“I’ll tell her you said that,” the cop said as he walked out the door.
Cain settled back into his seat, wishing he could think beyond the hunger that plagued his belly; Al’bah had promised a surprise for dinner and apple pie for dessert. But now he was starving, and his freedom had been taken by pricks who sought only a scapegoat, versus justice.
At least I have Charlie. If I lose everything else, I have him.
***
“Would you like another?”
Charlie opened his eyes; he had been chewing on the second roast beef sandwich Al’bah had packed for Cain. Never in his entire life had he tasted something so savory. If her cooking was this good, she just might have to stick around for a long time. Shoot, he even began to wonder if Al’bah had a sister.
“Ah, yes. Thank you,” Charlie said once he swallowed. “Hey, thanks for letting me bring this in.”
The bartender smiled. “Hennessey, right?”
Charlie nodded and took another bite, vocalizing the absolute delight he got from the taste, texture, and overall goodness that the sandwich had. “You know what?” Charlie muttered to himself. “I’m gonna make something for her. Maybe a silver hair comb. Yeah, that’s the ticket.”
Several people stared as he took another bite. “Whuf?” Charlie said around a mouthful. They turned back around, and Charlie sighed as he chewed, taking in the pub’s atmosphere. Rich faux wood paneling, polished cedar bar. Dark, smoky ambience, and live soft jazz floating with the cigar smoke from the rather higher-end clientele. Strictly speaking, Charlie shouldn’t have even gotten through the front door. His blue jean, T-shirt, and leather jacket attire was well below dress code.
He winked as the bartender (and daughter of the owner) brought him another Hennessey. Screw dress codes! Style was a crutch for those who didn’t have charm.
His phone chimed, signifying he received something. He picked up his cell and opened a video message from Cain.
“Holy shit!”
15 Minutes Later
Charlie strolled right up to the news crew that had encamped at the Gabel Apartments. “Hey, sexy lady,” Charlie said, walking right up to a blonde reporter’s personal space.
She glared over at him and spoke to one of the larger men in the news crew. “Gerald, can you get this Asian prick outta my face?”
“Right, Missus Waters. Okay, buddy, you need to step back for a moment and—”
Charlie grabbed the hand Gerald placed on his shoulder and bent it fiercely to the side, and with a gentle maneuver that used Gerald’s momentum, he tossed him to the ground. “I said, ‘Hey, sexy lady.’ I didn’t ask for a romantic interlude, you know. What’s wrong? The cops won’t let you get any closer?” Charlie said with a warm smile, glancing over at the “Do Not Cross” tape and the cops that stood idly by while others unloaded something from Cain’s apartment.
“And what of it? You got something to say?” the reporter said as she stepped in front of a now furious Gerald.
“First, I’ll need your phone number,” Charlie said as he ran his hand through his hair.
“Gerald, don’t bother with this one. Just get one of those cops to get rid of him.”
Charlie grinned; people could always be so predictable. “Okay, just thought this might be of interest to you.” He flipped out his phone and replayed Cain’s message.
The entire news crew that had edged closer was now spellbound by the video Cain had sent to Charlie. “So, I guess I’ll just go now. I mean, who wants to mess around with the cops? No sense of humor.” Charlie clicked off the phone just as some of the crew was getting their cameras ready.
The entire news crew seemed to burst forth with a single word. “Wait!”
Charlie turned back. “Now, now. My phone is a little shy.” He placed his hands in his pockets and gestured slightly with his head to the blonde reporter to come closer. “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”
“Caitlyn.”
“Ah, an old Gaelic name that means ‘pure,’” Charlie said while nodding. “And Waters is self-explanatory.” Charlie sighed upon noticing her wedding band. “Ahem, well the man who sent me this message is my friend. He needs my help, and I’ll just bet going to the police with this will just ensure my arrest, and the loss of my phone.” He retrieved his cell from his pocket. “Now, what did you say your number was again?”
Caitlyn stepped forward and whispered into Charlie’s ear as he grinned and tapped in the number.
“Excellent. The message is set for a twelve-hour delay,” he said as he walked off.
“What?”
Charlie shrugged and turned around. “My friend’s name is Cain Lamentson, and he works with me at Carlton Construction. I am just one of many witnesses that can verify his whereabouts for days.” He winked. “But if I just give you the message without the media confirming everything I said, those cops are gonna backpedal and find some way and some reason to keep my friend locked up. But if they go out and say they made an arrest to someone connected with this shit, and then the media comes forth with everything I said, well, let’s just say my friend won’t have to worry about dropping the soap.”
***
4:59 p.m.
Ever since the first round of questioning was over, the police had little to ask, and Cain had little to say. As far as they were concerned, he was an open-and-shut case. However, because of the amount of press his arrest generated, he was informed, like it or not, that a lawyer was coming to speak to him.
The door opened, and Walter Stratton walked in. Cain could almost hear the tendons in his neck creak and his eyeballs move in their sockets as he followed his movements to the chair across the desk where he sat now. With an almost absurd yet fluid motion, Walter sat down.
5:00 p.m.
“Well, Mister Lamentson, I am glad we were able to keep our little appointment,” Walter said while taking off his sunglasses and placing them on the table. He rubbed his eyes slightly and turned them to Cain. His eyes were a gray so cold, they reminded him of a window covered in frost. “I suppose I don’t need to go over the details of your charges.” Walter sighed dispassionately. “By this time tomorrow, hardly anyone will have to, considering you made headlines across the nation.”
“Maybe I would like a different lawyer,” Cain said through gritted teeth and forced his hands painfully against his cuffs to fight the urge to shiver. This had to have been Taint’s doing; there was no other explanation. His words rang clear again in his ears.
“My agents now come for you, and what is mine!”
“By all means!” Walter said, starting to get up. “I imagine that any high-profile lawyer would want your case. It is going to make just about anyone an instant celebrity.” He picked up his sunglasses and held them for a moment. “But I doubt that anyone could broker a deal that our law firm could. Why, I all but guarantee it.”
His vision went red. They had Al’bah. He jumped up and reached both hands out for Walter’s neck, meaning to choke the life out of him. Walter, never losing that soft smile, grabbed the metal hinge that connected his cuffs.
“Amusing,” he muttered and grabbed Cain’s throat with impossibly slow and deliberate motions.
The strength coming from Walter was supernatural, although outwardly it appeared there was no force coming from him. Cain struggled to breathe, to escape. He felt as though he was caught in a machine, for all the strength that was in those two hands that held him back.
Suddenly the door flew open again, and two cops rushed in. “No worries, boys, the kid here just wanted to blow some steam,” Walter said with a grin and a lot of humor in his voice.
They retreated reluctantly and closed the door. Cain’s vision was getting narrow, almost giving entirely into darkness.
“And there,” Walter said, letting go.
Cain struggled to catch his breath, coughing and wheezing. The darkness that was invading his vision turned red and pulsed with his heartbeat.
“Now,” Walter said, his
face full of amusement, “I am all for violence being the answer, but it is the answer for those who are actually good at it. Or at least for those who have the power.” He looked at his hands, almost admiring them.
“The hell you want to help me for?” Cain rasped out. “You already have—”
“Cain,” Walter said, drawing close and lowering his voice. “By this time tomorrow, the whole nation can watch you, the innocent victim, framed by a real drug dealer, set free. Or you can be the sensation of the media and be in prison in time for Christmas.” He slid a piece of paper across the table with a pen. “All you have to do is voluntarily forfeit that which is not yours.”
Cain thought hard for a moment. They have Al’bah! But something is preventing them from obtaining what they want. They need me to sign this document! They are willing to do anything to—
He slid the paper back across the table. “No.”
Walter put on his sunglasses and straightened his suit. “I will relay your decision to my superiors.” He reached for the paper and started to put it in his briefcase. He frowned and set it back on the table. “Perhaps you might change your mind. You never know,” he muttered as he got up to leave.
Cain felt so cold as Walter turned away and the door closed with a hollow bang, and left him in silence.
A terrible crawling sensation raged in the pit of his stomach.
How dare they touch her! How dare they take her from me! FROM ME! He seethed, almost choking on his own saliva. His imagination ran rampant, envisioning the tortures she had endured at the hands of Taint, to the thought of her being touched by…by…
“FUCK!” Cain screamed, slamming his fists on the table and screaming over and over again. The door opened again and four cops burst in, including the fat one that Al’bah had seen and commented on when they visited the mall. Knowing that they were looking for any excuse, Cain forced himself to lie on the floor before they could get close enough to do anything to him.
“What’s the matter? Is the dumbass missing his smart-ass girlfriend?” the cop breathed in his ear, placing all of his weight upon his back as he uncuffed and re-cuffed Cain with his hands behind his back.
Cain said nothing; he knew better.
With more force than necessary, he was taken to a holding cell. “Nighty-night, dumbass,” the cop said once his cuffs were undone through the bars
Cain looked around; his cell was occupied by two others. One was a vagrant sleeping off his most recent drinking binge. The smell coming from him was nearly unbearable. He must have had dirt caked on his clothes and body for months. The other was a DUI offender who just sat comatose in the corner, looking at the floor.
He would occasionally see his face on the TV that was tucked away in the precinct. Apparently he was big news. He had to be, considering that they found several hundred kilos of cocaine. There were plenty of offers from lawyers to represent him in court, but Cain had no interest to speak to any of them. The cops took advantage of that opportunity as much as they could, trying to wring a confession out of him, using every cheap trick he had ever heard of or read about.
The fact that he wouldn’t talk beyond satisfying legal boundaries convinced them all the more that he was guilty. It didn’t help that he knew that all their tactics were to place him behind bars for decades. Though Cain felt certain that he was going to walk, it gave him no relief as his thoughts turned to Al’bah. He had a growing sense of unease about what the implications of Al’bah’s presence in his life had. Especially considering that she so easily recognized God. And if that weren’t enough, there were Taint, Purity, and Law to consider.
Something among the usual debris of a jail cell caught Cain’s eye. There, among the cigarette butts and old pornos, were a few of those Jesus pamphlets. He was reminded of that smug Christian the day he cut his hand. Reminded of the events he approached with such carelessness—events that changed his life in such a short manner of time. The memories of the past three days swirled around his consciousness.
“I’d rather screw around with a Demon from hell…”
“Then I will pray that God allows…”
“See me, be with me…”
“It will submit!”
“Faith, Love, and Hope…”
“Consequences of choice…”
For the longest time, Cain cared little for what “Christians” had to say to him about God, Jesus, and salvation. His own past—shit, his own father—gave him the worst example Christianity could ever offer. Hypocrites, all of them—they blamed him for a crime he was innocent of when he was only twelve years old!
They placed their judgment and punished him, laughing when he was found at last to be innocent. Cain had demanded they give the same punishment to the guilty, to the pastor’s daughter, as it would be just. And they laughed at him, stating God would punish. That was the day Cain’s hate of Christians, of God, and most especially of Jesus began.
Cain picked up one of the pamphlets that caught his eye the most. Every Christian is a sinner! Every Christian is a hypocrite! He read it and tossed it aside. Usually things like this had no effect on him. But now he was troubled by what all this might mean for him. And what would happen if he wound up dead before all this ended.
Taint, Purity, Law, and Al’bah. They exist. They are real, he thought to himself.
And since they exist, that would mean God exists. And since God must exist, that would mean…what, exactly?
That he was a sinner?
That he was going to hell?
Just for “not believing” Jesus died on a cross for his sins?
What did that mean, anyway? Being a “sinner”? And what does someone dying on a cross have anything to do with that? No one, not even the pamphlet, could articulate a satisfactory answer.
And yet.
Al’bah had told him that “sin” was the act of rebellion against God. So, being a “sinner” would mean that he is a rebel against God? What sort of sense did that make? And just who or what was God, anyway? In his mind, Cain could see Al’bah’s face, her lips forming the word over and over again. The Creator.
Is that it? God is the Creator?
Well then, what created God? he thought bitterly. From this thought, Cain was reminded of a hot debate between himself and his Bible-thumping ex-girlfriend, Cynthia.
Nothing creates the Creator, Cynthia had said.
At Cain’s sneering scoff, she went off on one of her many sermons.
God is not subject to the rules of the universe that He created! Time and space have no hold on the one who created these concepts. If the big bang theory is true, then the universe is more impossible than a God ever could be! The universe would have to be infinitely old, have infinite energy infinite mass, and be infinitely expanding!
Was it true? Was it that simple? If time and space was truly a created thing, could it apply to whatever created it in the first place? Al’bah, Cain thought longingly, I’ve been asking you the wrong questions. He flopped down on one of the hard bunks as far away from the reek of his cell mate as he could, but he couldn’t sleep.
“Now you look like someone who got the shit knocked out of ya,” a voice slurred out. It was the drunk.
The DUI offender deigned to glance at the drunk and scoffed. “Look who’s talking, shit-bag.”
The drunk sat up and continued to look at Cain. “I saw you read one of my pamphlets. Seems like your favorite one is my favorite one, too.”
Cain shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it my favorite.”
The drunk got up and stretched. “Now tell me, boy, what’s God done to you that got you all bitter?”
“I know what’s got me bitter. Did you have to wake him up? Now the place is gonna smell even worse now that he’s getting up,” the other man said, waving his hand in front of his face.
Cain glanced to the DUI offender and back to the drunk. “Look, I don’t want a sermon.”
The drunk shrugged. “What do you want, then? Do you want to be free? To get out
of here?”
The DUI offender was now holding his shirt over his nose and mouth. “Shit, I do. God, how can you bear that fucking smell?”
Cain shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
The drunk nodded and stood, clanging his finger against the bars that had a ring on it. “Hey, Joe, thanks for the accommodations, but I would like to post my bail and the other gentleman’s who keeps whining about my hygiene.”
Cain at first thought he was joking, but soon enough a cop came and unlocked the door. “Until next time,” he said, obviously familiar with the drunk.
“Me too?” the DUI offender said, standing up.
“Your bail is paid up.”
Without another word or glance, he bolted out and was gone.
Cain felt a momentary rise of hope, which crashed along with the doors of the cell. He turned to look at the drunk and got up to face him between the bars.
“Why didn’t—”
“I pay your bail?” The drunk shook his head as if he was sad. “You didn’t ask. You said you didn’t know what you wanted.” He shrugged. “I would never force my will upon another. I would have gladly paid your bail if you asked.”
”Well, what about now? Why can’t you get me out now?” Cain said.
The drunken man’s eyes seemed to lose their haze as he stared deeply into Cain’s eyes. “Is it what you really want? Because you have been given what you wanted before and it did nothing for you!”
“What?”
Cain turned around, surrounded by his three horrors.
“No!” Cain yelped and sat upright in the jail cell. A cramp in his right hand forced the last of sleep from his awareness. He had been holding onto the pamphlet with a death grip. The old man and the younger man was gone. He was alone. He glanced up; the cops all seemed to be in a frantic hustle and bustle. He noticed his phone video on the television and grinned; Charlie came through for him.
Chapter 22
Succubus Tear (Triune promise) Page 14