The Dirty City

by Jim Cogan

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About The Book

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  Note From The Author

  The Dirty City

  By Jim Cogan

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2014 Jim Cogan

  Smashwords Edition Epub - v1.0

  Copyright © 2014 by Jim Cogan All Right Reserved

  Book Cover Contains Modified Segments of the Following Photos;

  Sydney_skyline_at_dusk_-_Dec_2008 by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

  Detective Photo by Joost Assink. License: CC-BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

  Female Model Photo by Frank Kovalchek. License: CC-BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

  Modifications by Jim Cogan

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Dedications

  Special thanks must go to my three readers who helped me find spelling mistakes and missing words, and most importantly, told me which bits of my books sucked!

  So, thank you Shreyonti Chakraborty, William Fletcher, Angie Weber and Rashad Freeman.

  About This Book

  This book was inspired by my very sudden obsession with all things Film Noir and Hard-Boiled Detective that I developed in early 2014. Initially it was going to be a screenplay for a short film in the Film Noir style, which it became apparent I’d never get to make. Then it mutated into a short story idea. Then I discovered (rather belatedly) the wonder that is self publishing and thought I might be able flesh this out into a book. Then, while planning said book, I succumbed to my love of horror and decided to turn the whole thing on it’s head by sticking some vampires in there. And here we are.

  One thing note that one of my wonderful beta readers, Angie Weber, pointed out to me that I should make clear - I’m a British author, and I write using my native British spelling, and this seems to cause a bit of confusion as my book is set in the US and the characters are American. I did consider replacing all the British spellings to Americanised spellings, but then I figured that would probably be a step too far. I think it’s best if I just forewarn you that despite it’s setting, this is a British book, and so on behalf of Great Britain, I apologise in advance about the freaky way we spell works like ‘colour’ and ‘centre’ - and for the way we seem to discriminate against the letter ‘z’ - almost always, and probably very unfairly, favouring the letter ‘s’ in it’s place! But I’m afraid I don’t think we’re going to stop doing these odd things at point soon.

  Jim Cogan

  CHAPTER 1

  The events I’m about to describe to you took place many years ago. I was a young man, but I thought myself wise for my age. I thought I knew a thing or two about life and the world. It would transpire that I was actually very naive.

  Very few people would witness the strange and terrible things that I was about to, fewer still would live to tell the tale. But only I would know the real truth.

  Time and time again these events occurred, and I would come to learn that they were not mere coincidences, for I was a marked man. Higher powers beyond my comprehension had singled me out for some greater purpose. I could never figure out if I were the hero or a victim. Over the years I’ve concluded that I may be both.

  This story tells of how my life first changed. The initial events detailed show how I became aware of the dark forces that lie hidden all around us, out of sight, but not out of reach. I was about to discover that within the city I lived, during the daylight hours - ordinary people went about their business and led their ordinary lives, but after dark - in the amongst the shadows, another, very different breed of people were instigating their terrible agenda. Alongside the thieves, gamblers, drug dealers, murderers and gangsters, the city was also home to vampires…

  *

  As far as drug dens go, this one was a bit classier than usual. This was the mid 1950’s after all – true drug den squalor wouldn’t become a style of interior design for another decade, but for now, we had this.

  The front door had been left slightly ajar, which suited me just fine – it might be an occupational hazard in my line of work but I simply wasn’t built for kicking in doors. I observed the soft glow of a dim light on the other side of the door, and a slightly brighter glow behind the curtains of the ground floor exterior windows – the lights were on, was anyone home?

  I gently eased the door open just enough to give me a glimpse inside – I was looking onto a short central hallway, empty – good.

  The walls were covered in peeling, aging patterned wallpaper, and below my feet, just inside the doorstep threshold, someone had placed a doormat with the word, ‘Welcome,’ emblazoned on it. I recall thinking it was more than a little ironic. The rest of the hallway was covered in wretched looking brown carpet, frayed, stained and littered with the odd cigarette butt and a few discarded liqueur bottles. I tried my best to ignore it but couldn’t help but notice the God-awful stench in the place – a horrible combination of stale tobacco smoke, marijuana fumes, urine and vomit. It was a nasty place, but I was searching for a missing person and missing persons almost always eventually showed up in nasty places.

  At the end of the hallway and to the right lay a flight of stairs heading upward – but no light showing from above. At the far end of the hall was a half open door leading into a kitchen. I took a quick peek inside and saw mounds of unwashed dishes and plates on all the surfaces. Flies buzzed here and there, no doubt drawn by the smell of festering food waste. Things definitely weren’t cooking in this kitchen. The figure of a young man in his late teens lay prone on the tiles. He was a mess, vomit caked to his face and clothing, his cheeks bruised and eyes blackened – I remember thinking what a hell of a state for a person to get into. But I clocked his clothes – torn, stained and ruined as they were, those weren’t the threads of a down and out. I noted the well made, neatly tailored seams, this boy was from a rich family. But he wasn’t the person I was looking for, so after the briefest of checks to see if he was actually breathing – and as far as I could tell he was, I left him in his stupor.

  To the left of the kitchen was a closed door, with muffled sounds of activity emanating from the other side. I could hear multiple voices and music playing from a wireless radio. I eased the door handle down, and with my free hand reassuringly nestled over my holstered revolver, entered the next room.

  I found myself in a sizable sitting room, in a similar state of squalor to the hallway. The people I’d heard all seemed to be in another adjacent room – I could hear them clearer now, at least two female voices and one male, but all with the unmistakable slur of heavy intoxication.

  At the far end of the sitting room was the radio I’d heard, and directly in front of the radio there slouched the skinny figure of a man in a wicker chair smoking an elaborate marijuana reefer. I couldn’t make out his features as he had his back to me, but I estimated he must be around mid-twenties. Just to his left was a filthy looking coffee table on which sat an overflowing ashtray, a set of scales, a large marijuana bud, smoking paraphernalia, and most notably – a t
ray with small items wrapped tightly in aluminium foil. Heroin had finally made it to town.

  “Hey,” he said in a languid monotone, not even bothering to look around, “you ain’t a cop, though you sure dress like one, don’t you?”

  I clocked the mirror hanging on the far wall – strategically angled to give him a clear view of the area behind him.

  “The name’s Jerome - Johnny Jerome. You gotta’ name, son?”

  “I sure do, Mr Jerome, but knowing it ain’t no business of yours,” he sniggered, “but the folks here call me Newt, so that’ll have to do for you. You a customer, Mr Jerome? Are you here to sample my wares?”

  “No, Newt. I’m a private detective, and I’m looking for this girl.”

  I produced the photo the family had given me and held it out in front of me. I could see Newt’s face clearly in the mirror now. He was a scrawny looking runt, untidy, and from the look of him I figured a bath wouldn’t go amiss.

  “Her name is -.”

  “Michelle, Mr Jerome. And she’s out the back there. Question is, though, what d’you want with her?”

  “I’ll keep this brief – the girl’s family have hired me to locate her and bring her home, and I intend to do just that.”

  “Well now, Mr Jerome, we might have ourselves a little issue with that. You see, little ole’ Michelle has gone and gotten herself a bit of an expensive habit and she’s managed to run up a sizable debt to me. Although, I must say, she is working real hard to pay it off, she’s doing a sterling job. I got her doing a little hospitality work for some of my clients, if you get my drift?”

  “Dealing ain’t enough for you, Newt? You fancy yourself as a pimp as well, eh? Tell me, do you know how old that girl is?”

  “Now, there’s knowing,” he shrugged, “and then there’s caring.”

  I wanted to wipe that smug, despicable smirk clean off his face. Ten years previous and I’d have already been in the process of beating the skinny bastards face so bad his own mother wouldn’t have been able to recognise him, but that was a different time, almost a whole other lifetime. I’d found, to my credit, that diplomacy and turning the other cheek usually got cleaner results, and was a whole lot safer too.

  “Cosy little operation you got going here, Newt. Dope, moonshine and heroin. The cops ever take an interest in you?”

  “I think you’ll find that my associates and the local PD have come to something of a gentlemen’s agreement. I don’t know the details, I just know that as long as I keep my operation discreet, the heat stay out of my way.”

  “Nice. And I take it you make a pretty sweet living from this game?”

  “Well, let’s be honest here. My associates, the guys higher up the chain, I’ve no doubt they must be making at least ten times what I’m earning. But see here. My neighbour, he gets up at 5am, six days a week, he has to drive to the far side of town to work a ten hour shift in a factory that cans dog food. And he barely earns enough to pay his rent each week. I, on the other hand, never get up before 11am, my customers come to me and I earn easily four times as much as my neighbour, my rent is paid for by my associates and I get all the free beer, dope and pussy I want. How much do you earn, Mr Jerome? Come to think of it, how much pussy d’you get these days?”

  Again, I had to resist the temptation to pulverise the young punks face. I was done listening to him, it was time to make my play.

  “Okay, Newt, enough bullshit, let’s cut to the chase. The girl leaves with me. Now. Otherwise, I have to inform her parents where their daughter is, and what she’s doing here, and they will get the cops involved. The cops might be happy to turn a blind eye to your drug dealing, but unlawfully holding a minor against the will of her legal guardians, not to mention the wilful exploitation of said minor through prostitution? And, if someone were to, say, tip off the local press about what was going down, well they’d be all over it like a rash. The cops would have no choice but to put your gentlemen’s agreement to one side and ensure that justice is seen to be done. In short, they would nail your scrawny ass to the nearest tree. You’d be lucky if you got off with less than a ten stretch, and of course – you know full well what would happen to a skinny little guy like you behind bars, don’t you?”

  For once, the little shit had nothing to say.

  “So, I think we agree that it is in the best interests of all concerned if the girl leaves with me. I don’t wish to know nor care about the size of the outstanding debt that she owes you,” I said, as I produced a padded envelope from my coat pocket. “But in this envelope is $75 in cash. This is very much a one time offer, and the only scenario on the table that doesn’t end with you in a jail cell squealing like a pig. It ensures mine and the girls safe passage out of here, and causes you to write off any additional debt that she might owe you. In fact, I’d advise that you forget that she was ever here, right?”

  I tossed the envelope down on the floor next to him. He grunted unintelligibly, shrugged his hunched shoulders and then turned his attention back to the radio.

  Michelle Masters was eighteen years of age, and the photograph her family had given to me showed her to be tall, blonde, of slender build and stunningly beautiful, yet wholesome and innocent. I located her in the back room of the drugs den, slumped on a couch – she bore very little resemblance to the girl in the photo now. Her features were emaciated, her once glowing eyes appeared sunken and dull. She was wearing a cheap, black negligee that left nothing to the imagination – she looked like a washed up whore. She was deathly pale, but thankfully breathing. She was barely conscious and I could see she was wholly incapable of standing, so I scooped her up in my arms and made for the exit. I felt vulnerable as I couldn’t easily get at my gun while carrying her.

  I half expected Newt to try and pull something stupid as I walked through the sitting room, but he hadn’t moved a muscle - the envelope still lay on the floor where I’d thrown it. He’d obviously drifted off somewhere within his dope addled mind – and a huge part of me wished he’d end up permanently stuck there, never to return.

  I carried the girl out into the cool, night air, dumped her rather unceremoniously into the back of my car, then set off at speed to the emergency room.

  *

  It was around 9.30 AM the following morning by the time I was finally able to leave the hospital. The girl had been drifting in and out of consciousness for the duration of the drive to the hospital, but as I parked up outside she began to convulse, was violently sick all over the rear interior of my car, then slumped back and promptly stopped breathing. I hurriedly carried her inside where she was quickly set upon by a posse of emergency doctors and nurses. It was touch and go for quite a while – she’d massively OD’d, I honestly thought she was a goner but eventually, she pulled through. Just. I didn’t want to give myself too much credit but I was almost certain that she’d have died that night if I hadn’t intervened when I did. I don’t know what Newt would have done, but I suspected that he wouldn’t have been above disposing of a body. I dare say she’d have surfaced a few days later, floating face down in one of the local waterways, or in a black bag at the garbage dump.

  I stopped briefly to use the telephone in the hospital foyer to call Lydia, my PA. I make the distinction that Lydia was not just my secretary – it’s a cliché but all private detectives seemed to have a secretary, but secretarial work was just the beginning of her talents. Sure, she greeted my clients, typed up my case notes and made great coffee, but she also looked after all my legal and financial paperwork too. She was a rare diamond, and I certainly paid her more than your average secretary would expect to get – for someone who could keep the IRS off my back I figured it was money well spent.

  “J.Jerome Private Investigations, Lydia speaking.”

  “Hey, sweetheart, it’s Johnny.”

  “Johnny, where the hell are you? Dr Masters has called three times already this morning looking for an update, you said you’d call him last night.”

  “I found her, Lydia, but
she was in a bad way. But don’t worry, she’s safe now, she’s at St Judes, call him back and let him know, alright?”

  “Got it, Johnny, nice work.”

  “Oh, and can you get that fella’ from East and Twenty-Third to come down town and valet the car. There was a bit of an unfortunate – accident.”

  “Sounds lovely, Johnny, will do. Hey, you got a visitor, been waiting here for you to show since I opened up. You heading back this way anytime soon?”

  “Yeah, should be about twenty minutes, who you got there?”

  “A Mr Jameson, a lawyer – another missing person I think.”

  I hated lawyers, the financial blood-sucking parasites that they are, but when a lawyer walks in as a client, well that’s different. There was simply no such thing as a poor lawyer, I had a scale of fees specifically for lawyers. It started at fifteen percent higher than what I’d charge for anyone else, and increased at twice the normal rate if the job got complicated. I had no moral or ethical dilemmas with this practice, and in reality I’d only ever stand to claw back a tiny percentage of the amount of money that various lawyers would screw out of me, so I what the hell.

  “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 2

  My commute back to the office took me via the main bridge over the river that snaked through the centre of the city. The view afforded from the bridge always seemed to make me reminisce.

  The city of Santa Justina is something of a curiosity. From its foundation as a small port with a trading outpost in the early eighteen hundreds, over the following century, apart from minor road and rail links, very little changed. Its small community grew at a snail’s pace – but then World War II happened and things went crazy. In came massive investment, the natural harbour was utilised as a fully fledged dock for export and import, factories and industrial infrastructure sprang up all over on the previously empty and undeveloped land. Residential blocks were rapidly erected to house the inevitable influx of workers and an urban sprawl began.