by Lex H Jones
H is hands tucked firmly into the pockets of his long leather jacket, Carl ignored the cold night air and set off into the city. He was full of warm food and that seemed to help, but the air was biting. The kind of cold that felt like a thousand tiny demons scratching at your face with every step you took, invisible and silent but there all the same. Every now and then one of them would successfully breach your clothes with their claws, causing a shudder down the length of your spine. Carl was just coming close to acclimatising to the cold night when speckles of white started to fall around him, landing on his head and resting against his dark hair, the air too cold to let them melt.
“Wonderful,” Carl muttered as the snow grew heavier.
Turning up the collar on his jacket he walked on, over towards the Steel Gate bridge. The dark black metal of the bridge was covered with a soft blanket of white, and Carl slipped twice as he made his way across it. He couldn’t remember if it had snowed the previous year, but he supposed that it had done. The City was always cold, even in summer, so snow in the winter months made sense. Carl hated snow, mostly because it reminded him of everything it wasn’t, and everything it should be. Anywhere else and a snowfall would be a source of happiness. School closures, kids sledding, preparations for Christmas. Not in the City. Here it was just one more thing to kill the homeless souls and the young girls selling themselves so that they could eat. Here the snow just meant that a cold night just got colder. Nothing more, nothing less.
Half way across the bridge, Carl’s shoes lost their fragile grip on the ice-sheathed steel, causing him to fall forwards and hit the floor hard. His hands stopped him from smashing his face against the cold metal, but the frigid air enhanced the stabbing pain through his bones at the moment of impact. Carl swore through gritted teeth, obscenities leaving his lips in a cloud of frozen air. He was about to push himself back up when he noticed that he could see the Styx flowing by beneath him, visible through the steel-grated floor against his face. Staring down into the water, its frozen ghosts reflecting the moonlight, Carl thought he could make out a face staring back at him. His eyes struggled to focus against the dark water, the image broken as it was through the criss-crossed lines of black metal. When finally the image cleared, it was unmistakable.
“Amber?” Carl said aloud.
The ghostly face stared back up at him from below the bridge, somehow remaining in one place as though the dead girl was treading water. The image said nothing but her eyes bore into Carl’s soul, sending a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the snow which had slowly begun to rest there. As Carl met the gaze of the phantom, a look of sadness passed over her, before the image faded back to the nothingness from which it had come. The cold snapping him back to reality, Carl pushed himself up and furiously rubbed his hands together, desperate to avoid the onset of frostbite that might now be a risk given the length of time he had left his hands pressed against the ice-cold metal of the bridge.
Carl Duggan didn’t believe in ghosts, which is why he knew that what he had just seen was anything but. As a matter of fact, he knew exactly where the image of Amber had originated from, and that troubled him all the more. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen such an image, after all. Ten years ago Carl had been working a missing person’s case where a young bride disappeared the day after her wedding. Her ex-con former boyfriend was arrested and convicted on lousy evidence, much of which Carl himself had dug up. The guy had been obsessed with her, and never really got over it. His house had a wall on which every inch was covered with photographs of the girl. Not surprisingly, he was first on the list of obvious suspects when she suddenly disappeared. Carl thought the matter was put to bed, but for days after the conviction he would see the young girl staring at him. On a park bench, in his bedroom, anywhere he went alone when his mind would relax.
His mind was the source of the visions, there was nothing supernatural about them. When he let it wander, Carl’s mind would tell him things that it might have missed during periods of conscious thought. That nagging doubt he’d always felt regarding the ex-boyfriend’s guilt turned into a vision of the dead girl’s ghost looking at him, trying to tell him that she couldn’t rest. Not yet. Not until the real killer was found. So Carl went over the case again, ignoring everyone who told him to leave it be, and found some things that he might otherwise have missed. Like the fact that the dead girl’s new husband was deeply in gambling debt until he married a naive little rich girl. Like the fact that his alibi wasn’t worth shit when the witnesses were cross-analysed. Like the fact that the Chief of Police had bought a new car the week before the ex-boyfriend’ trial. The case was reopened, the husband was convicted, and the dead girl went away. More accurately, Carl’s mind stopped bugging him to keep looking.
The knowledge that this was the way his mind worked troubled Carl all the more at the sight of Amber staring up at him. He’d caught her killer, even shot him in the nuts as a final insult. The guy had confessed to everything, and not even under any threat or forced admission. He had been casual, brutally honest, cavalier. Big Dog had killed her—there was no doubt about it. So why was Carl’s mind forcing Amber to haunt him? What had he missed? Why couldn’t she rest yet? With a long sigh, Carl leaned against the edge of the bridge and closed his eyes.
“I got him,” he whispered to the waters below, “I got him for you, kid...what do you want from me?”
Finally he turned from the dark water and continued his walk across the bridge. Carl had just crossed to the other side of the City when his cell phone rang, vibrating against his chest on the inside of his jacket. He cursed the damn thing for ringing, as he now had to take his hands from his moderately-warm pockets and introduce them to the cold air once more. Just after he’d regained the feeling in them, too. Damn cell phone. Damn snow.
“Duggan,” Carl answered, the words leaving his mouth in a cloud of grey, frozen breath.
“Hey, Duggan, it’s Trent. I got something for you.”
“Is it a pair of gloves?” asked Carl, his fingers already tensing up as the freezing air caused his skin to stretch tightly across the bones of his hand.
“What? No.”
“Then hurry it up,” Carl insisted, keeping his other hand firmly inside his pocket, as though he could generate enough warmth in this one to compensate for that being lost in the hand clutching the phone.
“I felt kinda bad about landing that dead guy on you, so I did some digging. Trying to help you out a little, you know? Anyway, turns out our fairy was called Danny Delane. He worked for a club called the Hive, over on the West Side. Don’t know much else, but if you’re heading that way anyway then maybe you might wanna call in?”
“So you’re gift for me was the fact that I now have to go to a gay bar?” Asked Carl.
“Um, yeah...”
“You’re a fucking saint, Trent,” Carl sighed.
“Yeah well, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Trent chuckled.
“I’ll try and keep focus.”
Carl replaced his phone and eagerly thrust his cold hand back into the waiting pocket. To his immediate relief he found that some of the warmth generated earlier had remained in the lining. With a final shudder against the cold, Carl increased his pace and ventured towards the nightclub district. Fei Ling White would wait, after all. As far as she was concerned she was no longer a suspect, so she wouldn’t be running off anywhere soon. Whatever she had to say about the pills her husband had been taking in place of his usual meds, she’d say it just the same an hour or so later. The club-goers in the Hive, however, needed to be spoken with as a matter of urgency. People in locations like that had notoriously fickle memories, Carl knew that from experience. The longer he left it to ask about suspicious goings on, the less likely it was that any information he got would be accurate.
The Hive nightclub could be found on the main-street, illuminated by a glowing sign in the shape of a honey pot. Carl wondered if it symbolised something somehow, but decided that he’
d rather not know, given the choice. The bouncer on the door of the club was a skinny black guy with white lipstick, wearing a cheap blonde wig. The doorway in which he was stood was sheltered, but he was still visibly shivering. Despite this he managed to smile at Carl as he approached, commenting in a decidedly feminine voice, “Now let me guess... you’re either here to drag your son out of a gay bar, or you’re a cop.”
“What makes you think I’m not just a paying customer?” Carl asked.
“Oh please, honey, you’re not fooling anyone,” the bouncer laughed, gesturing his right hand as though he was pushing Carl away. “You’re so straight-laced I’m surprised your shoes stay on.”
“That’s a good one, I haven’t heard that before,” Carl chuckled, taking out his badge. “Look, I need to speak to some of your regulars, people who come here often.”
“Oh God, is someone in trouble?” The bouncer asked, putting his slender hands to his face.
“Did you know a guy called Danny Delane?”
“You mean Queen Bea? Oh he’s not been caught dealing again, has he? After the last time he swore that...”
“He’s dead,” Carl interrupted.
“He’s...are you sure?”
“Last I saw him, he had a bullet hole straight through his chest. That usually means I’m pretty sure.”
“Oh God... Oh Shit, Danny...” Said the bouncer, his hands shaking as he brought them to his face once more.
“Look, I’m sorry...” Carl sighed, feeling a little guilty at his brazenness. “I’m used to this stuff, you’re obviously not. I just need to talk to someone who was here the last time he worked.”
“Well he was on a couple of nights ago, but then he had two days off, so we haven’t missed him or anything.”
“Do you know what he was planning on doing with his nights off? Anything that might get him into trouble?”
“Well we all just assumed he’d be spending them with the new friend he made. His latest little drone.”
“You wanna explain that?” asked Carl.
“Sorry. Danny was a drag act, called himself Queen Bea. Wore a yellow and black dress, had a wig like a beehive, you get it?”
“I think I understand the joke. Go on...”
“Well every night after his performance he picks out someone from the audience, someone who catches his eye, and takes them home with him. Real rock and roll, that was Danny. He calls them his Drones, like with the worker bees that dote on their queen?”
“Still getting the joke, kid. Keep it relevant,” Carl insisted.
“That’s about it. He left with his latest drone and we weren’t expecting him back until tomorrow,” said the bouncer. “I can’t believe he’s…I mean, it doesn’t feel real, you know?”
“It never does at first. If this guy was your friend, then when it hits you, you need to be at home, somewhere safe where you can relax and grieve.”
“Not sure my boss would approve of my just going home,” the bouncer smiled, trying to sound jovial but wiping a visible tear from his eye.
“He has a problem then tell him to speak with me,” Carl insisted. “Look, right now the guy Danny left with is my prime suspect. Do you know anything about him?”
“He wasn’t a regular, I’m pretty sure of that,” the bouncer replied, shaking his head. “I didn’t catch his face, but from his build, I’d say that I’ve never seen him before. And I see everyone that comes in here, obviously. They left together but I didn’t get the best look at him, I’m afraid.”
“Anything you remember at all would be helpful.”
“Well he was quite a big guy, butch looking. Not as butch as you, of course, but then you’re the real deal, not just a queen acting macho,” the bouncer explained. “Dark hair, didn’t really see what he was wearing. Sorry, I know that’s probably useless.”
“You never know, it’s often surprising what turns out to be useful and what doesn’t,” Carl remarked. “Look, I know how things work in clubs over on this side of the City…everyone knows everyone but they don’t know anything. I could go in there and speak with every single person and get nothing better than what you’ve told me. Am I right?”
“I dare say so,” the bouncer sighed.
“You’ve been really co-operative so far and I’m grateful, but if there’s anything else that you can tell me...”
“Alright, look...I can let you in on something but if my boss fires me, you have to promise me that you’ll kick his ass.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Carl assured him.
“Look behind your left shoulder and upwards, but don’t make it obvious,” The bouncer instructed.
Carl nodded and then glanced at his boot, pretending the lace was untied and crouching down to address it. As he did so, he glanced up in the direction that the bouncer had suggested, and noticed the camera hidden behind the traffic lights just outside the club entrance.
“You guys making cheap videos or something?” Carl asked as he stood back up.
“Videos? Yes. Cheap? No.”
“Ah,” Carl nodded. “So… stop me if I’m wrong here... you video people coming and going from this club, and bribe the ones who might not be so open about their sexuality to the general public?”
“Wow, smart and rugged.”
“Being smart is my job. The ruggedness is a bonus,” Carl remarked. “So your boss makes a lot of money from bribery, huh?”
“Yeah, but trying to bring it down on him is pointless. You’ll never make it stick, not with the lawyers he has.”
“I ain’t interested in that.”
“Good, ‘cause that’s not why I pointed it out to you. I thought you might want to have a look at the tapes and see who Danny left with. Big Pauly…that’s my boss... his office is upstairs. He’ll let you have a look if you pay him.”
“You’re a smart one, kid,” Carl smiled as he opened the door to enter the club. “You ever think about joining the force?”
“As much as I’d like the uniform, I think my place is here.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” Carl shrugged.
“Look, one more thing. You should know that Danny was a good guy. He wasn’t all that nice, bit of a bitch like the rest of the performers, but he was still a good guy. Decent, honest… whoever killed him probably knew that. Took advantage of it to get close to him.”
“You’re probably right,” Carl nodded as he stepped inside the club. “Thanks for the help, kid.”
“Just remember, if Big Pauly fires me, you kick his ass,” The bouncer called after him.
“I’ll try, but I think it kinda depends on how big ‘Big Pauly’ actually is,” Carl called back.
Chapter Eighteen;
Big Pauly
“W hat the hell? Where’s the rest of you?” Carl asked with a raised eyebrow as he looked down at the dark-haired midget sat in what seemed to be a ridiculously large leather chair.
“Smart guy, huh? Go ahead, try another, I heard all of ‘em,” Big Pauly smiled back with a simultaneous raising of his middle finger.
“Alright, I’ll try and think of a good one before I leave,” Carl shrugged, walking around the impressive office above the nightclub, whilst also taking note of the view of the city that could be seen from the large window. Even from above, the yellow and pink lights made it look tacky and oppressive. No real darkness, nowhere to hide. Everything right out in the open for the world to see and indulge in. No shame, no regrets.
“I look forward to hearing it. Now what do you want?” asked Pauly, taking a drag from the cigar stub he held in his tiny hand, adorning which were several golden rings Carl assumed to be custom made. They didn’t make genuine sovereign rings in children’s sizes, after all.
“I hear you’re the guy to see if I want to watch a video?”
“You want some gay porn, go to the store across the street,” Pauly replied.
“Not what I meant, Pauly, but thanks for the information. I’m looking for someone who came to your club two nigh
ts ago. He left with one of your performers, Queen Bea, otherwise known as Danny Delane,”
“Danny’s due in work tomorrow, you can ask him yourself who he left with,” Pauly shrugged.
“My name’s Detective Carl Duggan. Danny’s dead, Pauly. He was found murdered in his own room. The guy he left with is the last person I can guarantee saw him alive.”
“Danny, you idiot,” Pauly sighed to himself.
“Something you want to tell me?”
“Only that leaving with an audience member was nothing new for Danny. Different one every night. He was a man-whore, and not a kind one. After he’d had them once he’d give them the royal brush off. They tried to so much as speak with him again and he’d turn into the most venomous queen you ever met.”
“So there could be an endless line of guys that hated him?”
“Hated him? Yeah, definitely. But guys that would murder him? No chance. The guys downstairs don’t have that kinda inclination, you know?”
“You assume they couldn’t be murderers because they’re queer?” Carl asked with a doubtful raising of his left eyebrow. “You know how fucking stupid that sounds? Don’t have to be straight to pull a trigger, Pauly.”
“That’s now what I meant, dickwad. You spoken with the guys downstairs? Queeny bitches, the lot of ‘em. Worst they’d do is talk shit about him for the rest of time. Violence just ain’t in ‘em, not any of my regulars.”
“You know your customers, then?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Well I don’t get the impression that you’re gay yourself, which means this is purely a business enterprise for you. Gay guys have a lot of disposable income, so you set up a place where they can come and piss it away into your pocket.”
“All true,” Pauly chuckled, tossing the remains of his cigar into the metal waste bin at his side. “But I’m not some homophobic bastard that sits up in his office all day and night. They got a sense for these things, you know. If they get the idea that the guy running the place is a queer-hater, they take their business elsewhere. So I go down to the club floor every night, talk to a few of ‘em, give out cakes at birthdays, that sort of thing. Let ‘em know that I don’t give two shits where they stick their dick.”
