Part 3 (2/2)
Despite being a seasoned detective, Jack was beginning to feel as if he were the dunce sitting in the corner of their home, a man standing in the shadows of future intellectual giants. He couldn't have been more proud. It was just the quick flashes that kept him going, a glimpse of them to tide him over until he got home. Jack could almost smell his wife's cooking over the stale stench of mildew and rot permeating his senses.
Quickly, he was back. The building looked as if it had been there for a century, most of that time standing as an abandoned relic. More than likely the building authority was hoping that it would eventually just fall over on its own so they wouldn't have to pay for its demolition. The carpet in the hallway was deteriorating and curling away from the walls. Only large pieces of debris-air conditioners, empty cases of beer and a kitchen appliance or two-held the flaking fabric in place.
He couldn't see them, but the sound of rats scurrying about made him tread lightly.
Moving down the hall with his flashlight still guiding the way, Jack could see the building had once been an old hotel. Most of the numbers had fallen off the doors he pa.s.sed, but occasionally he'd see one with the digits still hanging on for dear life. It wasn't difficult to tell how far he'd gone into the darkness.
He continued slowly, occasionally brus.h.i.+ng garbage away with his feet, hoping that the rats were smart enough to stay away from him if they didn't want to catch a bullet.
Graffiti had been painted over in places only to be tagged on the wall again by the next vandal. Most of the windows were covered by it as well, until he came across several broken frames in the wall that allowed the sunlight to enter as he turned the corner beyond the lone light bulb.
Room 106.
Miraculously, the room he was looking for clearly stood out from the rest. The flickering light bulb was right overhead, and the door was free of debris. Jack had no problem going right up to it and knocking softly.
He put the flashlight away and made sure he was ready to draw his gun as he stood to the side. It was a st.u.r.dy Ruger P90, a gun which few of his fellow detectives used due to its size. Jack had always liked the relative feeling of safety it provided. It wasn't just a weapon; it was a s.h.i.+eld as well.
There was the sound of movement on the other side, a chair sliding across the floor and something falling to the ground. The m.u.f.fled noise of a voice was just barely discernible.
”My name is Detective Jack Paige. I'm looking for Mikhail Phillips,” he said, loud enough for a man of Phillips' age. Judging by the photograph, Jack knew he wouldn't be a problem. However, men like him tended to have a.s.sociates, young upstarts willing to prove themselves.
He heard the m.u.f.fled voice again, this time forced to cautiously press his ear up to the door.
”Come in,” it said, soft and raspy.
The door was unlocked. The detective continued standing to the side of the frame as he nudged the door open. It stuck the first time. Then when he applied more force, the door opened quickly, the deadbolt snagging some of the rotting wood along the way. In the end, it sounded almost like he'd kicked it in.
”Don't worry about that,” the voice inside said, calling to him. ”That thing'll stick like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d no matter how much I try to fix it, which is not much, I can tell ya.”
Jack entered slowly, his hand still hovering above his gun.
The s.p.a.ce inside was just like the rest of the hotel except there was less debris littering the floor. The quaint apartment looked as if it had been an agreeable hotel room at some point in the past.
Large red curtains hung loosely from discolored bra.s.s hangers which covered the first floor window. The furniture was ragged, but it all followed the same decorating scheme, more than likely from the 1950s at first glance.
Whoever lived there had allowed it to be gradually swallowed by dust and time, albeit less slowly than the rest of the building. There was electricity, but it appeared just as spotty as the light bulb in the hall. A TV in the corner displayed a grainy old movie on mute.
Jack eventually walked into the kitchen after surveying the living room for other people. Seeing that there were none, he approached and saw the man who had asked him in, sitting at the kitchen table.
”Are you Mikhail Phillips?” Jack asked, letting his hand hang to his side. He was clearly not a threat.
”Call me Long Daddy,” the man said with a smile and a cough. ”That's what everyone used to call me.”
He was a poorly aged African-American man with white hair and a dirty white, ragged beard. His skin was covered in blemishes and sores, probably a disease he picked up on the streets throughout the course of his sad life, or so Jack reasoned. He wore a stained white unders.h.i.+rt and ripped suit pants. His feet were bare, his toenails long and crusty.
A bent spoon and several other implements for shooting heroin were spread across the table. The tourniquet the man was preparing to use looked like it had been fished out of a dumpster. The syringe, however, was clean and new. Jack could see the wrapper lying next to it on the table. Either through theft or charity, the burned-out pimp had managed to find clean needles. However, it was clear the damage had been done.
Detective Paige saw he had walked into this man's life about a minute before he was about to tie himself off.
He took a closer look and saw a baggie of white powder poorly s.h.i.+elded by the man's arm. Phillips attempted to hide it without success by nudging it to the side and flexing his muscles to make his arm bigger.
”I'm going to forget I saw that if you help me out today, sir,” Jack said politely. ”I think the taxpayers could use a break on trivial arrests. You don't look like a major dealer to me.”
”Sure thing, son,” the man said with another raspy laugh as he brought his arm back, no longer trying to sustain his half-hearted attempt at secrecy. ”Just make it quick, okay? Been a while, y'hear? That monkey is only gettin' stronger, y'know.”
Jack walked to the other side of the table, deciding not to sit down as he inspected the vacant, filthy chair. He stepped over some long-forgotten stain on the floor that had dried out unevenly over time, brown and lumpy. Looking around the rest of the kitchen the detective even felt sorry for the bottoms of his shoes.
”You were a pimp back in the day, right?” Jack asked immediately, bringing his gaze back to Phillips. ”Maybe you still are-you know, here and there when money's a little tight?”
”The best there was, boy. I coulda turned out any b.i.t.c.h I ever saw, and I did, too. Course, not anymore. Consider myself retired.”
”What about this one?” Jack asked, pulling out the autopsy photo of the Jane Doe tentatively known as Pricilla Andrews, Pride, or several other aliases. It was one of the tamer photos that showed only a close-up of her face while she was still alive, posing for the surgeons. Regardless, it still looked like a mug shot.
The man's hand searched the table fruitlessly, hoping to find what Jack a.s.sumed to be eyegla.s.ses. The detective saw them on the counter and handed them to him. Like the syringe, they were cleaner than their owner, standing out in the dirty apartment like a s.h.i.+ning jewel.
Phillips fumbled with them for a moment, his hands shaking as he lifted the gla.s.ses to his face. After getting a good look at the picture, he dropped the photo onto the table and let out a sigh.
”What happened to her, Mr. Phillips?” Jack asked. ”She worked for you, right?”
”Oh, yeah,” he said, drawing out his response clumsily. His mind was clearly fried from years of drug use. ”She was given to me by her father. She was one of my best b.i.t.c.hes for a while. Never had another moneymaker like her,” he said, trying to take off his gla.s.ses. He struggled with them for a few seconds, unable to gain a proper grip, then latched on tightly. As soon as he removed them from his face, he loosened his grasp, accidentally dropping them onto the table.
”How long did she work for you?” Jack asked, ignoring the pimp's lack of dexterity while staring intently at the man.
”About two years, son. But that was a long time ago, y'see.” Phillips had stopped looking at the detective as he spoke. His eyes barely left the drugs on the table. Jack could see he was only half there to start with.
”My research tells me you were her legal guardian. How did that come to be if she was one of your wh.o.r.es?” Noticing that Phillips was still refusing to look at him, Jack snapped his fingers, getting the man's attention. ”Hey! Listen,” Jack commanded, getting impatient. ”Most of the guys I meet on the street who share your profession usually don't go through all the trouble of filling out adoption paperwork.”
”Friend of mine,” Phillips shot back on the verge of anger. ”I bribed him sometimes to get me some free medical for the b.i.t.c.hes or fudge some scripts-you know the drill. It was easy,” Phillips said with a cough as he calmed down. ”Keeps the cops off my back. Course I could only do that when I was sure I really wanted 'em and that they couldn't leave me. They had to be good, like her, otherwise it was just a waste.”
”Okay, so you turned her out for two years, then what happened?” Jack said, his eyes trying to locate the source of a smell that had gradually increased in strength since he arrived.
”She never talked back once. I never had to straighten her out like all the rest of 'em,” the broken pimp said with a yellow smile that soon evaporated from his face. Unlike before, he was now totally focused on Jack as he relayed his story. ”A regular a'hers kept stopping by, sayin' how he wanted to take her away from me. He'd treat her like a queen-you know, the usual bulls.h.i.+t. I didn't like it one bit. Too much invested, too much to lose.”
”What happened?” Jack asked.
”I had enough, boy. One day he showed up like usual, whispering in her ear, makin' her laugh. Dude brought her jewelry and candy; a box of chocolates, I think it was.” Phillips paused, trying to hold back the sting of anger Jack could see him attempting to suppress. ”He came over to me and said he wanted her for reals, that today was gonna be the day and that he always gets what he wants-y'know, the same fiction as always. So, I did what I had to. I took out my b.u.t.terfly blade and stabbed that b.a.s.t.a.r.d in the heart.” Phillips paused for a moment as he inhaled deeply. ”Then he took her away.”
”What do you mean?” Jack said. ”You didn't kill him?”
”No,” the old man replied before he started to cough. Jack looked around and saw a relatively clean towel on the counter which he handed to the ageing pimp. After coughing into it, Phillips placed it back on the table. Jack noticed the blood on it immediately. It started as a small pattern of speckled crimson that soon spread out from the center.
”Are you alright?” Jack said, half disgusted and only a little concerned.
”Yeah,” Phillips replied with a laugh. ”I'm not exactly insured. The junk helps take the edge off.”
”We can take a break if you want,” Jack said, hoping the man would decline. He didn't want to stay in the withered hotel with its withering tenant any longer than he had to.
<script>