by Kevin Wright
It could be said, that from the start, Raymond Gurlek touched people’s lives. Perhaps not for the better, but certainly, he changed them, starting even before that day he was born. To say he was evil might be accurate if you believe in evil. To say he was a product of his environment might also be accurate, for he endured years of abuse from the moment he was born. Truly, it was a miracle for a young boy to survive to adulthood who thought until almost that time, that his name was the Devil. It was not until the day he was released from the institution that he learned his real name.
Whether one believes in nature or nurture, good and evil, fact or fiction, the fact of the matter is that today, you would not want to meet him within the dark, misted alleyways of Colton Falls, or anywhere else for that matter.
Chapter 10.
“YOU SURE YOU’RE a real lawyer?” Peter asked, staring at the man assigned by Lord Brudnoy to represent him. Presently, the man who was rummaging through a beat-up brown briefcase with no handle, the man who ignored him, gasping with joy as he pulled an old syringe from his case and fawned over it like a newborn babe. Gently, he petted it.
“Uh, excuse me, excuse me,” Peter said. “You’re defending me?”
“What the hell’s it look like I’m doing?” The man whipped his glasses from his head. There were no lenses in the frames. He took a swig from a silver flask, belched, and said, “Ahhhh.” Then he looked up and fumbled the flask nervously, practically throwing it into his briefcase. Frantically, he buried it beneath rolls of toilet paper. “Don’t want to get caught with that,” he giggled to Peter. Then he placed a finger to his lips and shushed drunkenly while pulling a golden flask from his hip pocket. He took a swig from it.
“HEAR YE! HEAR YE! THIS COURT IS NOW IN SESSION! THE HONORABLE LORD PROTECTOR BRUDNOY NOW PRESIDING!” cried the bailiff as a door opened at the back of the courtroom.
The courtroom shook with each step the werewolf took towards the bench, which was a heap of cube-crushed automobiles stacked together. In the full light of the courtroom, lit by burning trashcans and the moon and stars above, the werewolf was menacing. Like some trained dog, it leapt, quite gingerly for something the size of a bloated cow, to the top of the crushed car bench, and then sat down. Around its neck was a silver collar, a long length of chain attached. The werewolf’s yellow eyes rested upon Peter for a long moment. Then it spoke. “Ahhhhuurmm, will the defendant please rise?”
Peter glanced at his attorney, who was intent on other business, and stood. “Uh, yes, sir.”
A hush seized the crowd, and even Peter’s attorney stopped what he was doing, which was burning heroin in a spoon over a butane lighter. “Lord Brudnoy,” he hissed, “call him LORD BRUDNOY!”
Lord Brudnoy was crouched on his bench, teeth naked to the gums, eyes bulging, hair bristling, ready to pounce.
“Lord Brudnoy!” Peter gasped.
“Ahem. You are forgiven,” said Lord Brudnoy, already settling back behind the bench as though nothing had happened. “You, Peter, are accused of theft and murder against Ringo Lister, citizen of the realm, beloved by all. Well, all might be an exaggeration. Penalty for such a crime is, of course, death, old boy. You have entered a plea of not guilty. The councilors may now proceed.” He looked back and forth at Peter’s attorney and what Peter assumed to be the prosecutor.
Neither attorney appeared to have the slightest interest in the case, nor did they in any way resemble the attorneys Peter had seen on television. The jury all appeared the same, garbed in the height of homeless fashion: long coats, scruffy beards, strong earthy tones.
“Don’t you worry,” whispered Peter’s attorney, carefully balancing a spoonful of brown now-liquid heroin, while gulping from his gold flask. He wiped his chin, “I’ll get this over real quick.”
“I’m sure.” Peter nodded. Whether he was talking about the heroin or the trial, Peter had no idea.
“Prosecutor’s a fucking retard,” conspired Peter’s attorney, leaning in while adroitly sucking up all the heroin into his old syringe. “He’s stupid, ugly, and he went to Harvard, plus,” he added with a maniacal giggle, “no one can understand a god-damned word he says. I punched him in the face. Swelling won’t go down for hours.” He giggled again with hyena-glee and covered his mouth with his hand, “He has no teeth!”
Peter, settled back in his chair, briefly estimating the number of seconds left in his life. He scanned the courtroom, searching for means of escape, suicide. He fingered the chains wrapped around him as the prosecutor stood and began a long-winded, pedantic speech that sounded as though he were talking with his mouth full of walnuts.
The jury, rapt with attention, kept leaning forward and looking at one another, eyebrows raised. One member raised his hand and then quickly withdrew it, glancing at his fellow jury members. Lord Brudnoy sat with a wise expression on his carnivore’s face, nodding along with the prosecutor’s fervent expressions and emphatic hand gestures.
Peter’s defender giggled, “Looks like Hitler up there, for Christ’s sake, minus the teeth.”
Finally, the prosecutor sat, a haughty look christening his swollen face. He nodded to the jury. Collectively, the look on the face of the jury was one of confusion, and in some cases, utter confusion.
“And now Benjamin Salazar shall make his statements.” Lord Brudnoy’s eyes settled on Peter’s attorney. “Floor is yours, old boy.”
“Thank you, Lord Brudnoy, your Honor,” said Benjamin Salazar, brandishing his heroin-filled syringe like a pointer; it squirted. “Ooops! Excuse me. If it pleases the court, I move that we break for a fifteen-minute recess so my client can compose himself. No? So I can compose myself? How about ten minutes? Five? Two? Six? Okay, never mind.
“People of the jury, my client stands here before you tonight accused of the theft of personal property and the murder of Ringo Lister on the night of, well, ah, when did you do it?” He turned back to Peter, wobbling, then froze. “Objection, your honor.”
“Objection to what?”
“I move my last statements be stricken from the record.”
“Overruled.”
Salazar swayed, eyes out of focus, and then pointed at Lord Brudnoy. “Who the hell are you to judge me?”
“I’m the judge, Benjamin.”
“Humph!” said Salazar, nodding and pointing.
Peter’s eyes widened in horror.
“Ah, yes, as I was saying, before I was rudely interrupted,” said Salazar. “I ask you fine, intelligent, caring, handsome,” he winked, “people of the jury; is this the face of a killer?” He pointed the syringe at Peter.
There was muttering from the jury as well as the numerous spectators gathered behind.
“And what does the face of a murderer look like, you may ask?” Salazar strolled drunkenly before the jury. “Why, I could be a murderer, despite this debonair facade, and you would never, never know. You would never suspect. Ahem. Would you? Hmm? Nay.” He raised a finger. “And Lord Brudnoy is most certainly a murderer. Thankfully, though, he has the decency to both look and act the part.”
Lord Brudnoy nodded sagely with his huge grizzled head.
“My point being,” Salazar continued, “anyone could be a murderer. Why, people of the jury, even this fine upstanding young boy seated here before you could be a cold-blooded serial killer!”
The jury began to mutter.
Peter began to sweat, “Dude, I don’t think you’re helping.”
“Shhhhhh! But now I’ve swayed from my path, as it were,” Salazar said. Even as he staggered about the makeshift courtroom, he tightened his leather belt, now wrapped around his left arm, with his teeth. Goggle-eyed, he scrutinized a ripe vein bulging from his forearm. “Ah, there we go. Now, I’ve taken a few too many lefts and gone right, as the saying goes. And I now stand here before you, not to absolve this man of murder, but condemn him to freedom!”
There was scattered applause, though not from the jury, or Peter.
Salazar continued, opening and
closing his fist and pulling the belt tighter. “But what is freedom to a man who may, in fact, be a murderer, and most certainly is a thief? Don’t look at me like that, Peter, you’re wearing all of his stuff. You’re lucky we don’t lynch you right now.”
Murmurs fluttered amongst the jury.
“What the hell are you doing?” Peter’s chains rattled as he struggled. “I want a new lawyer!”
With a grunt, Salazar pricked his bulging vein with his syringe, undid the belt, and then pushed the plunger of the syringe. “OOOOOOOOooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh,” he said, a million watts of pleasure lighting up his face as his eyes rolled back into his head.
“What the hell are you doing!?”
“Don’t you talk to me like that!” Salazar slurred, desperately grasping at Peter’s table to steady himself. “Shhtole his shhhhtuff. You shhhtole his shhhtuff! Bashtard! Probably killed him, too, you bashtard. You son of a bitch! Murderer!” He pointed drunkenly with one finger and the syringe fell out of his other arm, shattering. He glanced down. “Damn … syrgineringe,” he mumbled then crumpled to the floor like a dishrag.
Silence gripped the courtroom, tears flowing freely from many an eye, tears of hate, tears of loneliness, of anger, of sadness, of despair, but mostly of heroin-envy. Mouths dripped with drool at the sight of the skinny twisted man, one with the floor, face rapt in pleasure. No one breathed, certainly not Benjamin Salazar.
“Is there a doctor in the house!?”
Chapter 11.
BROKEN GLASS, TRASH, used condoms, a bent and broken rusted chain link fence running parallel to the river. A sturdy old picnic table, scarred with names and numbers and broken hearts and promises, rotted and rusted. One streetlight miraculously still worked, casting a harsh white glare and long gray shadows. Hypodermic needles lay about like sparkling vipers concealed within the few tufts of grass hardy enough to grow within the grayish mud, waiting to strike.
Hookers and pimps stalked the ground nightly, plying their trade. Junkies and gangbangers under cover of night dealt here often. Corpses were found not uncommonly. This time of year, they’d be found glistening in the morning sun with a thin sheen of frost glazing their body.
It was the Leif Eriksson playground, and there were fresh tracks in the mud. The soft night mist was not fierce enough to wash them away. Footsteps from the day still zigzagged and crisscrossed, still doubled back, still ran in circles after one another. Some to the slide, others went to the jungle gym. Some stayed by the swings that faced the river not more than fifty feet away. Their owners were smart.
Detective Winters examined them all. He searched for a specific set of footprints amongst the jumble. A young child had gone missing here, earlier today. That was why he was here. It was a long shot, but Detective Winters often placed great faith in long shots, gut reactions, synchronicity, more often than he would admit. And, ‘searching,’ perhaps would not be the most accurate description of what he was doing. Hunting might be a more appropriate word for his current activities, or stalking, and Detective Winters relied not only upon his sight during these forays. Though few used the term to his face, Detective Winters was familiar with it: sniffer. It was what he was, and what he did. And tonight Detective Winters followed a scent, and it was not the scent of the lost child. Detective Winters was not paid to find lost children.
An old sock of amber silk jingled in the palm of his hand as he stalked about, stopping occasionally, his eyes fixed always on the ground.
Though he relied on his sense of smell to guide him, Detective Winters scanned the ground like a hawk searching for footprints. He found them, crooked, wide, webbed. There weren’t many. There never were.
Detective Winters followed them. Up from the dark water in a straight line, through a gaping, twisted hole in the chain link fence, and a few feet into the playground, they ran. Then they went back, back to the rushing water.
It had been a blitzkrieg. A rush out, a snatch, and then back in, barely a struggle. Perhaps not more than a quiet ripple out and a small splash back. They were sly. Somewhere in the night, a parent wept for a child who would not return, another pile of paper for Detective Mooney.
Detective Winters climbed down the muddy bank and scanned the water’s edge, breathing in the night air through his nose. Best to know where it was if still it were about. It was not. It mattered not, in the end, whether it were near or far, for soon, whether it wished it or not, it would come.
Detective Winters chose the footprint as far from the water as they went. Best not to be too close to the water’s edge, old grudges; sometimes genocide is the answer.
Detective Winters scanned his surroundings one last time. The sock he carried was full of nails. Nails of every kind: big, small, iron, silver, wood. Nails were useful in his line of work, cheap, abundant, effective.
Detective Winters withdrew a handful of silver nails from within the sock, placed them in his pocket, and tucked his sock away. Kneeling, he examined the footprint, palpating and sniffing it. Then, slowly, he withdrew a nail and drove it into the center of the footprint, twisting it into the soft earth.
Then he sat on a bench and waited.
* * * *
It was bright within the ambulance, excruciatingly so. Peter squinted as he squeezed the bag-valve-mask, forcing air into Benjamin Salazar’s mouth and hopefully into his lungs and not his stomach. Am I getting any air in there? Salazar’s face was still blue.
“Well, pressure’s not bad, just that whole lack of breathing thing.” Carmine pulled the stethoscope from his ears. “But, then, heroin’ll do that.” The Velcro ripped as he took the blood pressure cuff off Salazar’s arm. “Medics can’t intercept. Just keep bagging him till we get to the hospital.”
“No shit,” Peter said, squeezing the bag fully, with one hand, and holding the mask over Salazar’s face with his other. It was tougher than it seemed, tough to get a good seal, tough to get air into his lungs.
“Easy, kid, not so fast.” Carmine nodded to himself. “Still pissed, eh? Rough night?”
Peter ventilated his patient faster, air escaping from around the edges of the mask.
“Pissed at me, or just in general?” Carmine asked. “Nice sweatpants, by the way. Purple? Very daring.”
Peter tossed a filthy look, then looked down. Damn. Salazar’s face was turning even more blue.
“Just kidding,” Carmine said.
“Screw you, man, you threw me under the bus.”
“Threw you under the bus, huh?” Carmine sat back. “You just don’t get it, do you, kid?”
“Get what?” Peter threw both hands up in the air.
“Here. Hook your pinky finger in this nook behind his jaw.” Carmine leaned forward and took the bag-valve-mask. “Now pull up a bit. There you go. See? Squeeze the bag now. Feel like the air’s moving easier?”
“No,” Peter said, looking down at Salazar. Fat, stupid jerk.
“Look, kid, I’m not gonna ask what the hell you were doing there. Yeah,” Carmine nodded, “there you go. Just like that, squeeze it all the way, but Brudnoy’s bad news. Very bad news. Unstable. Dangerous, at best. Not someone you ever want to get involved with. You got enough problems to go around already.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Carmine said. “By the way, who broke into your place?”
“My downstairs neighbor. How’d you hear about it?”
“Oh, I stopped by, looking for — to give you this.” Carmine pulled an envelope from his pocket, leaned forward, and tucked it in Peter’s coat pocket. “Cops were already there. I asked them.”
“They were a little late.” Peter glanced down at his pocket. “What’s in it?”
“Good thing they were late.”
“Yeah, whatever. I’m supposed to go to their station tomorrow, anyways, around nine,” Peter said. “See some detective or something about that form I didn’t fill out. You know? The 69-A. The one you told me not to fill out.”
“Yeah, kid. I’m�
��”
“Look, Carmine, I just had the shittiest day of my life. I was bit by some ghoul or something. My father’s gorked out in the nursing home. Cops want to interrogate me. I’m attacked by gangbangers and then sentenced to death by a talking dog. And the only reason I’m alive right now is that my attorney, who was representing me in homeless-fucking-people’s-court, overdosed on heroin, and I happen to know CPR. How’s that sound? Hmm?”
“Pete, you didn’t do mouth-to-mouth on this guy?”
“No.”
“Good, I just wanted—”
“Not to mention, I’ve been suspended on my very first day of work because my ‘partner’ sold me out.” Peter said the word ‘partner’ the way most people say ‘maggot.’ “Not that I wanted to be able to make my car payment. But, and here’s the funny part, look where I am RIGHT NOW!” Peter continued squeezing the BVM, glancing around the ambulance. “And I’m not even getting paid. I mean the irony—”
“Pull the fuck over!” The ambulance veered suddenly, tires screeching, and Peter and Carmine were thrown off their seats. “Damn fucking Assholes! Move over!” roared Shotgun, from the driver’s seat. “Sorry about that, guys. Fucking idiots don’t move.”
“Ram him next time,” Carmine said as he pulled himself back onto his seat. He glared down at Salazar. “So, Pete, how much do you know about ghouls?”
Peter stopped ventilating for a moment.
“Who told you about them?” Carmine asked.
“Homeless guy named Ringo.” Peter started ventilating again. “Took me to the shelter. Didn’t get to tell me much, though. Told me to run if I saw one. Then these guys found out one bit me. Next thing I know, they wanted me gone. Said they’d kill me.”
“They would have,” Carmine said softly.
