mmk, so i do Creative Writing at uni, the reason there has been nothing in Pens from me is because i have been working on a short story as part of a portfolio due in January (i haven't been sitting on my backside doing nothing!) Anyway, i just finished completly redrafting this story after my lecturer made some editorial comments and i thought i'd post it here.
Name: By any means necessary (working title and sooo cliche...)
Genre: Dark contemporary
Summary: Cop, Sarah Coltrane, is searching for the fool who shot her partner last night. She is a jaded cop, having worked Chicago's underground for the past ten years and she is well known for using her prey's methods against them.
Rating: PG15 for language and violence.
Notes: This is my first short story, so be gentle, feedback is appreciated, of course.
By any means necessary
“Coltrane!”
I kept my eyes down over my mocha. For me, the day did not usually start until gone three in the afternoon and here I was at one, needless to say, I was not happy to be here. I waited until his shadow fell across my table before responding, “Well that ain't no way to greet no lady, shuga.”
A podgy fist slammed onto the tabletop, I didn't bother looking up at Alex right then. To be honest, I could do without his bureaucratic B.S. At this moment in time, I was working off of less than five hours sleep, all the makeup and sharp suits in the world couldn't make that look or feel any better. We were sat here because my idiot partner, Billy Cataloni, had taken a bullet to the shoulder. Now how would a nice young boy like Billy get himself shot up? I knew exactly why and felt guilty over it.
I mopped up the mocha Alex's show of bad temper and poor self-restraint had spilled over the table, “You keep doin' this and I'll have t' start putting mocha on my expense sheet.”
Alex sat down opposite me and I could feel his gaze. I could feel the anger before I heard it in his voice, “Don't screw with me, Sarah.”
It was then that I looked up and met his eyes, my own temper, ever close to the surface, raised. “Or what, Alex?” I drawled out his name, mocking this overweight paper-pusher. “You gonna put me in the bad areas of town, with the lowest of the scum? Oh, wait, you gone done that for the past ten years. How about threatenin' me with traffic duty? I could use the break.” I took a sip, “What the hell are you doing away from that nice safe desk of yours, anyway?”
Alex's eyes flashed, I had cut him to the bone, touché. We'd had this argument before; every time he criticised me for how I got my results, for how I stayed alive, for how the paperwork kept piling on his desk thanks to me when the most he had ever risked was a damn papercut. I hardly helped, but then I had my own problems, like how he had given up on the one case that had brought me here, one that I would never stop caring about. One that I would likely never close because this piece of crap in front of me would never let me. Lost in my thoughts, I had to have Alex repeat himself, “Tell me about last night.”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Billy was an idiot, followed Murphy without so much as calling me for backup...”
“Who does that remind me of?”
“Can it Trifeski! You gone got me up too damn early to be sniping at me, you want t' hear about last night or not?” I held him in my glare until he nodded his head. “Murphy must have seen him in the shadows, he panicked, I'd guess he shot and ran like hell, dropping the piece.” Joey Murphy was a friggin bit player, general dog's body to the real crooks. That Alex had been shot was one thing, that it was from a lowlife piece of scum I could collar any time I liked galled me.
“I hope you bagged it, Coltrane.”
“Sure, shuga, it'll even find its way to the evidence lockup.” I let the 'eventually' hang in the air, I was going to do this shit my way and he knew it.
I stood to leave, pulling a note from my purse and beckoning to the waitress that I was ready to pay up and leave, but Alex had to get one last parting shot in, “Billy is one of ours, Coltrane, don't you dare screw this up.”
Like hell I was going to let that happen. Alex would have his pound of flesh...right after I'd had mine.
~~~
I was quickly home and showered, stopping for a quick breakfast if you can call a slice of toast such. I grabbed my jacket and walked out the front door. I had people that needed seeing to, but most of them usually woke up later than me and I was up early as it was. First, I was going to visit the idiot that had decided to play Superman.
I walked through the hospital, quickly finding my way to Billy's room. He rolled his eyes as I walked in, trying to lean on his uninjured shoulder, “Come to rub it in. Coltrane?”
“Why would you accuse little old me of a thing like that, sweetie.” I looked down on my young charge, a rook who didn't need this shit early in his career. Welcome to life, Billy, that's the way shit works in this town.
Billy grimaced as he considered my question and looked so contrite it nearly broke my damn heart, “I fucked up.”
I sat on the chair with a sigh, “No, Billy, you learn this lesson and chalk it down to experience, do anything other than that and you're no good to me.” I chucked him under the chin, “So less talk like that, y'hear?”
He nodded his head and he two of us sat together a while, talking about this and that, a rarity for me but one I gladly spared for him. Billy, he was like this big kid and Alex, he'd shoved him in over his head, like he had me. After a while of this, I stood, it was going to be a long night. If I had my way, it would be longer for some, “I'll check in tomorrow, yeah?”
The darkness was approaching, it was time for me to embrace it.
~~~
I felt like I needed a shower to wash the damn antiseptic smell from my skin, but there was little time for that. With the shadows lengthening, the streets were soon going to be thick with scum and one piece of fetid faeces in particular had had a day to run and hide. Too bad for him that it was me on his case. Joey must not have seen that it was Billy in the shadows, I had taken the rook with me when I had met a couple of my contacts so that word would get around that he was mine.
Tourniquet, a favourite song of mine, blasted through the car's speakers. I closed my eyes at the red light as Amy Lee's voice washed over me. Waukegan was the usual site for the druggies and if I was going to find someone to tell me where I could find Joey, it was going to be in the Burgundy Room.
The Burgundy room was aptly named; deep burgundy covered the walls and carpets as if someone just couldn't get enough of it. As i stepped into the room, it didn't take long to remember why I don't usually eat here. The décor alone was bad enough but worse still was the smell; overcooked meat with a stench so pungent, I could taste what the lone gent on table two was having for dinner.
I walked through the restaurant towards the bad, as I reached him, Tommy didn't look up from the spot he was cleaning with his rag, he seemed somewhat determined to not notice me, so I took the inititive, “Pasta and mocha, shuga.”
“There ain't gonna be no trouble, is there?”
His voice was nervous and he was right to be, “I only came here to eat, Tom-Tom.”
He looked up then and gave me a look that clearly spoke that he wouldn't put into words, 'yeah right.' If i was here, there was going to be trouble, here or elsewhere, who could blame him for hoping for the latter?
“Look, shuga, I ain't in here after no trouble, just get me a plate of pasta and a mocha and I can do what I came here to do, I can't say any fairer than that, can I?”
“Anywhere in particular you'll be sitting?”
“I'll wave.”
Tommy sighed and scribbled down my order, passing it to some lackey that ran into the back. I knew that I would get my order quickly, for some odd reason, people didn't like me hanging around. My eyes scanned the room as I turned and soon they met...his. The greasy haired thug in the corner lazily waved a hand in my direction.
Georgio Simione, a throwback from the days of the Mafia. His grandfather was said to be the Don here, Georgio liked to act the role. A little birdie had tweeted in my ear that he had a shipment coming in later this week, guns and drugs, the usual shit on the coast. He knew that I knew, we also both knew that I was not going to collar him over it, the shipment happened to coincide with a large party he was throwing, that meant fifty people eating his food, drinking his booze and while no one would be able to see him for half an hour or so, they would all say 'there were a lot of us, officer, you can hardly expect me to have seen him all night.' Besides which, he would not be fool enough to be at the scene itself, he would be...nearby. At times like that, I hated my job.
I stood at the table and pulled a chair as he greeted me, “Sarah, dear, word is that someone is not very happy. How is dear Billy fairing anyway?”
I growled my annoyance but bit back on the nasty retort I wanted to make. If Georgio had called me over, it was likely that he had something to say that I wanted to hear. I leaned forward, holding his eyes with mine, “Get on with it Georgie, I don't have all night.”
Georgio gave a casual shrug of his shoulders, I was not in the mood for preamble and it was clear that he would get something out of helping me, “Joey Murphy, such a foolish young boy. Whoever would trust him with a gun is beyond belief.”
I waved to the waiter as my order was brought out before turning back to Georgio, “Assuming there is a point to this, I want to know who he is working for and where in hell I can find the piece of crap.”
“The 'who', I cannot say, that would not be good business, as for 'where', hiding is always so much easier when you know someone who has keys to convenient little hidey-holes, such as the docks, perhaps?”
If Georgio was giving me this information, then it was clear that I would be doing him a favour. The only thing that I could think of right then was that he knew who Joey had been running around for and also that I would chase the bastard down for his part in my partner being shot. I was going to be chasing down the competition, and assuming that he was not as careful as this greasy S.O.B. in front of me, removing one more dealer from Georgio's path. The painful thing about the situation was that he was right.
“I know damn well what is in this for you, Georgie-porgie, don't think that I am that dense.”
“Whatever could you mean, my dear. I am merely helping the police with their enquiries just as any good citizen should.”
I wasn't going to spend time arguing with him, my food was on the table and I ate in silence. Georgio, he almost saw me as a rival, I'd been on the streets disrupting him as best as I could for the past ten years or so. The one thing he did, the reason he was still alive and this side of a jail cell, was that he respected those that could do him harm and manipulated them into doing that harm to someone else. I knew that he was using me and I felt dirty, but he would get his comeuppance sooner or later, all it would take would be one slip and I am going to be there when he makes it. But for now, I had other things to deal with.
~~~
After an hour of radioing back and forth while the guys at the office ran names through databases, it turned out that Joey Murphy had a cousin, that cousin just happened to keep the keys for half the lockups in these docks, his name was Adrian. Adrian lived in the bad part of town, though I lived in the 'good' part and there was little to tell the difference.
As children, we are always told to stay away from dark places, subways, alleys. As Adrian walked by me in his Armani suit, grabbed his arm and slammed him face-first into the wall ahead of me, my gun at his temple as I kept my free hand entwined in his shoulder length hair, having hair that long was silly, it gave somewhere to grab. Adrian was bigger than me and heavier than me, but on my side, I had surprise and the fact that my gun was at his temple. I rammed a knee into Adrian's lower back, just to leave no doubt that I meant business before hissing into his ear, “Where the fuck is Joey?”
Adrian clammed up, wouldn't say a damn word. That suited me fine, I drew his head from the wall and rammed it into the concrete, I could hear the crunch of his nose breaking. “That was me asking real nice, shuga.”
“Fuck off, pig. Think I'm going to serve up my baby cousin to you?”
I clicked the safety off of my gun and gave him a moment to think about just what the noise behind him meant before snarling at him, “Joey screwed up, Adrian, just how much does the piece of shit mean to you?”
My finger tightened on the trigger, I swear to God that I was ready to pull it, here, they know that I will not hesitate, ever, maybe I was getting just as dirty as them, maybe I didn't care. It doesn't matter who is on the other end of the gun, whether I can't stand their guts or whether I used to think I loved them. My own fiancée, he had pulled a gun on me when I busted an armed robbery, I had double-tapped my trigger without even thinking about it; one bullet to the chest, a second to the shoulder. He lived to see his day in court, to hear me testify against him.
Family ties look different when there is a gun pointed at you. I was not Joey, if I was going to shoot someone, he would not live to talk about it. Falteringly, after I reminded Adrian that I had found him once and would again, he told me exactly where to go.
~~~
I pulled my battered Volvo up in the parking lot of the Waukegan docks, Joey hadn't run far considering the time he'd had, but then nowhere would have been far enough from me.
The sun had retreated to pastures new by now, only the moon half showing from behind a bank of cloud offered any light. Joey had been foolish, he had taken his shot and run for the nearest cover he could find, he hadn't even taken food with him.
I had been loitering around the docks for an hour when I had seen him come out of the lockup he was holed up in, almost his own prison. I gave him ten, the nearest convenience store was a good twelve minutes walk away. Soon, I had found my way to the door and was employing the slightly less legal tools of the trade, my lock picks. People expect us cops to be purer than pure, to do everything by the book. The problem with that book is that it was written by someone sitting somewhere similar to where Alex Trifeski was right now, behind a desk. The 'book' was written by some paper pusher with the survival skills of a snowflake in the desert.
It was the work of a couple of minutes to open the door and let myself in to what Joey currently called home. I pulled a derelict chair into the middle of the room with its back to the door and sat down to wait, my gun in my lap.
Right on time, the door began to open, it took Joey two seconds to see that something was wrong, that was one and three quarter seconds too many, he dropped his bag and fumbled for a gun that was the twin to the one he had dropped last night, but it was all in vain. My gun was pointed at his crotch, my shoulder braced against the backrest of my chair, Joey stood stock still, weighing up his options. I snarled, “Dun fuck wit' me, shuga, you shoot at me and you won't be walking right the rest of your life, y'hear?”
Death can be a potent threat, the threat of living through what someone would have in mind for you was even worse, Joey did the only thing he could do, he walked into the room and sat down, his gun hanging limply at his side. I held the gun pointed at him, still not aimed at his head or chest but at the area he most feared to lose. With my free hand, I dug into my inner jacket pocket and pulled out a battered tarot deck, laying it on the table. My voice lowered to something just above a whisper, “They say you can find your fate in the cards, Joey, what do you believe? I removed two cards from the top of the deck and placed them at the bottom, then two more before flipping a card face-up, the Three of Swords. I looked into Joey's eyes as he took in the picture of three swords grizzly embedded in a heart and I knew I had him, he stared at the cards like a dear caught in the fucking headlights, sweat breaking out on his forehead and quivering upper lip. I smiled at him as I slowly shuffled the cards, the tapping as each couple of cards hit the table overloud in these cramped confines. “Someone was a silly little boy last night, weren't they?” He started to scratch his arm, his eyes darted back and forth, looking for a way out, “Don't move, sweetiepie, I meant what I said about shooting you.”
I placed a card face down on the table and I could see that his eyes were drawn to it, the superstitious...so easy to frighten. I dug into my jacket pocket and brought out the bagged and tagged gun he had dropped last night, I slammed it on the table and he yelped like a six year old girl when I started to shuffle the deck once more, “Nice hardware Joey-boy, someone is going up in the world.” He started to stammer but was quieted as I laid another card face down, “Now I know you don't have the money for one of these guns, let alone two. Who are you working for?”
“I-I c-can't tell you.”
I sighed and let go of the cards once more to take my radio from my jacket, “Coltrane t' base, I've found where Murphy is holed up, I'm going in.” I gave them the details and turned my radio off, “I'd say you and me have ten minutes alone, shuga, they can go real easy or real hard.”
I started to shuffle those cards again and asked in a sing-song voice, “Who gave you the gun.”
“He'll k-k-kill...” He trailed off, whoever 'he' was wasn't holding a gun pointed at his crotch and I was getting impatient.
Nonchalantly, I flicked the top card over, face up, Judgement. “You dun want t' fuck wit' me shuga,” I trailed off as I laid the two face down cards in a fan with those that he could see “The last person gone done that...” I turned the third card face up, Death, “I'd tell you to go ask him, but let's see if the cards can tell you why he ain't gonna be able to.” The last card I turned over, The Hanged Man.
Without hitting him, without even raising my voice, I could see that I had broken him. Joey Murphy squealed like a pig in heat, I had a name, dates and a location, “See, that wasn't so hard now, was it Joey-boy? Of course, if you feel at any time that you do not wish to say this officially, I can always let the word out about where I got my information, I gather that'd make a long spell look appealing.”
We could hear booted feet running up towards the lockup, I stood and turned away, bringing my gun towards my jacket pocket. I raised my hand to the catch of the garage, and then half turned back as if something had just occurred to me, “Joey?” I turned and in one movement had the gun pointed once more at his crotch, I pulled the trigger...
Click!
The wet patch spreading in his trousers said it all.
We took him back to the station and processed him, took his statement and got all of the correct warrants, turned out that Joey was telling the truth.
The day after Joey was released from jail, he turned up in the hospital with a bullet in his shoulder. Cold-blooded? Maybe, but on these streets, your threat is only as strong as what you will do to back it up.