The Other Side of the Mirror

by Lex H Jones

  “Mrs. White?” He asked as he came face to face with the woman who answered. She was a Taiwanese woman in her early thirties, slim and attractive. Carl had done his digging, he knew that she used to be White’s favourite call girl before he promised her a better life. Just like he had done for all his previous wives. Still, she cheated on him as much as he had her, so perhaps they deserved each other.

  “Who wants to know?” She asked sharply, folding her arms.

  “My name is Detective Carl Duggan. I want to talk to you about your husband.”

  “My husband is dead, Detective.”

  “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “All right, come in. Let’s get this over with,” Mrs. White sighed, stepping to one side to let Carl into her home.

  She offered Carl a seat on the luxurious red leather couch and then poured herself a glass of red wine, taking a bottle of imported beer from the large fridge and bringing it over to Carl. As she walked, Carl noticed how well her figure fit the short black dress she was wearing; how the shape of her hips pressed against it, the fabric rose ever so slightly above the middle of her thigh, and how her breasts held tightly in perfect shape at the front. Carl allowed himself to be impressed by her appearance, but at the same time wasn’t stupid enough to be sucked in by it. She’d been expecting a cop at some point, that much was obvious from her reaction when he arrived. That she would expect a male cop was an easy guess as there were no female cops in the City, and the fact that she would dress in an appropriate way to distract him was to be expected for a woman with her past. She knew how to play people, and no mistake.

  “I hope this stuff is all right, it’s what my husband used to drink,” Mrs. White remarked as she opened the beer bottle with her teeth and preceded to pass the bottle to Carl.

  “Looks nicer than the crap I usually buy,” Carl admitted.

  “So, let’s be honest here, Detective... Duggan was it?” She asked, sitting down on the couch opposite the armchair where Carl had seated himself.

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s your first name?” She asked, sipping her wine and leaning back on the couch. At the same point she crossed her legs so that her already short dress rose even more, revealing the perfectly toned flesh of her upper thighs.

  “Carl.”

  “Can I call you Carl? Or would you prefer Detective?” She smiled with an expression that made the blood-flow in Carl's veins change its destination slightly. Not enough for her to win him over though. He admitted to himself that he’d plough this woman until she cried, and then put it to bed. Carl had been manipulated by better than her in the past and he’d learned from it.

  “Carl is fine,” he nodded.

  “So, Carl... my husband is dead, and you think I might be involved. That’s why you’re here?”

  “Yup,” Carl replied casually with a sip from his beer. That one was obvious, sweetheart, he thought to himself. Don’t go patting yourself on the back just yet.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Everyone knows the guy cheated on you with near enough every woman he met. That’s gotta sting after he takes you into his life the way he did.”

  “I was hardly a saint in our marriage either, Carl. It wouldn’t really be fair of me to judge him harshly for his wandering eye, would it?”

  “True, but in my experience that kind of logic never really matters to beautiful women like you. They can cheat on their husbands as much as they like, but as soon as he does it to them then he’s the worst bastard on the face of the earth.”

  “That’s rather sexist,” Mrs. White said defensively.

  “Yeah it is,” Carl agreed. “It’s also true.”

  “You’re right, it probably is,” Mrs. White shrugged. “Beautiful women can be bitches, especially the rich ones. It’s what society forces us to be. Let the world know it if they don’t already. We’ll wrong you a thousand different ways, and you’ll always come back. But cross us once and you’ll be served with divorce papers.”

  “Didn’t find any of those in your dead husband’s pockets,” Carl commented.

  “It was in process.”

  “Uh huh. And His Holiness was your divorce lawyer, I assume?”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You got a computer?” Carl asked, taking a USB stick from his coat pocket.

  “There’s a laptop in the bedroom.”

  “Would you mind?”

  “Go ahead,” Mrs. White nodded, setting down her wine glass and leading Carl into the bedroom.

  Carl couldn’t help but notice that the bedroom was the size of his entire apartment, but he wouldn’t let himself be bitter over it. He’d rather live in a small apartment that he’d paid for honestly. Not much reason to have a luxury bed if your guilt won’t allow you any sleep. Carl was still holding his beer, not being overly eager to let it go to waste. It was the best he’d ever tasted, but he’d carry that admission to his grave. He watched as Mrs. White leaned into a low drawer and removed a shiny black laptop, which she then placed on the vanity unit. As the machine booted up, she walked back around to where Carl stood at the end of the four-poster bed and stood before him.

  “What is it you have to show me on that memory stick, Detective?” She asked, her breath soft against Carl’s neck as she stood directly in front of him.

  “What happened to calling me by my first name? Have I pissed you off now?” Carl asked with a chuckle.

  “No, I just like calling you by your title. It’s more... authoritative. Big, strong police officer in my bedroom, asking me questions…”

  “You like that, huh?”

  “Oh yes. It never would have worked with my husband. He was so... soft. Not like you.”

  “I see,” Carl nodded, repressing the smile that so badly wanted to force him into fits of laughter. If this dumb bitch actually thought he was going to fall for this then she really was an idiot.

  “Would you like me to be a cooperative suspect... or not?”

  “I always preferred not...” Carl remarked, reaching down to Mrs. White’s wrists and holding them behind her back. She gasped softly and then there was the sound of a soft metallic click. Mrs. White looked over her shoulder to see that Carl had now handcuffed her hands around the bedpost at her back. She smiled at the sight of this and bit her bottom lip, and then turned back to Carl.

  “Well I’m going to have to cooperate now, aren’t I?” She said in mock submission.

  “That’s the idea,” Carl smiled, before walking straight past her to the laptop. “Hope this thing doesn’t want a password.”

  “Oh you are fucking kidding me!” She hissed.

  “What? You thought I’d actually forget why I was here and end up banging you? Sorry, sweetheart, I’ve resisted hotter than you in my time.”

  “Yeah, like hell you have.”

  “See, that’s the problem with spending years listening to a fat old shit telling you that you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. At some point you start believing it. You’re hot, sure, but I’ve seen just as hot on late-night porn. They have a whole channel for skanky Asian chicks. You might want to consider signing up since your husband isn’t here to buy you pretty things anymore,” Carl suggested as he plugged in the memory stick and loaded up the files that were stored on it.

  “You’re a prick, Duggan!”

  “So I’ve heard,” Carl shrugged without turning to face her. “Ah, here we go. See, I knew I’d be coming here to see you so I pulled your bank records. I see here a twenty-thousand dollar transfer to an account in the name of Zebediah Goldman. Now, I know that’s a false name and I know who uses it. Remember I made that crack about you hiring His Holiness as your divorce lawyer? You should have remembered it, it was a good joke. Cause from what I see here, you’ve evidently paid him for something.”

  “If you know who he is then you know what he does, which means you know why I paid him,” Mrs. White hissed again, her tone one of frustration as sh
e had now given up trying to force her freedom from the handcuffs.

  “Yeah, but I want to hear you say it.”

  “I didn’t have my husband killed,” she said firmly.

  “See, now this says otherwise,” said Carl, tapping a finger against the bank records displayed on the screen of the laptop.

  “I know... but I didn’t. I wanted him dead, but it never went down that way. He had this heart attack before Pope did his job.”

  “You’re saying this wasn’t what you paid for?”

  “No, this was just a heart attack.”

  “Drop the injunction,” Carl said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Let us autopsy your husband. If you’re telling the truth you got nothing to worry about.”

  “You’d still arrest me for putting the hit out on him to start with,” Mrs. White protested.

  “I hit a few keys here and I have no evidence that you did any such thing,” Carl informed her, pointing at the laptop.

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I don’t give a flying crap about your husband, Mrs. White. I just want to know how he died. If it wasn’t you then I don’t care that you also wanted him dead. I don’t really see that you’re a threat to society so why waste my time and yours putting a case against you?”

  “Come over here and I’ll thank you properly for that,” Mrs. White smiled, licking her lips.

  “Sorry, busy night ahead,” Carl replied. “So what’s it gonna be? You gonna let us do the autopsy?”

  “Hand me the phone and I’ll call my lawyer right away. I only got that thing because I didn’t want you cutting into him.”

  “Why would you want to stop that?” Asked Carl, taking the phone from the bedside table.

  “I know that he wasn’t murdered, so an autopsy isn’t necessary. If it’s not necessary then I would rather you didn’t cut him open. Let him be buried without scars all over him.”

  “That’s an Asian thing, right? That your ghost walks in the next world with the same wounds it carried in this one? So you don’t want him to have any wounds that aren’t necessary?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. White nodded.

  “But you were going to have a bullet put in his head.”

  “Which I had made peace with myself for. Now that it wasn’t necessary, there’s no need to cause him any further harm, in this world or the next one.”

  “That almost sounds like respect for your husband, Mrs. White.”

  “You can love someone and hate them at the same time, Carl.”

  “Not in my experience.”

  “Then you’ve never been married,” she smiled.

  “Tell me your lawyer’s number and I’ll dial for you.”

  “You’re not going to take off these handcuffs?”

  “I will when you’ve dropped the injunction.”

  Mrs. White gave Carl the number and he dialled, then held the phone to Mrs. White’s ear. To his surprise the phone was answered quickly, which was impressive since it had just passed midnight. Carl assumed that Mrs. White had a direct number for one of her more expensive lawyers, possibly even his home number. She was probably sucking his dick, after all. With the instruction given to lift the injunction, the call was ended.

  “Please don’t leave more scars than you have to,” she requested.

  “I’ll ask my guy to do his best,” Carl nodded, reaching to unfasten the handcuffs.

  “You couldn’t leave them on just a little longer?” Mrs. White teased as Carl unfastened the cuffs.

  “Christ, you don’t give up do you?”

  “I haven’t had a man in days. I get frustrated easily,” she smiled seductively, rubbing her wrists now that Carl had freed them.

  Carl walked over to the bedside cabinet and rooted around in the drawers until he found what he was looking for. What he knew would be in there. With a satisfied nod, he took the red plastic dildo from the drawer and tossed it onto the bed beside Mrs. White.

  “Knock yourself out,” he suggested as he took back his memory stick and walked towards the door.

  “Where are you going now?” Mrs. White called after him, sounding genuinely disappointed that he was actually leaving.

  “I gotta go to church,” he replied as he left.

  Chapter Twelve

  His Holiness

  S aint Michael’s Church was the only holy building in the entire West side. There were a few rescue missions run by various churches in the East, but most of the churches had long since abandoned the City. Little hope was to be had there, divine or otherwise, so the messages never got through. The Catholics were still clinging on for dear life though, and St Michael’s was the last bastion of anything even slightly divine on either side of the Styx.

  Carl entered quietly, closing the large door behind him and trying to stifle the echo of his footfalls on the aisle. The church was dark, lit mostly by the candles along its walls and at the altar. It was also empty, save for the lone figure seated on one of the pews facing the altar, his back to Carl. The man was seated beneath the shadow of a large statue of Christ on the cross, his head hung in prayer. He was completely bald, the only hair on his face the small black goatee around his lips and chin. On the back of his head was a tattoo of the Jewish Star of David, inside each segment of which was a single number. Carl also knew that the man had further tattoos, one on each hand, which were Hebrew symbols for ‘Hope’ and ‘Mercy’, respectively.

  “Hello, Charles.” Carl said quietly as he sat in the pew directly behind the bald man.

  “If you’re planning to draw your gun, then I would request you not to. If not out of respect for me, then for him,” the bald man asked, nodding towards the statue of Christ.

  “Alright, I’ll keep her holstered,” Carl agreed. “But only because I’m pretty sure I could take you without it.”

  “Last time was a fluke, and you didn’t stop me.”

  “I don’t call three ribs and that scar on your face a fluke,” Carl smirked.

  “I admit, you’re better than anyone who’s ever tried to stop me before. But if you recall the climax of our previous altercation, I still made my target.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause I gave up on getting in your way. After I found out what my commanding officer was involved in, I didn’t want to protect him anymore. He deserved your bullet and about a hundred more.”

  “Yes he did,” the bald man nodded. “So perhaps you’d be kind enough to tell me why you’ve sought me out tonight?”

  “You didn’t take much finding. Only one place to find Charles Pope at this time of night.”

  Carl had only met Pope the once before, but he knew him by reputation long before that. He was easily the best hit-man money could buy, not just in the City but quite probably in the whole country. He was also what you might call ‘complicated’. The tattoos that decorated Pope’s flesh didn’t match his name or his faith, and few people knew why. Carl knew, of course. It was his job to know.

  Pope’s father hadn’t even been ten years old when the Germans invaded Poland. He’d been taken to a concentration camp with his entire family, and was the only one to leave, four years later. He grew up fast, but a part of him never left that place. For as long as he lived, he slept in the attic of every home he had, jumping out of his damn skin every time there had been a knock at the door. He’d wash himself in the bathtub or with a washcloth. Never a shower. He wouldn’t even set foot in a bathroom that had a shower in it.

  Even when he married and had a kid, Zebediah Goldman couldn’t leave his demons behind him. He called his son Charles and changed his surname to Pope. Bit overkill perhaps but Goldman thought no such thing. On the day he figured Charles was old enough to understand, he started to teach him Catholicism. He didn’t want his son to be Jewish, didn’t want anyone to know where he was from. The Nazis were long gone, but Zebediah never felt safe. As far as he was concerned, it would happen again. Someone else would decide they hated Jews and the whole fucking mess would st
art over. Not again, not to his son. So he gave him a Catholic name, told him to shave his head and never grow a long beard, never read the Torah and learn the Bible instead. Keep safe, hide where you’re from.

  Charles never really understood his father’s obsession with hiding his origins, but he didn’t have to. His respect for his father was enough that he honoured the wishes without the need for understanding them. But he wouldn’t allow himself to forget who he really was, where his origins really lie. When his father died, Charles had the tattoos done. The star of his people, the numbers in each segment making up the same number that was marked on his father’s right wrist. A memory in black ink, a sign that would firmly state the words ‘never again’, hidden in a code all their own.

  Zebediah had worried that he might pass his fear onto his son, but in actually he hadn’t. The fear that he had felt had turned into hate in Charles’ hands. Hate for anyone who abused their power, who thought their wealth, status and authority should allow them to flaunt the laws of morality and decency. Men like the Nazis. Men like Judge White. Choosing his profession was easy when it came with the prospect of removing just such men. ‘Never again’. Not if Charles could help it in some small way.

  “So what would you like to ask me about, Detective Duggan?” Pope asked without turning around.

  “Judge White.”

  “Corrupt, rich bastard who abused his power and position of trust.”