A chapter of noir
Posted: January 25, 2010 • 10:46 pm
So yeah. I told you guys that I was working on something crime noir-ish. Here's what it's looking like - so far. Lemme know what you think, eh?
-Fred
-Fred
"It's a strange world we live in." I thought to myself as I struggled to hold my breath and cut the rope around my wrists at the same time. I had been cracked across the head from behind, then dressed up nice and pretty with rope and a gag in my mouth. Then someone had lovingly thrown me off a pier. A school of fish swam into view and faded off again in the dirty water.
"There's such a rich diversity of life." I had a rope around my ankles too, and I suppose it was tied to some weights. The water was icy cold. My new wristbands started to give. I was thankful I kept a spare knife up my sleeve. It's always comforting to have something up your sleeve, isn't it? I thought so at the time. I don't know how often that little knife has saved my hide. More than I can count on fingers and toes, anyway.
"You have your predators, and you have your prey. I guess tonight I was the prey. Frank Grace, prey-vate eye." I would've chuckled at my own bad humor if I wasn't at the bottom of the Grey City Bay. Funny the stuff that comes to mind when you're inches or seconds away from dying. At least my life didn't flash before my eyes, that would've been too depressing. The rope around my wrists finally came off, and I was able to reach what was keeping me down. There was a rope around my legs as well; complete amateur-hour. If they'd used chains, I would have had some serious trouble. But I'd known they were amateurs when I found my knife still up my sleeve. As it was, I cut the restraints and swam up to the surface. Air never tasted so good. By my guess, I'd been in the drink for less than two minutes. It was some time after midnight, and there was a full moon out. I climbed up the little ladder on the side, and crawled onto the pier. I was gasping by the end of it. I was getting too old for this. Or at least I should stop smoking those cigarettes. Or something.
I turned my head and saw two silhouettes moving towards the headlights of a car. My hand found something by my side; my hat. It was still dry. I got to my feet, and put it back on. The moon was hanging low over the bay. My shadow fell long along the pier. If anything, it was a beautiful night to get slugged and drowned. Or at least attempted drowned. People try it from time to time. Killing me, I mean. Risky business, being a private dick. Some times you see things you shouldn't, or some times people think you've seen things you shouldn't. Same result. Sometimes it's a hood with a gat in a dark alley, sometimes it's a goon with a bat in your own home. Sometimes you make it. Sometimes you don't. I've always been lucky in that regard. I'm still alive. I started to make for the two silhouettes. They were nearly to the car.
I cracked one across the back of his head with a rock. I don't fight fair. Especially not against mooks who've tried for my life. The other I caught in the chin, then I sucker-punched him in the gut. He fell to one knee, and I connected my knee with his jaw. That was it for him. The other one stirred, so I kicked him a couple of times. What would you do?
After I'd searched them both, I realized it was my car. I put one in the back of the car and the other in the trunk. They were big fellows. I didn't know them. I lit a cigarette from a spare pack I had in the glove compartment. I was dripping wet, behind the wheel. I wiggled my trenchcoat off and put it on the seat next to me. Then I took off. Grey City is relatively quiet at night during the week. I kept the speed limit and left town. Once I reached the woods I got off on a little sideroad I knew of. Nobody would bother us there. I stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and got out. I got the big guy from the trunk out first, together with a couple of chains and two padlocks. I tied him down to a nearby tree. He was balding, with a reddish-brown beard. The other one was noticeably heavier, but he didn't look it. He had small pig-like eyes, a fat face and big fat lips. He smelled like a pig, too. I tied him up the same way to another tree, and made sure that they couldn't see each other. Then I took off the heavy one's shoes and removed his socks. After that, I went back to the car and reached under the passenger seat. I had a bottle of bourbon there. Nothing fancy, mind you. I sat down with my back to the front left wheel of my car and took a good slug and lit another cigarette. The woods were cold and dark and a little creepy, the way any forest anywhere always seem at two in the morning. I waited maybe twenty minutes before they started stirring. The stars and the bourbon kept me company. Somewhere a coyote howled. My head was throbbing, my throat was sore, I was wet and I was scared as hell. So I probably wasn't the most pleasant sight to wake up to.
"Hello, chum." I said to the one facing me. I was smiling slightly and looking at him somewhat lazily through the smoke of the cigarette. It had been a long night. I must have looked scary as hell to him, because it was written all over his face. He tried to move and when he found he couldn't, his face turned even more frantic. He started yelling "Al! Al! Whaddaya done with Al you bastard!?"
Apparently the other guy's name was Al. Then Al joined the conversation.
"I'm alright, Louie. I'm here. But I'm tied up." So. Al and Louie. Quite the helpful characters they were. And I'd only just said 'hello'. I sat there smoking my cigarette.
"I'm tied down too! Where are we?"
"I dunno. Woods somewhere. What happened?"
"Uhh.." He began. He was looking at me. In fact he had trouble looking at anything else.
"Al? You remember that PI we dumped in the bay..?" A small pause. "Well... He didn't stay in the bay." Stay in the bay. Hey, why not stay in the bay? Stay in the bay all day, or be on your way. My head was groggy. I stood up and tossed the bottle casually through the driverside window. I went around to the back of the car and got something out of the trunk. Louie was making some noises about how I couldn't do this, that I shouldn't do this, how they were hard men, how they'd done hard time before. I slammed the lid down. The noise was very loud in the woods. He quit talking. I walked back over to the heavy, ugly goon. I showed him the jumper cables I'd gotten from the trunk. I smiled an empty smile at him. Then I opened the hood of the car and clipped them to the battery. When I sat down by his feet, well out of kicking range, mind you, I showed them to him. Then I attached them to his toes. He cringed, as if he was going to feel pain the very instant the clips went on. He must've been really scared, because he didn't try to kick me or pull his legs away. Literally scared stiff.
"You Louie, huh." I said, not as a question. "Well, Louie. You know some things I want to know. And to tell you the truth, it's been kind of a long night for me, so let's make this fast.
"His eyes were filled with terror now. His pants with something else.
"Now, Louie, I know for a fact that you and Al there have nothing personal against me. Who wanted me gone, Louie? Give me a name and I'll just leave. I'll call the cops and tell them where you are, you get picked up in a few hours. Don't tell me, and we'll see how long this car can idle along in neutral from half a tank on down."
I leaned back against the wheel and picked another cigarette out of my pack, lit it, and put the pack back in my shirt pocket. Al was yelling from his tree
"Louie! If you tell him anything we'll be dead! He can't kill us Louie, he's bluffing! He's gotta do it by the book, guys like him live by the law!" Things like that. And "Don't spill it, Louie!" Then "Hey Grace..." And he starts throwing threats my way. Then insults. I ignored him. I was looking at Louie, smoking silently. Louie didn't say anything. He didn't say anything when I got up. He didn't say anything when I walked over to the driver's side door. He didn't say anything when I reached my hand slowly through the window and put my hand on the key in the ignition.
Then I said "Louie? Al's right. I can't kill you. But you better understand that I can very much so put the hurt on you. You two bludgeoned me, tied me up, and threw me off a pier. Your pain won't affect me. Your screams of agony won't mean anything to me. I don't do this because I like it."
He was crying now. That got to me a little, I'll admit. Seeing a grown man cry from fear that you've instilled in him, that gets to you. Or it should, if you're a damn human being. I'm not much of a religious man, but if there is a God, he was probably frowning at me then. I don't like the idea of a frowning God. You don't want God scowling at you. There was no way I could turn that key. Louie didn't know that, however.
"McAllister! It was McAllister who done hired us! We're not even from Grey City! Please let us go'n we'll leave and never come back please please please..."
He decended into blubbering and outright bawling from there. Al was using very harsh language now, cursing Louie's name and generally making unflattering remarks about his character. Louie wasn't paying him no mind. I removed the jumper cables and put them back in the trunk. I closed the hood, gently. Then I put Louie's shoes back on. He might've been a hired killer, but I wasn't. And even after what he'd put me through, I still felt like a shitheel. Seeing grown men cry will do that to you. I left them in the woods and drove back into the city.
I had breakfast and a cup of coffee at a diner. McAllister. I hadn't thought about him for years. Two years at least. He tried to hire me once to find his wife. I was on a different case at the time and told him I didn't have the time. I'd referred him to a colleague of mine, Harry Renton. From what I could recollect, the wife didn't get found, McAllister didn't get his money's worth and Renton got a .38 in the back of the head. I then put what little change I hadn't tipped the waitress with in a payphone.
"Yeah, police? There's two known killers trussed up and chained to a tree out in the middle of the woods." I gave them directions and their names. I didn't give them mine. I got back in my car and went home. I slept all day.
-Fred
