For Nothing (2 page)

When Alex got closer to the street light though, his muscles tensed and his jaw clenched as he realized that the figure silhouetted under the glow was not Jack. Now aware of his own fast-fal ing footsteps, Alex slowed his pace down. The shadowy figure before him let out a breath into the gloom; the warm puff mingled with the frigid winter air. Alex trailed his gaze down to the pavement and his heart fel to the pit of his stomach. Alex knew it was Jack’s crumpled form.

Throwing caution to the wind, Alex ran forward, quickening his pace, and snapping his head up to face his newfound adversary. With a start, he realized that his adversary was already on the move. Al he glimpsed as he neared the horrific scene was the twirl of a coat rounding the corner up ahead.

After what seemed like hours, Alex made it to the spot where Jack lay sprawled on the sidewalk, his blood flowing onto the soft white snow beneath the prone form. The warm lifeblood of Jack was melting the snow and causing a slight steam to rise up from the tainted purity of the white winter freeze.

Alex knelt next to Jack, knowing the futility of it, yet he pushed his fingers up to Jack’s lifeless wrist with al the tenderness he could muster. No pulse.

“Aw, Jack. What mess have you gotten yourself into?” Alex asked.

As he spoke, he touched Jack’s face and wiped the blood that dripped from his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. Alex’s jawbone became taut as he attempted to hold his emotions from brimming over and the tears that begged to pour out, within.

With a sudden ferocity, Alex sprang up. It might be too late for Jack, but he’d be damned if it were too late for him to put a few lead holes through this bastard that committed the vile deed.

He took off around the corner. Running as fast as he could, he tried to think of where someone would stash a getaway car in this district. Alex knew where to go. Three blocks down there was an al ey that was al but hidden from the main highway. It was the perfect spot.

He accelerated faster than even he thought was possible. Alex pushed himself to look past the burn that found its way into his legs as he ran past one block, then two. As he neared the third block and rounded the corner to come into the al ey, he was brought to a sudden halt.

The headlights of a car were right in his face, assaulting his eyes that became accustomed to the night. Blinded by the glare, yet realizing that the car was speeding towards him due to the roar of the spinning wheels, Alex hurled his body behind the spinning wheels, Alex hurled his body behind the corner of the street. Inches. That was al that separated Alex from becoming mush on the windshield of the speeding automobile.

A quick flash of a bug splattered across his car front shot through his mind. With a shake of his head, Alex threw off the blindness now that the car’s lights sped off down the road. He tried to peer at the fleeing car’s rear bumper, hoping to see the license plate of the car before it was out of his vision.

“Fuck!” Alex said, realizing that the car was too far for such a stroke of luck. With al the bottled rage spil ing out, Alex let out a primal scream.

With a rush of adrenaline, he swung at the brick of the building next to him. The sturdy masonry did not give. His hand did, and the bones in his hands made a loud ‘pop’ that sent a sudden wave of pain into Alex’s frayed nervous system. Alex flexed his hand; it was hurt, but not broken. Already, he could feel the blood rushing into his hand swel ing his knuckles. He tried to grab his cel phone from his pocket but he couldn’t get his swol en knuckles into the jeans. He reached in with his other hand and flipped the screen open. No service. With a grunt he shoved the cel back into his pocket with his injured hand.

Blinded for the second time in the evening—

this time with the searing agony pulsating up from his swol en hand; Alex began to make his way down the deserted street. He needed to return to the body, to find some sort of evidence as to what transpired in the crucial moments between Jack’s arrival at the scene and his subsequent murder.

On the way, he spotted a telephone booth and decided that he would use the payphone to cal in the incident. After al of this, the cavalry would be a welcomed sight. He began to reach into his jacket, oblivious to the biting chil swirling on the winter winds. Plucking change from his pocket, he picked up the phone and shoved it between his cheek and shoulder. Damn his stupidity for injuring his hand.

Even this call is a hassle with one
appendage out of commission
, he thought. Dialing into the precinct, Alex composed himself enough to explain to the switchboard patrolman the situation.

Letting out a deep breath that trailed out in a wisp of whitened smoke, he walked up to the place of Jack’s last gasps. Jack stopped bleeding; at least the flow stopped. Gentle swirls of fal ing snow began to cover up the footprints that were scattered in on the sidewalk. Fresh flakes settled on the bloodstained snow shifting the macabre spectacle one flake at a time. As Alex stood looking down at the scene, his knees became weak and gave out on him altogether. With the adrenaline drained from his body, Alex could no longer find the strength to stand and col apsed onto his knees, half melting into the snow at Jack’s side.

With fresh fal ing snow now blanketing the bloodstained scene below, he thought it odd that Jack looked asleep. Alex held his head. He needed the familiarity, the solace, of shielding his eyes from the sight before him. He stayed like that for a long moment.

Summoning control over himself once again, Alex let out another cleansing breath and dropped his hands onto the chil ed body of Jack and rol ed him over. He noticed with interest that the bul et shot right through Jack’s back. That meant the shot must have been close. Judging by the fact that Jack’s weapon was not even drawn meant one of two things. Either he did not see the danger coming, didn’t expect it, or perhaps the assailant was just that quick.

Just that quick...couldn’t be. No, it had to be that Jack just didn’t see it coming and didn’t expect it. Alex had to believe that no one could be that quick. He knew that Jack was not a novice with a firearm.

Shaking the thought from his mind, Alex focused on the situation at hand. The sounds of distant sirens began to drift to his attention. As if that sound snapped him out of his fragmented thoughts, he reverted to his instincts.

Glancing around at the scene, Alex noticed a half-buried cigarette butt in the snow. It was a curious thing. Instead of the normal yel ow speckled ass-end of a cancer stick, this thing was as black as the tar residue it was doomed to leave in your lungs. The filter sported a thin gold wrapping encircling it, but for the most part it was of the flat Black Russian variety.

Interesting to say the least. It was the one thing he saw of any material value.

As the sirens became louder, Alex weighed the possibility of letting the homicide unit cover the case; after al he had a conflict of interest.

case; after al he had a conflict of interest.

Fuck it
, he thought.
Personal conflict be
damned
.

Jack meant a lot to him. For Christ’s sake, the best man at his wedding to Charlotte was Jack.

With a grunt, Alex leaned over to the cigarette and scooped it up and slipped it into his jacket. He eased upward and shook the numbness from his frozen legs. The veteran undercover agent maintained enough connections out here on the streets to rustle up some information. Favors could be cal ed in easy enough.

No
, he decided with a satisfied grimace.
This
one is personal. The conflict is real
.

Alex wanted to taste the sweetness of revenge. Rules be damned.

*

Rafael Rontego walked up the narrow and dim stairway that led up to his one room flat. The apartment building itself was not much to look at, and the inside of Rontego’s room was even less aesthetic in its appeal. Rafael pul ed his room key out from the hidden compartment in his left boot.

The assassin kept a smal knife or handcuff key there. It worked wonders if an unsuspecting cop was so kind as to handcuff him in the front. And if he wasn’t, Rafael practiced many times the maneuver which enabled him to pul his shackled hands over his feet and to the front of his body in one fluid motion. After al , one could never be too prepared.

Silently, he slid the key to his apartment into the lock and shifted the bolt. He pushed the door open. Before stepping inside, however, he knelt down and peered about six inches above the door.

The smal breakaway thread he tied across the doorway was stil intact. Rafael rose back up and stepped over the string.

All is well on the home front
.

He walked over to the center of the room and glanced about. He hated this place. In the center was a mattress with no box spring. To the left was a smal kitchen area that grew dusty from disuse. Cooking was best left to others of more…domestic persuasion. To the right of the bed was a lazy-boy which was a faded red due to age. Further to the right of that was a smal closet and through the closet, toward the back, was a smal bathroom.

With a cough, the assassin moved forward, pushing the door closed behind him. Rontego pul ed a chair from the corner of the room around to face him. With one fluid motion he removed his black felt hat, his tribute to the gangster days of yore, and sent it swirling on to the chair. He took his black trench coat off of his shoulders—shoulders deceptive in their slenderness—and tossed it onto the chair’s back. Hanging from both shoulders was a leather holster, which contained his weapons of choice: silenced pistols.

With a prudent look toward his lone window right above his mattress, Rafael took his weapons off and tossed them on top of his jacket. He walked over to the window and pul ed up the blinds. From here he had a good view of the street.

Exactly the room he wanted. The previous tenant didn’t want to give up this abode, but everyone could be persuaded where the assassin was concerned. He made sure the bolt locking the window was in place, and then pul ed the blinds back down. Prying eyes were not welcome here.

Passing through his closet, he pushed open the door that led to the bathroom. The door itself was a nice touch to the place. Rontego added it himself.

The door was the same color of the wal and, in the dim light of the interior of the closet, nearly impossible to find unless one was mental y on his toes.

Once in the bathroom, Rafael pul ed the light string dangling down from the ceiling and stood in the swinging bulb’s shifting light. He leaned on the ancient, shoddy porcelain sink, contemplating his reflection in the mirror. A lesser man would not be so bold as to look too long, lest he become disgusted with the view.

Rontego, though, had the unnerving ability to do just that. He could look time after time at himself and see nothing wrong. In fact, he liked what he saw.

He saw a man who was the best at what he did, and Rontego never frowned upon success, even success like his. After al , he
was
the best at what he did.

Nothing less was acceptable. He didn’t even dislike the people that opposed him, if they were good at it.

Take Jack for example, Rontego thought to himself as he studied his face in the mirror. Jack was damn good at what he did; he knew him to be a was damn good at what he did; he knew him to be a decent cop. Jack just got careless. In this business carelessness was sure to end your tenure at the top.

To be lazy was not a luxury one could afford when dealing with the likes of those on the dark side of society. So Rontego’s boss had to clean up and Rafael did the deed quick, clean, professional. One shot, one kil .

With a satisfied grin, Rafael looked into the mirror. He shaved already once today, but the five o’clock shadow that fol owed his cheeks to his chin never seemed to lessen. His dark hair was perfect and combed backwards. His gray eyes could even be considered appealing, if not for the fact that there existed in them no humanity, no divine spark. He splashed some cold water onto his face and grabbed a smal towel off the rack to his left.

Drying his face, he left the bathroom and walked toward the kitchen. Perhaps there was some leftover Chinese in the kitchen. After al , he worked hard tonight. This was a wel -earned meal. Rafael was hungry, and when he was hungry, he always ate.

Alex pul ed into the driveway of his townhouse apartment. The apartment looked dingy on the outside and had the look of a place where people stayed on their way to somewhere else. If the outside didn’t look like much with its peeling yel ow paint, then the inside didn’t look much better.

Alex walked inside; his only thoughts were bent on finding his bed. He was so tired that he was almost sure that the nasty spring that poked into his back night after night wouldn’t bother him.

Though the apartment was not dirty, it was not a place of frequent use, or dusting. The inside was bare. Internal y, the place consisted of three rooms on the floor that was Alex’s rent. There was a kitchen/smal living room right in front of the entryway with a card table that Alex used to take his meals whenever he had a chance to dine in. Other than the two chairs pushed in at either end of the structure, no more furniture graced the room.