City By Night: A Sam Stevens Mystery

by J. D. Dunsford

  But for now, the long wait until the cover of darkness.

  Late in the afternoon, Sam made for the bathroom. He removed a toiletries bag from the cabinet and then looked at himself in the dust covered mirror. He had never been an especially handsome man, and lately, he was looking quite a bit worse for wear. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes sunken and his dark hair and beard somewhat overgrown. Distinctive and suspicious.

  He opened the bag and removed a can of shaving cream and a razor. He swiftly got to work, and within a few minutes, he was bald and clean shaven, which made him look even more unhealthy and avoidable. But, importantly, it would take someone knowing him well to recognise him as the man he had been just a few minutes ago. Add to this the pair of square glasses tucked in the toiletries bag, and he looked very different indeed. Not a perfect disguise, but one he would have to be stupid to avoid.

  Once he was satisfied with his new look, he checked out the window. The sun was just starting to set, turning the thick clouds above the suburban expanse blood red. It was almost night time. Night time was good. It meant he could get to work.

  Chapter Four

  The twinge of fear he felt as he drove back into the city almost made him chuckle. He had been marvelling somewhat at how easily he had slipped back into old habits, yet fear reminded him that it had been a long time since he had dealt with any situation remotely like this, if, that was, he ever actually had dealt with something like this.

  In the past, he had greeted danger with little more than a shrug and a sense of grim determination. When a job had to be done, there was no point in getting scared. The twinge he felt now was small, not enough to make him turn back, but enough to make him wish he was anywhere else.

  He doubted he would be caught. Nobody could link the car to him, and he didn’t look like the man who was on the run, but then, it was unwise to doubt or assume anything without knowing what the situation was. He was getting sick of this lack of knowing, so that would be the first thing he fixed.

  Spencer’s apartment was on the third floor of the kind of apartment building you avoided in the sort of neighbourhood you told horror stories about when you were a kid. Sam knew that for the most part, the bark was worse than the bite; the abusive and threatening people on the streets were mostly just drunk idiots and schizophrenics who yelled a lot but rarely did much worth being too bothered by. But a reputation was a hard thing to shake, and Sam was glad to see there wasn’t a cop in sight as he approached the building, entered a lobby that smelt of mould and made his way up the stairs to the third floor.

  Reaching the peeling door to Spencer’s apartment he paused and listened. You could never be too careful. He didn’t think Spencer would sell him out, but he did think his being seen here by an inconvenient visitor wouldn’t be good for anyone. So he waited until he was sure all he could hear was the buzz of a TV, then he knocked. And kept knocking for about a full minute until the door swung open.

  Spencer, skinny and heavily tattooed, stood in the doorway, lank hair hanging in his face, wearing only underwear and a ragged dressing-gown. In his right hand was an absurdly big gun which he lowered the moment recognition crossed his face.

  ‘Sam?’ he said weakly.

  Sam nodded. ‘Can I come in?’

  Spencer didn’t reply, and that was enough. Sam pushed past him into the grimy apartment.

  Spencer shut the door behind him and spun to face Sam, who was moving gingerly among the many stacks of old pizza boxes.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Spencer demanded.

  ‘Good to see you too,’ Sam said, resting against the back of the couch and crossing his arms.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Spencer said.

  ‘I thought you would have moved up in the world,’ Sam replied. ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘I enjoy a certain standard of living,’ Spencer said.

  ‘Or lack thereof.’

  ‘Training for a career in comedy?’

  ‘Looking for help actually.’

  Spencer’s brow furrowed. ‘Am I gonna like this?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Excellent. Best fill me in.’

  Quickly, Sam relayed everything that had happened. By the time he was done Spencer’s frown had turned to open-mouthed astonishment.

  ‘You killed a cop,’ Spencer said.

  ‘A cop that was trying to kill me.’

  ‘You killed a cop, fled the crime scene, stole his wallet and set your apartment on fire.’

  ‘I feel like you’re leaving out some context here.’

  ‘I’m leaving out what they’re leaving out. You realise this is not going to be clean? The police will be out for blood.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Sam said. ‘I need to know who else is.’ He reached into his pockets and withdrew the two wallets. ‘Everything you can tell me about the two dead people. Who they know, who might have reason to hurt them, whether this has anything to do with me.’

  ‘This has everything to do with you,’ Spencer said. ‘You killed a cop.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ Sam said. ‘Anything to do with the old days.’

  Looking like he’d rather do anything else, Spencer took the wallets. ‘Do you think this might be tied up with all of that?’

  ‘I’m not ruling it out,’ Sam said.

  ‘What’s your suspicion exactly?’ Spencer said. ‘The cop killed the girl to set you up?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘You don’t think that if - if someone wanted you gone, they’d do it themselves? Make it personal?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ Sam said. ‘I’m hoping you can enlighten me.’

  Shaking his head, Spencer pushed past Sam, opening the side door that led to his cluttered office. He brushed aside several papers that covered his keyboard and flicked his computer on.

  ‘You’d best get comfortable,’ Spencer said from in the room. ‘This could take a while.’

  Sam nodded, despite knowing Spencer couldn’t see him. ‘I appreciate it.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  Smiling, Sam walked over to the couch and sat down. He watched about ten seconds of whatever sitcom was on, which was enough to tell him he did not want to do that, and so instead he lay back on the couch. He closed his eyes. He was as safe here as he would be anywhere; nobody knew to connect him to Spencer, and the man was impossible to buy off. He trusted Spencer as far as he trusted anyone, and he needed rest if he was to be ready to face whatever happened. So he let himself drift into a light sleep.

  In that strange state where dreams and thoughts are indistinguishable, he dreamed of Sally. Walking together through the park, holding hands, laughing, weekends in bed together away from the world. All those memories he liked to revisit whenever he could, even though he knew that when he emerged the pain would be back. Real life just didn’t have anything on those memories.

  He supposed now that Sally had been just a brief respite, a holiday away from a life he doubted he could ever shake. That was the thing about being a criminal; it was like a contract you signed without knowing you signed it. You could be as done with the life as you wanted, but the life had tied itself to you, and the past never left. Just waited.

  His eyes opened before Spencer could shake him. The other man paused, hands outstretched, then moved over to his armchair as Sam sat up. He took a beer from the floor and cracked it open.

  ‘This is bad,’ Spencer said.

  ‘I could have told you that.’

  ‘Really bad. What do you know about the current state of the police precinct?’

  ‘Not much.’

  Spencer sighed. ‘Okay. Well, the chief these days is a man called Hector O’Neil. He’s a new friend of your old friends, and about as charming as that would imply. Corrupt to the core, a finger in every pie. Drugs, trafficking, extortion, you name it. He turns a blind eye, he gets a healthy cut to furnish his retirement. As nasty a character as you could ask for really. Unle
ss you get yourself into his inner circle. See O’Neil has a thing for collecting protégés, young cops so eager to please that they’ll do whatever he says. And his favourite protégé was–

  ‘Kayden Armstrong,’ Sam said.

  Spencer nodded. ‘Yeah. The kid was doing more and more dirty work for Hector and was earning himself a one-way ticket up through the ranks. So I don’t think it’s premature to suggest you’ve made yourself a bad enemy here.’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Not the first time. What about the girl?’

  Spencer grimaced. ‘Yeah well, that’s where it gets worse. She’s the ex-girlfriend of Jack Kent.’

  That flicker of fear was back. ‘Oh,’ Sam said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Was the break up amicable?’

  ‘The breakup was Kayden Armstrong putting a bullet in her, so either the police and the mob are at odds or Kent wanted her gone.’

  ‘Then why send a cop?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to work out,’ Spencer said. ‘Kent has no shortage of lackeys, which implies to me it was a revenge thing ordered by Hector. Unless Armstrong was rogue.’

  ‘Maybe he had a thing with the girl?’ Sam suggested. ‘She wouldn’t leave Kent, Armstrong cracked.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Spencer said. ‘Doesn’t explain why he tried to shoot you, though. If I were him, I’d be out of there as quick as I could. A gangster’s girl, nobody would suspect a cop. Why wait around to shoot at the first person on the scene?’

  ‘Well, that depends whether or not he knew who the first person on the scene would be.’ Sam tried to think. ‘Of course, all of this is assuming that Armstrong killed the girl. He could have arrived on the scene, found her dead, found me there, assumed I was the killer.’

  Spencer raised an eyebrow. ‘The first cop on the scene happens to be a corrupt one with links to the mob?’

  ‘The first civilian on the scene happens to be me?’

  ‘Good point,’ Spencer said. ‘I don’t believe in coincidence. Somebody is pulling strings here.’

  ‘If that’s true, we both know who that somebody is,’ Sam said. ‘Which creates a whole lot of new questions.’

  For a moment there was silence as they both tried to think.

  ‘I have to talk to Sarah,’ Sam said finally.

  Spencer raised an eyebrow. ‘Of all the bad ideas you’ve had, and they are legion, this is among the worst.’

  ‘She’ll listen.’

  ‘I’m almost a hundred percent sure she won’t. She’s a cop. A corrupt cop.’

  ‘She’s the right kind of corrupt.’

  ‘Is that a thing?’

  ‘Look,’ Sam said. ‘Sarah and I go way back. She’s got her head on straight. She was never after the money or the drugs, she just knew that you had to play ball to get things done in this town. Turn a blind eye to the lesser evils, and they might help you destroy the greater ones. Sarah will hear me out. If I have at least one cop in my corner, I stand a chance of getting out of this alive. She’s pretty high ranking now, she might be able to hold off the onslaught.’

  ‘How?’ Spencer said. ‘Admitting she spoke to you and didn’t arrest you? She would have to be stupid or suicidal or both to do that.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sam said. ‘But she can do something. Something is more than I have right now.’

  ‘Something might not be a good thing,’ Spencer said. ‘When was the last time you spoke to her? You have no idea where she stands. She could be in with O’Neill, she could have known Armstrong. She could be as much out for your blood as anyone.’

  ‘Could be,’ Sam said. ‘Less likely to be than just about anyone else. It’s a chance I’m going to take.’

  ‘Well that’s just great,’ Spencer growled. ‘You’ve given me a tonne of work to do, and now you’re gonna go and get killed. I could have enjoyed my night off.’

  ‘Well you can have your life off if I do get killed,’ Sam said. ‘So there’s an upside.’

  Spencer snorted, but his frown remained.

  Chapter Five

  The King’s Head was not a popular bar unless you were the kind of person who preferred unpopular places. It was grimy and rundown, with only ever the same unshaven, elderly bartender in his stained apron scowling at his handful of customers while VHS recordings of old sports matches played on a TV in the corner and Irish music crackled from one-half dead speaker.

  Sam sat alone in a corner booth, beer in hand and eyes on the door. He quite liked this place, for the very reason that he was unlikely to be bothered. Everything about it looked rough, and anybody who didn’t like rough places gave it a wide berth. Of course, the secret here was that it was so tiny and innocuous that nobody actually dangerous ever came near it.

  Well, almost nobody.

  The door swung open, and Sarah entered. Mid-thirties with short hair and the kind of hard face that had seen too much, her eyes scanned the bar briefly before they landed on Sam. He smiled and raised his drink. Sarah inclined her head very slightly in what might have been a nod or a signifier of resignation, then stepped up to the bar. Sam glanced from her to the door. Nobody was coming through after her. He hadn’t expected anyone would, but then you couldn’t be too careful. Even so; Kayden Armstrong’s gun remained in the back of his jeans.

  Scotch on the rocks in hand, Sarah sat across from him. For a moment, neither spoke. Sam lifted his drink again, and Sarah clinked it with her own.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been quiet,’ he replied. ‘Apparently, it’s everyone else who can’t seem to rest.’

  ‘Crime doesn’t sleep,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s a busy profession we’ve chosen.’

  ‘I chose to leave, if you recall.’

  Sarah’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. ‘You know as well as me that’s a choice that seldom takes.’

  ‘I do now.’

  For a moment, neither moved nor spoke, but their eyes remained locked.

  ‘Did you kill them?’ she asked.

  ‘I found her dead. Armstrong tried to shoot me. I killed him in self-defence and ran.’

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed, as if analysing him. Sam knew better than to comment. He just waited until she gave another almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘Why and how?’

  ‘Because I need it and I don’t know.’

  ‘Needing it isn’t the same as deserving it.’

  ‘Then do it because you owe me.’

  Sarah raised the glass to her lips and took a tiny sip. ‘You realise what you’re asking me?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘If you realised you wouldn’t be asking.’

  ‘Yet here I am.’

  Sarah sighed. ‘Sam, if O’Neil gets the barest hint that I even pointed you in the right direction then I’m finished.’

  Sam leant forward. ‘Then let’s make it so that he can’t get the barest hint.’

  ‘You realise who he’s connected to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you think you have the tiniest chance of surviving?’

  ‘It’s not about what chance I have, it’s about what I intend. I’m not going down without a fight.’

  ‘You may find you don’t have a choice.’

  ‘In my experience, there’s always a choice. It’s just up to you to make it.’

  Sarah exhaled, then looked up at the roof. She seemed pained, somehow. ‘You talk like someone trying to convince himself of something he knows isn’t true.’

  Sam paused, unsure of how to respond to that. So he didn’t. They sat there in silence until they had both finished their drinks. Then Sarah looked at her watch, grimaced, and finally met Sam’s eye again.

  ‘O’Neil’s house is protected,’ she said. ‘But he has a back door that he steers his guards away from. He has visitors he’d rather no-one knows about. If I was to pay him a visit, that’s the way I’d go.’

  Sam
nodded.

  ‘Now,’ Sarah said. ‘If I were you I would draw that gun.’

  The held each other’s gaze for a moment, then Sam took the gun and pointed it at her head, just as the doors to the bar burst open.

  There were five of them, as far as Sam could tell; dressed as civilians, but clearly cops. It was obvious in the way they held themselves, and how their eyes moved straight to Sam and Sarah. They had been warned, apparently, and now they were stopped short by the sight of their target with a gun to the head of their colleague.

  The bar was silent. All eyes were either on Sam or the five cops.

  One of them, apparently a leader of sorts, stepped forward, as he did lifting his shirt and resting his hand on the butt of his holstered gun.

  ‘Don’t,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t even try.’

  The cop lowered his hand, but his hate-filled scowl went nowhere. ‘Think you’re getting away with this, cop killer?’

  ‘Depends on what you think I’m getting away with,’ Sam said. ‘If you mean killing Kayden Armstrong–’

  ‘So you admit it?’

  ‘I admit it was self-defence,’ Sam said. ‘He shot at me first. What was I supposed to do?’

  The cop’s laugh was cold. ‘I don’t sympathise with murderers.’

  Sam nodded. ‘You’re right; innocent until proven guilty is an overrated concept.’ He glanced quickly at Sarah before returning his eyes to the cops. She didn’t look scared. He wasn’t sure how to take that.

  ‘Innocent?’ the man said. ‘You think we don’t know who you are, Sam Stevens? There are a lot of words that describe you, but innocent isn’t one of them.’

  ‘What words would you use to describe a marauding gang of dirty cops?’ Sam said.