Darker Than Noir

by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith

  “I heard him tell you everything,” said a gravel-coated voice, calm yet menacing without needing to be loud. “But he got everything wrong.” Jon wanted more than anything to not turn around but he had to in spite of himself. Even in the dim light the man holding his arm had a dreadful cast—the color of an almost-healed bruise, his lips tinged blue. “Everything is wrong,” he added, more to himself than to Jon.

  Morgenthau had seen all manner of disgusting things on the job but he had to swallow hard to keep his nausea in check. The eyes, they were just as Spildak had described them, yet so much more grotesque than his imagination had allowed. Fear engulfed him, even though nothing the creature did was actually threatening. He sensed from its tone that he was not in any immediate danger. Despite all his training the detective let his fingers release his gun.

  “It’s just a man. Just a man,” Jon repeated to himself silently, unconvinced. He clenched his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering, but not from the cold.

  “It’s true that I killed that man on the boat—his friend. But I didn’t mean to,” the man, or whatever it was, went on. “I’d never killed a soul in all my life. I had never been that kind of man. I just needed to talk to the doc,” it said “I had to talk to someone.

  “I tracked him, waited for days for him to come out from his apartment. I needed a place where we wouldn’t be interrupted and where he couldn’t just run. So when they got on that boat it seemed ideal.

  “That guy, he shouldn’t’ve attacked me—I wasn’t gonna hurt anyone. Then he fell overboard and I was just trying to get hold of him, to drag him onto dry ground. The water must’a been awful cold —I can’t really feel it anymore, y’know?” Jon made no response and the creature did not wait for one. “Anyway, it wasn’t any time at all before he stopped struggling—just shivered all over, then stopped moving altogether. I was scared. I just swam away.

  “Now the kid, that was another story.” Morgethau’s detective mind kicked in at that, his interest overwhelming his fear. That had his attention. “By then I was nothing but mad,” it said. Jon noticed that no cloud of breath formed when the creature spoke but he wasn’t going anywhere until he’d heard it out.

  “All I could think was I wanted the doc to suffer—to make him feel as helpless, as bewildered and filled with fear as me. I spotted the kid—I’d seen him going in and out of the building, bringing in groceries. I had nothing against him personally, but he was close to the doc and easy to reach so I followed him to those projects by the river. I grabbed him and snapped his neck. It was like nothing at all – just a little pop.” Morgenthau had heard other people describe that sound. He felt the burn of bile in the back of his throat and swallowed hard. The other took no notice.

  “Afterward I took the medal he’d been wearing and went back to the doc’s apartment. The door was unlocked and I could hear him banging around in the next room. Was past having anything to say to him, past caring what he had to say. I dropped the kid’s medal into a coat pocket hanging next to the door and took off. I thought I was pretty damn smart.

  “Then I saw a headline saying cleaning lady had done it. The newspaper said you had found the evidence in her coat. That’s why I have to talk to you. You’ve got to make it come out the right way.” The thing let go of Jon’s arm and took a step back, his grotesque features already being obliterated by the enclosing darkness.

  “You don’t need to worry, I won’t be bothering anyone anymore. And I’m already being punished.”

  Det. Morganthau pulled his gun as the figure receded into the shadows but he wondered what possible good it would do if he did shoot.

  “Sure, I’ve got to make it all come out right,” Jon heard himself saying out loud. “Just tell me how.” His quavering voice did not even sound like his own.

  He could get the Fuertes woman sprung, alright. He knew where the holes were in the case he’d built against her. Spildak could take the fall and if his lawyer let him testify he would do his time in a psych ward. But that didn’t sit well with him either. The doctor hadn’t actually committed a crime—at least not one in the law books.

  The ADA’d be pissed if he torpedoed the case against the Fuentes woman and then didn’t close it. But how was he supposed to explain a dead man’s fingerprints on the Confirmation medallion?

  All the way home he listened to the monster’s words echo in the clatter of the subway tracks: “There’s a difference between being able to walk around and being alive. Pray to whatever God you believe in that you never find out what it is.”

  THE BOX OF THE SEVEN SONS

  By Kent Alyn

  In the shack, the walls and floors of the living room looked like a Jackson Pollack masterpiece. The palette: differing shades of red. The pattern: none. The artist: a mystery.

  “Smells like guts,” Kowalski said, stepping over the yellow tape with a cardboard holder-tray of lattes. “Want one?”

  Brendan O’Connor snapped a latex glove down over his wristwatch and smirked. “No thanks. Don’t know how the hell you can drink those things while tip-toeing around dead bodies.”

  Seven bodies, to be exact. A couple Woodstock-aged hippies against the hearth—disemboweled, intestines lumped together in one pile. Couldn’t tell whose was whose. A fat biker dude, facedown in the center, with a big dragon tattoo that stretched up his right arm, crawled across his hairy back, and down to his left arm—a left arm that was on the other side of the room, dangling from a bookshelf full of old mass market paperbacks. A pale-faced Satanist in a black robe was strangled to death by his own silver necklace and eyes gouged out by the inverted cross pendant—dark blood down his cheeks like ink. An old woman in a floral shirt was slumped over the coffee table, resting in a pillow of melted wax with her hair burned off, scalp blistered, and her melted bug-eyed sunglasses still intact. A headless body in a Brett Favre football jersey: the Minnesota Vikings variety. And, the naked chick.

  Kowalski sipped his latte, and then tilted his head as he examined the woman. “She’s hot. I’d do her.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “C’mon. You know you would.”

  “Dude, don’t you respect the dead?”

  Dead: lifeless, eyes open, limp limbs, flattened breasts.

  Kowalski leaned over for a closer look. He poked at her hard nipple with the tip of his index finger and giggled a little. “Huh? Did you say something?”

  Perv.

  “You’d think with your insatiable appetite for porno that this sort of thing wouldn’t be so exciting.”

  “Naked’s naked, man. Check this out?” Kowalski said, lifting the right breast and squeezing.

  “Seriously, you’re going to get us in trouble. At least put some gloves on,” Brendan said, looking around the room for on-lookers. Outside, the ocean waves crashed and crashed and crashed.

  “No, no. I ain’t screwin’ around this time. Look at all these…damn it!” Kowalski said as he straightened up so fast that he spilled coffee down the front of his shirt and tie. “Damn it, twice!”

  Brendan leaned in as Kowalski walked away. “What?”

  “Roach or something,” he said, looking at the front of his shirt and then scanning the floor. “The boob—check out the boob.”

  Bite marks. Claw marks.

  “Both breasts,” Brendan said. “In fact, all over her damn body.”

  “Fuckin’ Twilight shit.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Do you even know what Twilight is?”

  “Vampires.”

  “Trust me, Kowalski, Twilight ain’t vampires. And no, these people aren’t the blood-sucking sort. More like a violent orgy or gang rape.”

  He walked around the room and examined as many fingernails and teeth as he could. Kowalski was sipping coffee and looking between the dead woman’s legs—supposedly checking for signs of rape.

  When done, only one person fit the bill.

  “You tellin’ me that the little old lady from Pasadena did that?” Kowalski said<
br />
  “Looks like it.”

  “And she still managed to keep the dentures and the sunglasses on?”

  “Appears so.”

  Kowalski grimaced for the first time since he came into the house. He rubbed his whiskery chin and said, “We’re missing something. Where in the hell is Brett Favre’s head?”

  Not anywhere in sight. Not in the living room. Not down the hallway. Not in the bedrooms. Not in the kitchen. Outside? Nowhere.

  A foggy morning on the Oregon coast. Even the seagulls seemed to be combing the beach in search of the head. The tall grass around the shack gave no clues, told no tales. The drizzle covered Brendan’s glasses.

  “So, what the hell is this?” Kolwalski asked, just as Brendan come through the door and into the bloody room. “You’d think Favre would’ve left a pool of blood around his shoulders.”

  It was strange. The hardwood floors were blackened by fire around the burned old woman and stretched toward the headless man—encompassing his torso. The jersey was singed around the shoulders. The floors were damaged all around—except for one place—a rectangular area where his head or a pool of blood should be.

  “Something was here,” he said, forming a two feet by two feet box with his hands. “And now it’s gone.”

  Kowalski slurped the last of his latte. “Well, looks like someone ran out of here alive and took Favre’s head in a box.”

  ***

  Brendan lived in a nice suburban Portland cul-de-sac: paved sidewalks, sprinkler systems, maple trees, and street lights. It was the sort of neighborhood where The Beav and Wally would help Miss Daisy with her groceries. At least that’s what Brendan thought when he bought it. At first all he wanted was something better for his wife and kids than what he grew up in. But, then again, anything was better than that hellhole of a childhood his dad gave him. Brendan’s family would only have the best.

  “No, honey, I’m home? No kiss my ass? No nothing?” Sarah said, when he walked through the door, eyes glued to his Blackberry, zoned in on some info that had just come across the wire regarding the dead hippies with the pile of intertwined intestines.

  “No…ass—,” he mumbled, reading.

  She huffed off, but that didn’t matter. The hippies: Israel Jones, 61, and Birdie Greenstein, 64. Legally bonded by Common Law. No physical address. Beach bums; globe-trotters. For the past month they lived in a conversion van in a parking lot off the coast. Jones, a Vietnam vet, was on government disability. Birdie, a recovering drug addict, wrote a column for a hemp advocacy zine. Adventurous folks; risk-takers.

  As he read, he wandered into the kitchen and tugged his tie loose.

  “Daddy!” Ryan, the five year-old rascal, shouted with a mouthful of macaroni and cheese.

  Brendan placed his hand on the kid’s fuzzy, red head and gave the boy a playful shake.

  Ryan giggled.

  Allison was texting.

  He scrolled. More information transmitted. The biker with the dragon tattoo was a trucker from Portland. Roland Griffin Jr. An assault charge. No, two assault charges and a DUI. Did some jail time, but that was over ten years ago. Recent banking transactions showed a few thousand dollars spent at a strip club called the Foxy Rocket.

  “Eat, Ally,” Sarah said, dishing up a plate for her husband.

  “I hate steak.”

  “Steak is good for you.”

  Foxy Rocket? Didn’t ring a bell. Kowalski would know all about it.

  “I like streak! And, I like mac n’cheese! And I like ice cream,” Ryan said.

  “Steak is disgusting. Randy’s family eats vegetables only.”

  “Go be a part of Randy’s family, then.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “I like everything. I like the park. Maybe we could go on a bike ride later, dad?”

  Sarah set a plate of food on the table in from of him. He picked it up and walked toward the hallway.

  “Brendan, aren’t you going to eat with us?”

  Can’t you see that I’m still working? She must’ve seen that response in his body language.

  “Fine.”

  He started to go back to the table, but it was too late.

  “No, no, don’t you dare sit down now,” she said, starting to cry.

  Allison put down her cell and started to cut into the bloody meat. Brendan should’ve done the same, but his heart began to pump and he could feel the corners of his mouth curl.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Because you’re crying—always crying! Never fails.”

  That just made her cry more. “I’m frustrated! I cry when I’m frustrated, is that okay with you?”

  Don’t manipulate me. He started to leave.

  “So, now you’re going to walk away?”

  “I’m walking away because I’m pissed off and I’m going to say something I regret. I’m frustrated, too.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” he said, slamming his plate on the table.

  Sarah pointed at Ryan, mouthing Don’t cuss in front of him.

  “I’ll say whatever the fuck I want. And you have no idea what I’ve gone through today.”

  Her shoulders sunk and quaked as she sobbed.

  “Seven dead people. Blood everywhere.”

  Allison spit out a bite of her steak. “Thanks a lot, dad.”

  Sarah straightened up and took a couple bold steps forward. “This is a start! First time I’ve seen you guys actually speak in the same conversation for a long time. Daughter, this is your dad. Dad, this is your daughter.”

  “I talk to her all the time!”

  He glanced at Allison. She looked away.

  Brendan took a deep breath and paused. It was a lie.

  It was quiet too long. Ryan’s eyes were wide open and his fingers huddled underneath his chin. His face: flushed.

  “Buddy, are you scared?” Sarah asked, sniffing away some snot.

  He nodded.

  “He had another nightmare at nap time,” she whispered. “Same one.”

  Same one. Same damned one. Day after day; week after week. Months.

  The nightmare: A shadow slithers under his bedroom door and expands, engulfing the room like a black fog. The darkness turns into a black cat and hides under the bed. The boy is paralyzed in fear. Against his will, the boy looks under the bed. The cat tells Ryan its name—but the boy can’t say it. The cat attacks. After subduing Ryan, the cat crawls down his throat and lives inside his belly. Making him feel scared and dead.

  A five year-old shouldn’t think about death.

  “Can you take him on a bike ride?”

  The Blackberry chimed. Kowalski.

  “What?”

  “Got some more dirt. Wanna go for a drive?”

  “Where?”

  “Strip club.”

  Brendan nearly hung up. “Serious?”

  “No shittin’. Naked chick was a stripper at the Foxy Rocket. Her name’s Francesca Lane.”

  “Foxy Rocket! That guy with the tattoo—the one that got his arm ripped off…”

  Sarah yelled, “Do you have to say that in front of the kids?”

  “…spent a bunch of money at that place. He and this stripper, Francesca, have some connection.”

  Gunfire in the background.

  “Are you playing video games?”

  “Lost 4 Dead, man.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  “Now.”

  He hung up and said, “I need to take this to go.”

  “Of course you do.”

  The tears welled in Sarah’s eyes again. Allison was back to texting. Little Ryan’s face was pale in fright.

  “The dreams aren’t real, buddy,” he said.

  Brendan didn’t know if his son was afraid of the nightmares or of him.

  ***

  “Mama, don’t let your kiddies grow up to be cowpokes, because only doctors and lawyers and CEOs can afford the Foxy Rocket,” Kowalski said, stopping
at the ATM in the lobby. “And, detectives without kids.”

  Brendan flipped him off.

  “That’s a nice long finger. I’m sure that—, “ he paused, looked over at the XXX poster on the wall, read a few names, and then said, “—Layla would really like it.”

  Asshole.

  Music: Snoop Dogg—and way too loud for a married white guy in a tie.

  While Kowalski indulged in a lap dance with a twenty-something blonde who was likely trying to pay off her graduate school loans, Brendan flashed his badge at a saggy-breasted, dimpled-rumped stripper named Idaho.

  “Don’t be wasting my time. I don’t give freebies just because you’re a cop. It takes a lot more to intimidate me,” she said, flipping her fake curls back.

  “Just put your damn shirt on. I don’t want a dance.”

  “Oh, I see. It’s because I’m fat now. You thought you could get a cheap fat dance, but now you’re just being rude.”

  He cut to the chase. “Francesca. You know her?”

  “Franchestica, I don’t…Oh, you mean Cisco. Yeah, I know her,” the stripper said, folding her arms across her breasts. “She okay?”

  “Dead.”

  She covered her mouth; her painted eyes grew large.

  “What happened?”

  “I can’t say. But, did she tell you what her plans were last night?”

  “No, she didn’t say anything to me.”

  “Would anyone here know?

  “Probably not. We all don’t talk all that much. All I know about Cisco is that she was living with a grandma-sort.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “An old lady. What the fuck do you think I mean? The lady picks her up when she needs a ride, pays for her food, shit like that.”

  “Do you know this lady’s name?”

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Do you know where the old lady lives?”

  “Listen, the only thing I know is that you’re cutting into my client’s time. So unless you want me to shake these things for you, I’m going to walk over to that sweaty high school principal and pretend I’m the lunch lady on sloppy Joe day—or whatever he wants me to be…okay?”