The bang made the SOC photographer jump and drop his camera. Duffy grinned. Walker glared.
‘Yes But just think how much information he could have given us if you’d kept him alive,’ said Walker.
‘Keep him alive? Almost nobody has ever clapped eyes on him. He’s a phantom. You should be thankful that we managed to trap him. We were lucky to get out alive,’ said Duffy.
Yes, I thought, as I caught a familiar look in Walker’s eyes. Too lucky, maybe.
The morgue was stacked with corpses. It had been a busy weekend.
The Missionary had been responsible for a few of them but a lot of the cadavers were due to a battle between Count Otto Rhino’s Frog Boys and Ton Ton Philippe’s zombies. The other stiffs were just innocent bystanders. Though it was becoming increasingly difficult find anyone innocent in The City.
‘So, you’re not going to tell me who hired you to catch The Missionary, then?’ said Walker, as he smoked a death black French cigarette.
‘Confidentiality, Ivan. You know the drill.’
‘But they told you that Ton Ton Philippe had paid The Missionary to take you out?’
I sighed.
‘That’s what the little bird told me.’
‘Mmmmm.’ Growled Walker. ‘And would that little bird be a green-eyed songbird who has a most peculiar relationship with Count Otto Rhino?’
‘Maybe yes, maybe know. Maybe, baby, I don’t know,’ I said.
Although, Walker was right. The songbird in question, Daria, had indeed given me the aforementioned information. Although, why, I wasn’t sure. She wasn’t exactly the most reliable of sources. A real mystery, that one, for sure.
Some people believed she was Rhino’s lover. Other’s said he was her father. I just figured she though she owed me after I saved her sister/lover from Ton Ton Philippe. Maybe.
‘Are you ladies finished with your gossiping?’ said Dr Gaynor Green.
The statuesque coroner’s gaze was as chilly as the room we stood in. Her white uniform splattered with blood. A glinting scalpel in her hands. But she was still breathtakingly beautiful.
Once upon a time Gaynor Green had been a beauty queen and a hostess at Rhino’s Private Gentlemen’s Club. But she had seen something there that had changed the way she lived her life. Something that she never talked about.
She became a Hare Krishna for a while. Then a scientologist. And then a Buddhist.
Finally, she went to medical school and took a job in the morgue because she knew she’d never run out of clients in The City. She even moved into the place and rarely left, she said, because she liked the silence, although a Motorhead song was blasting out of the speakers at the moment. She switched it off.
‘Well,’ said Walker.
‘Well what?’
‘Well, is there anything you can tell us about The Missionary’s body?
‘Well, I’m no art expert but it’s a very well sculpted piece of work.’
‘Eh?’ we both said, and walked towards her.
Dr Green tapped the corpse. The sound echoed around the room.
‘A very realistic sculpture. But a sculpture none the less.’
And she was right. On the morgue slab was a perfect replica of The Missionary. But where the hell was the real thing?
Not for the first time this week, I was the only customer in Duffy’s Bar. And that suited me down to the ground. The Missionary had haunted my dreams and I was in no mood for idle chitchat.
Duffy was reading the latest National Geographic. The stained cover featuring a massive orange spider. He sipped from a bottle of Kozel Pale.
I pumped a ton of coins into the Wurlitzer Jukebox. Lightning Hopkins finished and Dino crooned about drinking wine. I contemplated my glass of whisky. The ice cubes shimmered in the wan light.
Outside the wet pavement reflected the bar’s flickering neon sign. As Dino segued into Dusty, Ivan Walker rushed past the window wearing a long black raincoat that flapped in the breeze. He burst through the door. He was not a happy man. Even by his morose standards.
Duffy set about making an espresso for Walker who took off his raincoat and sat next to me.
‘Found a penny and lost a pound?’ I said.
Walker’s eyes turned to slits.
‘She’s dead,’ he whispered. ‘Dead.’
‘Who? What and where?’
Duffy placed an espresso in front of Walker who knocked it back in one.
‘Gimme what he’s having,’ said Walker.
‘Are you sure?’ said Duffy, shocked. ‘You haven’t hit the hard stuff since…’
‘I’m sure,’ said Walker, his voice like a thunderstorm.
Duffy poured Walker two fingers of Dark Valentine. I nodded. He topped me up.
‘Well?’ I said.
‘Gaynor Green. She’s been murdered.’
‘Doctor Green? What? But why? How?’ I gulped my drink. ‘She never left that morgue. It’s like Fort Knox. Impossible to break into.’
Then cogs started to click.
‘No sign of a break in. But whoever killed her got out easy enough, though,’ said Walker. ‘And they took that statue of The Missionary with them.’
Duffy caught my eye. Scratched his acne-scarred face.
‘We’ve been duped, Roman,’ he said. ‘Taken for a ride.’
And he was right, I realised. Dead on.
Daria had hired me to whack The Missionary who, through some sort of supernatural trickery, had transformed himself into a statue – maybe like the Golem, from Jewish folklore. And then, when he’d got into the morgue, he’d transformed himself back and killed Gaynor Green, making sure she never told whatever she’d seen at Otto Rhino’s Private Gentlemen’s Club.
Duffy took down a bottle of Dark Valentine black label, the good stuff, and filled up three glasses as Mel Torme sang ‘Gloomy Sunday.’
And then the night dissolved.
I am transformed. I stalk the street. Howl. Roar. And I am ready to tear The Missionary limb from limb. And anyone who gets in my way.
BIO:
Paul D. Brazill was born in England and lives in Poland. He is an International Thriller Writers Inc. member whose writing has been translated into Italian, Polish and Slovene. He has had bits and bobs of short fiction published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Books Of Best British Crime 8 and 10, alongside the likes of Ian Rankin, Neil Gaiman and Lee Child.
He has edited a few anthologies, including the best-selling True Brit Grit- with Luca Veste – and is the author of Guns Of Brixton, Gumshoe and 13 Shots Of Noir.
He blogs, reviews and promotes top fiction right here at You Would Say That, Wouldn’t You?
His character ‘Roman Dalton Werewolf P.I.’ has featured in a number of anthologies and collections and even has his own blog page right here.
HARD WOOD By Tyson Adams
Despite what most people believe, security guarding is not really that dangerous a profession. Most of the time you patrol around, watch a few video monitors, try not to fall asleep in that quiet hour in the dead of night, just in case someone actually has any idea what is in the maze of shipping containers I guard by night. Needless to say, I was not expecting tonight to be when I would find myself on my knees, nursing a broken hand, about to have my throat slit. I suppose the evening could be worse; I could still have that Madonna song stuck in my head.
A minute ago I was at the darker end of the compound, the furthest spot away from the constant activity of the docks, walking along one of the many rows of multicoloured brick towers. The noise had been faint, a clink of metal on metal, a noise I recognised from somewhere in my past. I had approached the next intersection with my flashlight held out in my left hand, my trusty Beretta 92 extended in my right. My memory was scratching at me, telling me that the sound meant danger and not some kids hiding their drinking place. The movement had been quick, merciless. I caught a glimpse of a man in dark blue as my gun fired from being slapped out of my hand. The next moment I found myself on the ground scrambling after my gun, only to have a boot crash down on my hand, once, twice, three times and it felt like there was nothing left of my right hand but fire and shards of bones.