Quarter to One

The light bulb in the hallway on the second floor is on the verge of committing suicide. Its obnoxious flickering is enough to give me a headache. I have to make this fast or I know that I’ll puke. I raise my fist at the first doorway in the hall and bang three times, pause, and bang another two.

Jacks is a cop. He’s crooked and he’s crazy and he’s an alcoholic, but he knows the score. If anyone can help me clean up the mess I made and rid myself of six bodies, it’s a crooked, crazy man with a badge. He’s always available to help me out in a pinch. A real stand-up guy. A good guy to have on your side in any sort of fight.

Jacks and I met a few years back. We had seen each other around the apartment complex. Neither one of us knew nor cared what the other one did for a living. At that point, the extent of our acknowledgment of one another was a nod or a simple hello as we passed each other in the hallways. That all changed one night when we happened to run into each other at a dive bar we both frequented at different times and different days. We struck up a conversation and things were going along great guns. We didn’t know until later on, while we were having a Mexican standoff in the alley behind the bar, that we were both there on business. I had seen a deadbeat gambler that had some information I needed for a job. Little did I know that, while I was putting a bead on the bastard, Jacks was doing the same thing because the deadbeat had outstanding warrants. When I excused myself to use the pisser, I met up with the deadbeat in the back hallway and shoved him out the door to rough him up. While I was doing that, Jacks had removed himself from the bar to check the perimeter for the same guy. He found me in the alleyway with my .45 pressed into the deadbeat’s eye. Jacks trained his service piece on me and made me drop my weapon. While we were busy trying to understand how we had gotten into this predicament, the deadbeat managed to get his grubby paws on my gun. He tried to take a shot at Jacks, but I shoved Jacks out of the way just in time. I took a bullet to the shoulder because of that, but it was worth it. It kept me out of jail and I wound up with a lifelong comrade.

I hear footsteps moving toward the door from inside. There are no peepholes, so guys like me and Jacks have to take our chances when we answer a knock. I hear the dead bolt slide open and the door handle begins to turn slowly. Then the door tears open. I now have a cold steel barrel pressed against my right eyeball.

“You feeling up to a challenge, Jacks?” I ask. The gun barrel doesn’t bother me. I answer my door the same way, if I bother to answer it at all.

Jacks lowers the gun and extends a hand. I grasp it and we shake. He motions for me to step inside. I shake my head. “No, man, you better follow me. I made quite the mess this morning.”

“Lemme grab my jacket,” Jacks grumbles. I can tell he hasn’t had his first elixir of the day either. Jacks and I seem to be cast from the same mold. The only real difference is the side of the law we’re on. Once you get past the title, our jobs are pretty much the same. Which is exactly why we have to help each other out. Like I said, he knows the score. Hell, we both do.

Jacks steps over the woman lying under the blanket on the floor. Jacks isn’t ever looking for the right girl, he’s looking for the “right now” girl. Apparently, he found her last night. All I can see is a nice set of legs and the smooth skin of her back. She has a tattoo of angel wings but I get the feeling that they’re supposed to be ironic. He grabs his jacket off the lamp and tugs it on, stepping over the woman again on his way back to the door. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a nameless fifth of something. He brings it to his lips and takes a long drink. He extends the bottle to me. I accept it gladly and I feel like a baby suckling at its mother’s teat. My body is filled with joy as the unknown liquor warms my throat and moves down toward my toes. This makes any day good to be alive. I hand the bottle back to Jacks.

“Hey,” he says to the woman on the floor, “I want you gone by the time I get back. This is our good-bye. Hit the bricks.”

“Fuck off, prick,” comes the muffled, half-asleep response. Jacks flips her off and closes the door behind him. “Fuckin’ broads.”

“You’re telling me.”

“So, what’d you do this time?” Jacks asks. He doesn’t sound surprised. He knows that this is nothing more than routine.

“I killed people,” I tell him. “I killed a lot of people.”

He nods. “How many is a lot?”

“Six.”

“Six?”

“Technically five,” I revise. “Six is a foreshadow.”

“One of the guys upstairs is still alive?”

“He was as of five minutes ago.”

“How long do you think that’ll stick?”

“Depends on how cooperative he is.”

“What happened?” You can tell Jacks is a cop from the never-ending barrage of questions. I only choose to answer them because I know they won’t incriminate me.

“Six guys came in like gangbusters and tried to ambush me. One shot up my chair,” I explain. “So I took care of them.”

“I’m hoping that the chair wasn’t your only reason for taking them out,” Jacks replies, “because that chair was revolting.”

“I loved that chair.”

“What about the one that’s still alive?”

“What about him?”

“What are you going to do about him?”

“I figured I’d get some information out of him.”

I open the door at the top of the stairway and we enter the hallway. Jacks glances down and steps over the bodies strewn about the floor as he walks to the doorway of my apartment. He looks inside and clicks his tongue at me. “I thought you had a challenge for me, Levi. This is a cakewalk, pure and simple.”

He takes his phone from his belt and starts punching numbers.

“I’ll make a few calls and this’ll be cleaned up. Bodies gone, walls spotless, carpet brand new. Gimme twenty minutes and it’ll be like this never happened.” That’s why I keep this guy around.

“I knew you could do it.” I clap him on the back.

He shrugs. “Have I ever let you down?”

I enter the apartment as Jacks makes his phone calls. I find the goon who’s still alive. He’s breathing heavy and his eyes are pleading with me. For what, I’m not sure, but I don’t particularly care. I glance over at what’s left of my overturned chair. I can’t help but scowl.

“What happened in here,” I say, turning back to the goon, “that’s as pleasant as it’s going to be.” The goon squeezes his eyes shut as I step over him to get my bag of tricks. I find the duct tape under the kitchen sink. My toolbox is on the counter. That should do the trick. I grab the goon, slap a strip of tape over his mouth, and heave him across my shoulder.

“You may want to send one of your guys downstairs before they leave,” I tell Jacks as I walk by. He gives me a thumbs-up. I start through the back door of the hallway, then pause and turn back toward Jacks. “And see if you can do something to save my chair.”

Jacks rolls his eyes. “Levi, let the chair go.”

“I love that chair.”

“I know you do,” Jacks says. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”

I nod my gratitude and continue through the door. I can feel the goon start to convulse on my shoulder.

“Probably should’ve run this scenario through your mind first, huh, hotshot?”