Corrina thought a ride in one of the scows was going to be disgusting. It turned out to be hellish and she wasn’t a dainty thing, either. With sun rising behind her, she went through three shades of green just trying to get on board.
“Dontcha git sick on my boat!” the pilot snapped in a voice shredded from countless “cigarettes.” He had something slim burning next to him, but it wasn’t tobacco. He, and Cole was just guessing at the pilot’s sex, was perfectly indescribable. Like the trogs they had run into the night before, he was wrapped in strips of cloth and layers of rags so that only muddy brown eyes peeped out.
“Shut up,” Cole snapped, wrapping a protective arm around the girl. “A little vomit would help, at least with the smell. And we’re paying you to get us across, not to bitch, so get moving.”
Cole was too big, too mean, and too hard to have to listen to a slag complain about a little puke. He would throw the man off his own boat if he heard another word. The slag grumbled beneath his rags, but began to pole the water with an immense length of aluminum. There were seven “boats” on the mist-shrouded river. None had started off as boats. For instance, the main part of the scow they were on had been a fifteen-foot chunk of pre-made poly-vinyl roof that had washed ashore one day. It floated and that’s what counted. Over time, railings had been added while in the center, a part of a prefab staircase was laid on its side and draped with every manner of tarp that could be found.
In this tiny nook, the pilot “lived,” so to speak. He had a pot to cook with and patched together blankets for bedding. When he had to take a crap, he stuck his ass over the side of the rail. Around the scow were barrel-like objects which he used to collect rainwater for drinking and cooking. He could’ve added more, but he really wasn’t interested in bathing, so he hadn’t bothered. The boat was older than he was, and he was not its first owner. The last owner had made the mistake of turning his back on the slag during a routine crossing. The slag had knocked him over board and poled him to the bottom, grinding his corpse into the ooze.
Corrina could not have known this and got a fierce look from him when she asked Cole, “Do you still want a boat?”
He saw the pilot stiffen and didn’t bother to hide a smile. “Not this one, but yes, I think so.”
“Then maybe what’s happening ain’t so bad. We got a big score last time, right? Maybe we’ll get lucky again. If we do, don’t let some vamp play you!” He started to argue but she talked right over him, her grey eyes flashing, “You left twenty grand behind all because you got moony over some piece of ass. You had her over a barrel. You coulda said you were gonna talk and squeezed a hundred large outta her. But no! You’re too much in love and look at you. Instead of living big, you’re covered in shit. Yeah, I know, watch my language. The point is, if there’s some big dogs in this fight, make ‘em pay out this time.”
When he hesitated, she added, “You know this ain’t about you, right? No one cares about you, not even her. All I’m sayin’ is just knowing stuff, knowing the right stuff on the right people can get us back on track. You just gotta be willing to do it.”
This was easier said than done. Blackmailing a gangster was like begging to be killed, and Cole didn’t even know how he would go about trying to blackmail a vamp. They lived untouchable lives in an untouchable world. “Let’s just see what all this is, first. It could all be a mistake.” It felt like a mistake. Anything that left him sitting in a garbage scow covered in filth most definitely felt like a mistake.
“She’s right,” the pilot of the scow said, lifting the pole from the muck and planting it again. As he propelled the boat it looked as though he was stirring an immense toilet, one that had been backed up for the last month. Whenever he lifted the pole, there was a sickly sour smell that had Corrina sweating. “When life gives ya a chance, ya gotta take it by the balls an’ squeeze,” he advised, thinking about how he had done just that in order to get the scow.
“Shut up,” Cole ordered. He was tired and gritty-eyed, but he didn’t dare touch his own face. After fighting the trogs and now this, there was no telling how many diseases were crawling about beneath his nails. He was glad when the wall on the Manhattan side loomed suddenly out of the mists. It was a crumbling, leaning mass of concrete and rebar that had needed replacing fifty years before.
Cracks ran through it in every direction and there were gaping holes; the pilot wasn’t choosey and poled the boat to the closest of the holes. A great heap of trash was mounded up in front of it. Before Cole could complain, the pilot took a drag on its stinking cigarette and said, “They’re all like that, but if you wanna gimme another nickel I’ll take ya to the next one.”
Deep down, Cole knew he was right. “Naw, this is good.” It wasn’t good. It was a thirty-foot climb up a shifting collapsing mound. They fought for every step and by the time they made it through to the other side Corrina was no longer dressed in red. They were both covered in stinking muck that strongly resembled the “water” of the East River.
“Why didn’t we just swim across?” she muttered, looking down at herself in disgust.
“You can swim?” Cole asked. He would’ve been surprised if she could; he had never met a New Yorker who could swim.
“Naw.” She raised an arm and saw that the muck was everywhere. “At least we won’t be recognized. We could walk straight down the street and no one would say jack shi…”
He poked her in the ribs. “Enough of that. Now, let’s go find somewhere to clean up. How much money do we have left?” Between them, they had ninety-five cents. It was enough for a proper room with a proper shower, but not enough for all that and something to eat. They were both starving.
On 45th and 1st Avenue they found a flop house that boasted of having hot showers. “Stick your hair up under your hat and don’t say anything.” Flop houses were always single sex—a law cooked up by politicians who took extensive contributions from whorehouses.
“Just a bed for me and the boy,” Cole said to the man at the front desk. As the man frowned down at Corrina, Cole added, “A room with a shower.”
“Showers are communal and no funny business with the boy. You into any funny business, kid?”
Cole shoved the man back down into his chair. “He’s my kid, jack-wad.” He plunked down forty cents and glared, daring the pot-bellied little man to say anything else. The man scraped the coins into his palm and gave up a key with a nine on it.
“Second floor in the back. It’s a share room with two beds and right now I got another joe in there. Like to get one more, too. Showers are on the third floor. Water is gone when the roof tank runs dry, so first come first served.”
The two decided to go straight for the showers where a naked man was standing under the water, his penis erect and far too soapy just to be cleaned. Cole scowled. “Rinse and get the hell out of here.” He made a show of laying the Eagle knock off on a bench. The man and his penis beat a hasty retreat. The moment he was gone, Cole pushed Corrina into the room. “Wash up, quick, and wash your clothes at the same time. I’ll keep watch.”
“Don’t watch me!” she said, clutching her jacket to her whip-thin chest.
Cole couldn’t understand her sudden modesty. This was a girl who’d made a living on her back for years. “I wasn’t planning on it. I’m going to watch the door to make sure no one comes in.”
There was no actual door to the bathroom and so Cole stood in the entrance with his back to her as she washed as fast as she could. It took longer to wash her clothes and although she scrubbed them with a bar of lye, they still came out with an undercurrent of raw sewage. Even though she did what she could to wring them out, she felt disgusting pulling the dripping clothes back on.
While Corrina waited outside in the hall, Cole took a longer shower and did a better job of getting the greater part of the stink out. He too felt gross when he pulled the clammy wet clothes back on. When he came out, he and Corrina shared a look. They both knew that there was no way they’d be able to slee
p in the wet clothes and yet, they were both bone tired.
“We’ll build a barrier,” he told her. “You stay on your side and I’ll stay on mine.”
Luckily the bed was wide enough to fit three grown men. There was already one man in each of the beds. Cole growled one of the men into the bed with the other. Then, as Corrina huddled under the blanket, he hung their clothes to dry. When he got in bed, he stayed on one side while she stayed on the other with a wide gulf between them.
Around three in the afternoon, someone tried to join them. Cole pointed the Eagle knock off at the man until he ran from the room. Cole then went back to sleep for another three hours. He and Corrina woke in a tired haze and dressed in the dark as more men were starting to trickle in looking for a place to bed down for the night.
Their thoughts turned to food but before they left in search of something to eat, Cole called his office. It had been a full day since his boss had cut his territory and he had been out of the loop ever since.
He hoped he still had a job; people had been fired for less.
McGuigan answered his own phone which flashed a warning light in Cole’s mind. “It’s Cole. I’ve been pounding the streets all day trying to dig up…”
“What the hell, Cole!” McGuigan hissed. “Where the fuck have you been? I got a body that I’ve been holding up for two hours. If you don’t get your ass down to Madison and Grand in the next ten fucking minutes, I’ll give the case to DeMott. See if I don’t.”
“I’m leaving now,” Cole said and hung up the phone.
Corrina was watching him with a pinched look on her face. It made her look forty instead of twelve. “Good news or bad news?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, honestly. What were the chances this was just a ruse to pull him in close? With his luck, half the cops on the scene would be stooges for the Fantuccis. All it would take was one phone call and five minutes later there would be an “accidental discharge.” That was the official report the last time he’d been shot in the back by his partner.
It was almost suicidal to go, but if he didn’t, he would be out of a job and living like a slag—and that was no life at all.
Chapter 9
While Cole stood over a body that had been bled to a marbled white, Corrina got to eat dinner. Fifteen cents got her all the fish soup her stomach could hold. She washed it down with triple filtered tap water that tasted like rust. Still she was warm, safe and dry.
Cole was chilled in his slightly damp and incredibly crumpled suit. He looked like he’d been dragged beneath a bus and some of the police officers who recognized him scoffed and said as much. The misting rain didn’t help, and he pulled his battered Fedora lower as he bent to inspect the body.
It had been a man. White. A hundred and fifty pounds. Thirty-ish. Minimal slag. Five tats that were visible. Thick black hair on top and a couple of days’ worth of beard gave his face a shadowed look. His hands were soft and unscarred. It looked as though his throat had been torn out with the clawed end of a hammer.
It had rained late in the afternoon and had washed away most of the blood, but not all. Cole found brown flakes in the man’s nostrils and in one ear. The Fedora hid Cole’s grin—the man had been bled. He’d been turned upside down and had his throat ripped out, and that made it his kind of case. It meant money if he could hunt down the Dead-eye that had done this. Ten grand wouldn’t get him a boat, but it could get both him and Corrina out of the city and away from whatever storm was swirling around them.
He just had to find who killed this guy. “Did he have a wallet?” he asked the closest police officer.
“Who is this jack-off?” the cop asked to laughter. “What do you think, I stole it? Is that it? I oughta knock your teeth in.” He took an aggressive step toward Cole, curling his hand into a fist. He wore tactical fighting gloves; metal covered the knuckles. One punch and Cole would never have to brush his teeth again.
Cole had been squatting over the corpse; now he shot up, his body a strange mix of tense and relaxed—his core was rock hard, while his shoulders were loose. His calves were like steel springs and at the same time the great muscles of his thighs were lax, but could bunch in a fraction of a second and lash out with a kick that could cave in a man’s skull.
“Hold on,” another officer said, sauntering forward. At the sight of his old partner, Lieutenant Hamilton, Cole growled in his throat. Hamilton came up grinning and smacked Cole hard on the shoulder. “We can’t touch him. He’s protected so to speak. At least for now.” This set off low laughter from the other officers. Hamilton went on, speaking loudly into Cole’s face, “So detective, did you crack the case? Was it the muncher’s boyfriend that did the dirty deed?”
As furious as he was with Hamilton, his eyes slid to the corpse. “He’s a fag? What makes you think that?”
Hamilton shrugged. “I dunno. He looks like an ass-muncher to me. But what do I know? I’m only a cop with almost twenty years on the force. You’re the ‘special’ the city sent out, you tell me.”
Cole ignored the antagonism. Was the guy a muncher? He was a tad small and soft. Cole squatted again and picked up one of the man’s hands. He was no laborer. His hand was pale and without calluses, not even on the pads, which would suggest that he wasn’t a typist, and nor was there one on the inner aspect of his middle finger, so that ruled out someone used to writing.
His hair was stylishly long in an imitation of a vamp’s. His pants were blue denim, which was common enough, but they had been poorly stitched to narrow around the calves and ankles, a style that Cole had never seen before. Stranger still were the imitation brass buttons along the sides; they made no sense. It was almost as if…
Hamilton broke in on his thoughts with another hearty back slap. “Hey, I have an unrelated question,” he asked squatting down next to Cole, his armor creaking in the process. “I got a report that someone looking like you took a few shots at a squad car last night. I mean the perp looked exactly like you. You got a twin running around the city doing bad things?”
“Maybe,” Cole answered coolly despite the sudden spike of fear that ran up his back. “I’m an orphan. There could be three of me shooting all sorts of things.”
“But there ain’t. It’s just you. One more question before I let you get to your ‘big’ case. You seen Eddie the Axe lately?”
Fuuuuck. Only top-notch detective work could have connected him to Eddie and the shot-up squad car so quickly, and Bruce had never displayed even a passing interest in anything that resembled a clue. It meant he was getting information on the side from the Fantuccis. The only question was why Bruce hadn’t cuffed him on the spot. “Eddie? I met him just once a few days ago. You know he’s a gangster, right? And you of all people know I don’t work with gangsters.”
Hamilton smirked. “Keep tellin’ yourself that, Cole. This city is run by one mob or another. It always has been and you’re the only one too blind to see it.” He stood, looking as though he wanted to add another biting remark. For some reason he held back and instead, said to one of his men, “Call the meat wagon, we’re done here.”
The police left, leaving Cole alone with a dead body and a few bold rats who kept edging closer. So far, the weird pants and the long hair weren’t giving him anything. The wound wasn’t either. Some tool had been used to hide the teeth marks; that fact alone screamed: Dead-eye! But unless it was an exotic tool that had made them, the marks were meaningless.
Cole squinted in at the wound and realized that now the police had left it was too dark to see properly. The right thing to do was to get a light and a tarp to cover the body with, however he was on a strict budget and time was slipping away. He took the body by the wrist and dragged it across the street to a gin joint that was blaring Rango music from every seam.
“Hey, you can’t bring that in here,” the bouncer out front said, coming to stand in Cole’s way, his feet spread, his stout body a six-foot high wall of muscle topped by a small bald head.
The
urge to kick his nuts in for him was very strong. “Then run a light out here,” Cole answered, showing his hunter’s license and making sure the bouncer saw the Forino in its holster and the Eagle knock off in his belt. “And make it snappy.”
“All we gots are overheads. We don’t got no lamp or nothin’. Maybe you just do whatever you gotta do right here. The light’s not bad.” The outside of the joint was lit with glaring, harsh green neon lights looped to spell the words: Music! Dance! Fun! The neon was there to distract from the grey sameness of the buildings around them.
The light made the body look like it was made out of very old cheese. “No. Move your ass. Come on, hold the door open.” Cole dragged the body into the joint, saw a switch and flicked it up. It had been a dark, seedy place. Now, it was just seedy. The drummers faltered and the dancers stepped back from one another. Seeing their partners in actual light for the first time had a sobering effect and most turned away and went back to their drinks.
Some came to stand in a wide semi-circle around Cole and the body. As if there was an invisible barrier, none would get within five feet as Cole rifled the corpse’s pockets and checked for ligature marks around its ankles. He recognized the scoring around both as having been made by handcuffs, which would point to a more methodical Dead-eye than the average. Most were so rapacious that they killed first, and then gorged themselves on blood before tearing out the heart, spleen and liver. It was only later that they’d return to a body and tip it upside down to get the last of the blood.
“But if he’s so methodical, why dump the body on a sidewalk?” Cole had been so excited over the possibility of another big score that he had overlooked this detail when he’d first come on the scene. Even the most savage Dead-eye would try to hide a body even if it was under a pile of trash or stashed in a closet.
“It’s one of ours, ain’t it?” Corrina Marie had finished her soup and had come slinking to the crime scene careful not to be seen, staying in the shadows and lurking in crowds like just another faceless slag. She was surprised when the squad cars had zipped past her minutes before, and was more shocked to see Cole drag the body inside the bar.
Dead Eye Hunt (Book 2): Into The Rad Lands Page 8