DEATH DAINTILY

Daniel Reschke

It rained last night, and by the look of the sky, it wasn’t over yet. The dark clouds covered the stars and blotted out the moon, leaving the night to be lit only by the streetlights that dotted the roads and reflected in the large puddles of water that covered the ground. I could hear that the wind was calm though, leaving the puddles to be disturbed only by the occasional vehicle or streetwalker that splashed through them. The sounds of the streets that night resonated through the thin walls of my office. The blaring of car horns, the cat calls of hookers on the prowl, and the roaring of the train as it pulled into the nearby railyard all added to the background noise of life in this city. But even with such loud noises coming at me from all sides, it still seemed oddly quiet. A strange hush had fallen over the wind despite the obviously brewing storm. Storms were drawn to me it seemed. Even as one gathered outside, another stood in my office, staring holes in my back as I looked out the window. I could see her reflection in the glass. She was a pretty little storm in a long, tight dress. One whom I knew well. With a last puff on my cigarette, I ground the butt into the windowsill. “I’m afraid I’m closed for the night madam, or did the locked door not tip you off?” “Come now Ace, since when have I ever let a mere lock stand in my way?” the woman cooed. I prefer thunderstorms. I can avoid a thunderstorm. I can bar my windows and seal my doors from the wind and rain. No window or door or lock could keep this storm of a lady out. If you put a solid wall between her and her goal, she’d figure out a way to walk through it. “Such a waste of talent when the hardest thing you need to get into is another person’s pants,” I remarked, looking over my shoulder at the woman. “It’s my girls that get into their pants,” she corrected, “I get into their heads, their hearts, and their wallets.” Her words were getting snappier, not with irritation, but impatience. I couldn’t put this off forever. I flipped my collar up against the oncoming storm and turned around. “So what can I do for you, Antimony?” I asked. This girl, Antimony King, was the

madam and owner of a brothel here in town by the name of “The Love Well.” She’d always had a sweet spot for me. From what I’d heard from the girls, I’m the only client she sees to personally. I’d had various connections to The Love Well over the years. I had watched it grow from a small rundown shack with a few gutter rat employees, to a few nice, rented apartments with several decent girls, to the popular bordello with dozens of ladies of the night that it was now. I had watched as her dresses, jewelry, and makeup had improved with each step up the ladder, even as my own office fell into disrepair and disorder and my shoes and coat lost their sheen and collected scuff marks. The silk dress and silver bracelet that the woman wore didn’t belong in a place like this. My office was not a place of opulence and brilliance. The flickering light bulb overhead and the damp creeping up the walls showed exactly what this place was. But Antimony was not expecting luxury or class. No matter how many dresses of silk and lace she imported from Milan, or how many pearls weighed down her neck and wrists, it could not change the fact that she had dwelt in this world for long enough to know how little to expect of the light and how much to respect and utilize the darkness we both lived in. “You can offer a lady a drink,” she sighed, sitting down. “I’m afraid I’m all out of champagne,” I told her as I wandered over to the rack where several bottles filled with varying amounts of liquid stood side by side. “Champagne is for happy occasions. Get me something heavy that burns on the way down,” she stated solemnly. I looked back at her and grabbed two shot glasses but left all the bottles on the shelf. I set a glass in front of each of us and took my flask from my hip. “Nothing burns more,” I assured her as I poured two shots out. She downed the drink immediately and closed her eyes as the burn quickly set in. I refilled her glass and looked at her as I drank my own shot. Slowly her eyes opened and turned down towards the glass. She lazily circled the rim with her finger as she gradually began to speak, “you can be a bit of a bore at times but you’ve always known how to treat a lady. Unlike some people...” I shook my head and sighed at Antimony’s bluntness. “If you’re just here to whine about how things have been going at the brothel then we could’ve just met at the bar and you could’ve picked up the tab.” “My girls have been going missing, and one of them’s just turned up dead,” the woman summarized, and as if on cue the shutters banged against the window as a strong gust of wind blew.

“And you know how the police handle prostitutes. They’ll throw the body and the folder in the incinerator and forget about the whole thing. If Riley hadn’t been the one on the scene, I doubt I ever would have heard about this,” she countered. “Who knows how many of the other girls have wound up dead only to be tossed aside by the coroner in favor of more important people. I doubt this is the only one who has died after going missing.” “If Riley’s already there, let her investigate it.” “She’s still just a beat cop, she can’t do anything on her own.” “Look, Antimony,” I began, drumming my fingers on the desk as I looked back up at her, “it’s been a long day and I want to go home. So unless you have a really good offer for me, I’m going to have to say no.” One of Antimony’s hands moved to her shoulder before sliding the strap of her dress down her arm. Then she leaned forward, an intensity burning in her eyes that I was well familiar with. She plucked my fedora from my head and plopped it upon her own long, curly locks. “You know exactly what I have to offer,” she purred. A hand moved to my chest. It was a really good offer. I stuck the cigarette into my mouth, holding it between my lips as I fumbled for my lighter inside the pockets of my pants which had been tossed over the end of the desk. I flicked it open and struck it twice before it caught flame. I brought it to my mouth and lit my cigarette before snapping the light closed and taking a deep drag, inhaling the acrid smoke. Dainty, feminine fingers plucked the roll of paper and tobacco from my mouth. Though my eyes were still somewhat unfocused and my mind still a little hazy, I followed the fingers with my eyes. Watched as they moved and deposited the cigarette in Antimony’s mouth. The woman was sprawled out behind me, her fancy dress and expensive jewelry discarded, leaving her in only my hat and the two leather belts high up on her thighs that held a pair of knives. The knives were the girl’s preferred weapon when a weapon was necessary for self defense. She took a long drag and a slow exhale before smirking. “Think all of those yes, yes, yesses canceled out that one little no?” she asked teasingly. I huffed and snatched my cigarette back, taking another deep inhale before holding up two fingers. “I want double my usual rate and free drinks at The Love Well’s bar until this is over.” It was hard to say no to Antimony, she always seemed to persuade me in the end. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t ensure it was worth the inevitable mental turmoil. “One and a half times your usual rate, free drinks until you finish, and I’ll do that thing you like next time you come around,” Antimony haggled. “One and three quarters my usual rate, and I’ll do the thing you like the time after that.”

“Deal,” Antimony hastily accepted. She had an even harder time saying no to me it seemed. I ground out the cigarette and began to put my clothes back on. It seemed that my bed would have to wait. I had a dead girl to see. I turned my eyes towards the stairwell, descending to the bottom floor and stepping out in the cold night. The streetlamps all around me casting everything in long shadows that seemed to swallow the street. A chilly wind blew and I turned up my collar at it before beginning my journey to the place where I was needed, the place where the body of a young woman lay. I followed the streets as far as they would take me, but the streets were only a small part of the city, and not one where this sort of thing would happen. I turned and went between two buildings, warehouses of no particular note or merit. The only reason they mattered to me was that they formed the alley that I now walked down. The alleys of a city were not pleasant places to be. Even at high noon on the brightest day, alleys were swamped with shadow and sin. On a moonless night like this, where only the light that poured in from the adjacent streetlights could hope to provide any illumination, it made everything darker still. The buildings to either side loomed as if to warn me that nothing good could be found here, that I should be scared of this place. In a place like this, a dead body did not seem out of place. In fact, I could argue that it completed the picture. Alleys were where the sins of a city bubbled up, reminding those who strayed from the main path what lies in store for them in the shadows. Here the corpse served as sin and warning both. With a swig of bourbon and a deep inhale that burned up half my cigarette, I prepared for the sight I knew to be inevitable as I turned into the alley. They say you never get used to seeing death. The truly frightening thing is that you do. I did. The first time I saw a corpse, the cold dead eyes had haunted my dreams for weeks. I couldn’t even look at the eyes of the dolls and stuffed toys I saw in the toy store window without being reminded of those lifeless orbs. Now I looked at them and just noted that this woman had gone a little heavy on the mascara. It was not the pallor of the flesh, the lifeless eyes, or the spilled blood that disturbed me now. It was the memories of what they meant. And against the ghosts of my past, the flask dangling from my left hip did a lot more good than the gun dangling from my right. But not all memories of the past were tinged with sorrow, and not every person who found themselves in these dark, narrow straits was painted in sin. Sometimes a flower managed to pierce the concrete and bloom in the most unlikely places. Standing near the body was the flower rooted in the pavement, a small

bastion of purity in this world of sin. Her police woman’s outfit was the only thing here not coated in dirt and blood, including myself. The wreath of flowers adorning her cap were the only things of beauty in this dark place. “Riley,” I called out to her. Those pure eyes turned up to look at me. The hope that sparkled within them made me itch. Her sorrowful frown turned upwards into a happy smile that I knew my presence should not warrant. Still I felt my lips twitching in return as she nodded to me and said, “Ace, what a pleasure to see you. What are you doing here?” Once upon a time this girl and I had been colleagues. It had not been for long but I still remember the kindness and innocence of this little girl, new to the force. Though others were quick to take advantage of her good will and naivety, I had endeavored to treat her with respect, rewarding her kindness with my own. Under circumstances like those, it was not surprising that we had become fast friends. She admired my skill and diligence. She looked up to me. She wanted to be just like me one day and was always asking for advice on how to do it. For my part, I admired her intelligence and resolve. I could see her potential and did what I could to help her unlock it. I hadn’t gotten very far before we had parted ways, and of all the things I miss, of all the things I regret, she was among the biggest. It was nice to see her again, a breath of fresh air amongst the cigarette smoke and scent of blood. “Antimony asked me to help her with this. So I decided to come to the scene of the crime and see what I can figure out. I didn’t expect you to still be here,” I explained to her. “Oh... uhm, right. This was one of her...” the cop flushed, hesitant to say the word. She was so innocent, in every sense of the word. “One of her employees, wasn’t it,” she finished, unable to say the word in the end. “I found her a few hours ago. I was just at the station filing the report on it but... something was bugging me, so I came back.” I nodded along with her words. I could feel it too, a niggling little doubt that told me that not all was as it seemed. It was weird that Riley had felt the same, though her intuition was not nearly as strong as mine. Was the little inconsistency not so little after all? Or perhaps it was Riley’s logical side that was telling her that something was wrong, rather than any sort of intuition. The police woman couldn’t feel things in her gut like I could, but she was good at looking at things rationally and figuring out the problem that way. “At first I thought it was probably a... umm, you know. A client who had gotten angry at her for not doing... something that he wanted,” her eyes were glued to the ground in embarrassment as she talked. “But I don’t think that’s it. Her dress isn’t ripped and there aren’t any other apparent injuries. Plus the shot was too precise, too professional. It hit her exactly in the back of the head, killed her in an instant like someone was trying to. It can’t have been an accident.”

“So who do you think did this?” I asked, looking down at the body and confirming her words at a glance. “You know the Perizioute family?” She began, speaking in the hushed whispers that everyone did when speaking about them. I nodded. They were, after all, one of the bigger mafia groups in the area. Though few people dared to speak of them, everyone seemed to have heard of them, as was common for those types. “What about them?” “I’ve been seeing one of their capos around an awful lot lately. From what I hear, they’re into pr-pr-pro-prost...” the police woman’s eyes darted back to the ground. “Prostitution,” I provided for her, knowing I’d be here all night if I let her do this in her own time. And I wanted to be far away from this body as soon as possible. Riley nodded, “so I figure maybe they did this because territorial issues or something. I don’t know.” I nodded. It was certainly possible. If it was true then there wasn’t much the police could do about it. But at least I could advise Antimony to make some sort of deal with them so it didn’t happen again. “So which of their capos have you been seeing?” “Pierce Caine is his name, he only recently became a made man so I don’t know much about him. Only that I see him way too often for him not to be up to something, and that he looks like a troublemaker,” the woman frowned, “he wears a daisy in his hat so that should help you know it’s him, but I have no idea where he might be at the moment.” I nodded. If he was Perizioute I had an idea where I could find him. “Thank you for your help,” I said, nodding with gratitude as I turned to leave. She looked at me, I could feel the slightly lonely gaze drilling into my back before she spoke. “Maybe when I’m not busy we could go for a coffee and doughnut sometime, just like the old days.” “I’d like that,” I said to her before leaving.