THUGLIT Issue Two (11 page)

Scanlon came up with a
nother patrolman walking beside
him. “I’ve got to talk to you kid,” he said.

The cop with Scanlon took over directing traffic. Scanlon led me to a diner on the corner. We sat at a booth and ordered coffee.

“Payback time for us squaring you with Lester,” he said, pouring cream into his mug.

I said, “I appreciate you getting me off the hook. I’d do anything to help you out.”

“I don’t know how the county got involved, but somehow they beat us to the crime scene.” Scanlon took a toothpick from the pocket of his uniform shirt. “They’ve been asking questions, making a nuisance out of themselves. Someone said they saw a large guy leaving the office after midnight last night.”

“It’s good that we have a lead to work on,” I took a sip of my coffee.

“The county investigator somehow got it into his head this person was me.” Scanlon pushed his hat back on his head, picked at his teeth with the toothpick.

“Why would they think that?”

“How the hell should I know? I’ve got an alibi, rock solid. But…well, I’m a married man, and my alibi could cause me a shitload of marital problems. The county investigators are going to get around to you eventually. It’s a lot to ask, but I want you to say I was on patrol with you last night, filling in for the guy who called out.”

I stared into the coffee. “That is a lot to ask.”

“I’ve already talked to the dispatcher. She’s gonna backdate the paperwork. I know you didn’t have any calls last night, so there’s no one to say we weren’t together.”

Scanlon pulled the toothpick out of his mouth, placed it in front of his eyes, inspecting it like there was something important on the end of it.

“I don’t know, Scanlon.”

“Here comes the investigator now.” Scanlon put the toothpick in the ashtray and got up. “I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it if you’d do me this favor.”

The county investigator glared at Scanlon as he passed him on the way to my booth. He spread out a folder in front of me and took the seat Scanlon had just vacated.

“You’ve been on the force over half a year now, hopefully not long enough for the rot to set in,” he said.

I glanced at the folder.

“If I was you, I’d be wondering how us county guys beat you to a murder in your own backyard. We’ve had our eye out on this town for a while. Funny things happen here all the time. Peop
le disappear off the boardwalk."

I stayed silent and put my eyes onto my coffee cup.

He sighed and went on. "It’d take Einstein forming a new law of relativity to figure out how the budget gets cut up. They closed down the historic carousel last year, decided to unload the forty original horses. Nearly four
hundred
horses somehow galloped their way onto the antique market.”

I looked back at the papers in his folder. Mostly news clippings and an official-looking report.

“The guy who found the body says Scanlon’s been fighting with his boss for months now over a piece of dockside real estate that's been giving some ferry service execs a hard-on. The Mayor outbid him.”

“Scanlon’s personal life is none of my business,” I said.

The investigator snatched up the folder. “Word is, Scanlon was on patrol with you last night.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Got to think it over kid? I understand.” He handed me a card. “It’s tough to cross the khaki line. You take a day or two, get your head screwed on straight, then you give me a call.”

I stood up with him. He looked me up and down, said, “Your uniform looks like a runny shit. The county guys look like they’re about to ship off to Iraq. I could get you into a custom-fit one if you do the right thing.”

I relieved the guy directing traffic. Scanlon was spread out in the front seat of a parked squad car, head swiveled around, talking to Lester in the back seat.

*****

I got in early for my shift so I could talk to Scanlon, to tell him to his face that I couldn’t back him up. One of my fellow officers said the county boys had him over to their office in Freehold to answer a couple of questions. He wasn’t under arrest, just cooperating with the investigation.

I called him on his cell phone. He answered on the third ring.

I said, “I wanted to tell you in person, but I thought you should know as soon as possible. I can’t back you up on this.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Then Scanlon said, “I’m a little disappointed, but it’s not that big a deal really. I’ll just go to my original alibi, and hope my wife doesn’t file for divorce.”

“I’ll make it up to you somehow. I promise.”

“Don’t sweat it kid. It was too much to ask. One thing though. I need a little breathing space here so I can figure things out. Could you wait till tomorrow afternoon before you talk to any of the county guys?”

“I can do that Scanlon.”

“Thanks.  Don’t worry about this mess. I like you. You’re a good cop.”

*****

The call came in a little after midnight: a prowler in the abandoned fish factory on the bay. We were out there at least twice a week rousting kids hosting keggers, or homeless people starting cooking fires.

The guy who I usually worked with had called out sick again, so I was by myself. I radioed in my position, then moved the loose boards covering the decayed office section. I swept the abandoned hallways and empty offices with my flashlight. The first floor was empty, but I thought I heard something scuffling on the floor above me.

I identified myself as a police officer. Maybe whoever was up there would just take off and save me a hassle. I climbed up the stairs to the second level and started checking offices.

I pinned someone with the light in the second room, got my pistol out as a bullet slammed into my chest. I got a couple off before Lester and I dropped to the floor simultaneously, his gun landing by me.

It was a .38; black with a handle that looked like it had been carved out of driftwood. It was once wedged behind the tire in my patrol car. There were two rounds in it when I cracked it opened.

I did the math.

*****

The siren stops outside. H
arsh voices through the boarded-
up window, can’t make out what they’re saying. I take a drag. The foul taste is the only thing keeping me conscious. I cough a rain of ash and a fine mist of blood on the name between the talons on my police badge.

b
y
Buster Willoughby

These shitty goth kids are all excited about the show next door. I guess they're excited. I can never really tell, but they are talking about it a lot. I hate these people. They show up anytime a certain band plays the club next door. Their music sounds like the mother that Morrissey never had screaming at the top of her lungs. It's like a mating call for these kids with stupid names like Loki and Salem. They all invade the little cafe that serves as my inner sanctum after work. This is the only place in this town where I can get a decent sandwich and cup of coffee for cheap.

I've been coming here for a couple of years now. The girl back in the kitchen was previously a customer at the Rental Center I work at. She stopped paying her bill and I had to hunt her down here at work and threaten her with legal action to get our Apple computer back. Eventually I just ended up breaking into her house and stealing it. It made things awkward the first few times I showed up, but I'm a sucker for a good chicken salad sandwich and a cheap cup of coffee.

I'm essentially a repo man who has to wear a blue polo shirt. The only other difference being no one brings me any information about who I'm looking for. So most of the time I end up having to do some digging around online or out in the neighborhoods to find who I want. I've even acquired a group of snitch informers who in turn get free time on rented shit that they'll probably pawn for anhydrous money so they can make hillbilly meth.

My reflections upon my chosen career are interrupted as I notice some bitch-made art school reject standing over me. "Can I help you, Lord Draykor?"

"It's Magik. With a K," he informs me with a flip of his long black hair. I'm kind of surprised he can do two things at once.

"Well, my name is Dogshit, Magik. What do I need to do to get you to leave me the fuck alone for the rest of my life?" I ask.

"You've got the chess board. Would you like to play a game or do you want to be an asshole?"

I suck at chess. I really do. But so help me, I love it. If you put me in front of a person, nine times out of ten I could tell you everything about the fucker. I can spot a lie a mile away, and I can read people better than they can hide themselves.
Except
I'm not for shit at guessing what people are going to do next or even noticing what the hell it is they're up to at the moment when you put them on a chess board. But I still love this game. I think it helps me relax. It's the only time I'm not constantly being bombarded with useless information about even more useless people. I can get lost in the mystery of a person like I imagine everyone else is in real life. Tonight I'm getting lost in the mystery of Magik.

"So, what's the name of this band you guys are all going to see tonight?" I ask. I would say halfheartedly but even that would be a stretch.

"Grim Moir," he replies as he moves the board to the center of the table and sets his black pieces.

I move my knight and look up at my opponent with genuine excitement about his first move. He pushes a pawn towards the center of the board two spaces forward. I push one of my own a space ahead as he starts to describe the band I can hear sound-checking next door.

"It's like if Cradle of Filth and Nightwish had been mixed together and raised on—"

"Why do you spell it that way?" I interrupt, bored to tears by the conversation already.

"It's the proper spelling of druidic magik," he fidgets with his bishop. "Plus, it makes it more serious."

"Are you talking about Aleister Crowley?" I ask to hide a laugh.

"Who?"

"Never mind." I lean back and take a drink of coffee and fidget with my cigarette lighter. I'm not as mad at this kid as I would be, had this conversation played out anywhere other than over a chess board.

Several minutes pass in silence as Magik starts taking and collecting white pieces on his side of the board. He's lit a clove cigarette, and the smell of his pagan holiday is giving me a headache. I light one of my own cigarettes and hope the smoke filling my lung and nostrils will drown out the scent of his. I get my coffee touched up as the woman makes her rounds. I'm sure she spit it in it. I take a long gulp to try and get the saliva all in one drink.

"You know about Crowley?" I hear a woman ask behind me. I turn around, caught off guard by the sound, and catch the eyes of the most haunted-looking woman in the room. We're mere inches apart and I can feel her hot breath on my face. For a moment neither of us moves. I'm still too shocked to think about pulling my face out of this woman's personal space, and she apparently just doesn't give a shit. Next door I can hear someone plucking at the strings of an electric guitar right up on the nut. It sounds like harp being tuned inside the sleaziest slum alley in Guttertown.

"Uh, yeah," I reply as I pull away from her. She's older than these kids. Not like, "so old it's weird to be at this place," but she's been out of high school for at least half a decade. She has that look in her eyes that people get when they realize the world isn't what they thought it was. College dropout I would guess. "Sorry," I manage after a moment, "I'm—"

"Dogshit, it's your move," Magik interrupts.

"What are you doing here?"
I ask her. She's wearing a low-
cut early 1960's looking blouse and a knee-high skirt. I feel my brain physically trying to pry my eyes off her tits. Her eyelids are lowered like some kind of predator behind her tiny glasses. I can't tell if she wears them prescribed or as some kind of fashion statement. I watch her crooked lips as she starts to answer my awkward question.

"What? I don't look like a Grim Moir fan?" She lets the words trail off from her lowered eyebrows so that the sarcasm has time to catch up to me. I'm in the middle of mumbling something stupid when she continues unheeded, "I'm a writer," she points towards he
r laptop. "I'm doing a review of
their new album and have an interview after the show. Anyway, you were talking about Crowley?"

"Yeah, I thought Wizard here—"

"Magik," he corrects me.

"I thought he got his name from the old Crowley books or something."

"Do you believe in magic?" s
he asks me with a tilt of her head. I'm not sure how she meant it to be spelled. The harsh light of the cheap-ass coffee shop illuminates her dark brown skin. Every imperfection in her face is visible. She knows it and she doesn't care. I've never been more turned on.

"No," I can't help but laugh a little. "No, I've just read some stuff about the guy. I also really like the X-Files."

"That's too bad," she says like a mother withholding candy from a child. "I bet you would if you didn't already have a spell cast on you."

"Yeah, I've got this shaman next door. He hates that I blare my Black Flag records so late at night."

"Seriously," she says with laugh, "we've all had it cast on us. It's easier to learn magic than it is to get that first spell out of you." One of her teeth is crooked. I want to fuck her until we both die. "Do you mind?" she asks reaching towards my cigarettes.

"So, what is this spell we've got on us and how do I get rid of it?"

"It's cynicism." She takes a long first drag off the end of the cigarette as she closes up her laptop bag and starts towards the door. I feel myself getting up to follow her without hesitation. I can hear Magik shouting something about our chess game behind us, but at this point I’ve lost all interest in anything that isn’t the woman leading me out of the coffee shop.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," the doorbell chimes as we exit the cafe. "It's a warding spell. A wording spell. You heard that from the moment you had to interact with people outside of your immediate, loving family,” she bows as I hold the creaky old screen door open for her.

"So, my mother was a witch? That's what you're getting at? I knew that already. She rented
Practical Magic
like every weekend."

"It's been passed down to the point where we forget what it means, but it's in us. Like Humpty Dumpty being an egg."

I thought about it for a moment. "Wait, why is that fucker an egg?"

"The point is there are social constructs we just accept. And one of them is that words can't hurt us, and isn't that pretty much all magic is? Words. Spelling and spells. Wording and warding."

"I guess, this seems a bit college-y for me." At this point I realize she's led me down the street to some back alley between a thrift store and a barber shop, both of which are closed. She hikes her skirt up and her eyes motion me forward. She drops the laptop bag and we fuck like human beings were meant to fuck. I have never felt more alive.

"You can't get rid of it until you stop believing it," she whispers between grunts. Just down the road, the sound of synthesizers is whirring a bunch of mall brats into a frenzy. Her words are otherworldly seductive. I guess anything would be if it was whispered in your ear while you're balls deep in a beautiful girl. "Don't you want to get rid of it now?" she asks.

It's getting harder to form complete sentences. My knees are grinding against a brick wall, but I can't feel anything below my waist. "Why are you doing this now?" I manage to ask.

"You're open to suggestion right now," she lets out a sharp cry, "this is one of the weakest moments your rational brain will have all day."

"This is the weakest moment I've had in a long time," I stutter.

"There is no such thing as coincidence and words can hurt you," she whispers. It is the single sexiest thing I've ever heard. I feel like a fucking head case for thinking that. "Now, fuck me like you own me, white boy."

I'm spent. My body collapses over the top of this majestic sex warlock. I feel like my sweat isn't fit to fall on her skin but I can't help but stay where I am, breathing her in with every rapid heartbeat. She's laughing, but not one of those "Aw, you poor thing," laughs. It's a legitimate "What
a nice time we just had
" laugh.

"So, what do you do?" she asks as I fumble around with my jeans.

"I break into homes and take things people forget to pay for."

"That sounds like fun."

"Well, most of the time if I manage to find them they just give it back. Some of them cry."

"So, you're like a private eye repo man?"

"If you want to get romantic about it," I riffle through my pockets until I produce a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. I do the gentlemanly thing and light us both one. "So, am I going to be affected by voodoo dolls and star formations now?"

"Only if you believe you will," she answers as she takes a cigarette. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a band that needs to prattle on about how they sound like their influences, but so much more," the venom in the words is audible.

"Would you want to meet up after?" I ask like a kid who just found his prom date.

"Sure," she laughs, "I'll be here. Come by around eleven."

I can feel my heart in my throat as she walks away. I want to bash my brains in with a claw hammer so that I can die on top of the world. Instead I take another drag from my cigarette and mutter, "God damn."

Walking back to my car, I spot a Rental Center van in the parking lot. Disappointment wells up inside my being. A big, white, bald head pokes out from the window. "Hey, asshole! I need you for a little bit," my coworker Mike shouts to me.

"I'm off, dude, no dice."

"It's the Flener account, man! I called those numbers you dug up and they live inside a church. This is so your kind of thing. Breaking into a church? C'mon, man."

A big part of me wants
to
tell him to fuck off so I can
go watch some shitty goth band and wait for my magic instructor to get done fulfilling her Rolling Stone obligations or what
ever. But the bigger part wants
to break into a church and take things away from people of God.
I ca
n't pass on that.

"Alright, you worthless fuck! Count me in, but call the office and have them clock my time. I'm not doing this shit for free."

I can hear Mike laughing as he leans across the van and unlocks the passenger side door. We drive down the road towards an old Catholic church that I've never seen anyone visit or heard anyone talk about in all my years in this town. I'd been hunting these people down for the past two weeks. After a bunch of disconnected burner phone lines and vacated domicile premises, I found an old meth buddy of theirs who said they were staying in a church around town. I'd narrowed it down to a couple of places that took in strays and this abandoned old place.

"We called all the churches that take in the homeless at night and told them we were worried family memb
ers trying to locate the Flener
s. They weren't in any of the ones we had found but I overheard some shit on the police scanner last night. Cop called in a trespassing when he saw a few people run into this place, but the operator had him ig
nore it because some suspicious-
looking Hindu guys were driving down the wrong side of a one-way street. This has got to be them."