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Queenie’s case... I was at a dead end.
And I felt like a corpse. Dead. Exhausted. Goddamned stiff all over; my body ached. And so did my heart. I still had his blood on me. Damn it. And an hour of sleep in one of the police cells had done little to ease my fatigue. I felt worse. Even the small meal Johnson had fed me had been ineffectual.
I waited in the interview room.
The Victor was innocent. Well, innocent of forging and stealing ‘The Call of Narcissus.’ Yes, the con artist had looked into stealing the grotesque statue, but they’d been under observation since long before Queenie had asked me to take on the case, long before I’d even met Queenie. The Victor wasn’t the culprit.
Damn it.
I was at a loss of where to go next, but I had no time to think about it yet; there were more important things to deal with. Augustus Smith. Emmett Greene. Regan Bex...
Damn it.
Regan...
I sat with my feet up on the table, hat covering my face and dozed; a short respite while I waited for the two idiot cops to return with the coffee and cigarettes that I’d convinced them to fetch me. They owed me. And if they didn’t, more fool them.
The room was hot and stuffy, and the harsh fluorescent tube buzzed in my ears; the severe light burnt through both the fabric of my hat and my tired eyelids. I couldn’t get comfy in the chair. Not with my pain returning, and there was very little left of me that didn’t hurt. I fidgeted, shifted, crossed one foot over the other but it was useless; I closed my eyes and prayed for a modicum of sleep.
The door swung open with a loud creak and banged against its adjacent wall.
“Jack.” Suede’s voice echoed and boomed throughout the small interview room, and I almost fell off the chair.
“...ergh...what...?” I slipped my feet off the table, slid my hat back onto my head and slumped forward in the chair.
“Coffee,” said the policeman.
He placed a tall plastic cup of coffee in front of me, along with a couple of packs of cigarettes, and with a sudden burst of energy, I grabbed one of them, removed the wrapper, withdrew a cigarette, put it between my lips and lit up. I sighed, blowing a plume of smoke towards my host as he took a seat with his own coffee opposite.
“Better?” he said. He slid an ashtray toward me, and I ignored it.
“You have no idea.” I took another drag before moving onto the coffee. It was hot but I didn’t care; I gulped it down and drained a quarter of the large cup in seconds. “I feel like shit,” I said.
“I can see that, Jack.” He leaned forward on his elbows and steepled his fingers. He stared intently. “Tell me what happened at the Church of the Third Encounter. From your point of view. What happened with Greene? And Regan Bex. Off the record, of course.”
“What have they told you?” I raised an eyebrow. “You’ve spoken to them.”
He nodded. “I just want to hear your side again.”
“I told you who Emmett Greene really is. Augustus Smith.” I took a drag of my cigarette. “The Emerald Killer. You need to do something about it.”
“Whoever he is, It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “At least, not yet. I still need you to tell me what happened. And you shouldn’t go around throwing around accusations like that; they could get you trouble. The Church of the Third Encounter is powerful, and it has powerful friends.”
“Dionne Bex,” I said.
Suede nodded. His expression was solemn, serious, which was unusual for the cop.
“Nothing I tell you is going to make any difference.” I sighed. “The rich and powerful pull the strings.”
“If I don’t understand exactly what happened, I can’t help you.” He smiled softly. “The help might not come now, or soon, but it’ll come. And the more I know, the better I can help you. There might be an ‘official story,’ but you won’t be only person bearing the burden of the truth on your shoulders.”
“That’s deep,” I flicked some ash to the floor and took a sip of my coffee, “for you.”
“I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” said Suede.
“No, no you’re not,” I said. “And I never said you were.” I thought it, though.
“Tell me again what happened.” He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
I finished off my cigarette, stubbed it out on the desk, and lit another. “We, Regan Bex and I, were checking out a lead for a case. His mother, and Tribeca, have been funding the Church of the Third Encounter, including some face change operations about nine, ten months ago.” My mouth was dry; I knew what was coming, knew what I needed to repeat to him and what he already knew. Regan was dead. And I would need to say it aloud. Again. He was torturing me. I took some more coffee into my mouth, but it did little to quench my throat.
“Keep going,” said the cop opposite.
“It was Emmett Greene. Dionne Bex, aside from giving extortionate amounts of cash to his damned cult, had paid for his face change to hide his real identity. He was, still is, Augustus Smith. He admitted it to me. He locked us in the cellar and when we tried to...”
“You’re missing out some information.”
“We didn’t break in,” I lied. “The door was open.”
“Uh... right.”
I took a long drag of my cigarette. And another. “We tried to... tried to escape... and...”
“Regan Bex was...”
“Yeah.” Goddamned bastard.
“A representative from the church came into the station while you were resting to tell us what happened. Or rather, what they want us to believe happened. Multiple witness statements about a gun misfire. They’re saying it’s an accident, Jack.” My heart sank. “We can’t prove anything but even if we investigate it, the case isn’t going to hold up in any court. There’s no evidence of any foul play; they’ve made sure of it.”
“It would be my word against all of theirs.”
“Exactly. And if Greene really is Smith, that’s a whole other kettle of fish... it’s sounds too absurd to be true. Again, it would be their word against yours.”
“Damn it!” I slammed my fist against the table. “Goddammit!” I took another long drag of my cigarette. “Is there nothing you can do?”
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” I slammed my fist over and over against the table, shaking it and knocking over the remains of my coffee; the cup rolled and fell to the floor. “Damn it all to goddammed hell!”
“Calm down, Jack,” said Suede. “Please.”
I groaned. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “This bullshit really doesn’t matter. They’ve got me over a barrel and there’s nothing I can do. Damn it.” I clenched my fists together. “I should’ve seen it coming, should’ve known they would do something like this. It wasn’t even my case that we were investigating. Damn it. It was Regan’s. I took it on as a favour... to keep an eye on him. It was the only way I could convince him to come under my protection and I failed. I failed him. Regan’s dead. He’s dead goddammit!” I slammed my both hands into the table. “There was nothing I could do!”
“Jack, we’ll find a way to...”
“No! Don’t you get it? They’ve won!”
“Who? Who’s won?”
“Them! The corporate elite!” I stood, the chair scraping backwards behind me. “People like Greene and... and... and Dionne Bex... they get away with it every damned time!” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I’m so sick of it.”
“Jack...”
I let out a big sigh. “I know, I know. But what am I supposed to do?”
“Jack, sit down.”
I was shaking. Angry. I just wanted to scream and drink myself into oblivion.
“Jack?”
The cigarette in my hand had burned down to the filter and the sudden shock as the embers touched my skin brought me out of my fugue. I collapsed back into my seat. “I’m sorry... I’m just tired. So tired. I can’t remember the last time I actually slept.”
“You should head home.” He leant forward and placed his hand on mine. “We can pick this up again once you’ve rested. A shower and a hot meal. A decent night’s sleep. And you’ve still got to find that missing statue, right?”
“Yeah.” I kept quiet about the hitman’s SmartBoy in my pocket. It was next to Regan’s which I’d almost forgotten about; I’d need to check what incriminating files he had on the device before I could do anything with it. “I need to look into some new leads... now that The Victor is out of the picture.”
“I think we need to arrange some protection for you.” The cop raised his eyebrows and leant back in his chair. “Three people have tried to kill you since you took that case.”
I shook my head. “I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll be fine.” I lit up a third cigarette. “Besides, I did find out something when I had my ‘talk’ with my most recent friend.”
“’Talk’ is a very generous term for the state you left him in.”
I shrugged and took a drag; the narcotics stung my dry throat. But I liked it.
“You can’t beat people that hard; saying it’s ‘self-defence’ only goes so far,” said Suede. “What did you find out?”
“Whoever is calling the shots doesn’t want me dead.” I exhaled a cloud of smoke. “They were hired to scare me away from the case.”
“Funny way of scaring you; one of them put you in hospital.”
“They’ve certainly been... enthusiastic in their attempts.”
There was a gentle knock on the door. Suede raised an eyebrow, indicating that he wasn’t expecting to be disturbed. The door knocked again.
“Come,” he called.
The door squeaked open on rusty hinges. It was Johnson.
“Sir, there’s a visitor for Mr Gem...”
The door burst fully open, and a whirlwind of rage barged inside. Dionne Bex. She stormed passed the two cops and, before I’d had a chance to react, slapped my face as hard as she could.