I’m working abnormally fast. It took me less than three days to get a full outline and I’m already writing the story. Killer Pete took forever to outline and even longer to write. This one is flowing. I’ve learned to be happy for small, good things like having a story flow. Once again, I have decided to write stories with different styles. KP was quite plain. This one, not so much. I hope you enjoy.
The back room was small, mean, and without music. A single bulb sagged from the ceiling, swinging on its cord as if trying to hang itself. Shadows clotted in the corners, thick as coal. Benny Strake sat tied to a chair that creaked like it objected, his head low, blood and sweat leaking into his collar. Outside, the fog pressed its cold, wet snout to the window, eager to cover this sin from the world.
The light in the room was mostly blocked by the lug who’d been pounding Benny’s face. When the brute moved, the glare returned—sickly, yellow, unfeeling. The lug was Viktor. Other than the scar slashing from temple to jaw, his face was a blank ledger. A pair of coiled steel-cable arms bulged through his charcoal overcoat. He breathed through his mouth, each exhale a wet clap like a hammer on meat.
Next to him stood his partner. Thin, sallow, almost jaundiced, the man’s skin had a yellowish sheen like paper held too close to a flame. His cheeks hollowed inward, deep shadows carving pits beneath eyes set too far back. A sharp, birdlike nose jutted from the center of his skull. He didn’t smile—he giggled, a high, horrible sound that wriggled under your skin.
They called him Rollo Vasovagel, or Rollo the Rat—but not because he squealed to the cops. He was rat-faced and raisin-headed.
Benny opened his good eye while the other stayed sealed shut, puffed purple with blood. He coughed it up red.
“Stop…wait.”
“Wait for what?” Rollo leaned forward, all teeth and tremor. “You got an extra pocket we ain’t searched? Knowing you, it’s empty. Maybe some lint.” He giggled. “Who am I joshing? You can’t afford lint. Ain’t that right, Vik?”
Viktor’s agreement came out as a grunt halfway between a breath and a cough.
“I’ll get it,” Benny rasped. “I swear.”
“Swear to what? God? You see any collars here?”
“I—”
“Nah, nah, nah. You did this all by your lonesome, Benny. Cause three weeks back, you got a nice visit.” Rollo’s head tilted back; his purple lip twitched like a worm. “Mr. Denmore.”
“Denmore nice,” Viktor grunted, his voice a blunt instrument.
“That’s right, Vik. Mr. Denmore’s a very nice man. He said please and thank you. After that came Jimmy Phelps. Not so nice. Stepped on your foot, told you to watch your step. And now you got us. The last stop in hell.”
Viktor nodded, slow as geology. “Hell.”
“See, Benny boy, we bought your debt. It belongs to us. You belong to us.”
“I’ll get it, please.”
“Oh, you’ll get it,” said Rollo. “We ain’t gonna step on your toes. We’re just gonna take something smaller. A pinkie. Finger or toe, we’ll let you decide.”
Benny’s throat made a sound like a match scratching. “Don’t cut me. I can run some short con at the pier. Make it real fast. But not if you cut me.”
Rollo grinned, that half-moon smile stretching too far. “You hear that, Vik? He’s a bargain shopper. What do you recommend, Benny?”
“Just break the left pinkie.”
Rollo rubbed his hands together, the rasp of skin on skin like sandpaper over bone. “You heard the man, Vik.”
Viktor took Benny’s hand the way a butcher handles a cut of meat. There was a sound—sharp, wet, final.
Benny screamed.
Rollo waited for the echo to die. “You oughta try solving that blonde-killer mess. If you give the coppers information that leads to the murderer’s arrest, you get a reward. $5000.”
Benny stood like the last tooth in a bum’s grin. “Yeah. Good one. I’m no detective. You know that, Rollo.”
He leaned close, voice soft as dust. “What I know is if you don’t have the money in a week, you won’t need to worry about debt no more. You’ll be worrying about heaven or hell.”
Viktor moaned, “Hell.”
Benny grabbed his hat with his injured claw. “Thanks Rollo. Vik.”
James Scott Byrnside 