I take one last gander at the million-dollar artifact in plastic box, thinking the obvious. Of all the scoundrels I know, not a single one of them I can completely trust with it, but I'd say Javier's the closet. Not for his integrity though.
"Oi. Uncle! You won't swap it overnight would you?" The Old man puffs a chunk of writhing smoke towards the ceiling.
"Oh I will if I don't see a stupendously large sum of commission!" With cigarette smoke lingering between his teeth, he shuts back.
Now he's solid. Besides, he probably figured out if ought to sell it, the best middleman in town that I know is still him. Why fuck me over now when he could do it twice later?
7:06 With a hand on the bolt lock of the solidarity door and another holding the violin case, a rugged and somewhat unassuming voice rang behind me.
"Ey, callejero!" I turned around to see him sitting reverse on the stool, leaning his back on the counter and his feet kicked up on the speaker by the swinging door. "Tell those lazy fucks outside they can jerk each other off somewhere else....." Plated gray in his eyes shook a little before the words left his mouth. "And you take it easy out there."
Old man, never change.
Never change. Old man
"You too."
***
For a brief moment, the air outside tastes almost sweet compared to whatever chemical hazard is going on behind the closed door. I take a deep breath, interrupted by a small short circuit on my left from the walking pig neon sign, its left toe is now missing. Tiny sparks were thrown off the board and fell meticulously to the concrete pavement, in front of the group of underpaid security.
Cal remains entirely motionless though one of the sparks fell right on his shoulder before rolling off the jacket. He's looking at the post-modern clock on the theater across the street idly while holding a paper plate of half-done beef jerky and freshly sliced pink pork. The other three are smoking on the stools with equally idle expressions.
But as I closed the heavy door shut behind with a loud and dull clunk, all eyes moved in unity. And Cal is the first one to utter with broad clear anger behind his voice.
"About time, for fuck's sake." He pushes the plate to the guy beside him, forcing him to hold it. Striding towards me with open arms and extensive annoyance in his eyes and on his face. "Cammey's supposed to show up an hour ago, don't know where she is, don't care no more. I'm not doing extra hours without extras. Ain't...."
"Well, lucky you. He's closing early today. You guys are relieved from duty." I broke off his complain before it drags on for the rest of the night. Cal exhaled a long breath with his brows raised before turning around to his man with open arms.
"Alright, y'all heard it. Clear the fuck off, Thanksgiving Turkey is out of patience anyway." He wave his open arms like a traffic warden and tilts his head at the butcher shop.
A shit load of muttering later, the rest of the crew cleared out the front of butcher's shop leaving plastic plates and paper wraps on the folding chair. One of them wave the owner behind closed door goodbye sarcastically, and the reddish-brown skin butcher with an apron and full mustache waved back at them, though horizontally.
As for cal, he takes another gander at the clock across the street before sticking his hands in pocket and trudges past me with clear nuisance in his eyes.
"Next time you call first." Eight paces away, he added. "And keep yer head low, a pig in 520 patrol’s looking for someone. Drove by four times while you're inside!" With that chip off his shoulder, Cal's steps quicken and buoyant.
A southern wind bellowed through the alley next to me with the scent of factory wastes and burned diesel from the ports, sweeping away the illusion of breathable air, or what was never there.
I light a cig to loosen up the tension and as the note of acrid drilled down my windpipe, the lamps of the bay window shut silently behind me. On the quieter street of lanes, it's just me and the neon lights. Not even a tart in sight.
A sudden rush of misgiving came over, making the idea of being here unbearable. I thought about going to the market a couple of streets away to stretch the night longer. Maybe at Mickey's apartment, some game's surly on in a Tuesday night or see if Ann's still loitering around Saint Miguel.
But looking back now, the day's been long enough. And the uniforms are onto me for whatever the hell I did.
7:07 I spit the smoke out and head down south.
***
I take the previous path through the alley across the street. The whores cleared out. Good, don't know what they were expecting around the loan shark neighborhood.
Skipping through the alleyway and left the cig end there, turned left back to the crime scene under the parking lot tower. The cops are gone as well, and so are the bodies, leaving large chunks of dried blood on the cordoned pavement and a pair of plastered images that look like two withering, upside-down trees with thin branches sticking out at their ends.
They were thrown off the building, hit the lamp pole before falling on the pavement, and before all that, arms severed.
Loan shark's M.O. Though off a building was a bit more creative and I can tell the lone field agent in a wrinkled suit and loose tie, leaning under the flickering light of the dented lamp pole would agree.
The man got a tie clip on his welt and a pen hanging on his trouser pocket. Messed up hair combed over the back of head, scribbled beard that hangs shakily between mature and slothful, complete with fragile blue eyes.
As I exit the alleyway the pig's eyes roll deliberately towards me, it sways up and down as if I'm supposed to be here for him. I put the cigarette back into my mouth and hang my right hand by my back pocket.
I didn't even make it to the crossing before he squats down the blockade and jog in front of me. That motherfuck.....
"National police, a word sir." Can't decide which part of the sentence I hate the most.
I put on the 'model citizen' face. With my brows subtly raised and a preserved smirk hanging by my lips while I tone down the negative thoughts in my head.
"Good evening to you too. Officer."
"Evening. I'm Detective Arlo," The cop flips open his badge and ID at me. I take an excessive stare and couldn't find anything wrong with it, except the precinct is a few miles too far from here. "I would like to ask you some questions if that's alright....."
I broaden my smile while my eyes turn to the guy on a bicycle across the street, the cook arguing with a receptionist by a mailbox, the brunette in fur hat and short skirt who clacks on top of the asphalt road to avoid getting into our three meters radius.
The hell you picked me for?
"And I would like it to be firstly known by you, sir. It has been a long day and I got to ride the tube through half the city back to Piao Jie." I curl my smile into an apologetic one and open my palms while my right foot takes a step on the driveway. "If you'll Forgive my impatience. I really don’t…”
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But the cop raised his left arm and takes a step forward blocking my way further.
"It'll be quick." He promised as his left arm and gloved hand slowly lowered back into his pocket while nothing changed on his face.
I drag my smile downward into a horizontal seam and exhale slowly as I start taking him seriously.
Arlo falls somewhere between a war veteran and a journalist, with overly conservative and irritating motions bearing a hint of brute force, especially those sleep deprived eyes. But the outline of his cheek was clearly roughened up by experiences of stressful environment despite he doesn't seem older than 33. The guy's a lost cost of his own life. And that's why I straighten up my posture and nod at his request.
"Well, officer?" Folks like him belong in the lanes alright, but not with a badge in his pocket.
Arlo brought up a fountain pen from his left pocket and a pad in his jacket's inner layer. His left thumb pushes the cap back into pocket.
"Do you live nearby?"
"No." He opens the PNB but doesn't write anything at my answer.
"Have you seen or heard anything strange earlier today, about 4:15 in the afternoon, around the block?" No, I was getting my feet measured.
"None. I was at home by then, got a call from my boss to help out before closing." His left hand hovers over notebook and remains there after my answer.
"Is this your first time passing by the scene?" Arlo raises his brittlest of blue as he shoot the odd question.
"Passed by an hour ago earlier too. When you fellas are still swarming the place."
"Could you describe the scene?" He asks, a glimpse of interest flashes across his pupils while I'm left pondering.
"The scene, an hour ago?"
"Yes. As detailed as possible." He swiftly draws a couple of lines in his notebook.
"Well. There were........three, maybe four of you fellas next to two corpses covered by white cloth. Right over there." I point towards the stain of dried blood on the pavement.
"There was also a couple of concentrated lights around the perimeter...... and that's about it. Counted in some curious passersby." The cop deliberately nods while adding a few scribbles on the page.
"Do you remember any of those officers faces? Any traits or strange actions... anything you could recall?" He asks while inspecting what he wrote down with the muscles by his nose and eye bags subtly closing in on each other.
"I was in a hurry so not really.......Officer, I think you'll have better chances if you take these questions to the stores across the street. The front desks must have seen something.” Arlo mumbled an exhalation and a curse. Then exhaled a long breath before massaging his eyes with his index and thumb.
Of course, he already tried the establishments across the street. And without a whiff of doubt, none would even talk to him.
People from lanes can be whatever the hell you could imagine. Of races, religions, afflictions, non afflicted, brown, black, yellow, white all abandoned by the system. They will never cooperate, matters not if they saw anything. Especially if what's in question are clearly gang-related fairs
"And forgive my bluntness, but are these questions consequential to what happened here this afternoon?"
Arlo closes his notebook in a snap and stuffs it inside his left trouser pocket. The edge of his mouth twitched with a hint of disdain and nuisance in his expression. He pulls the sides of his brown suit back and slides his thumb into his pocket. His head was low for a count to two in my mind before he spoke in a platonic tone.
"It is consequential to my job, and I can have you arrested and searched right now for suspicious activity and possible possession of illegal substances if you keep this up." He darts his eye at the violin case in my hand. A laughter at the bottom of my throat threatens to give away while I kept eye contact with him.
Scratched that.
He's as new here as a north valley’s finest.
Just while I'm about to tell him to piss off in the politest way possible. A hunch in the back of my head threw me an unlikely possibility.
The drained posture, hint of violence, working at other's jurisdictions and questioning witnesses alone.
"Alright, alright! Calm down chief, I'm clean as virgin marry, I swear." I take a step back and pads both sides of my jacket pocket with a knuckle brass and drug inhaler before raising my hands by my ear as a pledge of innocence.
Arlo stares me down, not entirely sold on my bullshit. At least he ain't entirely brainless like the rest of the pigs.
The cop's brow closed slightly on each other as he took a step back, lips apart with another question clearly in mind. And I dial up the act by stepping back and raising my palms in the air towards him like a dog trainer with my eyes widened and torso subtly bent.
"Wait wait! Hold on, there was something else! You were... you want to know who those cops at the scenes are right?..... I uh.... Don't remember their faces, I swear on my 18 generations of ancestors I don't. But, there was a patrol car by the road and if I remember correctly... the serial number on the door was uh... 520? Yes, 520! I'm certain of it sir."
A flash of hungry glint ran through his fragile blue eyes like a gauze stretched to its limit. Arlo drags his left foot back a step by his right and brings the PNB back out of his pocket.
"520. Are you sure?" I grin my teeth out and flip my palm back up at the sky. If he's paying a slit more attention he would've noticed the callous on them weren't from physical labor and my left sleeve's stuck at where it is no matter how I stretch my arms.
"Officer I've never lied to nobody in my life... though sometimes it takes extra effort to remember certain things." I pile up a smile on my face and shrug. Arlo stare at me for a second too long I'm starting to think I might have to run for it again.
But in the end, all he did was nod and turn a new page in his notebook.
"I'm going to put it as an official record, may I have your ID sir." I cough out a laughter and lengthen my smile a bit downward.
"Certainly officer." I pull my wallet out of my back pocket, right pinkie graze by the pistol grip. "Here." I nib the oldest card of the bunch in my wallet while making sure he can't see the rest from this angle.
"Chang... Mr. Chang?"
"Chang Xiaowu, officer." Arlo switches his gaze back and forth between the 2 by 2 photo of me in the back of a hardware store. The owner sucks at photography but he's got a natural talent at lighting the photo so bright it looks like one of those taken in a government agency.
"Thank you, sir....." He returned me the ID card along with a business card from his suit pocket. "And if you remember something else, please give me a call, it'll be most appreciated."
With one last gander at the dried blood on pavement, Arlo strides away from the scene with sturdy steps.
I watch him disappear into the crowd before lowering my gaze on the card.
Faust Police Department
Detective Joaquin E. Arlo
Didn't expect him to be a detective, but from what I heard everyone in the anti corruption unit starts out as one.
A shiver ran down my spine as I raise my head to inspect the street, took me five seconds to spot Ginger leaning by the ally across the street with a sly smile. One of the regulars at Stynx, my colleague.
He sucks his lips in and curls his mouth into an 'O' shape like a wrinkled anus while tilting his head upwards. Ring and middle finger pulling his nose upwards too, like a pig.
You cocksucking cunt......
I hand the card at him across the street like an invitation, his mouth closed and opened and closed like a pig oinking, laughing.
I force a grin on myself and cup the business card in my right palm and make a quick jerking motion on my crunch while kneading the card into rubbish before throwing it at the drains by the edge of the pavement.
Ginger's content with my demonstration and laugh for real this time with his narrow lips back to normal before walking off into the dark.
I can feel a good some of the people on the corners of the street grinning as well. Dollar store’s owner behind the counter with his head stick out, homeless man without a leg sitting by the ally ginger walks in, an old whore, a middle age man in hoodie handling a hot dog stand.
The lanes sure as hell is a tight community. I laugh to myself as I decent along the street and held the first cab I see. Enough walking among the living today.
***
Green of plug smoke shop's neon crushed into two blinking red lights on the police car speeding in the opposite direction with the sirens on, looking like an euphoric hell. A man with the spiral of his fist covering his mouth slouches past the tobacco place, pale face embracing the green onto his waxy face.
The driver stomp on the break on the last second at a yellow light after accelerating like he's got a suicide note in the glove box. I lay back on the stink of overage, raw leather seat, about as comfortable as imagined.
The siren from earlier is disappearing of my hearing range while I lost in thought of the cop earlier.
The man either got everything he wished for or pissed off the wrong party to get sent off on this, his ID says he's of precinct 37 which is by the line of western embassies close to Monclea. Like I said, a touch out of his field down in the lanes.
The bullshit questions he asked are out of a manual, save for the last two. Those two made me believe he might be a part of the anti corruption unit. And as much of a joke as the branch is, the bear minimum of the unit, if I remember correctly was quite high and Arlo looked apart.
For reasons beyond me he might be interested in those badges from the crime scene, it's good to have someone keeping them busy. Ain't no telling it, but what cal said earlier plus the patrol car at the corner when I was about to put the tank top man in life support. It's either that the cops do have some bone to pick with me, or the chinks figured me out, and the Liu Jie is really as far stretched as her majesty down south put it.....
I dial the number on the business card to my contact list. Took me a second longer to remember his name, but I did.
I put my hands behind my head to unwind a bit while the cabbie floor it on green light the violin case almost fell off the other seat.