Those to be Forgiven

Published: 22 Mar 2018

So Christiansands revealed himself as a Wolf-Turtle…

He did.

Why do you think he chose to do that?

I guess I asked the right questions. We’re all the heroes in our own stories and the villain’s in someone else’s. I believe that with Johnny Ives’s journal he saw that I was an ally in his fantastical battle of good vs. evil.

What were you thinking?

As I was talking to him?

Unh-huh.

Well… It’s like I said. A couple of weeks prior I would have dismissed it out of hand. He was talking about ancient orders fighting the servants of eons-old gods. It was… far fetched. To put it mildly.

It must have sounded crazy.

It did. But given what those who took Donny Baldwin believed, given what I had seen in the films myself… What Alka Wrona had told me… I was willing to believe that he believed it.

In the same way that a patient at Creedmoor might believe himself to be Napoleon Bonaparte?

No. He wasn’t crazy. Well he was. But it’s all down to definitions of the word. Isn’t it? He was a cruel man who had done cruel things to get to where he was in a cruel world. Christiansands is a sociopath, a psychopath, and whatever the next level up from that is too. There’s no doubt about that in my mind. But he had directed that sociopathy to work against evil men for the most part. More evil than he I mean.

So bad men hurting other, worse men.

Yeah.

How did that sit with you? To find yourself now almost willingly working with him. You’re a man with a clearly defined set of morals.

Am I?

Aren’t you?

I don’t think so. I’ve already told you about the… ‘gray areas’ that I’ve worked in.

The junkie and his mother?

Pearls before swine.

(…)

(…)

So what about you? Did you believe what Christiansands believed?

Honestly? I didn’t know what to believe. I find it hard enough to accept that some magic sky pixie created the world in seven days. I find it hard enough to believe that any version of anyone’s God sits in judgement over mankind while allowing us to commit the various acts of daily horror that we visit upon each other. The idea of that which was familiar to me, like a Christian Deity, was already stretching the bounds of believability – so then you come at me with maggot/cock Gods who sleep under mountain ranges… No. I didn’t believe it. I did believe that he believed it though. Which kind of counts for something.

What changed your mind?

I’m perhaps more ready to believe that there are monsters in men, but honestly… I don’t know that anything has changed anything with regards to anything else…

“Before you go to sleep tonight,” Christiansands told me as we stood at the door of his library. “I want you to smoke this.” He handed me a pre-rolled joint; short but fat, the tip twisted to a cone.

“I don’t get high anymore.” I held it out to pass it back to him.

“If you want to see what I see. Believe what I believe. Then smoke it. When you sleep you’ll find access to The Dreamlands comes easier. You’ll be doing so without a guide so the world you enter will be your own. Informed by what troubles you, by what keeps you moving forward like the shark that you are Detective.”

“I’d rather the oil and some of that tea.” I nodded toward the rolltop desk. The notion of sleeping… Of spending a night untroubled by the dreams that infected my thoughts when I closed my eyes… It was too tempting an idea not to risk asking him.

“No.” He said. “Whatever bad dreams trouble you, Detective, aren’t a fraction as disturbing as would need the oil.”

I begged to differ. But it did make me wonder just how bad Christiansands own dreams had become. What gives the devil nightmares?

Boeing came back into the room and replaced the blindfold – roughly. His big meaty hands on my head made me feel like, if he so chose, he could squash it like were an over-ripe fruit.

“Keena’s office tomorrow night Detective. Eight O’clock at the very latest. Bring your nerves of steel.” His disembodied voice demanded.

With that I was promptly turned around and walked out of the library by Boeing, the joint still in my hand.

Down was the same as up. From Boeing to another goon. Silence in the lift all the way to the ground except for that awful lift music. Lift to lobby to curb and then handed over to Nasal before being bundled into the backseat of a car. I tried listening, hoping that I might hear something on the air that could give me a clue to where I had been taken – but there was nothing.

I sat in the back of that car, blindfolded between Brooklyn and Nasal, their shoulders pressed against mine – our knees touching with every corner the driver took – and I thought about everything that Christiansands had told me. I thought about Monsters and Dreamworlds, about cults and the groups of men who imagined themselves some last line of defence against a fantastical apocalypse… I wondered if having been knocked about more in the last week and a half than I had been since High School had somehow damaged my frontal lobe – allowing me to abandon reason and accept what was supposedly being revealed to me. There was still no proof of anything that I had been told. Nothing that would make me take the word of madmen and criminals as gospel. Except, of course, for Johnny Ives and Donny Baldwin. And while I may have had no choice but to force myself to accept that, I wasn’t about to believe the elaborate fantasies of Gods and Monsters. But the thing, the conclusion that I came to, is that it didn’t matter what I believed. Only that the men I was dealing with believed it.

And I had to accept, as I always have had to accept in my profession, that absence of proof is not the same as proof of absence.

When the car eventually stopped, Nasal got out first and led me onto the sidewalk.

“See you soon Dick.” The car door slamming shut and the engine revving as it pulled away.

I stood there a moment – waiting for… I don’t know what. Eventually I pulled down the blindfold and found myself on my street, across the road from my apartment building. Some queer looks from passersby who had probably seen me standing blindfolded on the sidewalk.

I looked up and down the street. The Corolla was gone, an empty space where it had sat for the past five days. I’d been left to my own devices.

Back in the apartment I sat myself down on the sofa, still in my coat and pulled out my phone.

“You’re late.” Pickman answered.

“I’m not coming by tonight.”

“Don’t you wanna know what I found out about The Dutchman?”

“Is it worth the look on my face when you tell me and it turns out to be unimportant?”

Silence down the line. “Tomorrow then.”

“I’ll be round in the afternoon. We both need to be at Keena’s club by eight O’clock. The way Christiansands emphasised ‘no later than eight’ we should get there an hour earlier.”

“You saw Christiansands?” I could feel the tension in his voice down the line, like his buttocks must have clenched at the sound of Christiansands name.

“Unh-huh.”

“And?”

“And nothing is broken that wasn’t broken before.”

“Small mercies.” he said with a sigh of relief down the phone.

“How’s the kid?”

“Fine. He’s been watching TV most of the day.”

“Tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

As I was about to hang up, Pickman quickly asked: “Do you know what Christiansands wants from us tomorrow?”

“We’ll find out when we get to the club.” and I hung up.

After a shower I worked my way through the fridge and the kitchen cupboards looking for something to eat. I hadn’t been to the store for a few days so settled on a can of tomato soup and some crackers.

I was sitting on my sofa in silence for what was left of the night. The joint that Christiansands had given me, next to a glass of water, on the coffee table in front of me – daring me to smoke it.

The idea that just through the act of inhaling whatever was in that joint and then falling asleep, I would somehow fully buy into the Christiansands brand of crazy seemed a stretch. I debated the necessity of of it. Would it help me understand anything anymore that I already did? Would it afford me an insight into the minds of those who took Donny Baldwin? Was it a requisite that would blow everything wide open?

No. I doubted all of those things.

But I still did it.

A box of matches from the kitchen, an ashtray that I used as a paperweight in my office… I smoked my first joint in maybe ten years.

It’s strange how quickly I could feel it affect me. A certain light cushioned fuzziness in my head as if my the cavities between my skull and brain were being stuffed with cotton-wool… how quickly time started so slow and stresses just vanished – carried away on wings… I had forgotten how much that I just liked the smell of it. How it made me think of leaning out of the window of my college dorm room with Darnell while we bullshitted about our days.

Before I knew it, I was finished and stubbing the roach out in the ashtray. Maybe I smoked it a little too quick… I downed the water in one gulp and I felt… nice. I guess. I hadn’t noticed anything particularly different about the taste or smell. I wasn’t feeling any different to how I would expect.

I threw my feet up on the coffee table and turned on the television. I had maybe made it about fifteen minutes into some sitcom before tiredness caught up with me and I was asleep…

The long and seemingly endless road that lay before me was lit. A floor of lamps – blown glass of pink and white petals – soft yellow light that recalled Christiansands study – portions of darkness that reminded me of the man himself.

I trod, cautiously at first, on bare feet over the unbroken glass – the uneven surface causing my balance to waiver along with my resolve. A black sea to my right sat still, no motion on the ocean’s surface or where the water met the road – except for what seemed to be a large whirlpool swirling to some unheard rhythm in the distance. To my left: a lake – silent and still and separating me from the remnants of some crumbling ruined city; where torn yellow banners, little more than tatters, hanging from twisted bent and broken spires: waved in an unfelt wind.

It being a dream; time kept its own council; but it had felt like I had been following the road for some hours… however the flat ocean on my right remained just that – flat and still except for that whirpool; and the city to my left seemed to be in exactly the same place as it was the first time that I had noticed it. Had I been walking in place? The road a conveyer belt?

Unsure of how long I had been traveling, with no seeming change in the endless dismal landscape – I was startled to come upon out of nowhere, rising from the centre of the desolate road, a staircase. Spiraled but straight. A landing every seventeen steps. I hesitated a moment – looking beyond to the straight narrow road and that measureless predatory black sky.

Eventually though the decision was made. I won’t say that I made it on my own – I don’t honestly believe that I did. But still the choice was mine; and I set a tentative foot to the first step and ascended. Marbled mallow carpet that rang like iron with each foot print made as I climbed. The railing on my right was cold but my hand stayed clasped tight to it, as the fear that at any minute the steps would give way and that I would fall never strayed far from my mind.

The further I climbed the colder it became; the silence growing heavier and more overt. The only noise was my feet on the steps, the sound of my skin morphing to gooseflesh and the crackle of my breath turning to ice as it escaped my lips. I dared not look down. Bolted to the sky, the railing of the staircase was firm but I could see beyond that darkest night how high I was from the road below. It was then that i noticed that with every step that I had taken, the one behind me had disappeared. Even If I wanted to descend… I couldn’t.

Just as it had felt walking the lonely lit road, it had also felt like I had been climbing for hours. Every step taken made minutes pass. But not for effort – more in the way my awareness of time flowed – stagnant but marching forward at a speed that I couldn’t comprehend. I… I don’t know how else to try and explain it – how else to put words to some alien notion of the passing of time…

That was when I noticed it in the sky!

A mass of purple and black – swirling and clouded – spitting streaks of silver that bled light to give the gaseous image some form and shape… If I had been awake I might have imagined that it pulsed with something like a slow heartbeat as my own organ tightened in my chest. The distant sound of alien flutes played without melody – growing louder and then quieter again before once more all was silent. With the discordant unmelodious strain of the flutes disappearing as quickly as they came – the mass of cloud and gas vanished with it. I shuddered in place; and then continued climbing.

Before I knew it, without seeing it coming upon me, I was at a door. Wooden with a creased linen finish and decorated with elaborate iron hinges – sharp swirls and cresting waves of rusted metal against the doors red wood. It was too large for the staircase I had climbed and looked to belong to some ancient European castle as imagined by nineteen-fifties Hollywood set designers; garish technicolour against the bleached and whitewashed background that was my dream.

From the corner of my eye the flapping of a wing. Turning, I saw three of them: spindly humanoid shapes – skin of wet black-green rubber and membrane wings so large that they seemed impossible coming from their frail looking bodies. But it was their faces that was most odd. Or rather their lack thereof. No eyes, or ears or nose or mouth, instead just the blank slick skin that afforded them no expression.

As they flapped their wings to stay in place I became aware that they were noiseless. The size of those wings beating in the night sky… there would have been no way that I would not have heard them approach… But there they hovered; silent.

I could feel them looking at me. Those faceless things. However, I wasn’t afraid. I can’t really explain it. I mean, I should have been. But somehow In that dream, I knew that I was dreaming. That I was asleep elsewhere out in the real world and that these things could not hurt me… not that I felt like they wanted to. They felt benign… curious for sure but also perhaps even a little gracious and welcoming

Turning away from them and back to the door, I placed my hand to the brass handle and as I pulled it open…

I woke up.

Still on the sofa, still fully dressed, my neck was twisted and a dull pain echoed through my shoulders and back. My brain felt heavy in my skull. My head was littered with fog and my eyes felt like they had been closed for an eternity – forcibly cracking them open as if they had been sealed shut; the morning sun coming through from the open curtains might just as well have been the first time that light had reached my retina.

I needed water for my dry throat and parched tongue. And stumbling through to the kitchen as if I had a hangover, I drank enough to bloat my stomach and make the stale taste in my mouth a memory. I sat for an hour… Maybe more on the edge of my bed unmoving… Staring into space and trying to find some through line… some mental anchor into the physical world.

The eventual journey to the office felt like some fresh new hell; squeezing past every annoying tourist and over-the-top hipster and young idiot mom with a stroller. The subway seemed more packed than usual – teeming with wet screeching bodies… the sights and smells of New York’s great unwashed… it felt like everyone had abandoned their homes and decided that they needed to be cramming the carriages underground or stalking the streets or pouring out of coffee shops or just plain filling the air with their banal thoughts given voice…

The comedown from that single joint was insane. Or maybe it was from the dream. Or maybe my system just couldn’t take anything other than booze anymore.

Once behind my desk I must have sat there for a solid thirty minutes; staring into space like a house cat that watches the unseen things that go on in the dark corners of your room.

Eventually I pulled Ives’s laptop out of the safe. Poured myself a whisky and set to work.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Any clue that would give me something about the disappearance of Donny Baldwin I guess. What I found was a seemingly endless supply of pornographic images of young boys filed in folders by name. Videos of the boys: masturbating, engaged in sexual acts with one another, engaged in sexual acts with men… I found Mike’s file… I hovered the cursor over it wondering what was to be gained from looking… whether I would be looking because I might find something that could help him, somewhere down the line, or whether I would be looking to satisfy my own lickerish desires… I didn’t by the way. Look I mean. I wanted to… Could feel the inevitable twitch in my pants that came with the anticipation. But no. I didn’t look… If that counts for anything…

As I kept working through his laptop I found what appeared to be a sales ledger. Boy’s names listed in place of items, an asking price, an agreed upon price and the dates that the boy must have joined and then left the trailer park. If I didn’t hate Johnny Ives before, I sure as all hell did then, as I scrolled down that list of some fifty or sixty names. I’m used to seeing the worst in people; to believing that as a species we’re not worth the oxygen we waste; but that… Seeing that list and the lives broken or lost for financial gain and the satisfaction of such twisted base physical urges… I found myself with an even deeper contempt for humanity than I believed possible.

Those listed as purchasers were just identified by christian names and numbers if they shared an identifier; one man: Derek 1 seemed to pick up a new kid every six months or so. I’d hate to think of how he discarded the boys that he found he no longer had use for. I wondered if that was the man who had taken Mike’s friend. The one who had been subjected to the ritual in the woods… Filipo was it?

I spent another hour searching through documents and web history but came away with nothing more than an even greater sense of justice served for the death of Johnny Ives. Eventually I closed it down, wiped off mine and Darnell’s prints and decided to send it on to the police. I bagged it, boxed it, included a note that it had belonged to the man found dead in his trailer just outside of Goldsboro a few days ago, and mailed it.

On my way to Pickman’s the comedown seemed to be wearing off and I was less irritable; less annoyed by the other people who were walking the streets. I was still a little fuzzy, but only around the edges…

“Good to see you make it.” Pickman called out from the kitchen as I walked through the door.

Mike looked up from the television screen in his place on Pickman’s sofa and smiled at me. And I was glad I didn’t look through the file on Ives’s computer.

“You behaving yourself?” I asked him as I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.

“Are you behaving yourself more like?” Pickman asked as he moved around the kitchen counter and stood behind the sofa. “You look like crap. Hangover?”

“Not quite.” I brushed past him, squeezing Mike’s shoulder as I did so and poured myself a coffee from the stovetop coffee pot that popped and bubbled away on the hob. “Just a disturbed night.”

“You should try getting to sleep with that machine Peter uses!” Mike said. “Don’t know how anyone can doze off with that thing wailing so loud.”

“What does Christiansands want us to do?” Asked Pickman, ignoring Mike’s jibe, the question had probably been playing on Pickman’s mind since the phone call last night, his constant state of anxiety wouldn’t have allowed for it not to.

“I don’t know yet. I can’t imagine that it’ll be something simple though.” I turned to Mike as I sat down next to him on the sofa: “How have you been. Sorry I didn’t come around last night.”

“That’s OK.” he said, though I could tell that it wasn’t. “Peter told me you were busy. Was it the man who did that?” Mike put his hand on the cast on my left hand.

I nodded as a I sipped at the black coffee, “He was a little more reasonable this time.”

Glancing at the television I saw that Mike was watching reruns of seventies game shows and I looked at him quizzically.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I smiled and nudged my shoulder into his.

“So what did you find out yesterday?” Pickman asked sitting on his fold out chair by the window and lighting a cigarette.

“The guy I was supposed to meet with…” I held up my hand and flashed the ring on it that Christiansands had given me. “Didn’t make it.”

“You mean?”

I nodded my head to Pickman’s grave look.

“The Dutchman?”

I nodded again. “Left his calling card so as Christiansands couldn’t mistake it for anything else.”

“Fuck!”

“What about you? You said that you found out something?”

“The ship that left port last week carrying the first shipment for The Dutchman… It was headed for England, Port of Leith in Edinburgh.”

“Edinburgh? That’s in Scotland.”

“Same difference isn’t it?”

“Try saying that to a Scotsman.”

“Anyway… it docked two days ago.”

“Any word on what it was carrying?”

Pickman shook his head.

“Well, I did find out that your hunch about Christiansands and The Dutchman’s former working relationship seemed to have panned out.” I didn’t want to tell him everything. I was still trying to process it myself. Still trying to believe that which I had been told. Bringing Pickman along into the world of Gods, Monsters and Dreamlands didn’t seem like a sensible idea. “Dieprink was his boss at one point. His mentor…”

“No shit!” Pickman was pleased with himself.

“Does that mean I was right too?” Mike asked listening in. “About it being a message?”

I smiled at him. “Kid wants to be a detective too now.”

He blushed and smiled, looking at me with an expectation that I knew I had no hope of living up to.

We killed time together the rest of the afternoon, the three of us; Scrabble with the missing letters, lunch from a hot dog vendor, an extended sojourn into the world of nineteen-seventies game shows… It was nice. Felt like some sort of family day. Ha! Yeah… Some sort of family!

Eventually though we had to make our move; leaving MIke with enough Pizza and soda to keep his stomach full and a bunch of DVD’s to keep him entertained; Pickman and I took a cab to Keena’s club and arrived a little after seven in the evening.

The Samoan on the door glared at us as we got out of a cab in front of the building and used his two-way to confirm that we were expected before letting us pass without incident. He still eyed Pickman with suspicion which prompted me to ask as we walked towards the bar:

“What’s he doorman’s beef with you?”

“What do you mean?” Pickman asked looking around to make sure that we were out of earshot.

“Everytime we come here he looks at you like you banged his sister.”

Pickman let slip a sly smile.

“Shit!” I laughed. “Really?”

“We went on a couple of dates. Her name’s Teulia. What can I say? She dug me.”

I laughed out loud. Loud enough that it brought both Nasal and Brooklyn down from the balcony.

You know something?” Nasal asked as he made his way towards us. “I’m beginning to see more of you two than I do my own mother.”

“I’m sure she’s real grateful for that.” I added.

Nasal just looked at me, not quite sure as to what I was suggesting.

“Let’s get on with it. You know the drill!”

Pickman and I raised our arms for the now all too familiar pat down, “Not you.” Nasal said to Pickman while Brooklyn ran his hands through my pockets. “Boss only wants the Dick.”

I snickered like a schoolboy. Nasal’s stare told me he didn’t get the joke.

“But…”

“You wait at the bar with me.”

Brooklyn led me up the stairs and through the corridor to the door of Keena’s office where Boeing stood with arms folded watching every step I took toward him, under his heavy brow. It seemed that Christiansands never went anywhere without his muscle.

Boeing knocked first and then entered without waiting for a reply. Brooklyn followed and then me.

Keena stood silent to Christiansands right while the man himself sat reading through papers at the desk.

“Out.” Christiansands said to the room as he looked up from his desk. Only Brooklyn and Boeing followed the instruction – forcing Christiansands eyes to come to rest on Keena.

“But…”

“Out.” he said again. That tone of his, quiet and commanding, forced Keena to nod his acceptance and leave the room. He nodded toward the chair across from him and I sat without question.

We sat in silence for a moment. Maybe he was concerned that someone was still at the door. Maybe he was trying to make me feel uncomfortable. Either way, it was a full minute that passed before he spoke again.

“Thank you for coming Detective.”

“Let’s not pretend I had any choice in the matter.”

That sort-of-smile as he stared into my eyes.

For the sake of breaking the silence and out of a lack of interest in playing any of Christiansands mind games I slipped the ring that he had given me from my finger and placed it on the desk between us.

“I should give this back.”

“Keep it.” he said looking from the ring to me. “It will open doors that may otherwise be locked to you. Which is always useful for a man in your profession.”

“I’m not interested in joining your ‘cause’ Mr Christiansands. I want to find out what happened to Donny Baldwin and then forget that I ever heard about Wolves and Lions and maggot-cock Gods…”

“How far did you get?” Christiansands asked me, ignoring what I was saying, as he lay his eyes back on mine. Searching maybe for the truth in any answer that I gave him.

“Sorry?”

“In your dream. You smoked the joint I gave you?”

I nodded.

“So tell me about it. How far did you get before you woke up?”

“To the top of a staircase?”

“The top?” He seemed unsure. “You didn’t descend? Seventy steps, then seven-hundred?”

“No. I climbed a staircase where there was a door. A wooden, cloth and iron door.”

“No Nasht? No Kaman-Tha?”

I looked at him with what probably amounted to the simple expression of a confused child. He might as well have been speaking Chinese at me for all I could understand.

“If you had met them you would have known their names.” I could tell that he was already bored having to explain to me what he believed I should have known from merely dreaming. “They are the gatekeepers to The Dreamlands.” He sat back in Keena’s chair and crossed his legs under the desk. “No matter. Perhaps you were accessing from a different route. It could be something to do with your experiences so far and how they have coloured your subconscious. It could be because you haven’t opened yourself up. Resisting because you don’t entirely believe.”

“There were…” I wasn’t entirely sure how to describe them. “Stickmen. Stickmen with bat wings.”

“Slick black skin like oiled rubber? Faceless but with an intense stare? Their wings silent?”

I nodded unsure how he could describe so accurately what I had dreamt. “They hovered around the top of the staircase. They seemed… interested in me… I think.”

“Nightgaunts.” said Christiansands with all the casualness that would have come if he had pointed to a round green fruit in a bowl and said ‘apple’. “They serve Nodens, Nuada of the Silver Hand. An Elder God who hunts in the Dreamlands…”

“I’m flattered then… I guess?” I said shrugging, as if what he was saying made even the slightest lick of sense.

“They’re harmless… for the most part.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do Mr Christiansands. I really do.” I didn’t and still don’t. “But it was just a dream. Whatever was in that joint you gave me may have had some hallucinogenic quality. Something that allowed for more vivid dreams.”

“Tell me about it… what did you see?”

I described the narrow road of glass lamps that I walked in bare feet; recounted the sights of the silent ocean to the right with the whirlpool and the decaying city of spires beyond the lake to my left; And I detailed the staircase and the ‘Nightgaunts’ and the mass of spectral silver black and purple cloud in the sky and the flute music that played to herald it’s entrance and exit.

He sat silent for a moment, I guess weighing up what I had told him. “You saw three threats… from the dead cities above and below the ocean, from The Deep Dark in the skies. You saw them because they press on our reality, nudging and needling at its edges.”

“I saw what I saw because I smoked that stupid joint you gave me.”

“Did you know that you were dreaming?” he asked suddenly.

“I… Yeah. How did you know that?”

“Was it lucid? Did you feel in control of every action that you took? Every step and choice you made? Did you feel aware that your physical form was asleep in it’s bed?”

I nodded.

“Interesting. I can only assume that you’re either a natural or that recent events exposing you to these new ideas have made it easier for you. Perhaps a little of both.”

Christiansands reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a silver cigarette case. He flashed it in the light flashing that sort-of-smile and then handed it over to me. I popped the clasp and saw six small perfectly rolled joints.

“I’d be interested to know how far you get into the Dreamlands, Detective.” He seemed to be looking at me expectantly.

“You want me to smoke one now?”

He shook his head. “No. Only at your leisure. And only if you chose to. It may help you with your case and the missing boy. It may not. It’s interesting that you didn’t see anything relating to J’ngc’ubbuc.”

“Was I supposed to?”

“Not especially. It appears that other greater threats are more pressing.”

A knock at the door. It opened without awaiting an answer and Keena stood in the doorway.

“We’re ready.”

“Very good.”

“Ready? Ready for what?” I asked.

“You and Pickman are going to be accompanying two of Marko’s men to the docks, Detective.” He stood from behind the desk and straightened the sleeves of his jacket. “You are going to confirm that Dieprink is actually there and then you are going to act accordingly.” He picked up the ring from the desk and held it out to me. Waiting for me to accept it with my good hand.

“Accordingly?” I asked finally taking the ring back from him and slipping it on my finger.

“The wolves are going lion hunting Detective. And as a cub this will be your first hunt with the pack.” He walked to the door and whispered something into Keena’s ear. Something that was met by Keena’s eyes on me, narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses.

“Good luck Detective.” And then he left.

Keena opened the door to step into the room and straightened his tie while he spoke. “There’s a car downstairs waiting for you. Don’t dawdle… Cub!”

For the record… I never wanted this. I never wanted to be a part of any of this nonsense. Christiansands had forced upon me membership to some exclusive club of the great unhinged and I had little choice but to cooperate…

Pickman was at the bar looking around him, his head turning with every clink of glass or opening door. Being there alone at the bar with Nasal standing close by and watching over him wasn’t doing his nerves any favours. When he saw me hit the bottom of the stairs his reaction was that of a puppy excited to see its owner after a day away at work.

“What’d he want? What’d he say? We gonna have to go to the docks or what?”

I put my hand on his shoulder to offer him some sort of comfort, for what it was worth, and looked him in the eye: “We’re going to put a name to a face. That’s all. Don’t worry.”

“So what? We see if he’s at the docks?”

“Yeah. We watch, you point him out. Job done.”

“Job done?”

“Job done.” I wasn’t convinced that that’s all it was. ‘Act accordingly’ Christiansands had said. I trusted that whoever was accompanying us would know what followed.

Nasal and Brooklyn walked Pickman and I out of the club and onto the street. The air had grown heavy and I could feel the clouds heavy in the sky above us waiting to drop their wet payload onto the city streets. We’d only been on the curb, standing outside, a few seconds before the car pulled up. The same car that had taken me to Christiansands the night before. The driver got out and walked into the club without uttering so much as a word while Brooklyn took the driver’s seat and Nasal moved to take shotgun. Out of anyone who it could have been, I found myself strangely relieved that it was them.

With Pickman and I in back and Nasal and Brooklyn in front we drove an overly convoluted route and made it to the Docks a little after nine. The skies had opened by then and the light rain that was caressing the car forced Brooklyn to turn on the wipers. I always like that sound. That muffled shushun-shu shushun-shu. Don’t ask me why. We were stopped at the gate by Port Authority and I had genuine doubts that we’d actually make it through, until Nasal wound down his passenger window and I overheard him speaking to the officer:

“They’re still loading.” the faceless voice outside the car.

“How many?” Nasal keeping his eyes forward.

“Three or four. The rest are stevedore’s. Maybe another ten or fifteen.”

“They know what we’re here to do?”

“Thought best not say anything. Didn’t want anyone giving the game away.”

“What are we here to do?” Pickman whispered in my ear.

I shrugged and kept my head cocked.

“Any more Port Authority?”

“Not so as you’d have a problem.”

“Route out?”

“Same as in. I’ll lock the gates once your clear.”

“What about cameras?”

“Funny thing that. The CCTV seems to be playing up today.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Don’t let them follow us back out.”

“Done.”

Nasal closed the window as the officer opened the gate to let us through. Pickman and I both turned to look out of the back window as we drove into the dockyard proper. Any hope of ID’ing the officer was cast out when he turned his back and disappeared into his cabin. Not that we’d be able to put a face to him in the rain anyway.

Brooklyn kept us moving slow and steady as we passed towers of containers loaded one atop the other; looking like skyscrapers in some model brick made city.

I half expected it to be busier, New Jersey Docks is the third largest in the country and shifts hundreds of billions of dollars worth of containers a year. There should have been workers everywhere. Did Christiansands keep it this quiet? Or was it The Dutchman? My money was on our foreign friend considering that he was shipping on the QT. Maybe Christiansands just thought best to take advantage of that.

When the car pulled to a stop, both Brooklyn and Nasal got out without saying a word – leaving PIckman and I sitting looking at each other in the back seat.

Nasal tapped the window and opened the door while Brooklyn retrieved two large dark blue holdalls from the trunk. He threw one on his back and handed the other to his skinny companion who did likewise.

“What’s in the bags?” Pickman asked me.

“Nothing good I’d bet.”

“This way.”

We followed Nasal and Brooklyn in the rain toward the waterfront, eventually stopping at a tower of six red and blue steel shipping containers, each eight ft high, piled one atop the other. A yellow ladder bolted to the sides leading all the way to the top.

Brooklyn climbed first while Nasal stood behind Pickman and I.

“Climb.”

I followed Brooklyn, the wet rungs of the ladder making it difficult to keep a relatively good grip.

I looked around about a third of the way up to make sure that Pickman was behind me. And there he was, clinging onto the railings and staring forward at the side of the container. I’d forgotten that he wasn’t great with heights… Looking back up I could see Brooklyn had made it to the top, his black oxfords disappearing over the edge.

Once we were all on top we dropped to our stomachs and edged toward the far lip like schoolboys playing soldiers.

Of the ships docked, only one was being loaded but we were a little over three hundred metres away and I couldn’t really make out much in the rain. It’s red yellow and white painted side contained the Morris International logo, a painted globe with the letters M and I translucent in front of it. Under the logo was the name of the ship. I had to squint to make it out: MI Naruko. The ship wasn’t large by container carrier standards, in fact it was dwarfed by some of those that sat near to it. I guess The Dutchman didn’t want to share space with anyone else. What was on that ship was solely his.

Brooklyn unzipped his bag, reached inside and pulled out two pair of binoculars. He kept a hold of one and passed the other to Pickman. I looked to Nasal but none were forthcoming for me.

“That’s him.” said Pickman looking through his binoculars. “The tall slim guy in the camel hair coat next to the car. The one with the umbrella.”

I took Pickman’s binoculars from him and brought The Dutchman into focus. I don’t know what I was expecting but he looked normal. Fair hair and slender, that camel hair coat he wore could have been made for him, the fit was so good. He smoked a cigarette while looking on from under a golf umbrella as, what I had gathered to be the last of the containers, was hoisted by crane and lowered to the ship’s deck. Smaller cases were being carried into the cargo hold on pallets by forklift trucks.

We lay flat on our stomachs atop the wet containers watching the ship being loaded. The Dutchman letting his smoking cigarette hang from his lips and looking on patiently while a couple of his besuited men seemed to give instruction to a dockworker.

“How are we supposed to see what he’s shipping from up here?” Pickman asked while squinting down toward the forklift as it loaded the last of the smaller crates.

“We’re not!” Nasal smiled as Brooklyn sat up and started rifling through his large holdall. “The Boss isn’t concerned with what’s in the cases. Just that we stop the ship from leaving.”

“And that we don’t hurt The Dutchman.” added Brooklyn.

“And how are we supposed to stop the ship from leaving?” I asked still watching The Dutchman.

“We brought toys!”

Pickman squinted at Brooklyn, then at the bag… Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as Brooklyn pulled out two cylinders, one wooden, one metal and a trigger : “What? The fuck? Is that?”

I turned to look at Brooklyn who’s wide smile made me see the kid in him that saw his presents under the tree on Christmas morning.

“A Bazooka.”

“A PSRL-2¹.” Nasal corrected as he began pulling a second pair of tubes out of his own bag.

“What the fuck!” Pickman’s face had disappeared behind furrows of worry. “What the actual fuck!”

Brooklyn snapped the two main pieces together and twisted the joints into place, checked it over with precision care until he looked over the weapon at us and smiled: “Designed for compact carry, it comes in two pieces and weighs a little under seven…” He was talking like a salesman on some NRA version of QVC but all I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears as I began to feel panic set in.

Nasal twisted and snapped the protruding warhead into the front of his ‘toy’, like Brooklyn he couldn’t hide the sheer joy he was feeling.

“There are innocent people down there!” Pickman giving voice to my sudden worry.

“Greater good and all that.” Nasal brushed him off.

Nasal and Brooklyn got up on one knee and smiled at each other while Pickman and I stayed flat against the top of the shipping container, Pickman’s hands covering his head while I returned my eyes to the binoculars and back on The Dutchman and his men.

I heard them count from three to one; the smiles on their faces heard as they rang off the numbers in time. Sesame street for psycho’s.

On one the soft crack and then the subsonic whirr as the two rockets simultaneously tore through the air. The steel under my belly rumbled and I could feel Keena’s men’s bodies buckle with what I thought must have been the recoil. Light blue smoke filled the air and I was sure would give away our position.

My eyes still on The Dutchman; He turned his head quickly at the noise and looked directly at us. I could see his face clearly through the binoculars and I’ll be damned if the Bastard wasn’t smiling,

He ducked when the rockets hit though. Not hitting the floor but arching his back and covering the back of his head with his hands – letting him umbrella hit the floor. His men found the wet ground though.

The two rockets hit the ship together, one straight into the open hole of the cargo hold, the other into the ships portside bow. Whatever was in those shipping containers was flammable! Each one seemed to explode with an ear shattering crack one after the other in some almost comic chain reaction until the entire ship itself was encased in smoke and flame. I could see figures leaping from all sides, off the ship, screaming and shouting as they hit the water below; and I could see The Dutchman, standing with his arm around the shoulder of one his men and pointing directly up at us.

“Time to boost!” Brooklyn was already on his feet and Nasal was tripping over himself to stand. Pickman and I looked to them as they ran for the ladder. I stood and looked back before following – watching the ship; sharp flames licking the air and heavy black smoke rising up toward the sky. Pickman grabbed my shoulder and pulled me away, forcing my eyes away from the devastation, the soles of my shoes slipping on the wet steel container roof.

Brooklyn and Nasal left their bags and the RPG’s behind as they made their way back down to the ground. Amid the fire and several belated explosions on the ship I could hear the voices of men calling out into the night and Pickman repeating “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” to himself as he made his way hastily down the ladder.

We ran for the car barely making into the backseat as the bullets started flying in our direction. Three of The Dutchman’s men shooting at us with handguns after they had found us. The car was hit. The back window too but the glass must have been heavily bulletproofed as ballistic impact made little more than cracks.

Brooklyn was back behind the wheel and he slammed the car into drive. The car swerved around the towers of containers and sped toward the open gate. I turned to see it closing behind us and the headlights of a car getting trapped behind the steel mesh. We pulled out of the docks and away onto McLester, through Corbin and into the traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. I kept turning around to see if we were being tailed but either The Dutchman’s men couldn’t get to the rest of their vehicles in time to catch up to us or the Port Authority Officer who worked the gate had managed to keep them at bay just like he said he would.

“What the fuck was that?” I finally asked of the two maniacs in front once I felt like we were out of the way of any immediate danger.

Nasal turned with the biggest grin on his face: “A message!”

Pickman shook his head disbelievingly. “A message? Fuck you! That was a lot more than a message!”

Brooklyn turned on the radio and immediately found the news. An urgent female voice coming over the speakers: “…a massive explosion at the APM terminal only moments ago. Fire crews and emergency services are en route but…” he switched it back off again and smiled in the rearview mirror.

Psychopaths! I thought. These are supposed to be ‘the good guys’ in whatever this is… and they’re psychopaths…

To Be Continued…

¹ (PSRL) Precision Shoulder-fired Rocket Launcher, designed by AirTronic USA, a US arms manufacturer (military and non-lethal police).

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