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“Jack!”
A cushion bounced off my head or what I assumed was a cushion. I heard myself groan, distant and croaked. The drinking had been a goddamned mistake. The voice called my name again and whoever it was, they did not sound happy.
“Jack!” Another cushion hit my head. My body was contorted and mishappen, my muscles ached, and my head spun. I felt... heavy. My senses seemed both far away and too close, all at the same time, and it was the worst feeling I’d ever experienced. I was surprised I hadn’t died, drinking that much whiskey. I heard my name again; it hurt my ears. Given the urgency of the voice, I felt it wise to obey and wake up. Goddammit. I tried to prise open my crusty eyes, but they rebelled against the bright light and refused.
A torrent of abuse pummelled into my torso; the cushion was a deadly weapon against my weary body. I tried to move and misjudged it; I fell to the floor in a flurry of pain and agony, and I cried out.
“You’ll get no sympathy from me, Jack” said the familiar voice.
I opened my eyes and light burned away my retinas. I’d fallen from the sofa, where I must’ve crashed after getting home from the bar, and onto the hard wooden floor. I remembered some of the afternoon; I’d eaten, smoked and drunk a little more and then lain down. I’d been so tired. As my sight returned, I saw Queenie standing over me holding a cushion. She wore a figure-hugging black dress and was made up to the rafters.
“You look nice,” I said.
“Don’t you ‘you look nice’ me, Jack Gemini!” She was furious. “I found you here, dead to the world and stinking of booze and cigarettes! How dare you! You promised me, Jack! You promised you’d quit smoking!”
This was all I needed right now, a hangover and my lover simultaneously screaming at me.
“Queenie, I didn’t...” I tried to sit up, but she batted me with the cushion.
“Don’t you lie to me.” She started to cry. “You didn’t come home! I’ve spent all day in work... and... and I had to pick up this dress... and I was worried sick because of you and my missing statue! I called the station... and they... they told me you’d left. I called your SmartBoy, and you didn’t answer. Again!”
I had a vague recollection of the damned device ringing but I’d diverted the call to voicemail.
“What were you doing?” She screamed at me. “Were you whoring it up with someone? Cheating? Smoking? Getting drunk? You... you... look a right state! I was so worried!”
I sat up and leaned back against the sofa. My brain felt loose inside my skull; it rattled and shook in my head. “Queenie, I...”
“Jack, I don’t want to hear it!” Her mascara was beginning to run. “You’re such a bastard to me sometimes.” She chucked the cushion at me and walked away towards the kitchen at the back of my apartment. “You better get ready,” she said through her sobbing. “You’ll have to... to meet me there.”
“What’s the time?”
“Time? It’s almost six and... and I’ve got my gallery event this evening. The one I’ve told you about multiple times?” She returned with a glass of water; she handed it to me, and I thanked her. “Don’t think this means I’ve forgiven you, Jack.”
“I’m sorry, Queenie.” I downed the refreshing liquid and fought the urge to throw up; my body rejected the very thing that would save it from the world of hurt where it currently resided. “I was following up on a lead for your case.”
“And that involved drinking?” The woman moved to the bed and sat down. My apartment was small, adjoined to my office; the living room/bedroom was one room with a small kitchen off to the side. There was a connecting door into the office with the bathroom on the opposite side. “And smoking?”
“He was smoking, not me.”
“Bullshit.” She picked up a small hand mirror from the bedside table. “Goddammit, Jack; look what you’ve done to my make up.” She sighed. “I’m not stupid; I found an open pack in your jacket pocket. And I can smell it, Jack; you’ve even been smoking in the office.” She used a tissue to wipe away her ruined mascara.
“I bought a pack for him, to grease the wheels, so to speak.” I pressed my palms on the sofa and lifted myself up on the seat; it took a surprising amount of effort and I wondered how in goddamned hell I was going to stand, let alone walk.
Queenie paused what she was doing and glared at me.
“Alright, alright, I might’ve had one or two.”
“Really?” Her tone betrayed her incredulity.
“Maybe a little more than that.”
“And what about the drinking? Don’t lie and tell me you only had one or two drinks.”
“I admit that the drinking might’ve got a little out of hand.”
“That’s the understatement of the year.” She returned to removing make-up from around her eyes. At least, she’d stop crying. “There’s some cold pizza in the kitchen,” she said. “I don’t imagine you’ve eaten anything.”
“I really don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you.”
“Not enough,” she said.
“Clearly.”
I forced myself to stand, wobbled and staggered, before catching myself with an outstretched arm against the wall. “I feel sick.”
“Eat. Drink water. I need you at your best tonight.”
“I’m surprised,” I said. I tempted fate by letting go of the wall and taking some steps free of my support. “I thought you were cancelling that damned event after the Delartes was stolen. It doesn’t seem right.”
“What doesn’t seem right, Jack, is not holding the event.” She’d finished cleaning herself up and begun to touch up the remaining make up. “If you’d listened, I’d already told you last night that it was still going ahead,” she said. “Anyway, you’d be surprised who’d even notice there was anything different about ‘The Call of Narcissus.’ And even those that do notice will be too polite to say anything.”
“But it’s not real.” I made it to the kitchen door before I needed to grasp the wall for support.
“That’s just one piece out of many. They won’t just be there for the Delartes piece,” she said. “Plus, I’ve sold too many tickets; I’ve an obligation not to let anyone down.”
I made it to the kitchen and set my weary eyes on my goal: a pizza box sitting on the stove. I wasn’t hungry, in fact I felt quite sick, but some food and water would be the first steps of rejuvenation and recovery for my body. I walked across the counter tops with my hands preceding my shuffled feet, pulling me along.
“You’re awfully quiet,” called Queenie from behind me.
“I feel goddamned rough.”
“You deserve it.”
I inwardly celebrated as I managed to reach the pizza. I retrieved a cold can of something sugary from the nearby fridge to wash down with the food. Sweet and stodge was the perfect antidote for my broken self, and I would need something in my stomach to be able to cope with the rest of the evening. A bunch of uptight, hoity toity, wannabe art critics was exactly what my hangover craved.
As I forced the cold dough into my gullet, I tried to remember what exactly I’d done last night. Nothing too embarrassing. I hoped. Just a lot of drink and smokes.
Damn it.
I’d received a message last night.
From Regan Bex.
I rummaged in my pockets for my SmartBoy and retrieved it from the deep recesses of my trouser pocket.
I opened the blue luminous screen and searched the messages.
Aha, that was it.
I’d tried to reply, tried to call the number, but it had been no good; it seems the sender had blocked incoming calls and messages. That’s when I’d continued to drink.
‘Heard you’re looking for me. Meet me at Callaghan’s Pub, S8, 8pm Saturday- Regan Bex.’
This was certainly the easiest and fastest case I’d ever needed to solve; he’d come to me. Just had to pick him up and bring to my office. Then wait. Easy. Unless it was a trap. Wait, why would it be a trap? Goddammit, Jack. Eat your pizza and shut the hell up.
“Something to do with my case?” Queenie stood in the doorway, and she looked amazing. I’d have thought the same even if her makeup hadn’t been restored to its former glory.
“No,” I said. I pocketed the communication device. “It’s a message about another case on my books.”
“Mrs Lafferty’s cat?”
“I wish.” I tore a chunk out of my pizza and swallowed; my throat was dry, and it hurt but I felt myself slowly coming together just from what little food I’d already eaten. “Detective Suede asked me to look into something, that’s all.”
“Oh?”
“Nothing to worry about.” I didn’t want to reveal too much about my favour to Suede, or about Regan Bex; it was a little too sensitive. “It won’t get in the way of your missing artwork.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with that copycat killer does it?” She approached and, for a moment, I thought she was going to wrap her arm around me, but she shuffled past and opened the fridge. She grabbed a can of soda. Guess she was still mad at me. “The one that’s been all over the news today?”
“Copycat killer?”
“I guess it doesn’t matter.” She cracked open the can and took a sip. “What did you find out about my case this morning? When you weren’t drinking and smoking.”
I ignored the gibe. “Just some names. Leads.” Something in my gut told me to keep pressing her about what she just told me. And it wasn’t the cold pizza stewing in a hungover belly. “Tell me about this copycat killer.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” Queenie tipped out the rest of the can into the sink, she’d barely touched the liquid inside, and threw it into the trash. “I imagine you’re used to this kind of thing.”
“Not really,” I said. “What copycat killer?”
She snorted a laugh. “You shouldn’t have spent all your time boozing; you’d have caught the news this afternoon.”
“Queenie, this is important. Tell me.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Arnold Smythe, or something like that. He had a nickname too, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. Something about a colour... or a jewel or something?”
I felt cold dread wash over me. “The Emerald Killer?”
“That’s the one! Someone’s been copying him.”
Augustus Smith. The Emerald Killer. I thought I’d heard the last of him; he was the man I’d chased, the reason I’d entered the Tribeca Corp building all those years ago. Smith was partly the reason I was here, here in this parallel world.
Damn it.