by Kevin Wright
Boom! Boom!
“HER! The one you want! The vamp-queen!”
“Where do we find her?”
The sun was rising fast. Only the stone parapet on the roof kept the morning rays from falling upon Billy Rubin. Smoke began, in tiny rivulets, to stream from the corners of his blue eyes.
Boom!
“Don’t know! No one can find her, AAAARRRCCHH!”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Bullshit!” Carmine said.
“No-no-no-no, really, I don’t know — eerrgg!”
“Give us something! The sun’s rising!”
“Pussywillow, her friend, goes to Socials, every one. Always there. Always goes home with some poor shlub. Keep it AWAY! Keep it away!”
Boom! Boom!
“Where are the socials held?”
“Everywhere!” Billy Rubin’s eyes started smoking.
“Where’s the next one?!”
“The Gin Dingo! Downstairs! The club! Tuesday night’s the next one!” Billy Rubin wriggled free from his duct-tape cocoon and popped free from the Gurkha’s grip like a wet bar of soap.
Carmine and the Gurkha, leg splint snapping, both dove. “Grab him!”
Billy Rubin slid free, eluding their grasp, sliding away on his belly, a snot-toboggan, toward the door.
Elliot and Peter, wrestling, paused.
“Block the door!”
Elliot hurled Peter aside then dove.
He missed.
Billy Rubin banged a one-eighty and bolted.
Elliot was back on his feet.
Billy Rubin slid, a trail of slimy foot and hand prints leading to the parapet wall.
Peter, on the ground, gun drawn, rolled over and aimed, but it was too late.
Perched on the parapet, Billy Rubin’s eyes locked for an instant on Peter; then he chose his fate. Under full brunt of the risen sun, blue flesh blistering and boiling to bursting, he turned and sprang. He screamed, immolating in mid-air, and then fell burning to the streets below.
Chapter 23.
“THEY PANICKED?” The Chief scratched his chin. “That’s the best you can come up with?”
“They panicked a lot.” Detective Winters leaned back in his chair, thumbing through one of dozens of notebooks neatly stacked in his small cubicle. A green triangle sticker was pressed neatly into the notebook cover. He noticed the Chief much as an engorged anaconda might notice a hummingbird.
“Now look here!” the Chief said. “Someone has to take responsibility for last night. Twenty-eight men dead. You were in charge.”
“I was in charge.” Detective Winters placed his notebook down on his desk, carefully selected another one, and began thumbing through it.
“Your report doesn’t mention the whereabouts of the murder weapon or this character, this Billy Rubin.” The Chief glanced at the report. “Where is it? Who has it? Who the hell is he?”
Detective Winters glanced up from his notebook and looked the Chief in the eye. “The gun was not found.”
“Well, what the hell happened to it?” the Chief asked. “Didn’t anyone see it? Containment? The spotters?”
“Does it truly matter? The man is dead. He will never go to trial. He will never be convicted.”
“Damn straight it matters! This is unacceptable. It’s shoddy detective work, and I won’t stand for it, not on my force!”
“Perhaps someone took it as a souvenir,” Detective Winters said.
“One of those civilians,” the Chief grumbled. “Well, I want it, evidence, of course.”
“Of course.” Detective Winters’ piercing blue eyes never left the Chief’s.
“So…” the Chief glanced away, “you’ll find it, then? Soon?”
“You fired me last night. Don’t you remember?”
“Never mind that. You just find that gun.”
“Who gave you that tip?” Detective Winters balanced a pencil on the tip of his finger. “A source with intelligence like that has some hefty connections. Someone with connections hefty enough to bring down the biggest heroin dealer in Colton Falls certainly must possess other useful information. I would bet my soul on it.”
“Drop it, Winters,” the Chief said. “Mention it again, see where it gets you.”
Detective Winters grinned, barely. “Biggest heroin dealer in town. Word on the street says he is dead. We do not know how or why. We cannot confirm it, cannot disprove it. Word also says he was there last night. No body, though. Only a diesel-powered baby carriage stocked with thirty pounds of heroin, three vampire corpses, none of them Billy Rubin, and a pair of tiny Derringers. Ballistics is still out, but they were used to kill Father Lonigan. See this notebook?”
Detective Winters held up a thick notebook and fanned its pages open. Every page was packed with tiny neat script from one end to the other, top to bottom, all in black ink. “This is one of many. I have compiled a profile on most of the high-bloods in this town. Many of the low-bloods, too. Much of it is first-hand intelligence. I know little of Billy Rubin, though. I do not even have a physical description. I know the disturbing legends. Some of his methods, none of his history. I know he is a monster one more difficult to grasp than most. But that is all I know, and none of it first, or even second hand. Only myths, lies, conjecture. Do you know why?”
The Chief shook his head.
“He has regular customers he deals directly to, as well as middle-men he funnels through,” Detective Winters said. “Billy Rubin is smart, for a vampire, elusive. Took down the human dealers decades ago. Made men come to him. Front door delivery. Convenient. Meet in a different location each deal, all arranged by trusted mouths. No paper trails. Deals are fast, random, for flesh and blood. Usually. Billy Rubin almost never shows. There have been some supposed sightings, but all are suspect. Customers never know if they are the buyer or the goods. Keep coming, though, cows to the slaughterhouse. Junkies…
“And we saw last night, he brings muscle with him. Heavy muscle. Billy, incidentally, is the only one who deals to Gurlek. Only intelligence I possess from multiple sources. Vampires were afraid of this guy. Billy, too, apparently. Thing is, I know Gurlek was buying heroin. We found that in the carriage. I still do not know what Gurlek was trading for the transaction. Any ideas?”
The Chief’s eyes were wide.
“Any idea why vampires would be afraid of a man?” Detective Winters asked. “Autopsy report has not returned. Their card is full today. Perhaps they will glean something. Perhaps he is a monster. He did not reek as one. Odd, but not a monster. Perhaps the others will start talking, now that he is dead.”
“Perhaps,” the Chief said.
“You know,” Detective Winters said, “when blood seeps from the walls, and the carpets coagulate with blood. When the basement fouls with the stink of the rotten corpse, people cry monster. Monster, chief. Because they do not know. They have no idea. That is when I come in. I know monsters, chief. It is in my blood. The mentality of rabid hyenas. Eat their own young just to do it. Monsters, chief, would sell their mother, their brother, their people, for a pint of anemic blood.”
Detective Winters stood. “Excuse me, I have a funeral to attend, and an apartment to ransack.” He closed the notebook and placed it neatly amongst the piles on his desk. Then he pulled on his coat and donned his gray, Oxford-quality hat.
“What the fuck is your point, Winters?” the Chief demanded.
“Monsters, chief, some are almost as bad as men.”
* * * *
“Sometimes a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Nathaniel said. “My old man told me that just before … just before he turned into a butterfly, a beautiful butterfly.” He smiled, eyes glazed.
“Uh, thanks, dad.” Peter plunked down in the chair next to his father’s bed. He fidgeted, glancing at his father’s legs, each one wrapped in some sort of brace. “How’re the legs feeling, dad?”
Nathaniel grinned. “My legs are broken.”
“Uh, yeah, dad, I know. Must be feeling a little bet
ter. Nurse said you are. Well, do they hurt?”
Nathaniel smiled.
“That’s good,” Peter said because he didn’t know what else to say. “Look, dad, I might be leaving soon. I just wanted to tell you. I’m gonna get my stuff together tonight and get out of town tomorrow morning.”
Slow understanding settled within Nathaniel’s eyes as he fought against some chemical barrier between him and reality. “Y-you’re taking off, Pete? Is … is your sister back yet? Michelle? Is she back?”
“No, dad, she’s still in Florida,” Peter said. “And I know it sucks, Dad. I know, and I don’t want to leave you here, but I have to. I’m going to talk to Mom and Michelle today, dad, I swear it. They’ll get you out of here. I wish I could. I’d carry you out now, but I can’t. I can’t.”
Peter glanced away. “I … I’m sorry. It’s that trouble I told you I was in. It’s worse. Getting worse. You wouldn’t believe it. I don’t know what to do. But I have to go away. Far away.” Peter glanced back at his father. He looked so pathetic. His once strong body seemed so small and frail lying there wasting away.
“Even my friends, dad. Friends, I’ve-I’ve only known one of them more than a day. I don’t know who to trust. They don’t say it, but even Carmine, dad. My partner that night, we had a huge fight. Should’ve heard what he said. What he’s done. Told me I was being a … well, he was right. He was right. And that’s why I have to go.”
Nathaniel reached out and placed a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s okay, son. You see my new roommate over there, Pete? I’ve only known him for about one day, maybe two. Don’t even know his name. Nope. I trust him, though. Know why?”
“No, dad, why?” Peter glanced over. The man was snoring peacefully.
“Cause he’s a drooling vegetable.” Nathaniel nodded sagely.
“Okay?” Peter raised an eyebrow.
“These friends of yours, Pete,” Nathaniel said, “they ever give you reason not to trust them?”
“No, I guess not, but—”
“Hmmm, have they offered to help you?” Nathaniel sank into his pillow.
“Yeah, yeah, they’ve all helped me.” Peter lowered his head. “And I never even asked them to. Never said thanks. Just took off like a selfish jerk.”
“Peter, son, there are three types of men in this world. Good ones, and bad ones. And only one way to know for sure which is which.”
“How’s that, dad?”
“Well, first you give them a knife, and then you turn your back.”
“Okay.” Peter turned. “Dad, what’s the third type?”
“Dead ones,” Nathaniel mumbled. “And you know what, Petey?”
“What, dad?”
“They’re the worst of the lot…”
“Goodbye, dad,” Peter said, sitting on the edge of the bed. It was a long time before he left.
Chapter 24.
EVERYONE WORE BLACK. Everyone except Detective Winters. In his garb of gray, with hawk eyes, he observed. The day’s Tribune was folded beneath his arm.
Some of the men Detective Winters knew personally. Some by reputation. A dossier he had on each of them. Secrets, they all held them.
A small knot of cops huddled together, hands in pockets, looking down, away, then glancing up periodically at the cool smooth coffin perched above the gaping hole in the earth.
A few firefighters and EMT’s were interspersed amongst the crowd, Carmine amongst them. He never glanced Detective Winters’s way.
Even a few of the old Cowboys were scattered throughout the crowd: Skins, Lady Jay, and Wilton James, last of the great Kung Fu-ists. All had come to pay respects to a man who had died in the same line of work as they.
The clergy was represented as well, of course. The Bishop of Colton Falls conducted the ceremony. It was brief, cold, sterile. The overall feel of the ceremony matched Detective Winters’s clothes more than the masses’, gray, dull, apathetic. The drone of the Bishop’s animatronic voice was accompanied by the hum of cars in the distance and the gray sky.
Most gathered had never been comfortable around the Padre when he was alive. He had been that kind of man. No one was particularly upset that the man was dead. In fact, it was something of a relief. Priests, in general, make people nervous, and with the Padre, it had been even more so. Not a tear was shed, but many a half-hearted prayer was mumbled beneath quick breaths lodged between furtive glances at lagging wristwatches. When the casket was in the ground, a communal sigh of relief broke the tension, and people fled.
Detective Winters swooped down upon one of them.
The Bishop of Colton Falls stood no chance, even with his entourage following. Try as he might, he couldn’t shuffle his shriveled legs and lift his ornate cane fast enough to elude the predator he knew was descending upon him.
“Tuley,” Detective Winters stepped in front of the Bishop and his entourage, “a word about the Padre.”
“I have nothing to say about Father Brian,” the Bishop seethed.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” Detective Winters said. “All the warmth and emotion of a hysterectomy. Tell me, Tuley—”
“Father William,” the Bishop said; a burly bearded priest stepped to his side. “I want to leave.”
“Take a walk.” Father William crossed his thick arms in front of his body.
Detective Winters smirked.
The Bishop continued on, his entourage in tow. One stepped forward and took the Bishop’s arm, helping him down the slope and around gravestones.
Father William remained.
Detective Winters, too, remained, watching the Bishop crawl away. As the Bishop finally reached his limousine, Detective Winters’s voice resounded. “I knew he would die, Tuley, and so did you!”
The Bishop froze and turned. Even from that distance, the grimace pulling down the corners of his mouth was prominent. Throwing his Bishop hat aside, he surged back up the hill. Through his entourage of priests, he churned, throwing his cane aside as he tore up the hill, clawing at gravestones for support.
“He was a pterodactyl, Bill,” Detective Winters said to the burly priest. “You all are.”
“Look, guy, I was Golden gloves champ two years in a row,” Father William cracked his knuckles, “before I was a priest. You know that?”
Detective Winters grinned. “One hundred percent of boxers suffer from brain damage, Bill. Did you know that? Just the man to offer advice and spiritual guidance. Oh, hello, Tuley,” Detective Winters said. “Take a minute. Catch your breath.”
The Bishop did just that, leaning upon the gravestone next to him. His entourage stood around him.
“Bishop, are you—?”
“You may leave.” The Bishop shooed with his hand. “All of you, go. This will be over in minutes.”
Detective Winters and the Bishop watched them all go. After a minute of heavy breathing, the Bishop grimaced, pushed off the gravestone, and stood.
“What is it you want of me, detective?” the Bishop asked.
“Many things, Tuley.”
“From me.”
“Where would a priest glean the whereabouts of last night’s heroin transaction?” Detective Winters asked.
The bishop didn’t even blink. “Father Brian wasn’t much of a priest.”
“He was shepherd to your flock.” Detective Winter unfolded the Tribune newspaper. “You’re quoted as saying that he was, hmmm? ‘An asset to … spiritual community … a shining beacon to the priesthood … a servant of God.’ Please, God?” He shook his head. “A farce. Hmmm, blah, blah, blah, ‘horrible tragedy that happened last evening … Father Lonigan will be missed.’ Should I go on?”
“If you have a point, get to it,” the Bishop said through grinding teeth. “I have twenty-eight more funerals over the next few days. All officers of the law. All your colleagues. You were their commanding officer, I understand.”
“You knew he was a hunter,” Detective Winters said. “He must have reported to someone, if not you. Someone ha
s information I require. He crawled through hell for this town. For his god. For his order. For you. Someone owes him. That someone is you.”
“Brian was a loose cannon, a menace.” The Bishop’s face turned red. “A menace to himself and others. Always running around with swords and knives, meddling. The man would not listen to reason. Would not leave. Would not … well, now he is dead. You say you knew he would die? Well congratulations, detective, I’ve known that for years. I told him that the last time I talked to him.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday. I tried to help him. I tried to get him out of here, to transfer him, but he refused. I tried to get him to stop this nonsense.”
“You were trying to help yourself,” Detective Winters said. “You did not give a damn about him.”
“Damnit, yes. No! I was trying to help the church,” the Bishop raised a finger to Detective Winters’s face, “but I was also trying to help him. He was like a son to me. And don’t you dare say I didn’t care. You have no inkling, even, to what I’ve gone through. The sacrifices. All for the greater good.”
“The greater good? Hmmmm…” Detective Winters said. “I use that line myself on occasion. To rationalize. Too ambiguous to argue.”
“Go to hell, detective.”
“This town is an iceberg, Tuley,” Detective Winters said. “Ninety percent of it seethes concealed beneath the cold black depths. You know what lies in the depths, Tuley? Most people never know, do they? Only a few. And only at the surface, vainly, do they scratch. Mostly the junkies, the prostitutes, the homeless, before they die. People no one listens to, no one sees. Of those few, Tuley, of those few who know, most do not live to tell about it. But then, they never truly understand. Only men such as you, Tuley, and men such as I. We have seen the depths of oblivion and comprehend. But we are at odds, my good Bishop.
“You believe you are a good man, Tuley.” Detective Winters smirked. “You believe it so hard, it is truth.”
“What?” the Bishop asked.
Detective Winters held up the newspaper, the story about the Padre on top, coupled with a story of church scandal. “The irony, Tuley. The irony is that every word you say about the Padre is truth, though you believe them lies,” Detective Winters pointed at the church piece, “and everything you believe to be lies, Tuley, is truth.”