He had underestimated the overwhelming sadness that he felt upon leaving her alone with her cats and after over a year of being clean and off of the opium, he had finally relented and succumb to the temptation of forgetting her because the sadness was simply too much to bare. He was tired of feeling sad, empty inside and self-hating what he had become and so he simply wanted to forget all his problems that had slowly built up and accumulated over time. As the defiant Merlyo finally returned his gaze back upon the infamously loathsome bar’s flickering and illuminated bleeding sheep’s head sign, Ness sat there in the lonesome shadows of his beloved Elegant Mess and enjoyed every inch of the uneventful surveillance.
Meanwhile within the dingy Slaughtered Lamb bar an undercover, shabbily dressed and impoverished looking Cowles was sitting at a busy table with a pair of African American couples. These equally shabbily clothed couples had both been mainly drunk throughout the entire evening and had attempted to engage him in polite conversation numerous times without success, forcing them to chat amongst themselves as the silent Cowles remained there in quiet concentration.
The preoccupied Cowles was keenly observing the huge lumbering mass of flesh that was Dr Sweeney whom had been sitting at the far side of the grimy and dimly lit bar throughout the entire evening. The flimsy barstool he was sitting on barley appeared to keep his weight as its cracked and groaned in protest at every slight moment that he made, forcing the good doctor to remain almost still whilst sitting. Dr Sweeney had not made any attempt at engaging others in polite conversation and remained silent as he drank, apparently content to be within the Slaughtered Lamb and simply drink into the early hours of the morning.
The crammed Slaughtered Lamb’s interior consisted of a darkened wood panelled floor, deep red painted walls which where dimly lit and flaking after years of neglect and there was an overwhelming stench of alcohol that hung upon the dirty bars air. All the rickety tables and chairs where sporadically placed chaotically around the bar and its high priest, the thin and ill-looking bald African American bartender. The dishevelled bartender wore a small tight white and stained vest which further emphasized his malnourished condition and this was nicely accompanied by an unbuttoned but well-worn black leather waistcoat. He also oddly wore a pair of home crafted woolly goat’s leggings which were loosely held up by some tatty red suspenders which occasionally made their appearance known to the observant eye from under his leather waistcoat. A bloody sheep’s head image was crudely created upon the back of this waistcoat which further enhanced his apparent obsession with the four legged herbivore. This bizarre appearance was further enhanced because he was also sported a pair of plastic Halloween horns upon his head, indicating to all that they were within the devilish domain of his alcoholic teachings. His disciples, the barstools which surrounded the red glowing alter like bar, contained all manner of dubious looking African American characters which appeared to be chatting to one another.
The notable exception was that of the massively framed, white shirt and brown trouser wearing Sweeney whom had been silently drinking his selected poison by himself throughout the evening. The infamous doctor had his back constantly turned towards Cowles and drank his whisky slowly and in moderation whilst only selectively talking to the bar tender on a few separate occasions, mainly to simply acquire a refill of his previous order.
The uncomfortable Cowles was not used to such an environment that he was currently in and reassuringly knew that Ness and his Unknowns where outside and only a few moments away but still, his feeling of apprehension had slowly been overwhelming him throughout the night. He knew that this was his big opportunity to impress his superior because Ness was depending on him because he suspected that Sweeney might know that they were keeping him under surveillance due to his constant disappearing acts. These numerous vanishing acts performed by Sweeney where now famed between the selected members of the Unknowns surveillance teams whom all were now convinced that there was a traitor was within their midst whom was possibly feeding Dr Sweeney information about their covert activities.
Ness wanted the keen Cowles to shadow the infamous Dr Sweeney back to his unholy lair and hopefully catch the killer in the act of murder itself, forgoing any requirement for finding elusive evidence or acquiring a hard fought confession. As the night wore painfully on and the two talkative and intoxicated couples besides Cowles finally gave up on attempting to talk to their ill-mannered stranger and staggered out of the establishment. The relieved Cowles then noticed that he was beginning to feel somewhat inebriated himself and was finally succumbing to the strongly harsh and cheap whisky that had slowly but surely been drinking throughout the entire night. He could feel it deeply penetrating his unaccustomed system and instantly knew that he was losing his fight with consciousness against its powerfully created sedative effects because his usually alert mind was now beginning to drift into confusing areas of thought that where unknown to him.
He involuntarily then lowered his light head and heavy eyes for a moment as the unrelenting tiredness slowly crept up upon him and the weakness that he was slowly experiencing finally overwhelmed him. The defeated Cowles then defiantly lifted up his head as he battled against the prevailing sleepiness that his body was begging him to partake in, until his eyes where suddenly greeted by an alarming sight. Dr Sweeney was no longer sitting in his usual rickety barstool but had since vacated the immediate visible area and had apparently disappeared altogether!
This alarming sight caused a new found strength to instantly develop from within the young Cowles as adrenalin now coursed through his veins to allow him to repel the sedative effects of the alcohol that he had been conservatively consuming. The concerned Cowles internally self-reprimanded himself for being so weak because he had only nodded off for what he thought was just a second or two but it was obviously clearly longer. He had unwittingly given the elusive doctor enough time to move his large and cumbersome frame from his relieved barstool, potentially pay his expensive tab and leave the notorious establishment altogether. These alarming speculations frightened the already panicked Cowles as he physically attempted not to show his internal dilemma and keenly scanned the visible environment.
After a moment his rationality and reason once again revealingly took over his bewildered mind as he noticed that the doctors half full drinking glass was still on the bar, indicating to him that he may have probably just gone to use the toilet. A huge sense of relief then flowed over the internally panicked Cowles, relaxing him and lowering his blood pressure within a blissful instant. The cautiously optimistic Cowles would only be satisfied upon seeing the good doctor again for himself and so he suddenly stood-up to the surprise of a few customers close by whom all had only seen slight movements from the young man all night. He then proceeded to casually walk towards the back room toilet because he required Sweeney’s visual confirmation to quell his nerves but he felt strange as his heavy legs did not wish to respond to his commands as they should, further annoying the undercover lieutenant.
As Cowles carefully tried to leave the balancing table that he was unknowingly resting on, in order to make his way towards the distant blind corner that concealed the toilet, he systematically tried to reassert his control over his protesting body which fought his every command and stubbornly refused to obey. He struggled whilst attempting to retain his precarious balance and felt the dizziness of the strong whisky permeate his already oversaturated system. His jelly like legs wobbled as they did not appear to want to take him to where he wished to go and so he steadied himself yet again upon the table before proceeding to hesitantly let it go and move towards the toilet. He slowly started to move through the large groups of noisy African Americans that strangely seemed to heavily populate this particular bar in abundance. Their presence only made the dimly lit bar seem yet more confusing within his already inebriated mind because the whole establishments red painted brick walls barley helped illuminate the dark varnished floor from the surrounding people.
This old wooden panelled auburn floor had long since seen better days in its distant past and it was immensely sticky due to the many spilt drinks that had accumulated upon it over time, making the entire walk through the crowded bar that much more of a challenge for the inebriated Cowles. The struggling Cowles then studied himself against the wall and noticed that the blood red paint had been hastily applied long ago because much of it had solidified whilst in the process of dripping, giving it a distinctly ominous looking appearance of blood to the untrained eye. Now that he was closer he could also see that the walls contained a vast selection of numerous celebrated African American baseball stars and Jazz singers and as Cowles pushed himself away from the wall and towards his final goal, he staggered by the odd looking bar tender.
The bar tender had a distinctly scornful look edged upon his well-worn and dehydrated face, now that he came more into focus and actively looked in disgust as the struggling Cowles went past him. The bartender continued to keep a watchful eye on the staggering undercover lawman as he cleaned another drinking glass, untrusting of outsiders and weary of the white devil men in particular. As Cowles fell against the blood red walls again in order to steady himself he noticed that the walls were dark with filth due to all the years of neglect but the blood red colour still strikingly shone through all that filth. He then irritatingly pushed these pointless wall cleanliness speculations to one side he could now see that he was finally near his desired goal and the confusing mass of African American people, along with his current inebriated state, had made a simply dash towards the toilet seemed like an Olympic marathon of epic proportions.
He squinted his eyes as he attempted to make sense of the confusing the mass of shadows that now chaotically surrounded him on all sides. The occasional unknown individual would bump into him, causing him to briefly lose his balance but he doggedly persevered and finally located the single toilet arrow sign on the blood red wall which pointed around the blind corner. He then confusingly moved through this final mass of people and made up for his lack of direction with his fast pace and determination to not lose his prey that had already appeared to have successfully evaded him. He attempted to take great care not to bump into any of the other clientele and patrons of this notorious establishment because he did not want to get into some sort of drunken altercation or worse, start an argument about African American civil rights within the United States.
The previous other two couples had already attempted to lure him in on such a topic a few times earlier that evening but he had declined to take part. He was secretly all for African American equal rights and he considered himself somewhat of a libertarian within his own political thinking, similar to the political views of his fellow Unknowns. However in the Cleveland police department headquarters it was best to keep such matters, especially about race or sexual preference, to oneself because there where many men with differing views on these politically sensitive topics.
The most noticeable opponents to these liberal issues where the congressman’s men, the origami loving detective Trunk and his three colleagues, sheriff O’Donnell, deputy Kilbane and detective “Gentleman” Brown. Many even stated that the congressman was himself a pure racist because he had recently denounced a congressional bill to enforce national conscription as an attempt to drag the United States into World War II on the side of Great Britain. Congressman Sweeney had preferred isolationism and pacifism rather than interference into Nazi Germanys aggressive expansion on the European continent. This shocking stance had caused outrage on the floor of the House of Representatives and had pushed another Democrat, Beverly Vincent to call Sweeney a “traitor” and a “son of a bitch”. The infuriated congressman had then shockingly punched him in the face and caused the House doorkeeper, Joseph Sinnot to officially state that “It was the best fistfight that he had ever seen in his fifty years in the House”.
Cowles thought that it was ironic that he was now attempting to locate the congressman’s elusive first cousin, the deranged Mad Butcher whom was a killer of all ethnicities and sexes, unbiased over whom he would torture before live decapitation. Cowles aggressively brushed these politically divisive and distracting thoughts aside as he finally made his way through the last of the shadowy people and came around the sharp corner to suddenly run right into the large, buttoned up and immaculate white shirt of Dr Sweeney himself!
The doctor’s massive frame dwarfed that of the young and startled Cowles whom instinctively looked up at him and surprisingly saw that he looked very much alert and awake. He was even knowingly smiling a large and menacing smile down upon the disorientated and startled undercover lawman as he awkwardly smiled in reply, but not until after revealing the immense alarm that had initially pervaded across his bookish face. Cowles now had a good look at Dr Sweeney as the blood red walls lit him up in a striking combinations of various verities of red’s and different shifting severities of shadow.
The red and dark colours brilliantly reflected off his immaculately clean and ironed white shirt as his eye’s hid behind the circular reflective spectacles which lenses abnormally caught the light within the room nonmatter how faint. Dr Sweeney was a heavy set man and large in every aspect of muscular definition and he could easily overpower the smaller Cowles, whom then nervously adjusted his smaller round spectacles which were slipping of his nose due to the newly formed sweat that now saturated his person. Dr Sweeney’s false smile lied about its apparent meaning and hid a sinisterly dark secret that only the both of them could silently share and fully appreciate within this uncompromisingly revealing private space.
His ironed trousers and shoes where a drably forgettable brown but in combination with his immaculately clean white shirt they all pleasantly rounded off his distinctly scholarly look. His dark brown wavy hair was pushed backwards and, along with his dominant spectacles, gave him an almost austere look which was silently expressed that a superior intellect remained hidden underneath. He sported a small and immaculate moustache that would need much care and attention to detail in order to achieve and reminded Cowles of Hitler’s moustache because he had seen much of lately within the newspapers because the Nazi dictator’s photograph covered all of them in defiant glory.
The only truly distinctive thing about the otherwise forgettable looking man was his unnatural size and impressive muscular definition which rippled underneath the tightly buttoned shirt. Cowles shivered as he gruesomely imagined such a behemoth like being easily being able to overpower any foe with his sheer brute force and mercilessly decapitate his struggling victim with his impressively large bare hands. His eyes looked vacantly dead from behind the circular framed spectacles that hugged his scholarly face with an unspoken pride and distinction. They looked like soulless eyes that silently expressed an exquisite emptiness which where devoid of human emotion and possessed a secret knowledge of unseen events. The fleeting views of his empty eyes behind the translucent and reflective glass lenses never fully expressed the true horrific events that they had actually seen and looked oddly ambivalent to the world around him. His spectacles caught the light in such an unusual way that Cowles struggled to see these empty eyes for what they actually were because all manner of light unnaturally reflected from the circular lenses. The sinisterly smiling doctor then slowly took a step backwards to allow the young Cowles to use the toilet which lay just behind him and down a small corridor which had no lights.
The sweating Cowles then awkwardly adjusted his own spectacles again as they were stubbornly refusing to stay upon his stubby nose as sweat now saturated his entire trembling body. The adrenaline that was causing this unpleasant physical manifestation had shot through his system with lightning speed and coursed through his every cell, enabling him to quickly calculate an adequate response to this unusual situation. His panicked mind quickly concluded to simply give the doctor a disgruntled look of confusion and move quickly to the side in order to get past him and use the toilet that he had presumably just vacated.
Thi
s was easier said than done because even though Dr Sweeney had already politely stood to one side, his impressive frame still made it difficult for the smaller Cowles to squeeze past such a massive mound of walking flesh. The observant Cowles then smelt the strong smell of alcohol upon his warm breath and his unmistakably freakish body odour that almost overwhelmed his senses as he continued to struggle to move past the motionless man’s massive frame. The doctor was not a fat man but as Cowles own beloved mother would have said he was “big boned” in every aspect of his being and it was as though every part of him was peculiarly made with a different set of unique specifications in order to be slightly bigger than the ordinary average human being.
As Cowles finally got past the non-moving and silent monster of a man, whom he imagined probably took immense gratification in watching him squirm and struggle past, he wasted no time in hastily entering the small dimly lit and dingy toilet and bolted the flimsy wooden door behind him. Cowles feared that the sinister looking Sweeney would wait for him outside and might even decide to simply break through the flimsy door and tear his head off!, which would leave a horrific endless scream edged forever upon his face much like his previous victims.
The concerned Cowles shook his chaotically irrational head, attempting to alleviate the frantically disturbing thoughts that now pervaded his overly saturated mind. Rationality took over yet again as he desperately looked for a peep hole in order to observe the waiting killer outside but was disappointed to see that there was none. So he reluctantly knelt down on the badly smelling, urinated floor and attempted to look under the door itself but to no avail as the door was simply too low to get any resemblance of a good view of anything other than the occasional passing shadow. After a few seconds struggling upon the dirty floor and failing to get a better view of Dr Sweeney’s fearful shadow, he hastily got up and was relieved when he lifted himself away from the disgustingly unkempt floor. He then looked in the blackened key hole but it had long ago been conveniently filled up with chewing gum and his chaotic mind then began to run wild as different nightmare scenarios played out in quick succession, all of which ended with him being horrifically decapitated. For all he knew the maniacal doctor of death could be eagerly awaiting for him right outside the door with his large butcher’s cleaver and he would only know about it when the massive piece of sharp metal was firmly imbedded within his small skull.
The Noir Evil Page 54
