Den of Smoke

by Christopher Byford

  Jack ignored the suggestion, instead choosing to suck the cigarette to a stub.

  ‘What the hell happened, huh? It came out of the blue. I didn’t see it coming. I should have seen it coming. It should have been obvious! Someone got paid, someone who saw a better offer to pass on the information, some sort of stich-up by …’ By now Jack was babbling, unable to commit to a single solid decision as to the cause of their misfortune. He conceded, ‘And now we’re stuck.’

  ‘Figure your future career as a clairvoyant might be disappointing.’

  ‘Now is not the time for humour.’

  ‘Point taken.’ Alvina receded onto her arms, looking at the skyline. A small dart of white traced the sky before glittering to nothing. A shorter one soon followed to its left, marking the black.

  ‘I never thought it would come to this,’ Jackdaw mumbled.

  ‘He might give you a slap on the wrist. You know, one you live from.’

  ‘We both know that won’t happen.’

  ‘Then what else could you do? Run? There’s no shame in that.’

  ‘Donovan would have hunted me down as soon as word got out. It doesn’t bear thinking about what would happen if I was caught, neither,’ Jackdaw solemnly muttered. The repercussions weren’t worth thinking of, yet his mind raced with possibilities despite sensibilities suggesting otherwise. No, if Donovan found him, he wouldn’t be hurt: he would be cut. He would be butchered, just like every other traitor and snitch. His corpse would be hoisted on a lamppost for all to see, as a warning to others under Donovan’s employment.

  ‘It’s the end of the way we do business.’ Jackdaw flicked his smoke down into the streets. ‘You can smell it in the air.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  The repercussions of failure

  Daylight had been shunned for so long that it initially hurt to venture out. It took a good while for his eyes to properly adjust to the harsh intensity that the sun presented. Even the street traffic was alarming, given the onset of cabin fever Jack had succumbed to what with being stuck in Cutter’s for so long.

  Jack kept himself out of sight until he was acclimatized to the outdoors once more, though scrutinizing those passing became inevitable. Everyone was the subject of his suspicion, each person he moved past or he made way for. Any one of these people could have been tasked with following him, any one paid to brandish a knife and catch him in a crowd. It made making his way to the meeting more precarious.

  ‘The end is coming!’ yelled a voice, drifting over the midday commotion. ‘It comes for all things, all peoples! Tarnished people, lost people, there’s no escape from your judgement!’

  Proudly waving his poorly printed material, a tired-looking fellow dressed in peculiar dark robes ranted wildly at passers-by. He was too old to be partaking in such foolishness, at least that’s what Jack assumed.

  Jackdaw slowed his walk until coming to a stop, fighting with himself. He had no time for this. These were delusional individuals, unable to take hints both verbal and violent that their street corner preaching wasn’t wanted. Whoever Jack was meeting would undoubtedly be impatient. They would no doubt be dangerous and, at a guess, on edge. He didn’t have time to get involved in this. He didn’t have time to engage such ridiculous individuals and told himself to walk on, ignoring their idiocy.

  Against his better judgement, Jackdaw sharply turned and headed for the man, wild-eyed and furious. Who better to take out his frustrations on than someone who deserved it?

  He darted forward when in reach, placed one hand over his mouth and drove him backward with a forearm, sending the cultist to retreat backward. Jackdaw steered him down an alleyway, out of sight of the rest of the human traffic, before sliding his hand away.

  The cultist responded with venom, only for a sharp slap across the face to encourage silence.

  ‘I’ve spent my entire life working out how to make a living. I was judged and beaten and scorned by every calibre of person out there but I will be damned if I let the likes of you tell us when we will come to an end. Nobody gets to tell another when their number is up. Nobody gets to tell me that, especially.’

  Jack shoved the man, who bounded off the alley brickwork.

  ‘You talk of the dark days, how the end will come – well guess what? They’re here and they’re just as bad and as nasty as your nightmares. They’re filled to the brim with monsters like me roaming free, wild and dangerous. Do you understand what danger actually is? Shall we find out?

  Jackdaw ripped out the Pendulum from its housing and pressed the blade against the man’s chest, piercing the robe’s silver-threaded trim. The revolver’s hammer was pulled back into place as Jackdaw seethed, stepping back but keeping the weapon true with an outstretched arm.

  ‘You seem so content to vilify people you don’t even know, for transgressions they’ve never made. How about I shoot you down in cold blood right here, right now? We get an end to your needless prattle. You get to look on down from the afterlife and brag about how right you were. Why, that sounds like a win-win to me.’

  The cultist’s bottom lip trembled as he began to sniffle with dread. Clearly the thought of having his life snuffed out so violently was a prospect completely unexpected when he woke up this morning.

  ‘When will people like you realize that nobody gets to decide my fate but me …’ Jack glared, his finger dancing on the weapon’s trigger.

  Whimpering was to expected but not from beside the pair. Jack looked to the side. They weren’t alone. A small child, no older than six, had been out performing chores for the family, finding himself taking a wrong turn and witnessing the altercation.

  Jack’s heart jumped at the sight of the boy. He was scruffy, freckled, with a sprawl of hair that resembled wet animal fur. He looked at the men with a mixture of confusion and anxiety, quite fearful of walking between them.

  The boy stared at the gun. The paper bags he carried slipped from his fingers in surprise, spilling goods onto the ground. A tomato slowly rolled along the flagstones before coming to a stop against Jackdaw’s boot. He watched it. Jack watched it. The cultist watched it. Then the child and the cultist looked to Jackdaw.

  Jack rechecked his grip on the weapon, but with every flex, he glanced to the stock-still youngster. The worst part about it? The kid reminded him of himself in years gone by. It was the most peculiar thing, unnerving too, like his younger self was watching the altercation and judging his older self accordingly.

  Jackdaw pulled the weapon aside, letting the cultist cover his face in relieved sobs. He holstered it, wondering how far he would have gone, if he would have done his words justice.

  And with a stark conclusion, Jack deduced that yes, he would. He would have gunned the man down with little to no remorse.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Jack demanded.

  The child stood still, rooted to his place out of fear.

  ‘Bloody move now!’ Jackdaw roared as a follow-up. The volume sent the child sprinting back whence he came, disappearing down the alley as fast as his legs could take him, empty-handed.

  What had he become? Jack asked himself.

  Wilheim had given him this territory to manage and he had done a fantastic job of doing so. Jack corrected himself, setting off to the meeting location and leaving the cultist reassessing his life. No, that wasn’t right. Wilheim didn’t hand him the town. Jack had taken it.

  The original agreement, made to the ballsy small-time crook, was that if he could secure the territory, Wilheim would allow him to operate it for a payment of tribute now and again.

  So, unexpectedly, Jack aggressively went in to ensure that he would be uncontested.

  Compared to the man Jackdaw had learnt his role from and been sheltered by – he was just as bad as the other criminals who fought in this town. Scrabbling to live to the next day. Doing what was necessary to survive. How far would Jackdaw go to change things for the better?

  What if he had become a liability? What if this meeting was a trap and he wa
s to be removed just like his predecessor? It was ludicrous to believe he was irreplaceable. Everyone was disposable when the correct amount of force was applied and if there was one thing that Donovan was renowned for, it was force.

  The meeting point was just as conspicuous as he assumed it would be. A crappy alleyway connecting two residential districts, with a considerable decline in steps. Sequential archways provided shade from the sun above, indulging in blocks of shadow. The meeting place was claustrophobic, pinched by buildings that were seemingly haphazardly dotted in shuttered windows.

  An elderly man smoked on his balcony, his face so withered by the sun that it resembled a crumpled-up paper bag. He watched Jackdaw from his vantage point, patiently puffing away. He nodded slightly to Jack, who repaid the gesture and began his descent down the steps. When Jack had passed under the first arch, the old man ventured inside and closed the balcony door behind him.

  Further down his feet took him, his journey taking him between shadow and sun.

  A pair of men leant beneath one of the overpasses, waiting for their mark to present himself. Or, more specifically, for Jackdaw to present himself. Working men, judging from the attire but the sort of work only specific people would hire them for.

  Immediately Jack’s feet slowed down the steps before reaching an abrupt stop. There was no need to continue. Both parties knew what was going to happen now. The shortest of the pair, pale and sporting a highly quaffed ginger peak of hair, chewed on a strip of bristly weedgrass, using it to dig at accumulated debris between his teeth. Upon noticing Jackdaw’s arrival he tossed it to the gutter. The larger man, tanned and much more imposing, bowed his head and whispered something that caused both men to snicker.

  The ginger one Jackdaw barely recognized. It had taken a while to have it finally dawn on him who the man was, given that time had struck him with an onslaught of weight. Ash, they called him. He was one of Wilheim’s taxmen, or to be more accurate, an arsonist for hire. Those who tended to hold out payments found their property burned to his namesake.

  This muscle beside him didn’t need any introduction. Mex was as nasty and as ugly as they got. He was just another grunt substituting the finite skills that people like him required for violence. That was the problem with crooks nowadays, nobody wanted to make the effort. Jackdaw was a chancer, a professional thief of all things and he was good at it. Mex? Mex was just a hooligan.

  Thug or not, he was still a disconcerting sight, he and his equally thuggish company, some of whom Jack recognized from his regular jaunts or jobs. They were knee breakers, trigger pullers and noose men.

  But today they were something worse.

  They were messengers, pure and simple, grim-faced associates that were an inevitability, the one Jackdaw had waited for. It was no real surprise that it had taken this long for them to make their presence known. There was no point for someone to send their goons the moment something had gone wrong. Let the culprit sweat it out. That was the best way to go about it. That’s what Jackdaw would have done. That’s what Wilheim did. That’s what Donovan was doing here.

  ‘Oh, there he is,’ Ash said. ‘The highlight of my day.’

  Jackdaw’s heart sank right to his feet, cradling a feeling of despair that he hadn’t felt for some time. The way they stood, the way their iron hung from their holsters, unclipped for ease of access. The tight alleyway, on an incline inhabited by these numerous bloody stairs preventing any speedy retreat if required. No. Jackdaw was incorrect in his assumption. These two weren’t just messengers. A messenger was a small-time patsy, disposable and just a mouthpiece. They gave the message and relayed one back. These were an altogether different breed of grunt. These were enforcers. They were the fists of Wilheim’s empire, now obeying the word of another. They were the finger breakers, the threat makers and the kneecap shooters to ensure that points were clearly understood by the recipient. Anyone unlucky enough to need to be told twice usually went missing.

  And they were here for him.

  The revolver hidden behind his duster jacket felt heavier than usual.

  ‘Jack. Oh it’s been quite the while since I’ve had to be in your company. For better or worse, I can’t really decide which, but here we are,’ Ash said.

  Jack’s eyes narrowed to points. ‘Do you want to keep it down?’

  ‘Right. The incognito thing. Don’t be so paranoid – nobody knows you were involved with the raid. At least, nobody worthwhile. We did have trouble with one Bluecoat who wouldn’t look the other way but he had an accident. Accidents. I suppose the accurate term would be in the plural.’

  Mex grunted with his thick arms crossed. ‘Quite the fall.’

  ‘Repeated falls,’ Ash corrected. ‘You have no need to panic, Jack – nobody gives a damn that you’re here. Nobody is going to pin any involvement on you. You’re in the clear. There’s no need for you, nor that rag-tag bunch of wastrels to be hiding.’

  ‘Yeah, forgive me if I decide to be cautious.’

  The tone became sour. ‘What happened out there? Because the papers drew a fair amount of attention to this immense fiasco that you’ve caused.’

  ‘I caused nothing,’ Jack explained, gesturing with his hands all too energetically. ‘Somewhere along the line, Bluecoats decided to raid us. Someone probably talked and it was a miracle we made it away – all of us.’

  ‘Ah yes. And in the process you left your stock to be impounded. Goods. Contraband. Like a stash of Red Root just lying there for the law to pick up.’

  ‘Unavoidable.’

  Ash looked quite unimpressed. ‘What was that thing you used to say? Oh yes, you never take the shiny from a jackdaw. Seems like it’s a hollow expression seeing that you did nothing to resist it – nor have you taken steps to reclaim it.’

  ‘It was bales of the stuff. What would you have me do?’ he asked, coldly.

  ‘It’s not what I would have you do, it’s what Donovan preferred. I don’t have stock in this one way or another. I’m just delivering a message.’

  Mex stepped forward. Jack had witnessed the tensing of the muscles in his shoulders beforehand, as if waiting for an unspoken signal, the back slightly prone to launch forward should he run. Jack wouldn’t run as he was significantly aware that nobody ever fled from Mex, or successfully at least.

  ‘We have a problem, Jack. Or more specifically you have a problem.’

  Instinctively Jack found his fingers flexing. Each digit waited for the order, the order to dance to his holster and draw his weapon. The desire to litter the alley with corpses was overwhelming.

  ‘You’re telling me,’ he snorted. ‘How am I going to afford the pine boxes for you, boys?’ His fingers drifted over his holster, ready to withdraw the Pendulum.

  ‘Come now, we’re not your enemies.’

  It was a truth but as close a bedfellow to deceit as could be.

  ‘You sure as hell ain’t friends, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Put a hold on that rash thinking. It wouldn’t be a good for the boss to hear. Make Donovan even angrier with you than he already is.’

  ‘He sent you did he? I take it he didn’t want to get his prints on the trigger himself.’

  Mex was already getting antsy but looked back up the stairs before making any decisions.

  ‘That’s a bold statement to make. Incorrect too,’ boasted a proud voice from behind.

  Donovan Kane patiently descended each step. In focusing on the pair before him, Jack had been completely oblivious to the lone figure who had descended with a borderline strut, adjusting a shirt cuff protruding from his tweed suit. It was peculiar to see the man quite apt at extortion and torture so well dressed. The leather waistcoat and matching tawny suit seemed incomplete without a burst of someone’s blood dashed across it.

  ‘I’m not above any of the dirty work, Jack, you know that. Why, I’ve lost count of the bones I’ve broken or the necks I’ve slit over the years. If someone else in this position told you that, the chances are that there would
be a scrap of disbelief somewhere within you. You may consider it an embellishment. In my case, we all know its truth. Relax the iron, Jack. Don’t let stupidity get the better of you,’ he demanded.

  Jackdaw performed the mental maths and concluded that there was no way he could have got a shot off before he was gunned down at this range. His fingers receded from his hip in surrender.

  ‘My boys just came to pass on a message.’ Donovan stood, heightened, on the steps, surveying Jack carefully. ‘Something simple. Not worthy of a fracas. There’s no need to go overboard. Think, if I had given them different orders, wouldn’t they have just crashed that shitty little bar you were cooped up in? It would have been easy to make a fine mess there.’

  It made a terrible sense.

  Iron arms constricted around Jackdaw’s frame from behind, pinning his own to his sides. A quick frisking and his Pendulum was tossed into the gutter. Of course they would get the jump on him. Why didn’t he check the corners, the wealth of shadows and hiding places? It only takes one to catch you out, he would always dictate to the others.

  When appropriately restrained, Donovan approached, his eyes that of a wolf staring at his next meal.

  ‘I hate lies, Jack,’ Donovan said, clearly, ensuring that he would not be misheard. ‘Lies are the tools of the coward. They attempt deceit to deflect attention from its proper place. I can’t abide by them.’

  Jackdaw tugged on his arms, grinding his teeth back and forth as Donovan came to a stop, mere inches from one another. Slowly Donovan delivered what had driven him to make a personal appearance, instead of sitting in Wilheim’s chair and doing other things more worthy of his time.

  ‘I went through the books, Jack. They don’t tell me no lies. I looked over all the deals and the debts, all the deliveries and the deaths. Wilheim kept a close eye on you, considering your fluxes in performance. Do you know what I found?’

  Oh hell.

  ‘You were assigned twelve bales of Red Root from the Morning Star drop. I wrote that little detail in myself, seeing as I was overseeing the numbers for that job. Quite the job it was too. But, and this puzzles me somewhat and I’ll need your clarification as to why things don’t … add up. When you were raided the other day, the Bluecoats impounded everything, correct?’