd start to hate the world Booker had dragged him into, sooner or later.

  ‘Is that Brixton?’ Rob pulled at Booker's sleeve like a kid asking for a sweet.

  ‘Two seconds.’ Booker moved his grinning face away from the phone, placing two fingers over the mouthpiece, everybody knew this did nothing but did it anyway.

  ‘It’s Hollie, can you not tell from the grin?’ Booker pushed his teeth to the front of his mouth like only old people could, the difference was Bookers' teeth were still attached to his gums.

  ‘Is that what you call it?’ Because Rob sure didn’t see it that way.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be on my way. No, it’s no trouble I said.’ The bottom fell out of Bookers words.

  His odd smile fell back into the living frown which was his face.

  ‘Yeah, I can bring my sidekick, yes I’m sure you liked him.’ Booker mumbled, loud enough that Rob could hear.

  This time Rob’s face was filled with a smile, the biggest difference was Rob was actually able to make one without looking as if his teeth were somehow imprisoned in his face.

  ‘Great, we’re on our way.’ Booker put down the phone and placed it back into his pocket without saying a word.

  ‘She got good news for us?’ Rob asked, his face a bucket of glee as that was the standard measurements of glee in Rob’s universe.

  ‘Gull.’ Yelled Booker, Gull waddled over like all good Gulls should.

  ‘Pass me that bottle of Manticore.’ Booker asked, and he did receive.

  ‘Put it on his tab.’ Suggested Booker. Gull shrugged and did as he was told.

  ‘Oh, that’s low.’ Was the only thing Rob could reply with. It was low, even for Booker.

  Manticore was terrible stuff. It was rum, but rum so black you couldn’t see through it. If you drank enough of it, you couldn't see through anything because you couldn’t see.

  A Manticore is a terrible looking creature, the head of a human with a grin that looked painful, the body of a lion and a tail covered in spikes.

  The creators of Manticore rum named it after one of the girls he slept with after drinking the stuff. The old myth was that the inventor of the drink, some college kid from the most local college no matter where you lived. He invented the drink when trying to brew his own booze, as most college kids try to do. The stuff came out like tar, with the smallest taste, three days of the college kid’s life vanished. He woke up on the other side of England and had to chew through his own shoulder, so he didn’t wake up this beast of a girl.

  From then on, he watered the drink down and slept with his only remaining arm in the air. On the bottle, a little scribble of the beast was printed, just above the name of the drink as its logo.

  The creator would never admit if it was based on the mythical creature or the girl he’d slept with on that night. I’d personally never touch the stuff.

  Manticore was Booker's tipple of fancy.

  Now in the car, Booker popped the cork, it was the kind of drink that had a cork and was
wax sealed, to begin with. He filled his flask and pulled a huge swig from the bottle for good measure. Rob pulled himself into the car which Booker had already gotten comfy in.

  ‘Did she say anything else?’ Rob asked starting the engine of the car.

  ‘Don’t know, some woman was screaming over the top of her.’ Booker screwed the silver cap back onto his flask, sealing its contents away. Rob’s car made short work of the trip between the old pub and the morgue, a time which seemed long in the eyes of the two involved, the silence between them seemed to stretch on for years.

  ‘Are you done.’ Said Rob pulling up into a space in front of the huge block of a building.

  ‘I guess. I’ll get over it, she probably likes you like a cat or a gerbil or something pet like.’ Booker unbuckled his seat and pulled himself from the car like an orangutan.

  ‘Charming you.’ Rob said following behind.

  Rob pulled himself free of his car and wandered around to the side Booker had now started to lean on. His elbows pressed into the metal leaving small divots.

  Rob hadn’t paid much for his car, it was second hand but had been owned by an old lady before him. Once Rob had cleaned out the cat hair and the smell of what he hoped was cat wee but could have been easily old person wee, he thought it was in very good Knick. Rob even considered himself proud of his car, if pride was something he could feel, he’d never been proud, so pride was a tricky emotion he’d never really got the hang of. But the nearest thing to pride he could muster was what he felt about his car. He hoped that the marks Booker left in his car would rub out like fingerprints and not like that time Chanttell keyed the bonnet.

  ‘Voicemail.’ Booker said, his face scrunched up like a wad of tissue paper. He moved his phone away from his face, looking at it as he moved it, his cheek had left small prints along its side. Small greasy lines where his flesh had actually touched the phone between the whiskers of hair on his face that left perfectly clean parts on the phone. Booker wiped the phone on his shirt until the grease had rubbed into a nice shine on the screen.

  ‘Brixton?’ Rob asked now leaning also, he did it softly, so the car didn’t buckle under his elbow, it was sort of floating above the actual metal. This required balance mostly.