One last job...
By: Roger Alderman
Jack King’s seasoned crystal blue investigative eyes slowly opened to seek answers to the most obvious question, “Where the hell?” He pushed himself up from lying prone in a pool of his own blood and finally settling in a cross-legged sitting position. His old gray sears sucker suit clung to the floor because of the coagulated blood it had bonded with.
The near barren concrete floor of the cobweb-covered basement was illuminated by a low wattage yellowed bulb with heavy cob wells strung to it and the nearby wooden beams above. The faint golden light did little to offer any of the rooms' secrets to the veteran private investigator. Dust fell from the floorboards above as they groaned under the weight of movement in the room above.
Jack rotated his head side to side to ease the throbbing in his head and the aching pressure in his neck. He winced following a sudden pressure relieving cervical “POP.” His attention turned to the rusty, heavy chain and combination master lock attached to his left ankle as he tries to stand upright.
Jack lowered his head closing his eyes to focus on the details that brought him to this point. The darkness behind his eyes allowed his mind to draw at the facts as they unfolded around him. A flash of white followed by a trail of intertwined colors ending in the familiar smell of his favorite burnt office coffee.
Jack sat in his chair taking a deep long pull from his coffee cup at the dark roast inside. His glasses fogged quickly with the steam rising from the hot coffee inside. He looked to the smoke colored frosted glass of his office door as a brilliant yellow of a dress stopped outside his door.
The woman in the hallway outside knocked twice, “Mr. King?” she asked aloud. Her voice rang with a touch of a southern accent. The closer she got to the frosted glass the more details shown through like her auburn hair and athletic frame.
Jack rocked forward in his office chair placing his mug on the file cluttered desk in front of him, “Come in. It’s unlocked.” He took a second to shove most his old unsolved case files into the top desk drawer to conceal at least the mess there.
The door opened allowing the woman to enter, but the intoxication scent of her perfume had already filled the small private investigator's office. Her physical beauty and elegance of movement were clear in her every motion. She closed the door and flowed across the room like the highly trained finishing school graduate she was.
Jack could tell in her smaller movements that the poise and grace she carried were not her own, but a trained response to years of corrections. “How can I help?” Jack waited carefully studying her every word and action. He motioned for her to sit in the worn leather seat opposite him, “Please, Miss?”
“Janet, Janet Reigns,” she offered settling into the offered chair. The beautiful and smooth details of her face faded into a contorted visage of a mournful heartache, “Mr. King you’re my last option. I have spoken to countless other Private Investigators, but none will take the case. But each recommended you.”
Jack leaned forward on his elbows furrowing his brow at the revelation. “If everyone else passed on your case. Why would I take it?” he bluntly asked. He picked up his mug taking a long deep pull from the contents, “Besides I’m retiring.” He gestured to the large collection of boxes and containers half packed next to his old dark wooden desk.
Janet wiped at the tears causing her mascara rolling down her cheeks, “I wanted to come to you right from the beginning, but my attorney said to use someone else.” She could tell from his lack of reaction he had heard those words before, “beside your peers seem to think you’re not the type to retire. So, how about it one last case?”
Jack listened to her words, but could not stop himself from a raising an eyebrow in curiosity. He rocked back in his seat, “what is it you need from me?” He liked his coffee hot and got to the chase before it reached room temperature, ruining it.
Janet had turned away to blow her nose, but hearing his words put a little glimmer of hope back into her eyes. She focused on him, “It’s Mark. My husband. He comes home late every night smelling of cheap perfume and liquor.” She pauses as Jack rocks forward and waves his hand for her to stop talking.
Jack exhales in agitation, “Why play games? Just divorce him. Save yourself the heartache.” He opens the wooden drawer and returns the file clutter to the desktop, “each of these women and men are devastated by
Janet defiantly shakes her head, No. She takes a deep breath, “I have always known Mark was a lady killer. I thought I could change him, help him settle down, and make him a family man.” She removed a picture of Mark from her purse then placed it on the desktop.
The picture of Mark was a photo of his legal services. Dark-haired, handsome, tall, olive-skinned, and well-groomed in an expensive high-quality navy-blue tailored suit. His smile carried his obvious self-righteous conceit and over-inflated ego.
Jack palmed his face with both hands and exhaled loudly, “He’s a lawyer?” He peeked between his fingers at her reaction and sighed when she nodded in response, “I hate lawyers.” He threw up his hands overreacting to the revelation, “I can’t take your case. I’m sorry.”
Janet recoiled at the curt response of the veteran private investigator, “If it’s about the money. I can pay.” She paused as he waved off her words again. Her face told him everything he needed to know, but she still had to ask the obvious, “why?”
Jack lowered his head in shame at the words that followed, “Every time I go after an attorney. They weasel their way out of the evidence. I don’t need the headaches. In the end, you ’ll be upset and my legacy takes another hit.”
Janet stood up shocked by his response, “Fine.” She stormed to the door looking back for a moment, “Keep the photo. If you change your mind. My number is on the back.” The door rattles for a long moment after she leaves slamming it behind her.
Jack rocks back in his chair relaxing his legs on his desktop. His eyes find their way to the photo of Mark. His eyes lock onto the smug expression of the lawyer. Jacks instincts tell him to not take the case, but his emotions and sense of right and wrong are blazing a different path. “Why cheat on her? Gotta be a power trip.” He picks up the photo and studies Mark, “Damn it!”
Jack turns over the photo he looks at the number, “Jack, you know better.” He dials the number shaking his head the entire time, “Someone has to take this jerk down a peg.” The phone rings on the other end, “But why me?” The phone rings a second time, “If not me then who?”
Janet picks up before the third ring of the phone and answers anxiously, “Hello?” Jack clears his throat, “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I will take the case. Two hundred a day and meals?” Janet cannot hold back her happiness and relief that someone will help
“I will start right away. I will collect photos and video if possible. If he’s as bad as you believe then this could be over quickly,” Jack tells her straight to the point. He hangs up the phone, grabs his camera, and leaves in a hurry to catch up with Mark at this late hour of the day.
Jack crosses town, arriving in the parking lot across from Mark’s office. Relief fills his face as Mark leaves work laughing with a group of men. Jack immediately takes photos of Mark and his friends. He watches as they pile into Mark’s black SUV and speed off.
Jack knows how to tail a subject without getting noticed from his thirty years of experience. He captures a few images of Marks license plate to make sure he follows the correct car in the event they get separated. “I got you. You bastard,” Jack clenches a cigarette between his lips as he lights it.
The first stop, Todd’s Place, a new watering hole of white-collar privileged jack asses. Todd’s Place opened only a few years ago in answer to the growing taste for elitists who want mixed drinks and to brag about their next big job. Not the kind of place Jack would frequent.
Jack captured a few pictures of the group entering, but then had to slip inside to gather more evidence. He hated to resort to his cellphone, but circumstances required “discreet observation.” He entered and sat across the bar pretending to play on his phone as he captured a few shots of Mark flirting with the bartender.
The group left once Mark was firmly shut down by the witty bartender. Jack chuckled to himself, “Good girl, send ‘em packing.” Jack followed but left the bartender a large tip for her troubles.
Mark and his friends continued their course across town, but after each bar, another friend left the group to return to their home. By midnight, Mark’s friend had all left, Jack could tell he was far from finished. Jack yawned and studied his watch, “Crap… I’m too old to be out this late.” Jack slapped himself to remain awake, “Just go home, man. Your wife is waiting for you.”
Jack left the bar before Mark and flopped down into the driver's seat of his car. He buckled himself inside but noticed someone leaves the bar. He smiled seeing it was Mark arm in arm with a red hair in stilettos and a revealing black dress, “Bingo.”
Jack watches as the couple walk away from the bar rather than get into his car. “Hmm,” Jack lets slip , “must live nearby.” Jack follows at a distance taking many photos as the couple passionately embrace repeatedly along their path.
Jack follows the kissing couple to the front door of a two-story townhouse directly across the street from an open-air all organic market place closed for the night. He watches from just beyond sight as they enter her home laughing and touching one another. “Gotcha, you prick,” Jack announces as he steps out of his car.
Jack smiles seeing they entered but did not close the door entirely, “Now for the juicy shots.” He silently moved inside careful to study each room before entering. It worried him as he noticed the eerie silence inside the townhouse. He knows this was the right place he could smell her cheap acidic perfume.
He stood in the entryway listening carefully. Then a smile crossed his face as he heard a door open upstairs. He moved quietly up the stairs to the second floor readying his camera for the coming batch of evidence that would nail the bastard.
Jack could see the light from the bedroom from the partially closed door. The sounds of a tired mattress and a clumsy headboard created what he imagined rough, aggressive sex between younger people these days. He moved his camera to the ready position as he prepared to throw open the door and catch them in the act.
Jack held the doorknob in his left hand with the camera in his right. He mumbled low to himself, “3… 2…” In a swift motion, he threw open the door leveled the camera. Flash after flash and picture after picture was captured by the camera .
Jack froze in place confronted by the scene of pure horror before him. A nude woman bound and gagged on the top of the bed a look of terror locked on her gorgeous, but blood and gore covered face. Jack watched as the last of her color leaving her face and the life drain from her hazel eyes.
Mark kneeling above the woman’s corpse on the bed. His right hand deep within her abdomen slowly tearing flesh from her once gorgeous athletic body. He turned to face the interloper in the doorway drawn to the constant flashes of the camera. He released a low animalistic growl as half chewed flesh tumbled out of his mouth onto the bed. Jack spun rushing out of the door, but his world turned dark before he reached the stairwell.
Jack King’s seasoned crystal blue investigative eyes slowly opened to seek answers to the most obvious question, “Where the hell?” He pushed himself up from lying prone in a pool of his own blood and finally settling in a cross-legged sitting position. His old gray sears sucker suit clung to the floor because of the coagulated blood it had bonded with.
The near barren concrete floor of the cobweb-covered basement was barely illuminated by a low wattage yellowed bulb with heavy cob wells strung to it and the nearby wooden beams above. The faint golden light did little to offer any of the rooms' secrets to the veteran private investigator. Dust fell from the floorboards above as they groaned under the weight of movement in the room above.
Jack rotated his head side to side to ease the throbbing in his head and the aching pressure in his neck. He winced following a sudden pressure relieving cervical “POP.” His attention turned to the rusty, heavy chain and combination master lock attached to his left ankle as he tries to stand upright.
The flimsy interior wooden door at the top of the stairs leading out of the sparse basement opened. Jack watched as Mark sauntered down the steps wiping away the pungent metallic smelling blood of the woman he had eaten. Her remains clung to his white cotton shirt as scraps of tissue and ligament.
Jack recoiled raising his right arm defensively as Mark stopped looming above the battered old private investigator. Mark knelt next to Jack just out of reach of the old man and poked at the chained old man with a baseball bat, “Janet hired you didn’t she.” Jack refused to answer, but the truth was obvious to Mark the Cannibal.
“You don’t have to answer. I know the truth,” Mark stood upright and swung the bat around high above his head playfully. “You should feel privileged,” Mark coldly announced. Jack stared at Mark in growing confusion.
“I have always loved the tender flesh of a woman, but you. You’re my first man,” Mark face twisted demonically as the baseball bat arched high to low. Mark's grin widened as Jack skull too revealed its insides in an elegantly sickening scene of gore.
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