The Agreement

THE AGREEMENT After the Agreement, Nothing could be refused

A TRASH NOVEL by CHRIS SCHMOOK

BARNCOTT PRESS LONDON - AMSTERDAM - PARIS - NEW YORK -KATHMANDU

The Agreement

The AgreeMent

A TRASH NOVEL by CHRIS SCHMOOK

© All Rights Reserved

BARNCOTT PRESS LONDON - AMSTERDAM - PARIS - NEW YORK KATHMANDU

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The Agreement

CHAPTER ONE London, Nov 5th 2012. Zenson was passed thinking, almost past caring, but he did care more than anything in the world. That was the trouble.

He did not want to look down, because the luxury apartment block known as Tresel Towers has 24 floors, and he was on the edge of it’s roof, trying not to look down. It was dark, cold and very quiet, except for a police or ambulance siren wailing somewhere far away.

The young woman next to him was shivering. She looked like she was in third degree, or maybe tenth degree shock. Zenson gripped her arm even harder. He had to do this.

Then holding her with him he jumped. There was nothing else he could do. It was part of the Agreement. ...........

New York, Nov 5th 2011. Detective Gonzalez slammed down the phone on his desk. “God fucked my fucking whore grandmother!”

This meant Gonzalez was happy, and that Gonzalez believed his grandfather was God. Gonzalez was a New York cop, but he liked to introduce himself as “The Filth” which he got from being an avid fan of British TV cop movies.

When Gonzalaz was happy it usually meant that someone from the criminal fraternity was very unhappy. They were either dead, wounded in hospital possibly critical, or in the cells, getting ready to confess to pretty much anything.

In this case someone was in the cells. The prisoner was a thin, sick looking junkie, small time dealer, pimp and fraudster called Peterson whose entirely false arrest for possession of a serious quantity of crack cocaine had been ordered by Gonzalez only a few hours previously. Therefore Gonzalez was happy, and Peterson was very unhappy.

If is possible to have a mid-life crisis when you have almost no emotions, morals, or scruples and you no longer care whether you 1

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live or die, because you are that cynical, then Peterson was having a mid-life crisis.

He was sick of his life. He was wishing he was somewhere else, somewhere sunny, somewhere like Florida. But the only light was a neon tube on the ceiling of his cell which flickered every so often and buzzed like there was a trapped insect inside trying to get out.

“How long are you bastards going to be?” Peterson said out loud, hoping someone would be listening, but no one was. ..........

Several floors above Peterson’s cell Detective Gonzalez hit the battered button of the intercom on his desk; “Andrews! Get me Charleson, I want him here right now. Tell him I’ve got Peterson as a fucking VIP guest.”

‘Sir, Charleson is out on a case.”

“Well tell him get back here.”

“Sir ... it’s the Mathews Case.”

“Damn! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck those people!”

The Mathews Case was sensitive and a priority case. It involved people in high places, including Senator Bill Mathews of Wisconsin who resided in an especially high place, namely the White House as the current President’s right hand man. So everything really had to be by the book. Gonzalez hated that. He had a notice on his desk printed very small. It said: “Scumbags don’t believe in the rules, so you have to break the fucking rules to catch scumbags.”

“That’s my legal small print,” he would tell the lawyers who regularly came to complain about his methods; “Please don’t waste my time with technical ball-shit.”

Gonzalez took a deep breath. Andrews was right of course.

Interrupting the Mathews Case by calling back Charleson was not at all wise. It was already inter-agency level, that meant spooks, lawyers and more paperwork than any sane person could ever imagine. And all over some rich guy’s iphone! More fucking technical ball-shit! Plus this was the kind of thing Charleson was good at, so the sensible thing was to let him get on with it, and then as his superior take 2

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some credit when he closes the case. That’s how you earned points in the Department.

Gonzalez leaned closer to the intercom, and now sounding much calmer said, “Andrews, you may well be correct, I am aware of that situation. On reflection I think you had better tell Charleson to .... get here right now!” ..........

Sam Charleson was in a library pretending to read a book, but really he was resting, and thinking. He liked libraries because they are quiet and usually well heated and ventilated. Not too cold and not too hot. The perfect climate in his opinion. The only downside was that this opinion was shared by homeless people who tended to smell. Charleson had a very keen sense of smell, but he was a liberal minded person so if necessary he moved.

Today, despite the freezing New York wind outside, all the homeless people were somewhere else. Charleson had one of the best positions all to himself; the reading desk by the radiator at the end of the Philosophy section, nice and far from everyone.

Considering the circumstances, philosophy was exactly what he needed. The Mathews Case was not going well.

No one was talking any more except through their lawyers.

Charleson had a bag full of legal statements supposedly by witnesses, but written by those very same lawyers.

Nevertheless Charleston had read every word, and taken notes and made cross references, and entered everything into his personally tweaked database and run countless checks and called a friend in the CIA, and a friend at the New York Times and then did more cross checks and then some more. That is how he operated.

Gonzalez once said to Charleson in a rare soft moment “I fuck the detail, but you do the detail, that’s what I like about you Charleston, you fucking techno-pervert” slapping him on the back and making Charleson cringe.

He had been doing the detail on the Mathews Case for weeks now.

“This one is priority because a fucking Senator says so” said Gonzalez when he threw the paperwork on his deck; “you got Senator Mathews, a room full of assholes who happen to be V.I.P’s 3

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and a missing cell phone. One of them probably has it up his arse so it should not be difficult to find.”

“What is the big deal about a missing cell?”

“Senator fucking Mathews is the big deal! I thought you read the New York Times? Just be your usual careful self, this is ball-shit all the way.”

Apart from Senator Mathews the major ‘big deal’ was of course Max Hall, owner of the missing phone. This is the Max Hall we are talking about; the British ex singer and larger than life business tycoon, still adored by millions of women over fifty-five, both for his songs, and his cheap but solid feeling electrical equipment.

He built an international business empire by putting his shamelessly sentimental songs and the cheap electrical goods together in TV adverts with astounding success. ‘Max Hall Singing Kettles” ended up in half the kitchens of Britain and America at one point.

Today however ‘Max Hall’ was ‘Sir Max Hall’, a British right wing politician selling a popular mix of basic common sense and complete bigotry with increasing success.

Instead of selling singing kettles now he uses his songs as a warm up for his political speeches, which one satirical observer compared to a combination of the Nuremberg Rallies, a rock concert and the Pope doing Mass at the Vatican.

Selling the ‘Sir Max Hall’ political brand using the old songs has been working like a dream, just like it did for singing kettles. His enemies were giving dire warnings that he could be Prime Minister, but this only seemed to boost his poll ratings, while his ever growing thousands of ardent cult like supporters literally pray to God every night that he will be.

In the mean time he is a regular on American TV news shows any time they want a “Republican Brit” to back an invasion. Due to this regular exposure, plus his many after dinner speeches at $150,000 a time, Max Hall has developed such a political following in the States that many say if only he was American he could easily be President.

Needless to say a lot of cops, prison guards and strict authoritarian types on both sides of the Atlantic love Max Hall because he wants 4

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to double the number of prison spaces, and treble the number of police.

As a cop Charleson was under no illusions. Having someone like Sir Max Hall involved in the case meant lots of complications. Those kind of people you have to treat different, Charleson knew that.

The phone company was treating Sir Max Hall differently from most people, that’s for sure. They kept giving a different excuse for not producing the officially requested transcripts of the last calls on Hall’s iphone.

Charleson did not like to be deprived of information, it made him feel like his brain might start eating itself.

Charleson stared at the philosophy book he was pretending to read; an obscure work by Heraclitus which he had arbitrarily picked from the shelf. Maybe he should start treating the phone company different too. Normally they sent a disc by courier, but now he was considering a personal visit, armed with documentation.

Meanwhile there was one suspect; the guy who Max Hall claims stole his phone. Another dead end so far.

Mr Charlie Leatherhead, aged 47, was just a middle class white guy with a house, a wife, two kids and a job in insurance. You could not get more normal. No previous, not even when he was a kid. Bank account checked out, nothing, no whores, gambling, not even internet porn, nothing. Medical records say no drugs, no medication what so ever. His phone company released the logs within hours of their request. Turns out Leatherhead rings his wife twice a day like clock work, that’s it. Friends at golf club say he’s a regular guy.

Again, nothing. The only thing you have to wonder is what was Leatherhead doing in that room of VIPs? They were all ‘A’ list people, except the waiters. Leatherhead is on the ‘N’ for normal list.

“It’s almost spooky how straight down the line this guy is. He is too normal to be normal” Charleson was thinking, when his phone went off causing several annoyed looks in the library.

“You are meant to turn those things off in here” whispered someone near by.

“Sorry, sorry, it’s my wife, she’s having a baby!”

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But it was Andrews from headquarters; “Gonzalez wants you right now.”

“I am on the Mathews Case, can’t he wait?”

“Detective Gonzalez was most insistent” replied Andrews. “He says he has Mr Peterson staying as a guest and would like you to help entertain him.”

Charleson sighed. Gonzalez had already mentioned his plan involving Peterson. It sounded like bad news then, but now it was actually happening it was more than Charleson wanted to cope with, especially with the Mathews Case the way it was. On the other hand Gonzalez was risking serious trouble for a big prize, so he deserved to have his back covered.

“Tell him I am on my way” said Charleson. That’s the kind of guy Charleson was. The kind that watches your back when you need it.

Charleson drove slowly back to Headquarters, he wanted more time to think.

He was not looking forward to what would happen when he and Gonzalez ‘entertained’ Peterson. “Not at all, at all, at all” as he would say when he was drunk, but now he was stone cold worried. ......

Watch out for the rest of The Agreement to be published by Barncott Press.

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