The Dirty City (8 page)

There had to be about two dozen wretched looking people, dressed in a typical mishmash of tattered and stained clothing, crowded around the fires to keep the cold out. I could see many of them swigging from bottles and smoking in the shadows. The stench of the place was horrendous, I didn’t want to think about their sanitation arrangements.

I had a pocket full of $1 bills, this would be my third act of bribery that day – I was glad Richard Jameson had paid so generously upfront.

I approached a group of three men at the first fire, dished out one bill each, flashed Anton’s photograph and hoped they were sober enough to know what I was talking about. Two of them just rambled, but the third pointed to a lone figure at the far end of the embankment. He indicated that this was the only woman amongst their number at the moment, her name was Hilda and she had known Anton.

I approached her carefully, not knowing what horrors a woman might have known to find enduring a life out here preferable to normal, domesticated life in the city. I made sure she saw me coming and announced myself when I was a good 10 yards from her.

“Hey, Hilda? My name is Johnny Jerome. I’m a private investigator – I’m looking for a guy, a young kid, Anton, here look at this.”

I held out the photo and cautiously approached. She didn’t look up. She must have been about mid fifties, short, and skinny – probably from malnutrition. Her body was entirely obscured in rags of various articles of clothing – it was hard to see where one ended and another began, it appeared that as one piece of clothing worn down to the bare threads, she simply draped herself in another. The tips of her fingers protruded from filthy fingerless gloves and her equally grimy looking face, with a few strands of lank, greying hair dangling in front of it, were the only things that marked her out as being a human being.

“There is a bit of cash in it for you if you have any information, and probably a lot more if it helps me find him. Anton’s father is a very rich man, Hilda, you could do very well for yourself by helping me.”

“He ain’t here. He went to score and never came back. Took all the money I had, the son of a bitch.”

“But he was staying here?”

“Some nights, when he wasn’t getting high with that whore of his.”

“I know he came here to lie low, you took him in? This isn’t a great place for anyone to be.”

“He showed up here in his fancy clothes, with money in his pocket. More than most of us sees in a year. He had no idea. We sometimes get kids like that turn up, they don’t last long. Some of the guys here would rob you blind for everything you have, leave you beaten and bloody – sometimes they get a bit too rough, when that happens it’s not unusual for the body to get dumped in the river.”

“You didn’t want that to happen to Anton, you stuck your neck out to help him. Why?”

“My son. He looked a bit like him. Like he used to look, anyhows. I was being stupid and sentimental. So I kept the guys away from him, helped him blend in a little better. He still looked like the richest bum you’re ever likely to see, but it was enough to not get him robbed or killed around here.”

“That was good of you, Hilda. What happened after that?”

“Then the stupid fool took up with that whore at the drugs den. My God, he fell for her something bad, cheap piece of trash that she was. If it weren’t for her he wouldn’t have got himself hooked.”

“Heroin?”

“Yep. I drink. Too much. Every day. It’s killing me, I can feel it, bit by bit. But it’s nothing compared to what that shit does to you. What money he had he threw away on it, and scoring for her too. Then he had to go stealing to get the money he needed. I’ve stolen stuff. Food and booze mostly. But Anton went out and stole anything he could, anything he could sell. Some of the shit he brought back here to try and sell, it was crazy. Then the last time I saw him, he robbed me, after all I’d done for him. He couldn’t help himself. I knew he wouldn’t dare show his face around here again, he’d be crazy to, no-one would help him now.”

“Hilda, Anton is in trouble, some people turned up at the drugs den that night and took him away. He knew something he wasn’t supposed to, had been talking about it. What did he know?”

“He didn’t know shit. About anything. But he got obsessed with all this business about the people going missing around here. It was nothing but crazy talk.”

It might have been nothing but crazy talk to Hilda, but it was pretty much the only clue I had. I took out fifty dollars worth of bills and handed them to her.

“Please, Hilda, don’t worry about how crazy it seems, tell me what he’d been saying.”

“Well, people go missing here all the time, it ain’t nothing new. Most of the time no-one is keeping count, but lately, I don’t know, lots of people I knew have gone. Don’t know where – don’t know of any of them having got into fights with other guys here, that happens sometimes. Sometimes people get hurt. Sometimes they also end up in the river. But we always know about it when that happens, we know what goes on down here amongst ourselves. But this, it’s weird.”

“Did Anton know something about the disappearances?”

“He’d been with us about a couple of weeks. One of our regulars, ole’ Charlie, must have been in his sixties, been here longer than anyone can remember, he vanished one night. Anton said he saw something take him.”

“Did he know who?”

“Not who, Mr Jerome, what.”

“What? Was it an animal of some sort?”

“Anton said he saw some kind of creature, human looking - but not quite, he said it seemed to almost appear right out of the mist, it grabbed Charlie and carried him away – lifted him up like he weighed nothing, made no sound and moved quicker than anything he’d ever seen. And then Charlie was gone.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Well, it sounded as crazy to me as it does to you right now. But people keep going missing. Each of us here is wondering who might be next. And sometimes, some nights, out of the corner of my eye, I see things.”

“What do you see, Hilda?”

“Shapes. Moving against the dark. Funny looking figures. Sometimes I know it’s the wind, or just shadows, but sometimes...Sometimes I just know it ain’t. D’you ever have that feeling you’re being watched, Mr Jerome?”

“Rarely, it’s usually me who is being paid to do the watching.”

“That’s real cute. Well now, I’ve been sensing it a lot lately. Never used to, before all this started happening. But now, every night. I feel it right now. Do you, Mr Jerome?”

I followed her vacant gaze – across the embankment, into the gloom. It was an eerie place, I imagined that if a person stared long enough they could see anything out there, especially if they’d been pickling their brains in copious amounts of alcohol.

Somewhat disappointed, I thanked Hilda, chucked her a few more bills then hastily made my way out of there. I kept my distance from any of the other people as I walked away, just in case any of them decided to jump me, and I made a point of not particularly concealing the shoulder holster containing my gun.

I turned back to glance at Hilda one last time, I can’t have been for than fifty yards from where we had spoken. Her fire was still burning dimly, but without me hearing a single sound, she had gone. For a split second I thought saw movement, a brief shimmering of a shadow in the gloom. I began to get the feeling that someone or something might well be watching me, so I left the scene hurriedly.

I hailed the first available cab that passed by when I got back to the main road, but even as we sped back into the city sprawl, I couldn’t shake that feeling. It stayed with me right to the moment closed and double locked my apartment door behind me.

*

I’d never been a big drinker, but that night I needed a couple of large ones to help bring my nerves under control. I was normally extremely composed – I didn’t spook easy, this was unusual territory for me.

All the crazy talk, mysterious figures in the night, the number of times people were mentioning these inexplicable things, my earlier considerations towards vampires, and now, the eerie feeling that I had felt near the Old Portland Bridge, it was giving me a nervous disposition.

At about midnight I decided to turn in, I was finally feeling a bit more like myself. I put it down to the weird hours I’d been doing lately – burning the candle at both ends can take its toll.

I pretty much dropped off right away, only to be awoken my the ring from my telephone. I recall glancing at the clock and seeing it was just after 2am. Funny time to be getting a call.

“Hello.”

“Johnny. It’s Marcio.”

“Marcio, d’you know what the time is? What do you want?”

“Johnny, you need to watch your back, Vitalli knows you’re still sniffing around the Jameson case, he knows you didn’t heed his warning. You gotta’ drop it, Johnny, lie low for a while.”

I knew Marcio real well, we’d had dealings for many years, but never in that time had I heard him sound like that. He sounded quite genuinely afraid.

“Marcio, what’s going on?”

You need to be careful, Johnny, you-.”

The line went dead.

I stayed up a little, just to see if he tried to call me back, but no call arrived.

Eventually I headed back to bed, but sleep was a lot harder to come by second time. The events of the day kept repeating over and over again in my mind. For the first time ever, and it was ironic because normally it’s the people I’m searching for who end in these positions, I began to get the uneasy feeling that perhaps I had gotten in way over my head.

CHAPTER 6

There are few sounds more disorientating than that of police officers hammering at your front door at the crack of dawn. What a wake up call.

“Jerome! Get your lazy ass out of bed and open this God damn door!”

Lt Wails himself was hammering on my door, this already sounded like a whole heap of crap I could do without.

It was clear that the time it would take me to get even half dressed would be too much to save my door from being kicked in. In truth I wasn’t overly worried about my door, it’s wasn’t as if I couldn’t afford to have it replaced, but it wouldn’t go down well with my landlord to have the cops getting up to that kind of crap in their property. I opted for compromise and donned my dressing gown. This really sucked. No man about to face what was obviously going to be a confrontational situation could really pull off an air of control and authority whilst wearing a dressing gown.

I opened my door and there stood Wails, nostrils flared and eyes wild, alongside Glenn, looking as he usually did when he was in the company of the Lt – like he’d rather be elsewhere.

“Well good morning Lt Wails, Scotty, to what do I owe your atrociously timed and frankly irritating visit?”

“Shut your hole, Jerome. We are taking your sorry ass down to the station,” announced Wails with masses of overly dramatic bluster.

“Marcio Riccardo was found murdered early this morning, we need to ask you a few questions down town,” said Glenn, evidently destined to be the good cop today.

“Marcio, shit! He called me, about 2am.”

“No-one is surprised that that scumbag was an associate of yours, but now it’s a question of figuring out how much you really know about this. Right, Jerome?”

“I know only what you’ve told me, Lt. Are you going to arrest me?”

“Not if you come down the station with us voluntarily, Johnny. We just want to talk.”

“Well, if you’ll give me a minute, I trust you’ll permit me to put on some sensible attire?”

“Just get your ass ready and be outside in five minutes.”

I clocked Glenn’s expression as he rolled his eyes in exasperation of Wails. He’d used the word ‘ass’ three times in under a minute, always a bad sign. I’m pretty sure we both had the feeling it was going to be a long morning.

*

Being sat in an interview room brought back so many memories from my time on the force. However, I was a not exactly used to being the interviewee.

Glenn and Wails sat opposite me, both chain smoking. Being a non-smoker this was beginning to get on my nerves, but I was determined not to let it show.

“Right, where were you between the hours of 4 and 5am this morning?”

“Why, Lt Wails, I was tucked up in my bed like a good little boy.”

“Cut the crap, Jerome. You met up with Marcio Riccardo yesterday, when and where?”

“Around 11am, lower East side. In a bar that I believe none of us are supposed to know or talk about.”

Everyone knew of the Speakeasy, but as long as the mob paid its dues to the right people, no-one would ever do anything about it, so it remained neutral territory to mobsters, and off limits to the cops.

“What did you and Marcio discuss?” Glenn was doing his best to keep things moving and prevent Wails from getting too excited.

“My latest case, missing person. Anton Jameson, the lawyer’s son.”

“Richard Jameson? His son is missing? He hasn’t filed a report with us.”

“And he won’t. The kid was in some deep shit. Wouldn’t look good for the legal practice if it became common knowledge.”