PROLOGUE
Nights
are full of assholes, especially Sundays. They go hand in hand like bourbon in
an unwashed cup.
I wake with its sweet taste on my lips, my
tongue numbs as I lick at it, then I get the warm shivers.
Last night must have been rough.
I remember a dark naked woman gesturing for
more money, while I gawked at her flexing body. Her stilettos moved with all
the uncoordinated rhythm of two stray dogs doing the dirty in the middle of the
street.
I did the touch and feel Latin dance on
myself while I searched for my wallet but came up empty. All that drink pickled
my brain and turned me into a bum.
Then she wasn’t there anymore. Probably got
bored and moved onto some other loser. She was nothing special, just another
gyrating girl twirling around a pole, and guys and the odd gay sitting around
staring up at the stage looking for a replica of their teeny sweetheart.
Assholes and Sundays, they really do like
each others company.
2am.
Pretty quiet at the bar. It’s getting late
and at the same time getting early. The girls jigglings barely make an
impression on the twenty or so throughout the room. No college guys, they’ve
all headed home to settle the score with a handful of tissues. Bucks parties
had moved onto the part where the groom and best man hold each others hand
while being sick in the gutter. Or wiping blood from their noses after a fight.
Then there’s just guys like me: drunks who can’t sleep.
I left the bar when the next stripper
shrugged me off. She wasn’t so interested in me drooling all over her while she
gave me my lap dance. Fair enough, I could hardly see anymore anyway. Sort of
like staring through someone else’s eyes and they had already drunk more than I
had.
I mumbled a goodbye to the security out
front—who looked dapper in their $50 suits, but they looked the other way, or
maybe my imagination that they ignored me. My memory, still foggy, doesn’t feel
right. One moment goes into the next.
I don’t want to forget what happened. If I
don’t run everything through my mind now then it’ll be gone for good. It’s
almost time for lunch, I’m getting hungry. Also thirsty for my next drink.
I can still taste bourbon around my mouth
where my tongue trails the cracked skin of textured sandpaper. Bourbon sticks
to your lips like old tape you’ve forgotten to peal off. Its gummy goo staying
behind. I need to rinse my mouth. I get up from the makeshift bed—a brown lumpy
couch with a shape of a six foot three thin guy—and balance my shaking legs on
the rising and falling of the floor in the lounge.
Just like all cheap housing the bathroom is
the size of a closet and runs off the bedroom. I put my face in front of the
mirror. Aged some ten years since last time I stared back. Keeping time was
like plucking warm air from the heater and stuffing it into your pockets.
Useless.
For a moment I can’t remember what month or
day it is, but I know now, it’s May, late May. The weather should get warmer
soon.
Back to last night; I have to keep running
it through my head before I forget what happened. Something important. If I
keep moving along from start to finish of what happened, I’ll remember.
Yellow cars passed me by as I walked the
street and tried to stay upright. I could see the security detail were still
watching me, probably wondering if I was going to get hit by a taxi. Probably
making bets. Would they give me mouth to mouth if I went down?
One of them yelled out at me. Probably said
to look out. Guess they have an aversion to giving me any sort of
resuscitation.
I remember walking into the path of a car
but I must have gotten out of the way. No bruises, no cuts, so wasn’t hit.
Still getting off track. Got to keep
thinking about what happened.
A big contract. Lots of blood. Something
about a fire.
Now I’m jumping ahead. I need to go back.
The strip joint. What did I do next?
I tried hailing a taxi, but none stopped,
even just to give me the chance to ask for a ride west. These cabbies are all
new arrivals. They’re looking to make some cash over here because there’s no
work and too many people back in their own country. And that’s how it’s always
been. Hasn’t it? People seem to forget that. I forget that.
I remember looking at my watch. Just before
4am. For a few moments I don’t know where I was or how I got there. That seems
to be going around a lot lately. I can even remember looking up and staring
around not recognizing the houses or streets. Then being worried about falling
down and not being able to get back up again. I saw a house that I thought
looked familiar. Man, was I zonked. I didn’t know this place.
“Idiot.”
I walked up the driveway and tried the
front door, still thinking like a drunk, thinking I know what I’m doing. Of
course it was locked. I go around the back. Locked too.
I finally realize I don’t live here or know
anyone here. Nothings familiar. Embarrassing. My brain’s scattered. Even now I
can’t think clearly. Maybe I jumped ahead again? Maybe I went there later?
I remember feeling pretty useless after so
much drink. Pretty sick too.
I turn to my bed and see it’s covered in
puke. I guess that’s why I didn’t sleep there.
My head’s pounding. I lean down to get
clean clothes from my lower drawer. Then I stop because my face gets hot and
begins to get wet with sweat. I can feel more vomit swirling around in my stomach.
That taste comes to the back of in my throat, getting me all ready to puke
again. I breathe in like I’m running out of air. My body stops shaking.
I’m losing my thoughts about... Where did I
get to last night?
I have to remember.
I made it home sometime in the morning. Not
sure when, but it was still dark. I must have managed to get a taxi. My
wallet’s empty. That doesn’t mean a lot; probably spent it all on booze.
I remember the phone ringing after walking
in the door.
Annoying, repetitive.
Instead of throwing it through the window,
I answer it.
“Hello,” I kind of said.
“Are you available tonight?” the voice
said.
Damn. Pity it wasn’t that girl in room
three on the bottom level. Sometimes she would call to see if I was awake and
wanted five minutes of romance. It’s the only reason I answer the phone at that
time of night.
“Yeah,” I told him.
It wasn’t my regular office job. They
wouldn’t call Sunday morning. I wasn’t very good at sitting at a desk at my day
job anyway. Everyone at the office were good people though. I always have a
laugh or chin wag with them. Still, doesn’t mean I have to like it there.
“You need to go to New City before light.”
“Yeah,” I answered. The guy’s all business,
so that helped sober me up.
“Instructions are being sent,” the voice
said.
“Yeah. Yeah, I got it. It’s coming in,” I
said reading the information on my phone, “Uhuh.”
“Good. Make sure it’s done when they first
come in.”
I hang up. No one tells me how I work.
Assholes and Sundays. They go together like
carnivals and creepy clowns.
I’m back on the street now feeling as sober
as I could remember ever being, although was still on cloud nine.
A guy’s walking toward me. He’s got that
look in his eye like he’s thinking of trying something. So I feel around inside
my jacket until my hand passes over the polymer handle of my Glock. I’ve got a
grip on it. I aim it at him from the waist. He sees it there. His face drops.
I usher the unhappy fellow into the alley.
Take his money—from three different wallets stuffed down his pants. None of
them his.
I don’t like crooks. I tell him this and
then break a couple of his fingers. The guy screams so I put the angry end of
my Glock to his forehead and he stops. He whimpers. He goes away.
It’s getting close to six. Cabbies are
desperate for fares. One beeps me as he gets close, to get my attention. I wave
him over and we get to the newly built shopping centre in short time. I pay the
cabbie extra for his driving talent. I pay him a bit more to forget me. Cabbies
love cash. They pocket it without a thought. I like greedy people; makes them
predictable. This guy would have stayed quiet even if I said I was going to
kill his next door neighbor. As long as I gave him enough green.
It’s not always about money. Some of the
people in this life I’ve met I’ve enjoyed plucking from the earth and sending
them to the next life. There’s also some that I want to see gone but just
haven’t been asked to assert my particular talent upon them yet. I don’t get
contracts for government types—strange that. I guess it’s because it’s easier
to buy them off rather than kill them.
I think It’s always going to be money that
sets the rules, you just need to know how to play so you can get more money
than everyone else. Maybe even enjoy yourself while you’re doing it.
There I go again, getting off track. Now
where was I... the cabbie.
After paying the cabbie I walked, or
probably staggered, to the shopping mall entrance.
Shares for Randolph Group need to
plummet. Stop their next shopping mall from opening on the first day.
Casualties preferred.
Nothing worse than dead people to bring in
poor sales. There would be a crowd waiting to get in the doors to grab an
opening day bargain. All they would see instead is shrapnel tear flesh from
bone.
Now, what happened next?
As I think on it I bring my hand up to rub
my face. There’s blood. Large, heavy clots of it. Also under my fingernails.
That’s not right. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the action.
This isn’t good.
I must have gotten sloppy. Shouldn’t have
done the job with no sleep and with more than just a few drinks in my guts.
It’s coming clearer. I can remember. It was
a big job, lots of cash. I should have paid that cabbie more. He may go to the
cops. I’ll have to pay him a visit before the cops do and give him more.
Cabbies are good that way; predictable. Cops won’t pay cabbies to talk. They
also can’t threaten cabbies with what I can if they don’t do what they’re told.
I’m sort of like Santa that way. If the
cabbie’s bad, he dies and I burn his house down, and everyone inside dies. But
if he’s good he gets cash. And cash is still king.
Pants. I need pants.
Maybe a jog first. I’ll need shorts then.
I’ll have to eat later. Maybe some
celebratory drinks for a job well done... hmm, except for the blood. Almost
forgot. Well, no use worrying about that now.
Today is Sunday, which means back to the
office on Monday. Sit behind a desk while some bitch looks over my shoulder and
tells me to hurry. Nah, it ain’t that bad. Both my jobs are good.
The blood on my hands is still annoying me.
How did that happen? I was nowhere near it when the place went up in flames and
with the black smoke.
I sniff my hands and it brings back a
memory. Smells like cabbie. I remember saying that after killing him.
I guess he didn’t need the money that badly
after all.
I start to chuckle, but it doesn’t go on
long.
Some other thought is tickling the back of
my mind.
I’m not smiling anymore. My mouth droops
like a kid that found his dog dead in the street. I sit slowly down into the
couch and look again at my hands. Moments pass but my mind is empty.
A semi-full Jack Daniel’s bottle is sitting
on the coffee table with a stained glass next to it.
I don’t want to remember anymore.
In the next moment the glass is half full
and It’s tipping past my lips. The warmth of the alcohol rushes over my tongue.
The satisfying brown liquid makes its way to the back of my throat.
I won’t leave the house today. I got plans.
CHAPTER
ONE
Monday
morning.
Tingrin came alert as soon as his eyes
opened.
A soft beam from the low spring sun barely
warmed his lounge room. The blurred orb, obscured by thin cloud, rose above the
next door neighbor’s homes, just enough so a glimmer of sun shone through his
window and past the heavy brown curtains. He shivered, then vomited. Nothing
came up.
He
slipped out from under the covers that had been draped across his mid section
and down to his ankles. He still wore his socks, which poked out from the
bottom of his bed. A disturbing smell wafted up from under the covers and made
him want to wretch again.
He stood and walked to his dresser and
pulled open his top most drawer. He searched his under clothes, but was unable
to keep focus on his hands as they blurred moving from socks to underpants. He
closed his eyes for moment, then opened them again and took another moment to
focus before remembering what he had been doing in the first place.
He also found runners, shorts and a
T-shirt. He had time for a twenty minute jog before work. Something he had
missed out on yesterday due to things best forgotten.
Once back he would shower, dress and run
out the door. Possibly buy breakfast on the way to work. Ending his short
commute by train into the grandest city in the world and less windy than some
were led to believe.
Tingrin
found a seat on the half full train, so sat while savoring the feeling of his
overworked muscles. He took another bite from his bacon and cheese bun,
recently bought from a small shop on his rush to the steps of the raised
railway. They had outdone themselves on this occasion; mushrooms and green
peppers had been included with the pig meat and mozzarella. Oil drizzled down
his hand toward his shirt, which was quickly soaked up by a napkin before it
got under his cuff. He held a book in the same hand as his napkin, managing the
two tasks at the same time, well enough that his mind stayed engulfed in the
story about a man with amnesia on the run.
Upon finishing his food he turned the page
and unscrewed his juice and washed the remainder of the bun still clinging to
his teeth, thinking of each morsel as a rat being swept away down a flooded
sewer pipe.
Tingrin idly thought of the killings at the
mall and the taxi driver. His actions had been warranted. What was done was
done.
Remorse could occasionally be expected to
touch upon a hired gun’s mind—not in an open weep way, over someone lost, but
enough so a needle poked him in a tender part of his chest, which would serve
to make him remember what it was to be human. This could cloud a professional’s
judgment. It was best avoided, lest it get him killed. It could also make it so
he couldn’t deliver upon a contract. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
Contradictory to the news delivered into
people’s lounge rooms via their television, no one generally enjoyed inflicting
damage on others, more so, they would help rather than harm.
Yet, were people acting on feelings of
empathy? Moral instinct? Or is it just that we have been guided by society
ethics? Have we somehow developed a fake sense of morality that instructs us
not to hurt others? Would it all fall to pieces if society suddenly collapsed?
Tingrin shrugged.
