Authors: Justen Hunter
I took the card and made it disappear into my apron. “Sure thing, Mr. Francis, anything
I can do to help.”
“Thanks, man.” Francis stood up, and left.
My manager came by as Francis left. “Now who was that?” Terry Simms was a plump black
man of about forty. He’d bought the bar a few years ago, and so far had proved to
be a pretty good boss. Tough, but fair, as it were.
“A private eye, boss.” I said. “He was asking after a patron of ours, someone I went
to class with, said she’s been missing since last week.”
“You remember anything?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t think of anything. Sam wasn’t really the type to get into
trouble, as far as I knew. A bit of a party gal, but I hadn’t really checked up with
her in a while.”
“Sam Coolidge?” He furrowed his brow. “Yea, I remember the gal. You two were dating
when you first started here.”
“Yea,” I nodded. “It's been a while. Apparently she's missing.”
“Ouch, hope it all turns out all right. In the mean time, go fill a few pitchers.
Table six is getting feisty.”
The rest of the night was a blur, like most nights were. By the time we closed, I
was bum tired. Terry went home early, leaving me to direct the rest of the staff in
cleaning up. At around one, I gathered up the garbage and went out back to the dumpster,
towing with me one of the waitresses, a tiny brunette named Jennifer.
Jennifer had decided that, since I had a pulse, I needed to hear about her new boyfriend
who lacked one. I’d never been fond of vampires, mostly because they gave me the creeps,
but I wasn’t racist either. Like most liberal-minded people, I supported Arcane rights.
It didn’t mean I wanted to hear about vampire sex.
“Jen?” I sighed as I brought out the last bag. “When did humans become old news?”
“Well, hey, dead’s the new black.” She said. “Darius is so-“
I lost my composure and laughed. “Darius? Wow. I…I don’t even know how to come back
from that.”
“You don’t have to be like that.” She grumbled.
“Sorry, just seems a little funny when I hear some of the names vamps come up with.
Come on, let’s get the trash out. I want to go home.” I hefted four bags over to the
dumpster, and flipped it open.
It took me a minute to process what I saw, and I nearly just dumped the bags in through
a force of habit. “Ah, hell.” I dropped the bags.
“Eric?” She furrowed her brow. “Eric, what’s wrong?” She hopped up to look into the
dumpster, as she was too short to just peer in. “Oh, my God!” Her face started to
turn green.
I shook my head. “Jen? Jen, I need you to stay cool, all right?”
“Cool!
What the hell? That’s…”
“Jen, go inside, and call 911. Don’t get excited, just tell them exactly what we found.
You hear me?” She nodded. “Good. Now, go call the cops.”
I looked back to the dumpster, and fought an urge to be sick myself.
Raymond Francis’s dead beady eyes stared up at me. There went my night.
The police got there in about twenty minutes. The initial officer who showed up was
a uniformed patrolman who called in the cavalry. I watched as I was ushered off to
the street, given coffee and one of those shock blankets by another officer, and was
told to wait. The coffee, I could appreciate. I’d never understood the blanket, though.
I wasn’t cold by any means. why did I need a blanket?
I don’t remember how long I waited. My only way of tracking time was my phone, which
sat in my cubby.
Finally, a plainclothes officer, a tall Latino with a shaved head, approached me.
He wore a t-shirt, jeans, and a canvas jacket over it. He offered his hand out, which
was big and calloused. “Mister Carpenter? I’m Detective-Inspector Hernandez, Homicide.”
I shook his hand. “Hi, Inspector. I guess you’ve got questions?”
His rough features broke a smile. “I know this has got to be tough, finding the body
like that, but I just need a few minutes.”
After the initial shock, it had pretty much been a numbness in me that had met the
fact that I’d seen a dead body. How the hell do you react to that? “Of course, Inspector.
Go ahead.”
“Thanks. Now, you work here at Cameron's?” He asked as he flipped open a notepad.
“Yea, I’m the senior bartender here.” That got him to look up from his notepad. “I’ve
been working here three years, and I’m the only one who’s stuck around for any length
of time. One or two of the guys are older than me, though they only work weekends.”
“All right…And you found the body at about one?” I nodded in reply. “Can you describe
it?”
“Well, I was going out to take out the trash, and, well, bam. Opened up the dumpster,
and there Mr. Francis was.”
“You knew him? We couldn’t find any ID on him. Someone had taken his wallet and phone.”
“Yea, his name was Raymond Francis, he said. He was a private investigator. He came
in earlier this evening, asking about a missing persons case.”
Hernandez made me relate all of what happened. Finally, he asked. “Did he mention
anything regarding vampires or anything?”
“Vampires?” I shook my head. “Uh, no. Why?”
“Sorry, I can’t divulge that.” The inspector said. “If you remember anything else,
just contact us. Here’s my card.” And for the second time that night, a detective
gave me his card. I stowed this one in my back pocket.
“Oh, hey,” I reached into my apron's pocket, and pulled out Francis's card. “Here,
he gave me this.”
“'Thanks, Mister Carpenter.” Hernandez took the card and whisked it away into one
of the many pockets of his coat.
I got dismissed, and I went back to the bar. Almost immediately when I entered the
bar, all the waitresses swarmed me. “What did they say?” “Who was that guy?” “Did
you grab that detective’s number?”
I was way too tired for gossip. “God, I am not going to contribute to your imaginations.
This is a police investigation now, for crying out loud.” I walked my way back to
the office, where I grabbed my wallet, phone and back pack. I couldn’t go out the
back way, as that was now a crime scene, so I went out front and left the job of closing
to the head cook.
It was two-thirty by the time I hit the street. I walked home, as always. I didn’t
like driving in San Francisco, for the most part, and I was terrible on a bike. Walking
accomplished most things just as easily.
I made it home, eventually. Home was a four-story apartment building, with my dwelling
on the third floor. The elevator wasn’t working ever, so I hoofed it up the flights
of stairs to the third floor.
I live in a small apartment. It consists of a main room, where my futon served as
bed and main piece of furniture, a kitchen, and a bathroom. By most standards, I was
ripped off for what I paid for it, but it was San Francisco. It was a given you were
ripped off living here. I didn’t bother turning out the lights, instead just letting
my exhaustion take over the minute my head hit the futon.
I didn’t dream, often. Or maybe my dreams just weren’t worth remembering. I heard
my phone’s alarm blare out the theme of the sixties Batman show. “Na-na na-na na-na
na-na na-na Batman!”
It took me a few moments to, in my foggy state, slide my fingers in the pattern that
would turn the thing off.
A voice came from my kitchen. “Dude, that is possibly the loudest alarm I’ve heard
in my life.”
I blinked myself to vision, glad I’d kept the blinds closed. “That’s sort of the point,
Matt.” I said, looking to the kitchen.
Matt was standing in the kitchen. Matt was a tall guy, matching my six-four, though
he was built more solid than I was. He had a mixing bowl full of cereal in one hand,
a spoon in the other. Mentally, I regretted ever giving him a key. I didn't need people
sneaking into my place in the crack of unholy morning.
“Yea, yea,” He rolled his eyes. “You sleep like a freaking brick. How else could I
get into your apartment, make breakfast, and eat half of it without you noticing?”
“Point.” I stood up, and ran a hand to sweep my hair back from my eyes. I grabbed
my jogging clothes, a t-shirt and shorts, and went into the bathroom to change. Breakfast
consisted of raisin bran and orange juice. “You know, I didn’t eat like this before
I came to San Francisco.”
“Yea, yea, Mister ‘Home-grown country boy.’” Matt teased. “Your grandpa did the steak
and eggs route. Come on, eat your bran and drink your OJ. We’ve got miles to run.”
We were about thirty minutes into the jog when Matt brought up the body. “So, what
happened at the bar?”
“Oh.” I sighed. “Some detective got killed and dumped in our garbage.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Dude, I love the gossip. So, what was up with it?”
“The detective was asking around about that one gal from college, Samantha Coolidge.
I didn’t know much, so I saw him for all of, like, two minutes.” He said. “You want
gossip, talk to the gals.
I’ll just give you cold facts.”
“Spoil sport.” He said. “Samantha, wasn’t she the one after, uh...?”
“Yea,” I nodded. I’d had a lot more of a social life back then. There had also been
a brief point when I'd been engaged. That was ancient like Babylon now. “Ah, way back
when. We were all so bright and cheery back then.”
“Tell me about it.” Matt said. “Hey, are you working tonight?”
“Naw, my night off. I was planning on heading to the bookstore tonight and just being
a shut-in after picking up something new.”
“Seriously? You get a night off, and you want to stay at home and read?”
“Better than what you do, man. Well, at least for me. I’m not the party type. Give
me a nice book, a few beers, and a burger any day. Besides, I saw a dead body last
night. Last thing I want to do is go party.”
Matt laughed at that. “Hey, all right. I won’t judge. But, will you live at least
a little by chatting up that cute redhead who works the counter?”
I found myself rolling my eyes. I didn’t share Matt’s one-track mind towards women.
In fact, I’d had a good period of my life when they just plain couldn’t be in the
picture. I blanched a little. After close to going on three years now of self-imposed
solitude, Matt had decided to play yenta for me.
I fell back on my usual answer. “No promises.” Ah, the hermit life. Way of the great
ones and idiots.
By the time we were done with the run, I was wondering about going back to sleep.
It had been a long night, and I never slept well. Matt grabbed a shower at my place
and headed off to his job at the school district.
When I was done showering, there was a message on my phone from Inspector Hernandez,
telling me what precinct he would be at, if I remembered anything more. I wrote down
the address and deleted the message.
My afternoon mostly consisted of me trying to clean up around the apartment. It wasn’t
a big place, but hey, I was a twenty-five year old bachelor. You’d be amazed at the
mess I could amass.
It was about two in the afternoon by the time I went out and grabbed lunch. I was
in the middle of a burrito when my phone started playing the Ghostbusters theme. Work.
“This is Eric.” I answered.
“Eric, it’s Terry.” Something was up. I never got called on my days off, unless…
“Who bailed out tonight?”
“It’s Jared. Self-important jackass got himself off to Vegas.”
I rolled my eyes. Great. Self-important jackass was just about right. “I can be at
the bar in twenty. You owe me like nothing ever before.” I said.
“Lunch rush is almost over. I can handle until the evening. Just get here by four
so you can work tonight. Okay?
“Gotcha, boss. Later.” I ended the call. Well, there shot my evening with a nice fat
book. I still had a few hours, at least. I decided to make the most of it and head
down to the bookstore.
~
Pacific Books is everything I want in a bookstore. They have a good selection, no
coffee shop, and generally no kids running around. Just a lot of tall shelves, books,
and some friendly employees.
I’d had a standing affair with books since before I could read. I had been raised
by my paternal grandparents, a kindly southern couple who lived in a town that was
barely on most maps.
My grandfather had, back in his hey day, done some acting work. He’d abandoned those
dreams to start a family when he married, but he still liked to hold onto it. It had
started when I was younger, reading from fairy tales. He loved to do the voices, and
he was wickedly good.
As soon as I could convince my grandfather to teach me how to read, I’d buried my
nose in whatever books I could find. I made quick work of the Red River Public Library
when I was younger. When I’d gotten into high school, the wonders of online shopping
had captivated me, and I’d spent more than one paycheck completely on books at my
first part-time job.