Acts of Violence (2 page)

The drive took
about ten minutes. Every time we stopped at traffic lights, the shard gun would
rise a little. The cop’s finger would get tighter on the trigger. Holt would
turn and smirk at me. I’d do my best to not even blink. Just in case. These
cuffs had to come off sometime and I didn’t want to be charged with killing a
cop too.

Eventually, we
pulled off the road. Into the yard of the police precinct. Three cops stood
outside in the rain, waiting. Their windbreakers glistened. They looked tense. Each
gripped a shotgun. They’d been told exactly what kind of monster was being
brought in.

The cruiser pulled
up near them. Holt didn’t take his eyes off me while the driver got out. The
rain drummed gently on the car’s roof. The smell of sewage was renewed through the
open door. That was the stink of the Harem Police Department.

My door opened. The
driver stood back and told me to get out. He wasn’t going to touch me. Not with
the shock cuffs on me. If Holt decided to have some more fun, he didn’t want to
get shocked too.

I carefully climbed
out. Holt followed suit. Stayed level with me until we were both standing in
the rain. It was a warm rain. The air between the drops was stuffy.

I had an idea how
this was going to go. There was nothing I could do, though, so I tried not to think
about it. Thinking about it wouldn’t change it. I tried to stay in the present.
Somehow, the pattering on the tarmac increased the nerves I was trying to
control. Maybe it was so gentle and relaxed, it just reminded me that my
foreseeable future wouldn’t be either of those things. Or maybe I just knew
that if Holt shocked me again while I was wet, it would hurt a lot more. I
liked the idea that, if he did, I’d lunge at him and let him share the
sensation. But I wouldn’t. I’d be on the ground before I knew what was
happening. Like an epileptic puppet with cut strings.

‘Get him inside,’ a
voice said. It was one of the detectives. They’d pulled up behind us. I hadn’t
noticed. So much for staying in the present.

Holt smirked for
the hundredth time. He held up the little bracelet. Nodded towards the big
metal door into the precinct. I started walking. The three shotguns followed me
carefully. The driver was already at the door, and pulled it open. Kept one
hand on his pistol grip.

Inside was cooler. It
smelled of bleach and coffee.

‘Take him straight
to interview two.’ That was the same detective. He had a distinctive voice. It
was kind of wheezy, but strong. He could yell like a drill sergeant when he
wanted.

Someone had their
hand on my shoulder now, directing me down the white corridor. We turned a
corner. The corridor went down past a few offices. Cops stood in every doorway,
waiting to get a look at me. I felt like a celebrity. A celebrity that everyone
wants to see hanged with his own bootlaces in a dirty cell. It felt like they
were going to start applauding any second, but one by one they disappeared back
into their offices or sat back down at their desks.

I was pushed to a
door. Faded golden lettering told me this was interview room two. The door’s
veneer was peeling at the bottom. There was a dent in the middle, with a crack
in it. Someone’s face had probably done that.

The door sat ajar.
Whoever had his hand on me opened it with my chest and face. But it was a light
door. Didn’t hurt like he’d probably hoped.

The hand
immediately grasped me again. Dragged me to a metal chair bolted to the floor.
Pushed me into it. I didn’t bother to check whom the hand belonged to. Probably
Holt, but it didn’t matter.

Behind me,
footsteps disappeared back into the corridor and the door slammed shut.

Was I alone? There
was no sound in the room. No more footsteps behind me.

A cream folder
slapped down on the table from over my shoulder. It had the intended effect. I
jumped an inch off the chair.

The detective stepped
around the desk. Took his time. The hard soles of his boots thumped in the
quiet. He pulled out the chair on the other side. Scraped it along the floor.
It screeched. Set my teeth on edge. I couldn’t stop the shudder.

I’d been determined
to play it cool. I was playing it anything but.

He sat. White,
about fifty, in shape. Except for a healthy bulge of the stomach. And familiar.
Not just from earlier this morning. Something about the creased face told me he
smoked too much. Detective Lawrence. The man with a first name for a last name.

‘Jack Mason,’ he
wheezed. Said it like he was seeing an old acquaintance again after a long
time. An acquaintance he didn’t like. That was about the truth, actually.

Lawrence placed a
battered datapad on the table in front of him. Beside it, he put a clear
evidence box. Slid that into the middle. I could sit and stare at the evidence
of my misdeeds while he took his time getting ready. I could sit and wonder if
there was any way out of it this time.

Next, he held his
thumb to a patch on the desk. Words spread out across the surface. They were
upside down to me, but I could see that it was his name as interviewer, my name
as suspect, and the time: 11.57am.

‘Place your hands
palms down on the table, Jack.’ He tapped a green circle on the table display
and my cuffs popped open.

There was probably
some kind of gravity device under the table that would pull me hard to the
floor if I tried anything. Or maybe blast me against the wall or the ceiling. I
put my palms on the table, each on top of the outline of a hand. Restraints
folded out of the table and over my wrists. They were meant to be rubber coated,
but the rubber had worn partly on one and completely on the other.

Lawrence leaned
back. The chair creaked. He stared at me. Probably wanted me to get nervous. I
was, but he wasn’t going to make it worse. I looked at the upside down timer on
his side of the table. Thirty-two seconds had already passed.

He leaned forward
again. Reached for the evidence box. I followed his hand as he slid the lid off
and rifled through the contents. The hand came back out with my badge between
his index and middle fingers. He regarded it for a moment as though it were the
morning paper comic strip. Then he set it down beside the box.

‘Harem Police
Department,’ he said. He was staring into my eyes again. ‘Funny, I thought you
hadn’t made it through the academy. Did you go back, Jack?’

The scanner in the
table would have picked up the increased heart rate, tensed muscles and
clenched jaw.

‘You didn’t invite
me to the graduation,’ he continued. ‘I could have bought you a beer after. For
old times’ sake.’ Clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. ‘Which precinct are you in? There’s
only two in Harem and it can’t be this one. I think I’d have seen you around.
What precinct would let in a killer?’

The timer said two
minutes thirty. Didn’t feel so long. The time was flying by. Soon I’d be
strapped to a chair with a needle in my arm. Time wouldn’t matter much then. But
it wasn’t the timer that drew my eye. It was the little red flash. That flash
told Lawrence he was too close to crossing into a closed case. The scans during
that question would still be counted for or against me, but a good lawyer could
get that thrown out. Harem didn’t have any good lawyers.

But the question
wasn’t for the sake of the scanner. Or any court. It was just for me.

‘You’re not a cop,
Jack. Why did we find a police badge in your jacket?’

‘Nostalgia.’ I
wasn’t helping myself.

‘Are you “Officer
Mason” or “Detective Mason” when you illegally impersonate a police officer?
Maybe you’re “Chief of Detectives Mason”.’

‘That’s a hurtful
allegation. Who says I’ve impersonated a police officer?’ I had. Often. But the
kind of hoods I usually flashed the badge at weren’t the kind of people to
report me to the real cops. And Lawrence had no cause to check in Webster’s
club yet. The identification would have told him he’d need to look there next
though.

Lawrence smiled. He
wasn’t amused. ‘Well I’m sure we can come back to that later.’

‘And I’m sure we
will.’

‘The reason I’ve
asked you here today is to tell me a story.’ He leaned back. The chair creaked.

‘Is it your bedtime
already? I think I remember one about an elephant who lost his balloon…’

‘The one I’m
thinking of is more like a murder mystery. Except without much mystery. See, I
know bits of the story. I just want you to fill in the blanks for me. I know
the setting. I know the characters. I know the how. I know the when. I even
know the ending. Spoiler alert,’ he held the back of his hand to his mouth and
lowered his voice. ‘It ends with a lethal injection for the villain. What I’d
like you to tell me is the why.’

Six minutes and
thirteen seconds.

It was a good
question. Why?

‘So tell me, Jack.
Why did you kill her? Tell me what happened.’

THREE
| RATHER A HORSE’S HEAD

The heat was sore on my lip. She’d
bitten it. Hard. I reached over and ground the butt beside the others.

She was watching
me. I looked down at her. Her hips were pretty much on top of mine, but her
head was at the other end of the bed. She’d just collapsed backwards. Not
bothered to move. I was still inside her.

I liked the shine
on her smooth thighs. The glinting fake jewel in her navel. She looked odd. One
breast had flattened out a bit now she was lying down. Elongated. Gravity. The
other sat right up in a pink-crowned dome. That one had a scar on the
underside.

She took one last
drag on her cigarette. Pulled herself up through a cloud of smoke. She leaned
down and held the bright red tip over the pool of sweat in the little dip in my
chest.

‘You didn’t ask my
name,’ she said. A hiss as the cigarette touched the pool. There wasn’t enough
sweat. It burnt.

‘You didn’t ask
mine first.’ I took the butt and put it with mine. Before she decided to put it
out on me. She was like that. She’d bitten and scratched. Not wild and
passionate. More like vicious.

‘All right, so
what’s your name, Detective?’

‘Jack Mason.’ I
reached for the third cigarette. ‘And I’m not a detective. Badge is fake.’

‘You said you were
investigating Webster.’ She suddenly sounded serious. Maybe I’d been wrong
about how much she knew.

‘Did I? Strange
thing to say. You hungry?’

She frowned at me
for a moment. Curiosity spliced with frustration. Then she climbed off. ‘Yeah.
You still haven’t asked my name.’

‘The cupboards are
bare. You make the coffee and I’ll go to the store.

*

‘That’s it? That’s
your story?’ Lawrence looked surprised. Must have expected me to make up
something better.

‘Well if you want
to hear about the murder itself, I suggest – humbly – that you go and find the
killer. I think some cops call it their “job”. Maybe not the cops in this city.
But somewhere.’

‘Oh. There it is.’ He
said it like everything had fallen together. ‘I wondered how long it would
take. So you’re innocent? Again?’

I didn’t respond. Best
not to.

Lawrence leaned
forward again. Reached into the box. He moved his hand carefully. What was he
being so cautious about? I found out two seconds later when he pulled out a
blade. It was in a bag, but it was sharp. Could easily cut through the plastic.
It looked like a scalpel, but about six inches long. There were brown tints all
over it. Blood.

He put it on the
table. In the middle, but closer to me. He probably wanted to tempt me. Thought
maybe I’d try something and get hurt.

The next thing out
of the box was my gun. He put it beside the knife.

‘Why didn’t you use
your piece? Too loud? Every bullet accounted for. Hasn’t been fired any time
recently. It’s even registered to you, nice and legal. I’m surprised.’

I couldn’t take my
eyes off the knife. Her blood covered it. But that’s not what I was thinking
about. Were my prints on it?

‘Let’s try again.
Tell me what happened. To be more precise, tell me what happened between the
girl being alive and her being dead.’

*

The store had been robbed. Some
hood had burst in with a pistol. The cops hadn’t arrived yet. I must have missed
the party by about a minute. No one was hurt. He only got away with fifty
credits and some alcohol. That’s what the storekeeper was telling his wife on
the comm. But it meant the guy was too shaken up to serve me. Damn shame. I was
hungry.

The next place was
about six blocks away. It was closed. I’d forgotten it was Sunday. There was a
diner closer than that, but it wouldn’t be open for another few hours. I gave
up. Coffee would have to fill the hole.

Thunder rolled in
the distance as I made my way home. There was so much rainwater gushing across
it, the sidewalk looked like it was sliding into the road. It made me dizzy. The
torrent was about an inch thick. It flowed so fast that it washed up over the
side of my shoes and soaked my socks. Each time I put my foot down, it ended up
a few inches further towards the road than I’d planned. I must have looked
drunk.

I considered
crossing to the other side of the street, but the rain flowed just as quick
over there. This was supposed to be the end of summer. There was supposed to be
sun. Sure, there was heat, but it just made the rain worse.

I wouldn’t have
been surprised if I rounded the next corner to find some guy in a boat. In my
head, I got into the boat with him and let the current take me away. Problem
was, if you went with the flow in this town, you’d end up taking a dive over a
waterfall.

The streets were
pretty empty. They usually were. It wasn’t particularly early, but at this time
of the morning half the city’s inhabitants were in bed with hangovers and the
other half were hard at work trying keep money coming in. I didn’t know how
well we were faring compared to other colonies, but we certainly weren’t
thriving. The planet was on the edge of human territory. Our own people had all
but forgotten us. On our own, pretty much all we could hope for was to stay
alive. Harem would never be prosperous. Even if it were, the prosperity would
go to the dealers and thugs. And Cole Webster.