Cheap Thrills (6 Thrilling reads) (55 page)

Twenty

Mullins’s vision had been blurring in and out of focus for a few minutes. He put it down to the long sleepless nights he had been enduring. All thanks to the current case he’s working on. He steadies himself against the wall as he rem
ains seated in the waiting area. He looks around and notices the walls rippling. This isn’t something he has seen before, he isn’t used to hallucinating. Even in college he was a straight cut above the rest. He didn’t take drugs then, and he hasn’t taken drugs since. If he knew about the certain side effects of a particular narcotic then maybe he could have caught on quicker. He just sighed and thought that maybe he needed some rest. The thing is he is currently occupied with the case and being seated in the main establishment of the man he’s investigating means that he just can’t fall asleep. This is business, and he has to be professional. He tries to keep his eyes open but is finding it increasingly hard.  He looks around and notices the sides of the room echoing off the paint. He stumbles up and braces his hands against the wall, keeping him upright for a mere few seconds before his legs give way. He falls to the ground and catches some breath. His breathing grows heavier with every wavering second on the floor. He can taste the harsh cold floor as he struggles for more breath. He sees the light in the room blemish as it darkens. His heart starts to race at the overbearing thought of what is happening to him. He struggles to comprehend what is happening. Why can’t he move? Why can’t he talk? As he remains motionless on the floor, he realizes his fate. He knows this situation isn’t natural. He can feel the abnormal flow of blood in his body as it rushes to his head and makes him grip his finger nails into the cold concrete. He can hear the footsteps coming closer. His heart beat is in sync with the thumping vibrations on the floor. It speeds up as the footsteps come closer. He tries to manoeuvre his neck, the resistance is paralyzing. He manages to spot a shadowy figure enter the room. It’s followed by another. The two figures stand still for a few seconds. The last thing he hears is chilling to the bone as his vision rides out into black.

‘Get the tools ready
,’ the voice says before Mullins succumbs to the deep sleep he had been resisting.

Twenty One

Diary entry number Two

Dated 24th of December 2008

Dear Elizabeth, I’m growing ever colder, ever lonelier in this place you have put me. Why can’t you be the one to drag me out of this harsh environment? The one to warm me up in the weeks that follow. It’s a time of giving, and all you have done is taken from me. You’ve squandered my spirit, decapitated my honour, washed my dreams away. In the tears of children and the cries of mothers, I am not loved. I never had a mother. I never had a family. When I cried, no one took notice, not even you. To this very day, the only thing left is the hole in my heart. One that you promised to fill, but you haven’t. It’s the eve before the messiah’s birthday. It’s a time of wonder and glee. A time I cannot fathom as anything less than torture, for it is these days that cling onto my soul for longer. The day when family and friends spend time together, the day I walk down the street and clean after the vermin. I see happiness littered everywhere. An ice cream wrap
per, a discarded Christmas card, all of these things these people choose to throw away and leave half eaten, crumpled up on every corner. How can I live and prosper as a functioning human being when people throw away the things I never had. The things I’ve always wanted?

It must be fate because nothing else makes any sense at all. The fast moving traffic, the i
ncoherent people on the streets, the long gaged stares in the mall. These things are what trouble me. These are the reasons I have to do what I do. It all begins tonight. Someone will pay for the misgivings of this world. I so wished and hoped it would be you Elizabeth, but until I find you, someone else will have to pay for your lies.

It isn’t always easy being me, but I assure you, it’s going to be even harder being you…

Eli

Twenty Two

‘A Christmas killer on the loose, a murder spree in Boston. Boxes filled with decapitated women. All this and more at ten,’ Saundra Austin says as she signs out on the news desk. She looks at the red light go off on top of the teleprompter. She sighs and lights up a cigarette. Her camera man and close friend Mike comes up to her holding a hot cup of coffee. He smiles as he gives the blazing white Styrofoam cup to her. She thanks him with a tired but appreciative look. He sits down next to her as he watches her go through her notes on the desk. The news room is emptying as people go for their dinner. She stays behind, catching up on the news events. She likes to be prepared and knowledgeable on the current affairs she’s corresponding on.  She turns to Mike who’s on his Blackberry scouring twitter for updates on the field.

‘I can’t believe
they are glorifying this story,’ Hisses Saundra as she looks at Mike.

Mike looks up, half surprised at her sudden outburst. She’s usually the quiet type. That’s why they get along. She speaks too little, and he speaks too much.

‘What story?’ He asks

She shakes her head in disbelief as if it wasn’t obvious what she was talking about.

‘The Christmas killer,’ she says

‘What about it?’

‘I think they are glamorising the case.’

Mike laughs as he puts his phone away and gives Saundra a sideward glance.

‘It’s the news, it’s what we do.’

‘What about those girls. Surely we should be taking a more gentle and personal approach with this. How about giving out some names?’

‘They told me that the police don’t even know who these girls are let alone what their favourite colour is.’

Saundra shakes her head again.

‘Not even one hit?’

‘Nope, DNA has come back negative apparently.’

‘On all of them?’

‘Every single one of them’

Saundra’s thoughts overtake her. She shudders at the thought of the mothers and fathers of these victims. They don’t even know their daughter is dead, let alone murdered.

‘It seems unfair.’ She finally says.

‘Since when has murder been fair?’ says Mike.

Twenty Three

‘The results are back on the three DNA samples. We got no hits on either of them,’ says the woman in the white lab coat as she looks through her chart on her clipboard. She momentarily lifts her eyes off the chart and meets Frank’s fiery stare. He tries to hold in his disappointment. She can see the utter disbelief in his eyes. She pats him on the shoulder and slowly walks away.  He watches her leave. She looks untouched yet weathered. He feels the same. This case is getting to him. It’s gnawing at every fibre of his being, its taunting him in every breath he takes.

He sees an office cubicle in front of him. It’s empty. He decides to sit down in the vacant chair. He marvels at the family photos on the desk. He recognises the man in the pictures, its Mullins, the brash officer that helped save his life
, and back him up in a fire fight a few months prior. He notices a note on the desk. It reads “
Mason Humphries Street Cleaning
”. It’s circled. He shoots up off his seat and rushes down the corridor towards the Chief’s office. Frank thumps his fist on the door as he reaches it. He opens it and finds Shaw looking agitated behind his desk. Shaw’s eyes widen as he sees Frank.

‘Sir, have you seen D
etective Mullins?’ asks Frank while trying to catch his breath.

Shaw shakes his head.

‘No, but I know where he is’ Says Shaw

‘Where?’

‘On a case working the street cleaning crew downtown. He went down there to ask them if they cleaned the street this evening and why. Apparently he’s under the impression that they have something to do with this.’

Frank shakes his head

‘How can they be involved in this case?’

‘Well we were investigating the boss’s involvement in some underworld stuff. He was in pretty deep. Apparently he’s some
big shot gangster from England now residing in Boston. He uses the street cleaning business to stay in contact with the big wigs of the city. Every major company in this city uses him and his men to clean up their commercial buildings. He’s quite close to the mayor. Some even say the mayor is in bed with this guy. That’s pure speculation obviously, though the newspapers will argue the corruption of the mayor till doomsday, that’s one thing they are certain of.’

Frank shifts his eyes around the
room trying to get to grips with what the Chief is saying.

‘How did he get off the racketeering charges?’ Frank finally asks

Shaw smiles

‘Like every gangster before him,
with a good defence council’

‘
We need to get him out of there,’ says Frank

‘Why? Let him do his job.’

‘I found this next to a note on his desk,’ says Frank while holding a red Rose, the mafia’s calling card.

Twenty Four

‘Wakey wakey,’ shouts the silhouetted figure towering over Mullins.

‘Wake up!’ The man shouts again, this time accompanied by a stiff kick to the face. Mullins winces in pain as he opens his eyes and looks around the room. He recognises the surroundings. He’s still in the waiting room. His vision is getting clearer. Suddenly he’s kicked in the face once more. The stinging blow catches his jaw, cracking it under the swinging foot’s weight. Mullin’s loses balance and hits the cold floor again. He can feel the warm blood escape his face. He opens his eyes once more; he can see the two shadowy figures standing in the same position as they were when he lost consciousness earlier on.

‘Grab his legs, I’ll get his arms. Let’s move him into the cellar,’ says one of the men. They both grab Mullins and carry him through the waiting room. They reach a wooden splintered door and crank it open.

‘This guy’s heavy
,’ says the other man. Mullins eyes open to see the face of the man holding his arms. It’s the Italian man. He looks down at Mullins and smiles.

‘On three
,’ says the Italian man

‘One…Two…Three
,’ He shouts

They both swing Mullins’s weight and release him in a forward motion. Mullins’s heart beats faster as he realizes at that split second what is happening. He closes his eyes and braces himself.  The impact of him hitting the stairs is horrific as he feels his back give out. The next few rolls down are painless but soon become excruciating as he hits the last couple of steps. He finally stops dead at the basement floor. Dust and dirt are sucked into his nose as he hits the hard surface and gasps for breath. The two men clamour down the staircase. The Italian man reaches Mullins first. He sinks a couple of hard jabs into his back. Mullins screams in pain as he is stirred out of unconsciousness. The other man makes his way down the stairs two steps at a time. He reaches the Italian man and Mullins a few seconds after. He kneels down and grabs the reeling detective by his hair.

‘You shouldn’t have come down here Detective. Now you will die down here,’ says the thick New York accented man.

They both proceed in kicking Mullins as he is down. A few hard kicks later, Mullins vision has returned to blackness as he drifts further away from reality.

Twenty Five

Humphries is sitting quietly in the car. The back seat is the usual seat he finds himself in. Tinted out windows and Champaign is the usual experience he indulges in most car journeys. This one seemed different. He felt on edge. He felt ignored. He taps the Plexiglas in front of him. The driver rolls down the window, his eyes meet the tired and strained eyes of his boss. Humphries throws the driver a look of contempt.

‘When are we getting there?’ Asks Humphries

The driver is about to speak, then Antonio sticks his head out of the passenger seat, pushing the driver out of view.

‘There has been a hold up. Apparentl
y there’s been a chemical spill at the depot,’ Says Antonio calmly

Humphries doesn’t look impressed.

‘So what? Just get me there. I need to talk to the mayor. He’s supposed to be coming down for a late lunch.’

Antonio holds a firm but forced smile at his boss.

‘I’ll do my best sir,’ He says

The window slowly goes back up, bridging the gap between Humphries and Antonio and the driver. Humphries watches as the glass squeaks
its way back up and firmly suck into its upright position. The window was Antonio’s idea; he convinced Humphries that it would allow his boss to make phone calls in private while the window was rolled up. The glass was sound proof and bullet proof at that. Humphries wasn’t too high on the window; he thought it was over the top. He didn’t know that Antonio wanted the window there for other reasons, although he suspected his right hand man in
some
sort of suspicious capacity. Antonio was never one to hold his breath; he would say what he wanted when he wanted. It used to piss Humphries off something rotten. Humphries suspected that maybe Antonio installed the window so Antonio could speak freely without him getting in trouble with his boss. Either way, Humphries was determined to obliterate the window at some point, maybe even today if the time allowed it.

Antonio remained still in the front. The driver didn’t take his
eyes off the road leaving Antonio to read the text messages that had been going off in his pocket for the last hour. The driver momentarily gave Antonio a side look; he catches him looking at the phone.

‘So you just want me to keep going around in circles?’ Asks the driver

‘Yes,’ says Antonio, not even relinquishing his eyes off the cell phone.

‘What are we going to tell him?’

Antonio finally looks up and puts the phone away in his inside suit pocket.

‘Keep to the story. They have the cop back at the depot. They are going to probe him for information. We need to give them time to do their jobs.’

‘I just don’t get it, why are we not telling him?’

‘Because he will go off the rails. He’s gone soft, he would never agree to something like this. His job is to look the part
, mine is to be the part. That Detective back at the depot has information on us. They worked a case on us, and now we need to find out what they know. They could still have the place bugged, our phones tapped, or God knows what. We need to put a stop to this, even if it means taking out the cunt’s teeth.’

‘What if he doesn’t talk?’

Antonio breaks a rigid smile.

‘Oh, they always talk, without fail…they always talk.’