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Your headlights cut clean through the dark, burning white eyes in the bruise blackened face of the night. The road before you is wet, you slide over the asphalt with a low hiss. On either side trees, tall and thin with only sticks for limbs, rise out of sheets of wet leaves. They grow higher and thinner, until they branch off into brittle arms and fingers, reaching and strangling each other far above the ground.
Behind you, stuffed in the footwell of the backseat and bound, is a man. He is sobbing.
You drive further down the narrow strip of slick pavement, come to a slow bend and make the turn. The car never hitches or lurches when you drive, every stop is smooth and every turn feels natural to the movement of the vehicle. You are the only man on the planet who can drive in such a way that passengers feel that cars were meant to be driven in circles.
Shortly after the bend you pull off of the road, flick off the headlights, stop the engine. The man’s sobbing is louder now, in part because the murmur of the engine had been drowning him out. You haul him out, drag him to his feet when he slips and falls into a pile of leaves, shove him along into the trees until he finally walks of his own volition.
The woods are silent but for your footsteps and his murmuring. Somehow he’s managed to breathe in enough through his gag to sob and try to speak. At this point he’s high on fear and that strange adrenaline that comes with it. He probably thinks he’s speaking very eloquently.
You walk him out through two different clearings, deep into the forest. He stumbles and sways, his brain losing oxygen the more he tries to speak. Now you come up beside him, in front of him, and he bumps against you and then stumbles backwards drunkenly.
‘Your first shot puts him down, then you put one in his brain. Then he’s dead. Then we go home.’
Words from your childhood.
You use your handgun, which you are rather unfamiliar with. His knee shatters and his screams so loudly he might as well not be gagged. He’s down.
The shot echoes through the trees, making the stickly limbs creak like ancient houses with ghosts pacing in their halls. You listen as the echo fades and you hear the man’s breathing. Labored, wet against the soaking leaves, catching in his throat. He whimpers.
“Look at me.”
He pants like a dog, his body shaking, his breath tumbling out in thick puffs of steam. He gives no sign that he’s heard you.
You put one in his brain and go home.
----
“The fuck are we gonna do you idiots?!”
“If you’d quit with the screaming maybe we could do something about it!”
“Don’t fucking tell me what the fuck to do you fuck!”
You glide through the door, close it softly behind you and hang up your coat as Slick and Boxcars go at it. Clubs is on the couch, tinkering quietly with something as the shouting match progresses. He doesn’t want to risk getting sucked into conflict and as usual he pretends it doesn’t exist.
You take a seat in the little kitchette that looks into the livingroom where the argument has evolved into a fist fight. Boxcars pins Slick, gets bitten, and then it becomes a wrestling match. A scrawny, one eyed David against a slow, Georgian Goliath.
Finally Slick’s angry energy is spent and he coughs himself into something like placidity. Boxcars gets some iodine for his bites. You walk into the livingroom and stand over your leader.
“Droog,” Clubs fumbles with the bundle of twine he was using to make a wick, “when did you get here?”
You check you watch.
“Forty-five minutes ago. What were you fighting about?”
Slick coughs and spits blood onto the carpet.
“Arthur motherfucking Wilde.”
“What about him?”
He props himself up on his elbows, Boxcars bumbles back into the room.
“Son bitch’s going to Team Sleuth, probably already fucking there, none of us can find him in any of his usual holes. Bastard’s gone fucking AWOL.”
He lights a cigarette. You go to the bulletin board where you and the other members of the Crew have kept photos, names, addresses and important dates for everyone who’s crossed or aided you. Arthur Wilde’s picture and information is on the top layer of paper tacked to the board. There’s a large red ‘x’ over his photo. You put it there four hours ago, as a sign to the others. You pull his information down and ball it all up, toss it into the trashcan by the couch.
“Fuck are you doing?”
“Arthur Wilde is dead.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“I just came back from killing him. If you don’t believe me you can go out to Jefferson Row and see for yourself.”
Slick gets up, grabs his coat and storms out to go see if you’re right. Boxcars follows, yelling after him that there’s no way in hell he’s driving with that limp. Clubs hurries after Boxcars, loyal as a kid brother.
Arthur Wilde is lying in the leaves out in the forest the Crew has code named Jefferson Row. By now he should have stopped bleeding.
The hems of your pants are still wet from your walk through the woods. You collect your coat and hat, slide the door open and lock it behind you.
As you turn down the hall you see something white on the floor by your feet. Your knees creak as you kneel to pick it up.
A note, folded twice, written in a shaky script that is not familiar, though you can easily guess who it’s from.
7:30 Bay Street Cafe, please come alone.
You tuck the note into the breast pocket of your coat and make tracks to your apartment.
----
Unsurprisingly, he is late.
You arrived at the Bay Street Cafe at seven twenty-nine, ordered black coffee and read the newspaper while you waited. It’s a cheery little restaurant on the good side of town, with tables set up on the sidewalk and a view of the harbor. You choose one of these tables, out of courtesy to the Inspector and his mild (so he claims) agoraphobia.
Only when you close the newspaper in order to turn its pages do you realize he’s sitting across from you.
“Inspector,” you fold the paper and lay it on the worth iron tabletop.
“Hello, Droog.” His hands fidget with each other, he slouches in his chair. He got out of bed, dressed and came directly here, you can tell by the way his hair leans to the left. The side he slept on.
“How are you?”
“I, I’m uhh, well, I’m well. But there’s something, someone, rather, I really need to, to speak to, with you about.”
You raise your eyebrows and give him a little nod to signal he can keep talking.
“Ah, Arthur Wilde,” he’s stopped by a woman who walks by and grazes the Inspector’s shoulder with her purse. His assailant doesn’t apologize, or seem to notice. He just scoots his chair in closer to the table and starts again. “Arthur Wilde is Sleuth’s cousin, and he’s, he’s gone missing,” he tilts his head to the side, his mouth a long grim line. “He got, well, he’s been in trouble with the law and, at least, I heard maybe also with you and the Crew. I was wondering, I thought, rather, that perhaps you would know or maybe you could tell me where he is? Sleuth’s aunt is very worried and she’s like a mother to them. Well, she is Arthur’s mother, she’s like Sleuth’s mother.”
You nod again, sitting back a little.
“He has had trouble with us, but I can’t say I’ve heard from him lately.”
The Inspector nods, fiddling with the brim of his hat.
“Thank you,”
He looks around, then turns to watch the harbor. You look at him; ramshackle and taciturn he is as close to being homeless as a man can come without actually being a tramp. The sun hits his hair and doesn’t give him a golden halo, it pulls the silver blond of his hair into its rays and starts to make him vanish. You know that if his skin has another iota of yellow in its pigment, he would fade away entirely, yanked out of this world into a ray of sunlight.
“Inspector.”
He turns, big blue eyes focused on you. His face ticks, an almost Holmesian quality, and he doesn’t blink for about seven seconds. Normal eyes can only wait five seconds between blinks for them to stay comfortable.
“Yes?”
“Do you ever feel,” you sigh through your nose. You really should have said nothing. “that you go unnoticed by the world?”
He doesn’t ask for clarity, looks down at his hat and thinks.
“It’s... not so bad anymore, you know. Ace, Sleuth and myself, we’ve, we’ve become quite a team.” He frowns happily, which is the only way you’ve ever seen him smile. He does better than you, at any rate. “The camaraderie, it’s quite nice sometimes.” His hand goes to his mouth and two fingertips rest on his lower lip.
“It is nice, sometimes, to be alone.”
“Would you like to be alone with me, at some time?”
He’s too naive or stupid to see any innuendo in what you asked. He‘s the only man one Earth who could be asked that question and understand that all you ask is to be companions in solitude.
“Perhaps.”
His way of saying no.
You two part ways after that.
----
That week you make two more trips to Jefferson Row.
You drive back alone.
----
The day after your second trip into the woods, Pickle Inspector catches you near headquarters.
“Dddroog, Droog, sssome, something terrible’s happened.” He’s shaking all over, clinging to your coat. His eyes are watery, bloodshot, shifty. “Please, you’ve, you mmm, you gotta h-help me.”
You get him to take you to his apartment.
“Ace disappeared two ddays ago and now, I can’t find Sleuth anywhere, and Arthur’s gone and god I can’t find them I looked everywhere and they’re just gone--”
You’ve filled on of his few cups with bourbon from your flask. You have to force it into his hands and up to his mouth. He sips and winces.
He doesn’t notice you for the rest of your alone time together.
This isn’t what you wanted.