Dead Man Walking

by David Carter

  “There can’t be many other drinking holes around the area. There must be one we’ve missed.”

  Spider scoffed. “I don’t know why you keep checking out fancy joints like this.” He motioned towards the high-end establishment they’d just walked out of. “Blaze wouldn’t be seen dead in there.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” he fired back.

  “Look for a shithole that sells cheap grog and attracts people you’d label as undesirables.”

  Ryan perked up. “Jesus Christ, you’re right! The only problem is I haven’t seen anything that resembles such a place. This is downtown Manhattan for God’s sake!”

  Spider staunchly looked Ryan in the eyes, then shook his head in disbelief. “And you call yourself a fucking leader,” he muttered. “I’ll handle this.” Spider looked up and down the street till he saw exactly what he wanted right in front of him. He marched up to the yellow taxi parked on the curb.

  “Where to?” the scruffy driver asked him in between drags on a cigarette.

  “Where can I find some cheap grog around here?”

  The taxi driver smiled. “Bottle store or bar?”

  “Bar.”

  “Hop in, I’ll drive you.”

  “I just need directions.”

  “What do I look like to you? Google maps? I don’t get paid to give directions, pal,” he said gruffly.

  “Fine, whatever.” Spider sighed heavily. He and Ryan hopped in the cab. Ryan called Ace to let them know they would be a while and to keep searching or amuse themselves until further notice.

  “So where are you from?” the cab driver asked as he pulled into the traffic.

  “New Zealand.” Ryan replied.

  “Long way from home, eh?”

  “You could say that.”

  “So what brings you to The Big Apple?”

  “We’re looking for a friend,” Spider answered.

  “New York is a big place–” The driver slammed on his breaks as a car changing lanes cut him off. He rudely honked his horn and yelled some abuse out of the window, then casually carried on their conversation. “So who’s this friend of yours?”

  “You wouldn’t know him.”

  “Try me. I spend most my evenings pissing my pay check against the porcelain. Perhaps I’ve heard of him.”

  “He goes by the name, Blaze.” Ryan answered.

  “Blaze, eh?” He mulled the name over for a moment. “Can’t say I know him.”

  The driver pulled down another street and stopped outside of a shabby looking bar. “This the place?” Spider asked.

  “You won’t find a cheaper, shittier bar in all of downtown Manhattan.”

  “Wait here,” Ryan said, handing the driver a twenty-dollar bill.

  Ryan and Spider went inside the bar. They noted the cluttered walls, smothered in boxing memorabilia. The bar wasn’t overly busy. Ryan walked up to the bartender. The stocky African American greeted them with a white, toothy grin. “What can I get you lads?”

  “We’re looking for someone,” Spider said.

  “And who might this someone be?” the bartender replied.

  “Goes by the name, Blaze.”

  The bartender’s friendly smile vanished. He eyed the detective and the rough-looking man with long, thick dreadlocks, bushy beard, and a tattoo of a redback spider on his hand. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said. “You two are a long way from home.”

  “Excuse me?” Ryan replied.

  “Detective Cameron Ryan and Spider: acting president of the Sinners and Scarecrows MC, I presume?” He held out a welcoming hand.

  Bemused, Ryan accepted his handshake and asked, “How do you know our names?”

  Jimmy’s wide, friendly grin returned. “I took your boy in when he arrived in New York. Got to know his background over a few bottles of Jimmy’s finest before he disappeared a few days back.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “It’s hard to say. But what I do know is that some assholes were closing in on him and it was in his best interests to get out of town.”

  “What do you mean by, assholes?” Spider asked.

  Jimmy rubbed his giant hand down his face, then replied, “I think your boy has somehow got mixed up with the AB.”

  “The who?” said Ryan.

  “Aryan Brotherhood,” Spider answered.

  “Jesus Christ!” Ryan exclaimed. “What’s he doing running around with that lot?”

  “To be honest, I don’t think he had a choice in the matter,” Jimmy replied. “He had a scuffle in here with two of them just the other day. Blaze put them in their place and headed straight for the door. I ain’t seen him since.”

  “Shit,” Ryan cursed quietly. “Is there anything else you can tell us? It’s imperative we find him.”

  Jimmy thought for a moment, then shook his head while exhaling heavily through his fleshy nose. “Skinny-Jay might be able to help you.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Ryan replied indignantly.

  “Skinny-Jay: a known and feared gangsta in New York who, among other things, runs an underground fighting circuit. I’ve done a few favours for him in the past and likewise he has for me. I pointed Blaze in his direction when he arrived in town, and Skinny-Jay gave him a shot in the ring. Turns out your boy knows how to throw a punch.”

  “And you think this Skinny-Jay might know what’s happened to him?”

  “As of this moment I’d say he’s your best bet.” He wrote down the name and address of his private night club.

  “Thanks.” Ryan replied.

  “And make sure you treat Skinny-Jay with the utmost respect,” Jimmy added. “He’s actually a reasonable man if you show him the proper courtesy.”

  “I appreciate the advice,” Ryan said, and hastily exited the bar with Spider.

  They returned to the taxi and got in. The driver asked, “Where to, boys?”

  Ryan handed him the address Jimmy had written down. The taxi driver’s heart rate accelerated. “Are you goddamn crazy, man? Do you know who owns this nightclub?”

  “Do you want the fare or not?” Ryan waved another twenty-dollar bill in his direction.

  “It’s your funeral,” the driver said, then pulled off the curb into the heavy traffic.

  Chapter 24

  “I see Dr Landis gave you a glowing report,” Doyle said to Blaze as they entered his office. “Said you got a load off your mind and declared you mentally fit for duty.”

  Blaze couldn’t help grinning to himself.

  Doyle closed the door behind them. Blaze noticed a significant pile of files containing endless documents on his cluttered desk. “So what’s this mission all about?” he asked.

  Doyle offered Blaze a seat and pulled a photograph of a pale-blue corpse from the stack of files. “This is Kayla Maunder.” Blaze observed the woman in her early thirties. “Two weeks ago a fisherman hauled her up from the bottom of the Hudson River.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Doyle produced another photograph—a close-up of Kayla’s neck. “See anything that jumps out at you?”

  Blaze saw it instantly. “That faded marking—behind her ear. I can’t quite make it out. Looks like a small leaf or something.”

  Doyle held up a picture of a three-leaf clover with a swastika at its centre. “This particular symbol belongs to the Aryan Brotherhood.”

  “So she was probably a member’s old lady. I still don’t see what you’re getting at.”

  Doyle opened the file and slapped a wad of papers down for Blaze to see. It was a missing person’s report. “Kayla disappeared a little over twelve years ago at the age of twenty-two. There were no ransom demands for her safe return, and no one had seen or heard from her until she literally resurfaced in the Hudson.

  “And you think she was kidnapped by the brotherhood? Why?”

  “Do that math, Blaze. She disappeared and was found dead twelve years later with the symbol of a known criminal organisation branded to her skin.”r />
  “That doesn’t mean shit. I ran away from home when I was eighteen and joined a crime syndicate, muling drugs and all sorts of nasty shit. Maybe she fell for a bad boy much to the disgust of her family and simply left.”

  “Yes, I admit that’s a possibility, but it doesn’t explain this–” Doyle reached for the file at the top of the large pile on his desk. “Open it,” he said.

  Blaze saw another missing person’s report, and perused the first page. “Keiran Moore, white female, twenty-one years of age, no sightings until her remains were found deep in the Adirondack Mountains by a hunting party,” said Doyle.

  “And your point being?”

  “Skip to page ten.”

  Blaze leafed through the pages until he saw the close-up photograph of the back of Keiran’s neck. “She has the same symbol behind her ear as that other chick. “Are you telling me that this entire stack of files contain names of kidnapped women who have turned up dead years later with the same brotherhood symbol branded on them?”

  Doyle loved the way Blaze deduced things so quickly. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” Doyle started rattling of the names of the victims as he casually flipped through the pile. “Angie Ede, Rochelle Pye, Deb Wilson, Trudie Collins...the list goes on.”

  “How long have these bodies been showing up for?”

  Doyle sighed. “The data I have isn’t overly comprehensive, but I stumbled across some old files in the archives when I first opened this investigation. There was a number of girls that popped up way back in the early 1980s. But the trail went cold for about ten years. So I did some research on the brotherhood, and I discovered their most notorious leader, Stefan Wagner, had been one of the final inmates to be executed by electrocution in the state of New York before they abolished the death penalty. Many thought the brotherhood would fold and fade into the background, and to be fair they did for a period of time. But in recent years they’ve risen from the ashes and now boast a membership of over fifteen-thousand members in New York alone, both in and out of the penitentiary system. And the scary thing is, their numbers are growing almost exponentially. In the last decade their numbers have doubled and tripled worldwide. From out of nowhere, a small sect of white supremacists who quietly dabble in drugs and firearms, now boast a multi-million dollar empire.”

  Blaze shook his head. “But that still doesn’t answer the obvious question: what’s with all the dead women?”

  “That is exactly what I want you to find out.”

  Blaze scoffed. “Fuck, you don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “Look, my superior has given me significant leeway with this investigation, considering most people agree that I’m delusional; they think I’m chasing ghosts. But I want nothing more than to solve the connection between the brotherhood and these mysterious murders. There has to be something more going on behind the scenes.”

  “And this is why you need me to be locked up—to extract any information I can before their current leader is released on parole?”

  “Yes. You have no idea how lucky we are to have the head honcho of the brotherhood right on our doorstep. I’ll forever be in your debt should you complete your objective.”

  Blaze lit up a cigarette and exhaled his lungful of smoke as he said, “Damn fucking right you will be, Doyle.”

  Chapter 25

  “Drop us at the end of the street,” Ryan said to the cab driver. He handed him another twenty-dollar bill.

  The driver nodded in appreciation of the large tip. “Good luck with your friend. I’ll be sure to keep an ear out,” he said.

  Ryan and Spider thanked him and stepped out onto the curb. The buildings in this area of town were run-down and decrepit, but plenty were still in use. Trash littered the sidewalks, and a young homie with braided hair stood on every other street corner, packing a pistol in the belt of his baggy jeans.

  “I don’t like this,” Ryan said quietly as they approached Skinny-Jay’s nightclub. Ryan noticed the name: CURVES flashing in multi-coloured lights above the two hulking bouncers manning the entrance. The two dark men folded their arms, extending a grim stare. Their gold chains with heavy pendants sat snugly between their giant pecs. Ryan instantly regretted his decision to come here.

  “Clear yo’ white asses outta here,” one of them said with hostile attitude.

  Spider instantly bared up. He wasn’t the slightest bit intimidated. If anything he was looking for a fight. “Shut your fucking mouth,” he replied. “Or do I need to shut it for you?”

  Both men unfolded their arms and reached for their concealed weapons. “Wait!” Ryan said frantically. “Before you pop a cap in my ass could you please inform Skinny-Jay I wish to speak with him?”

  Startled, one of them replied, “Who’s fuckin’ askin’?”

  “Tell him my name is Cameron Ryan. I’m a friend of Blaze. I believe Skinny-Jay is well-acquainted with him?”

  Both men dropped their attitude a smidgen. “You know Blaze?” one of them asked curiously. “How do I know you ain’t talkin’ shit, dawg?”

  Cameron drew a blank; he had no way of proving their connection.

  “Have you seen the tattoo on his back—of a skeleton nailed to a cross, engulfed in flames?” Spider asked.

  “Yo that’s some tight motherfuckin’ ink right there,” the bouncer replied. “But anyone could’ve seen that shit during one of his fights.”

  Both men quickly raised their pistols as Spider unzipped his jacket. “Just calm the fuck down, all right?” Spider held out the palms of his hands. “I’m gonna show you something.” He tossed his jacket to Ryan, then stripped off his T-shirt and slowly about-faced so they could see the identical tattoo of the Sinners & Scarecrows MC emblem on his back. “Blaze and I are brothers,” he explained.

  They immediately lowered their weapons. One reached for his cell phone and made a call. “Yo, boss, I got some honkies waitin’ at the gate that you might wanna meet. They’s friends of your boy, Blaze.”

  Two minutes later, Ryan and Spider were greeted by Skinny-Jay and ushered inside. “Nice going back there,” Ryan acknowledged Spider.

  He nodded back.

  Ryan shuddered as the first round of whisky was poured and they each took a large swig from their tumblers. The burning sensation in his throat was one he never enjoyed. “So let me get this straight: you came halfway round the motherfuckin’ world to New York looking for Blaze, and you won’t even tell me why? That’s some crazy motherfuckin’ shit right there,” Skinny-Jay scoffed at Ryan.

  Ryan didn’t think it was the greatest idea to inform Skinny-Jay that he was in fact a detective and that prison awaited Blaze. He was struggling to think of a decent reason as to why he needed Skinny-Jay’s help to find him.

  Spider noticed a large picture of an elderly lady on the wall with the letters RIP engraved in the frame. The resemblance between the lady and Skinny-Jay was remarkable. He quickly said, “Look, out of respect for Blaze, we didn’t want to tell anyone...but his mother is dying. He needs to come home before it’s too late.”

  Skinny-Jay stared long and hard into Spider’s poker face. He didn’t flinch. After years of lying to his own mother and the authorities he had perfected the art of bullshitting. His theory towards lying was simple: believe the lie. Skinny-Jay crossed himself and kissed one of his gold chains, “There ain’t no way I’d stand in the way of my boy, Blaze, getting home to his sick momma,” he said.

  Another round of whisky was poured while Skinny-Jay explained how Blaze had come to him after arriving in New York, and after a few bouts had become his champion fighter. Then he revealed how Scarface had purchased Blaze after buying out his contract and how Blaze didn’t want a bar of it, but had no choice in the matter.

  “Are you saying that Blaze has joined the Aryan Brotherhood!” Ryan spluttered.

  “Well, let’s just say he’ll either gonna join up willingly or one of their motherfuckin’ generals they call Scarface will see to it that he’s never heard from again.�
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  “So what do we do now?”

  “The way I see it you’ve got two options.”

  “We’re listening...” said Ryan.

  Skinny-Jay clinked a chunk of ice around his golden mouth, before he finally said, “Well, you can go home with your tail between your motherfuckin’ legs and forget about your brother, or you can stay and motherfuckin’ fight.”

  “Fight?” Spider grinned through his beard. “I like the sound of that.”

  Ryan interjected. “Give it to me straight, Skinny-Jay: what are the honest chances of us finding Blaze if the brotherhood have got their mitts on him?”

  Skinny-Jay swirled the shot of whisky in the bottom of his tumbler until he finally replied, “Scarface and I have a long-standing beef with each other. And for the sake of making some green we put our issues aside for the time being. But I know the truth. That motherfuckin’ white-power shit just ain’t right, and word has it he’s only adhering to our truce until he has the numbers to wipe us out for good. And believe me, I’ve noticed the AB growing in numbers by the motherfuckin’ day.”

  “So what’s your point?” Spider asked.

  “My point?” Skinny-Jay slugged down the remainder of his whisky. “We are going to strike first and wipe them out of New York for motherfuckin’ good. This is my motherfuckin’ turf, and I’ll be damned if some white motherfuckers are gonna run my black ass outta my own motherfuckin’ crib.”

  Ryan’s mind reeled from the news. “Look, I don’t want to be involved in some turf war,” Ryan answered. “It would only take one stray bullet to end it for you, me, or Blaze. There has to be another way.”

  “Well, then you’re on your own,” Skinny-Jay bared his teeth. “But as I said to Blaze: if you ever need anything, or you want to join in the fight, you’re always welcome in my crib.”

  “You, know, you’re all right,” Spider said, shaking Skinny-Jay’s hand respectfully. “If it weren’t for ol’ Nancy over here I’d be joining your crew. But as he said: maybe for the moment we’ll find another way.”