Nocturnal

by Mark Allen

  Josh Ham took the deal.

  Hamm and Associates invested the money, moved it around between different investments, then cashed out, taking two percent at each step. By the time the money was wired back his clients in the South, the money was in clean, untraceable, American dollars. Everyone was happy. So happy in fact, his clients decided since Hamm and Associates had proven themselves competent and honest with a measly sixty five million, the real money could start flowing.

  And as it turned out, his Caribbean clients had been right. The two percent at each step had worked out well for Hamm and Associates. Josh Hamm felt he was untouchable. He could close deals with gun smugglers, drug dealers, launder their money under the FBI’s own nose, send it back to them, and no one was ever the wiser. God, he could do anything he wanted.

  And that was precisely the moment he started to push the envelope further. He got sloppy, became reckless. He didn’t even bother to cover his tracks any more. And that was precisely the moment when he sealed his own fate.

  Nothing is more dangerous than when people tell you you’re the greatest and you start believing them. And Mr. Hamm started to believe his own press.

  The FBI raided them in 1987. The brokerage was funneling over two hundred million dollars a month. Everyone went to jail. The property was seized.

  The property stayed in Government hands. That is why this old, long-abandoned, nondescript red brick firehouse, warehouse, and boiler room investment house was the perfect choice. The tech nerds spruced the place up with modern wiring, cable jacks, phone lines, state of the art computer systems with military-grade encryption and high speed Wi-Fi. Its became headquarters for a covert DEA-administered Joint Task Force targeting international drug smuggling coming through the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings, and the Port of San Diego.

  Late afternoon clouds pushed en masse from the southwest, across the ocean and the bay. They obscured the sun, darkened the horizon. The temperature dropped. The wind kicked up, funneling through the narrow streets and alleys, picking up speed, gusting cold and relentless.

  An poorly maintained car engine wheezed, strained, coughed, almost stalled. The old Toyota Celica careened around the corner and lurched onto K Street. The engine caught, jumped again, the front end almost coming off the ground. A gear shifted. The transmission protested, then third gear locked into place.

  The car rattled along, white and bluish smoke belching from the same rusty tailpipe. Finally, the car pulled hard to the left, shifting its weight to the right, almost going up on two wheels. It came to a rude stop next to the warehouse.

  Walt Coulter churned the keys towards him, turning the ignition off. The engine kept sputtering, coughing, the timing way off. Coulter inserted the keys again, turned them to the “on” position. The engine caught again and idled. He waited, then turned the keys “off” again. The engine died with a mournful wheeze.

  Walt unbuckled his seat belt. He would never admit to anyone else that sometimes even he wondered about the car’s safety. He also wondered if it was going to explode some day in a fireball of flame and rusted bolts.

  He reached for the tiny door handle. He pulled, and nothing happened. No click from inside the door frame, nothing. He nudged gently against the door. It did not budge.

  Well. This is new.

  He pulled again, making sure it was pulled as open as possible without snapping off in his hand. He shouldered the door harder, to no avail. Frustrated, he shouldered the door harder still.

  The door flew open with such force Walt halfway fell out of the car. Quick reflexes saved him. He flung his outstretched hand to steady him on the pavement. His other hand darted up to stop the car door on its arc back towards his face.

  Maybe everyone’s right, he conceded. He’d owned this beater for years, and he’d done no restoration work. Maybe he had bitten off more than his high school auto mechanics class knowledge could chew, and take it to a professional to get done correctly.

  Walt climbed out of the car, adjusted his gun in his shoulder holster. He glanced around the deserted street. He noticed the cold, glanced upwards at the roiling sky. He reached in the back seat and grabbed his old college letter jacket and threw it on.

  He pushed the open car door closed, but did not latch it. He was going to get in later, and he wanted the door to actually open. Even he would admit that at fifty-four he was just too damned old to shimmy in and out of the driver’s side window.

  Coulter walked towards the old building. He could see the faded remnants of the “Boroquez and Sons” sign that had been painted in huge blue letters. Now all that was left was “Boro...” and everything else had peeled off.

  Eyes dating around, the veteran cop constantly scanned the area. The concept of situational awareness had been drilled into his head. He reached the steel reinforced door secured by electromagnetic lock. He punched a six-digit code onto the keypad at the doorframe. An awkward BUZZ! sounded and Coulter heard a metallic CLUNK! as the internal mechanism released.

  Coulter grabbed the handle and pulled hard. The door resisted until he put his shoulder and back into it. The heavy, supposedly impenetrable door swung slowly on reinforced titanium hinges. A crack opened between the door and its frame, blackness beyond it. The crack crept wider, wide enough for him to slip through. Coulter turned his shoulders and moved past.

  Coulter’s eyes adjusted quickly to the interior lighting. It was not truly dark inside; the light was simply more subdued than the ambient light outside. He turned to his right, punched in another six-digit code into a touch pad on the wall. The door stopped automatically, then reversed direction, closing. It always unsettled Coulter just a bit. The door closing hermetically sealed everything and everyone inside.

  Coulter walked across the expanse of the main room, where horses and firemen had once lived and worked. Now the room sported several large desks, facing each other in pairs, so partners could look and speak to each other. Coulter wanted transparency in his unit. So all the rank and file worked together. Even their computers monitors were set at an angle to the side of the desks, so his crew could have an unobstructed view of their partners’ faces.

  Coulter’s office, the same office Old Man Boroquez had worked out of, sat off to the side. When the place had been refitted for Agency use, Coulter had insisted on having clear, albeit bulletproof glass installed floor to ceiling, including the door. He wanted his people to always be able to see that he was working just as hard as they were.

  Most of the desks were empty. It was late Friday afternoon. Most of his officers were either in the field, or had knocked off for the weekend. The only person left was Miriam Arroyo. A twelve–year veteran, she had worked the streets for five years, then six with the Sheriff Department’s Tactical Narcotics Team before being hand-selected by Coulter for his Task Force. She now sat at her computer, near the back of the room, frowning at the computer screen.

  “Miriam. It’s late. Go home.”

  Startled, she looked up. “Sorry. I thought I had the place to myself.”

  “Go home. Get some rest.”

  Miriam pushed her dark hair back behind her ear, and Coulter was reminded how beautiful she was. “I’m trying to confirm a new piece of intel concerning the bloodbath at the docks. I’m waiting to hear back.”

  “They contacting you via email?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go home. Have a glass of wine. Watch a movie. The email might not even come through until Monday.”

  She sat back in her chair and sighed. “You’re probably right.” She raised her arms, ran her hands through her hair, clasped her fingers behind her head while looking up at the ceiling. Coulter was reminded that not only was she beautiful, she had a great rack, as well.

  Determined to outwardly maintain his professional demeanor, Coulter turned away and pushed the door to his office open. He rounded the desk and hit the power button on his computer. He heard the tiny fan inside kick on as he sat down.

  Movement to
his right caught his attention. He turned his head and saw Miriam, purse over her shoulder, walking towards the main door. She smiled and waved, a friendly wave. Coulter smiled and nodded upwards in her direction.

  Relieved, Coulter turned his attention to his computer. He quickly typed in his user name and password. The screen changed immediately, welcoming Walt Coulter into the Joint Task Force and Drug Enforcement Agency system and database. His fingers flew across the keys, lightly depressing as he went. He hit the ENTER button.

  A mug shot of El Gecko immediately appeared on the screen in the upper left corner. The details of his many arrest reports filled in down the right side of the screen. Coulter knew most of it by heart. He scrolled down to the color photos of his bloody corpse, sans head. He noticed the dark stains under the arms, and the dark stain between his legs and the puddle underneath. El Gecko’s bladder had emptied when he died. Over to the right of the screen was a very clear photo of El Gecko’s severed head. His facial expression, frozen in time, was one of absolute astonishment.

  The next photo was also El Gecko’s head, but laid on its side. The photo was taken from the neck up, clearly detailing the trachea, cervical spine, and carotid arteries and jugular veins had been severed in one clean, powerful slice, by something incredibly sharp. The skin showed almost no tearing or jaggedness of any kind.

  Eyes darting across the photos and back again, Coulter took it all in. El Gecko had been in the drug business almost seventeen years. He had survived assassination attempts by rival gangs, disgruntled underlings, hell, he’d even ferreted out traitors within his own organization. The last one had been skinned alive, slowly, starting at the feet and working upwards, using a machete dipped in shit.

  And yet here he was decapitated, a violent man who met a violent end.

  Coulter wondered what would happen if he ever caught the guy who’d done this. Would he arrest him, or give him a medal?

  “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  Coulter, startled, pushed himself away from the desk at the sound of the disembodied voice in the darkness. He went for his weapon, pulled it out in front of himself, a snarl of fierce determination on his face. He flicked the safety off, knowing he already had a round in the chamber.

  “Whoever you are, step forward slowly, with your hands up. Show yourself.”

  The shadows near the door languished, then started to coalesce, taking on a faintly human form as whoever it was slowly stepped forward. He had his hands up, fingers splayed out.

  “That’s it,” Coulter said. The person stepped closer, coming into clearer view. Dark, slightly reddish hair, cropped close to the skull. Baby-smooth face, freshly shaven. Tan cargo pants, Navy blue pullover. And the most intensely green eyes.

  Reginald Downing!

  Journal entry 28 January

  Why do I keep a journal?

  They say that talking to yourself is a sign of mental illness. Writing my thoughts down allows me to talk to myself in a socially acceptable manner. Not that I consider myself part of society though. Even in life, I never felt any deep connection to those around me. I felt close to my mother, but that is about it. I believe that may explain my brief yet disastrous life of crime.

  Journaling allows me to work things out and meditate on them as I continue to seek the truth.

  But as Pontius Pilate famously said, What is truth?

  Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where do we go from here?

  I possess no insight into any of that. I had hoped that once I became the thing I am, that answers that eluded mortal man would reveal themselves to the Dead and all would become clear.

  I am still just as confused now in death as I ever was in life.

  And so, like my journal, I simply... continue.

  Tonight, I am pondering my limitations. Sunlight and my vampire integument don’t mix. A cruel twist of nature and evolution precludes daylight hours.

  Ever see an albino who has been in the sun for an hour? Imagine that same albino in the sun after twelve hours. That is what would happen to me in less than two minutes. I do not burst into flames like on those ridiculous movies and cable TV shows (I said before, I love them for their comic appeal!). But I do redden, blister, boil, and char. My skin cracks, bleeds. My body temperature skyrockets. Instant heatstroke. It is agony, let me tell you. It takes me a long time to heal.

  And lots of blood.

  Sunlight is one of the few things on this planet that will actually kill me. Decapitation, too. Vampires are not immune to the laws of physics. Bullets anger me. They hurt like Hell. Wooden stakes will not slay me (thanks again, Hollywood!), but such a barbaric act puts me in a demeanor most foul.

  Back to my wake-sleep cycle. I reanimate at dusk. I work. I read, and I feed. I visit libraries, museums. I enjoy classic horror movies, so Midnight Madness screenings are my favorites. I love taking off my sunglasses and watching these films around humans costumed and made up into images of... me, really. I often pass unnoticed among them. The few who do notice me think my “makeup” is “rad”, and ask me how did I get my eyes to do that? And of course, my personal favorite: Where can I get fangs like yours? They look so... so... REAL!

  Oh, sweetie. If you only knew.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A featureless interrogation room. White tile, drop ceiling. Soundproof walls, painted gray. A barely functional door, painted the same color as the walls. When closed, it blended into the background, disappeared. All the better to disorient an interrogation subject. One long mirror, obviously a two-way glass to anyone with an IQ over 50.

  Rudy Valdez sat in the bare steel Government Issue chair made somewhere in Middle America by the lowest bidder. Staring ahead at the mirror, he ignored the discomfort, his eyes focusing on nothing. He modulated his breathing. His heart pumped around fifty-four beats per minute. He inhaled through his nose, exhaled out his mouth. In his head, he repeated his multiplication tables, memorized back in grade school. He stated at one times one, went all the way up to twelve times twelve, then started over.

  Cuffed at the wrists, his hands in front of him, handcuffs chained to a bolt in the table. The gray jumpsuit did not fit properly. The legs were way too long. During intake, he had told them an inseam of thirty-six inches was too long for someone five foot seven. He guard simply grinned and had shoved the jumpsuit into his hands.

  The room was hot and stuffy. Rudy correctly surmised the air had been deliberately turned off. They wanted him sweltering, uncomfortable, sweaty, distracted. Tougher to maintain a lie when you’re mentally distracted.

  Shifting in his chair, he realized the chair legs were uneven. The adjustable caster on the right rear leg had been removed. The slightest shift of weight caused the chair to move unexpectedly.

  Rudy recognized these subtleties as pre-interrogation techniques designed to have a psychological effect. Later, during the interview, in response to his request to turn on the air, an interrogator might offer to do just that, in exchange for some piece of damning evidence Rudy might have.

  Fat chance of that.

  So Rudy sat there, skin greasy, sweat staining his underarms and collar, trickling down his back downward to his gluteal cleft. Placing his feet flat on the floor, he balanced himself, taking the uneven chair out of the equation.

  The door separated from the surrounding wall, swung open. A large black man who looked like a refrigerator in a suit lumbered in, followed by a taller Hispanic man Rudy had seen earlier that morning. Come to think of it, he’d seen the back of the refrigerator’s head, too.

  “I’m Captain Horn,” the big man said. “This is Detective Castle.” They both sat down across from him, each opening the folders they had brought in with them.

  Rudy zeroed in on Castle. “Castle, huh? Shouldn’t it be Castillo? You look Hispanic.”

  Nick blinked his eyes, determined to not let this guy get to him. “My mother is Mexican.”

  “We have some questions for you,” Horn interjected.

&nbs
p; “My name is Rudy Valdez.”

  “We know who you are, “Horn replied. “Your military service, family history. Must have been tough growing up a cop’s house.”

  Rudy shrugged.

  “We talked to your uncle just now before we came in here,” Horn continued. Rudy’s eyes met his. “You know what he said?”

  Rudy waited.

  “He hopes you rot in jail.”

  “Score one for the old man.”

  Castle leaned forward. “You don’t seem too broken up over his remarks.”

  “We were never actually what you’d call close.”

  “So what the hell happened to you, Rudy?” Horn asked. “You had a good start in life. Decent home, strong father figure. Good grades in school. You served with honor in the Corps.”

  Rudy waited.

  “So... how do you go from an All- American childhood and proud Marine to being a hired gun to a drug runner?”

  The corner of Rudy’s mouth slowly lifted into a crooked, Clint Eastwood type grin. “My name is Rudy Valdez.”

  Horn exhaled, leaned his head forward onto his hands. He was clearly frustrated. Valdez simply sat there, silently, staring at the top of Horn’s head. No compassion. No remorse.

  “Let’s talk about the bloodbath on the docks this morning,” Castle said.

  “My name is Rudy Valdez.”

  “Who lets himself get taken out, his boss get decapitated, and all his buddies slaughtered like that?”

  Rudy’s eyes narrowed in anger. “My name is Rudy Valdez.”

  Horn spoke softly. “Tell me, Rudy Valdez, why didn’t he kill you?”