HALF AN HOUR LATER I was down by my building’s reception desk, sorely missing my gun. Mr. Vanruyt was the building’s superintendent, an overweight, balding man in his late 50s whose droopy facial features reminded me of an old bloodhound who’d long since made his bed. Despite the late hour I found him sitting behind his desk in his cramped office on the ground floor of my apartment building, last week’s headlines held up in his hands.

I had walked into his office almost a minute ago but he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge my presence, but I knew I got his attention the second I stepped in: his eyes hadn’t moved an inch from page two.

“Anything good?” I asked, breaking the silence. The man had never liked me much, on account of me bringing in too much strange foot traffic into the building for his liking, and on account of him being a bastard.

Vanruyt nudged the paper up slightly, showing off the headlines of last Tuesday’s New Seattle Tribune: SAUCERS SEEN OVER WASHINGTON. Reports of a swarm of UFOs over the capital.

“Bunch of nonsense.” He stated simply, flipping through to the next page. “Little green men don’t exist.”

I nodded. He was right about that. Not the otherworldly kind at least.

Vanruyt adjusted the lamp next to him to give himself better reading light, changing the angle of the lampshade away from his face. The shadows around his droopy features seemed to tighten in the dark as a result, reminding me less of a bloodhound and more of a mastiff.

“Didn’t think you’d be back here.” He said. “On account of all the mess upstairs, I mean.”

“That’s why I’m here. What happened up there? I was gone for a few weeks and I came back to… what? It looked like the aftermath of a German soiree up there.”

“Did you say you just came back?”

“Came in just a few hours ago, yes, back down out of Vancouver. I told you before I left, didn’t I? That I'd be gone for a few weeks.”

Vanruyt tilted his head just a tad, like a dog hearing something strange. He wet his thumb and flipped to another page, one dominated by an advertisement touting the superiority of the American military. His eyes however, kept still where they were.

“You’re the dick, aren’t you? Murder, sir.” Vanruyt paused, flipped another page, then continued. “Someone got shot in the head, leaving a mile of a mess behind them. I overheard the Blues saying the body was left to rot up there for about a week before it got found. I think the official term they used for what was left of his face was ‘smithereens’.”

Murder. Considering what I saw back up in my office, that fact obviously didn't surprise me. But the way Vanruyt seemed to be acting did. He seemed more cagey than usual.

“Who was it that kicked it? And any idea how they got inside my office? I noticed the lock wasn’t busted.” I asked.

Rather than replying, Vanruyt shifted in his seat, the wooden chair that barely supported his weight groaning in protest, and opened up one of the drawers of his desk. He took out a wadded up scrap of paper, uncrumpled it with one hand, then slid it over the desk towards me.

I recognized the chicken scratch, just like I recognized the fact that Vanruyt was purposefully avoiding answering my questions.

“This from Lloyds?” I asked, looking over the contents of the note. I didn’t recognize the phone number, just that it was from a landline downtown.

“Sergeant Lloyds left that number behind, told me to give it to you just in case you came calling. Seemed silly to me, but here you are. You’re fortunate I didn’t throw it out.”

“Lucky me.” I said, sliding the paper in my coat pocket. “Can I use your phone?”

“Certainly, sir. I’ll add it to last month’s rent.”

“Last month? I settled up my rent in advance before I left.”

Vanruyt finally looked up at me from his paper, blood-shot eyes turned into greedy beads in the dark.

“You settled up your rent for the month of June, sir. Today’s July seventeenth, with rent being at the start of the month.”

Damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have overstayed my welcome in Vancouver as long as I did. But I didn’t want to take another chance and end up losing.

Again.

“That’ll be ten cents for a local call, fifty for out of state for the operator. And there’s the added charge for being late with the rent, coming to about a buck a day for each day past the first of the month.”

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Vanruyt’s eyes slid on over to the clock hanging on the wall. “And I’ll be sure to add another dollar to the tally in about an hour. Unless, of course, you can settle up by midnight?”

Murder and money mentioned in the same minute. Like I said: a bastard.

I gritted my teeth.

“I didn’t think so.” Vanruyt nodded mercilessly, turning back down to his paper. “Just make sure you settle up the bill before the end of the week or I’ll have to look for a new tenant.”

“What about my office?” I asked. “There’s still blood all over the place.”

Vanruyt shrugged, making a vague motion towards the phone on the wall. “Sergeant Lloyds told me not to touch the place until I got told otherwise, so I haven’t had the chance to get anything done of the sort. Get the green from the Blues and I’ll get right on adding the cleaner’s tab to your unsettled tab.”

“That’s it? Someone gets murdered in my office and I’m the one that’s left with the bill?”

“It’s the way of the world, isn’t it?” said Vanruyt, eyes back on his old news. “What did you expect, a welcome basket? It’s tough luck but at the end of the day you agreed to my lease, sir. I’m just trying to make due somewhere south of the sun. If you don’t like it, you can find yourself another place that’s dandy with allowing a place of work operating out of a residential building. ”

Not something I was looking forward to. For all his flaws (most of them cardinal sins), Vanruyt’s unashamed greed had proven useful, if not dependable, many times before, the least of which was allowing me to slip him an extra twenty a month to allow clients up on the sly, saving me the hassle of needing an actual registered office elsewhere.

I thought of the emptied safe in my office, nothing in it left but my medals. I’d have to hit the bank early in the morning, first thing.

I walked over to the phone by the wall, which hung old and quiet. “Fine.” Was all I could get past clenched teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a lengthier reply. I picked up the receiver and dialed the number Lloyds left me for a local landline, the dial tone screeching in my ear.

“On the by, my landline looks to have been shut off for some reason. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” I asked, trying to sound casually indifferent.

“Has it?” Vanruyt replied, seeming unsurprised. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him having reached the last page of his paper, closing it, refolding it, then making the bizarre decision to start reading it again from the front.

The headline SAUCERS SEEN OVER WASHINGTON screamed at me again.

“I’ll be sure to have someone come in and take a look early next week.” After I pay up first, of course, is what he meant by that.

*click*

The dial tone voided to silence and I could hear someone breathing on the other end. “Hello? Lloyds? Is that you? It’s me-”

There was the sudden sound of a cymbal crashing right in my ear, making me wince. Hung up on, with the handheld being slammed on the cradle on the other end.

Asshole.

I redialed, somewhat more forcefully this time, lamenting another lost ten cents down the drain.

*click*

“Lloyds? It’s me, Paixley, don’t hang-”

“You son of a bitch,” interrupted a familiar voice, crackling from the other end. “I thought it was some sort of sick joke. Good to hear from you, pal. You’re the only mutt I know that would try calling me so late twice.”

“Likewise. Now hear me out, I’ve been out of town for a hot second and I come back to--to I don’t know what. Do you have any--"

“It’s been a real doozy up here. You’ve been gone for so long, I thought you were dead.”

“No, I'm still breathing. Can you--”

“Yeah, I can hear it, you sound like a walrus on his deathbed. Listen, it’s good you called. I don’t want to say too much over the line ‘cause of them Commies but you should meet me tonight by Southwest, as soon as possible. Fastest I can be there from here is in an hour. I’ll wait for you there.”

He paused, then added: “And bring smokes. I’m all out.”

"Wait, I--"

Another crash of a cymbal. Brutally hung up on again, my ear left ringing from the sound.

I was left staring at the wall ahead of me in silence, the screech of the dial tone back in my ear. Not even a word in edgewise. I hung the receiver back up, then adjusted my hat, bringing the brim low.

“Thanks for the call.” I said to Vanruyt in passing. I didn’t get a reply back, but I could feel his gaze on my back on my way out the door.

Southwest precinct, huh? Not a long drive from here, not if you just count the distance. But the bad memories go on for miles. The thought of going back there made me feel like a ghost, spooking back to his old haunt.

Moments later my feet hit sticky pavement just outside my apartment building.

New Seattle. A city of secrets. Half a million clumped up souls never in a talking mood, where the people were as gray as the buildings they lived in, each basement tending to hide little hints of horror.

Despite the ceaselessness of the city, wakeful and busy even in the quiet of night, the air in the city was a thick summer fog, feeling pickled and still, as if the smoke hadn’t been aired out of a room after the previous night’s party. It was the kind of air that felt easy enough to choke on, each breath proving laborious.

I thought of the dried bloodstains surrounding the chalk outline in my office, counting them each individually in my head. Each one reverberated through my skull like a drumbeat of war.

I swallowed rising bile, determined to soldier on.

Time to move.