CHAPTER 18: FIRST DAY

  CYPRUS ALLEY—NOVEMBER 19th, 1992 | MORNING

  ?

  Cameron flew through a concrete wall and landed inside of a laundromat.

  His body slammed against a row of washers, shattering glass and spilling soapy water on tiled floors. Someone’s blouse covered his face and before he could think to take it off, he was picked up and thrown into the ceiling. Dust and debris caked his features as he hit the ground with a resounding groan.

  The ivory-like material covering his skin hadn’t cracked in the slightest, but his body still ached. Whoever this guy was hit like a bull—hit just as hard as Cameron, if not harder, and even if the guy wasn’t breaking through his defenses, all that blunt force trauma was beginning to add up.

  Wild eyes looked down at him, bloodshot and dry, and the man who stood over him breathed bestial breaths. Veins bulged out around his eyes, ugly and taut against his skin, and his muscles writhed with a pulse of their own. He was two heads taller than Cameron and twice his weight, a specimen of muscle and chest hair that he proudly displayed with an unbuttoned western dress shirt. His sideburns were more impressive than Sean Malley’s, and hair was a dull brown that reached down to the center of his back; wild and hedgehog-like.

  “You little shit,” sneered the man, voice as hard and pronounced as his appearance. “Shouldn’t have—”

  Cameron grabbed his ankle and squeezed. The man groaned and tried to shake himself free. A few seconds longer and he would’ve broken his ankle; but too little too late. With furrowed brows, Cameron pulled, and the man started to fall.

  Up.

  He had to get up.

  Cameron stood with a deft tenacity, not fully, but just enough to knee the man in the center of his spine. The angle was odd—unorothodox, even—and the man was sent across the room into a set of dryers.

  By now, the handful of people who’d been unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time dropped their laundry baskets and made for the door. An older man, likely the proprietor of the place, spoke Mandarin in their direction and waved a baseball bat around. Bits of English were sprinkled in, and disjointed as it all sounded, Cameron got the idea: get out.

  Leroy stepped through the hole in the concrete wall and held up two hands in appeasement. “Sorry about the mess, Mr. Huang.”

  Cameron made the mistake of focusing his attention on the two of them, and next he knew, the man he’d thrown was charging straight towards him with a dryer in both of his hands. Stray wires jutted out remnant sparks, and Cameron was sent not through a wall, but through the front facing windows of the laundromat. He lay in a bed of glass on the street, gritted his teeth, and slowly pushed himself off the ground.

  The man charged out the window, ready to land on Cameron with both feet.

  An echo of a gunshot filled the air. Cameron’s ears rang. Leroy had pulled his heavy handgun out from under his coat with a quickness that bordered on instinctual. The man fell onto the ground. Blood poured out from the bullet wound in his shoulder.

  “I had it under control,” Cameron grumbled, pushing himself back to his feet.

  “You didn’t, and don’t,” Leroy said, stepping over the glass edges of the windowsill and onto the sidewalk. He fired another bullet into the man’s knee.

  The man bellowed out. His face contorted. “Fuck!”

  Leroy squatted down in front of him and pointed the barrel of his gun against the man’s forehead. “Start talking.”

  ?

  Cameron shifted uncomfortably in the faux leather armchair.

  Leroy shot him a glare for sitting, and the woman behind the desk in front of both of them waved a dismissive hand as if to say it was fine.

  The office was small and cozy in a way that felt wrong, like it forced a kind of intimacy, which Cameron credited to the framed pictures of pin-up girls. On the front of the woman’s desk was a framed photo of her standing arm-in-arm with each of the women from the pictures on the wall, and next to it, a smaller picture of her in her youth.

  Olive-skinned, curly haired, with doe-eyes and a pretty smile. Her nose was sharp and distinct, and her lips were full—at least that was what he saw in the picture, which had ‘Razzling Ruby’ signed onto it in cursive, alongside a date: 1960.

  Ruby wasn’t so razzling anymore. She’d grown bone-skinny and wore a blonde wig shaped into a bob-cut. With all the makeup that caked her face, Cameron could hardly tell if it was the same person. She wore costume jewelry and a gown that could have been expensive, or, second hand, and she reeked of tobacco.

  “Leroy Waters,” she said in a croaky, frogish voice. She removed the cigarette out from between her lips and tapped it into an ashtray.

  Leroy nodded. “Ruby Shakur.”

  She smiled at Cameron.“Who’s this handsome young man you’ve brought with you?”

  Cameron folded his lips inward and raised two fingers in greeting. “Cameron.”

  Ruby leaned forward. “Cameron. A pleasure. You’re Leroy’s ah, what do they call it—”

  “Underarbiter. Not to be crass, Ruby, but let’s get on with it. You said you had some work for me,” said Leroy, who had since begun pacing around the room.

  There was nothing to look at outside of the pictures of the pin-up girls, a handful of vintage lamps, and the single small window behind Ruby. It didn’t offer much in the way of a view, just a direct look at the nearest building across the street, swarmed in dredges of fog that dulled out any noteworthy features it might have had.

  “Yes. You got my voicemail, yes?”

  Leroy nodded. “That I did. Some of your girls are dead.”

  “Mariah, Yasima, and Coriander. All killed in their rooms,” Ruby said grimly.

  “In their rooms—.. you mean here, at this uh...” Cameron tried to find the words. Pleasure house, brothel. Either would’ve worked, but Ruby’s glare burned into him in a way that made him feel like he needed to choose his next few words very carefully. “Establishment.”

  “Correct.”

  Cameron leaned back in his seat. “Right. Three of your…workers… are dead, and you’re not going to the Civic and Occult Authority?"

  Ruby slammed a hand on her desk with an intensity that Cameron didn’t expect to see. “I don’t want their killer in jail. I want him dead. Only an arbiter can do that. Moreover, I have reason to believe that the manner of their deaths is, in some way, involved in something that stretches from one end of Cyprus Alley to the other. I do not need you two to find who killed my girls. I know who did it, because he admitted to it.”

  Leroy found a nook in the corner of the room and leaned up against the wall, crossing his arms. “Did he?”

  “He goes by Donovan. Donovan Mayfield. He is a regular here, has been for the last couple of years. There were.. complaints, prior to the incident, that he had always been a bit rough with the girls. Bruises, marks. I thought about having him banned from this establishment, but the girls insisted that he remain, on the basis of his generous tips. I should have had the sensibility to tell them no, but..”

  Tears began to well up in Ruby’s eyes, but she steeled her resolve so quickly that Cameron questioned whether he saw it at all. She cleared her throat, exhaled, and continued. “But I did not, and now I have to live with it. It began with Mariah. The first death is when, admittedly, Cameron, I did think to get the Civic and Occult Authority involved. But Donovan, on approaching me, made it clear that this was not an option. He is.. well-connected within Cyprus Alley. He even paid me—quite handsomely—for my silence. I felt I had no other choice.”

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  “You did,” Cameron said.

  “Excuse me?” Ruby’s voice went up a tone.

  “You did have a choice, but you took his blood money and—”

  Leroy smacked Cameron upside the head. Hard. “The bodies, Ruby. If you haven’t taken care of them already, I know someone who might be of some use.”

  Ruby nodded. “Sparrow? Yes. Yes, you needn’t worry. She has assisted me already, and did well to clean the rooms.”

  “Sparrow-who?” Cameron asked.

  Leroy returned the nod to Ruby.

  “She is what we call a cleaner. And she found something, Leroy, in each of the rooms when she was getting rid of the bodies.” Ruby’s glare lingered on Cameron, and with much chagrin, she reached into her pocket to withdraw something. It was a small plastic bag. Inside of it was a miniscule amount of sand-like substance that had a blue glow to it, and Cameron had to squint to even see it.

  “There were two other bags, supposedly, but both were empty,” Ruby continued.

  “Haven’t seen it before. You mind?” Leroy extended a hand, and waited for Ruby to place it into her grasp.

  “Some sort’ve drug?” Cameron asked.

  “Looks like it,” confirmed Leroy.

  “It goes by the street name of ether, according to Sparrow, who told me that my girls were not the first bodies she’s had to dispose of within the last week. There are others that were found in similar states of excessive blunt force trauma. Shattered skulls, impacted ribs, limbs broken cleanly in half—I need not continue.”

  “So it makes people strong, and angry,” Cameron noted.

  Leroy looked at him. “Sounds like someone I know.”

  Ruby’s head swiveled toward the arbiter, and reached under her desk to withdraw something from a drawer. A stack of papers were tossed onto it, just next to her ashtray. “I’ve put together an arbitration contract. Three arbitration notes in total. No end date.”

  Leroy pushed off the wall and crossed in front of Cameron, picking up the stacks of papers. After a moment of deliberation he tapped the bottom of one of the pages. “Need your signature on the bottom of the last page, or the arbitration contract isn’t valid.”

  Ruby reached to one side of her desk, grabbed a stray fountain pen, and angrily added her name. “There.”

  Cameron stood up and steadied himself on the edge of the table, and with his opposite hand, shifted through the contract. It wasn’t at all formalized, which surprised him, given all the bureaucracy and red tape that he’d been exposed to thus far. Just hand-written words on half-wrinkled paper with a signature to seal it all off. By the time he finished skimming it, he stared up at Ruby, almost dumbfounded by her demands.

  “You want us to find where ether is made—wherever it's being manufactured—and shut down the facility or whatever, and you want us to kill this Dononvan Mayfield guy? Do you even fucking—... do you realize what you’re asking?” Cameron said, still in awe.

  “I do. Hence why there is no expected end date. I expect it may take a while,” Ruby answered curtly.

  “This is insane,” said Cameron.

  Leroy snatched the contract back and looked it over. “No listed payment here.”

  “I will pay you everything that Donovan gave me to keep my mouth shut. Half now, and half upon completion of this contract.”

  “And how much would that be?” asked Leroy.

  Once again, Ruby searched through the drawers of her desk, and one by one, began to withdraw wads of cash. It was more money Cameron had ever seen in his life, and while he couldn’t guess immediately, it had to be to the tune of a couple of thousands of dollars and then some.

  “Holy shit,” Cameron muttered under his breath.

  “I trust this will be sufficient?” Ruby asked, looking at Leroy.

  Leroy picked up each of the wads of cash and flipped through them. “We’ll collect the full payment once we’re finished. Don’t want to be carrying that kind of heat on me.”

  Ruby extended a hand and Leroy shook it. He asked her one final question, and that was if Donovan Mayfield was still an active customer. She said yes. Given the look on Leroy’s face, Cameron surmised that was exactly the answer he wanted to hear.

  Upon exiting the room, Leroy took Cameron aside in the lobby of Ruby’s pleasure house: no larger than the size of a small coffee shop, with a single reception desk that functioned as a bar, and stacks upon stacks of Persian rugs. It stunk of perfume and incense, and a few patrons mingled with Ruby’s employees. She’d said her girls like it was only women who worked at her pleasure house, but he was surprised to find that she had everything to offer—men, women, and what Cameron imagined to be neither, or both, or everything all at once. Something for everyone.

  The tentative plan was a simple one.

  They’d pretend to be patrons until Donovan Mayfield arrived, who they wouldn’t recognize until it was time to interfere. Wait until evening. Wait for Donovan to arrive, wait for one of the workers to identify him, and then, after he had let his guard down, jump into the room. Get the info, and, presumably, kill him on Ruby’s orders before he could take the life of another one of her workers. Cameron wouldn’t feel bad about it when it happened. He imagined Leroy was indifferent to putting down someone like that too.

  “I know and have known guys like that, people who enter any room thinking they are the single most important thing. Donovan will enter with singular interest, probably won't even stop to drink at the bar,” Leroy said.

  Cameron bet he felt good saying that one. Like some sage offering his wisdom. Cameron could only roll his eyes at that, and wasn’t much in the mood to argue.

  “There's a good chance he'll be stoked up on that ether stuff,” Cameron said.

  Leroy made for the bar. “Yup.”

  ?

  Donovan grabbed the barrel of Leroy’s gun with defiance and pushed it further against his thick forehead. His body was covered in bruises, blood, and glass. Cameron had done enough damage to him to break a few things, and with the bullet wounds Leroy had just given him, he was more bark than he was bite.

  “You don’t know who you’re—”

  Leroy pistol whipped him over the nose, and Donovan cried out. “I do. Donovan Mayfield. You killed three of Ruby Shakur’s girls, and you’re going to tell me where you get your ether from.”

  “Shoot me if you’re going to shoot me, asshole!” Donovan said, spitting blood onto the ground.

  Cameron crossed over to them. The ivory-like material that covered his skin dissipated into a scarlet miasma, flowing steadily back into his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, prompting him to shake his head in displeasure. Tapping into his hexling abilities was like vomiting fire, and deactivating them was just as bad—like drinking flames through every orifice in your face.

  As Leroy’s interrogation continued, a handful of pedestrians regarded the incident with a mix of blatant shock and passing interest. It was clear to Cameron which ones were the Cyprus Alley natives, and which ones weren’t. Mr. Huang stood by the shattered glass of his laundromat and yelled expletives in Leroy and Cameron’s direction, once again mixing both Mandarin and English to call them every derogative under the sun.

  Leroy exhaled, and held up a dismissive hand. “Almost done, Mr. Huang. One sec’. Look. I’ll give it to you straight. I was paid to kill you, and I’ll gladly do it. Hell, it’s in the contract. But I’ll tell you what. You tell me where you got your ether, and I’ll look the other way. You leave Cyprus Alley, you never come back. You get to live and you never see me again. Fair?”

  Donovan gritted his teeth, and with his free hand, held his broken nose. “Spectre.”

  Leroy tipped his flat cap. “Thanks.”

  The gunshot was loud.

  Leroy stood up from his squatting position and placed his handgun back into the equipment beneath his brown leather jacket, brushing past Cameron on his way back towards Mr. Huang.

  Someone on the sidewalk screamed, followed by another, and Leroy withdrew his arbiter’s license to show everyone. It quelled a few people, but not by much.

  Witnessing a murder on the side of the road had a way of shaking people’s nerves. Mr. Huang continued to curse at Leroy, and he placed a hand on his shoulder from the opposite end of the windowsill, and insisted that he call the Civic and Occult Authority, and to let them know that Leroy Waters had been there.

  Cameron wanted him dead as much as Ruby did, and he’d killed before, but this felt different. It wasn’t the kind of death you delivered someone from vigor, or passion, or a sense of self-righteousness. It wasn’t a death born from the kind of fire that brewed in people when they felt wronged, or cheated, or like they had no other choice than to take an eye for an eye.

  It was death forged in the absence of any of that.

  A cold death.

  Blatant. Simple. Matter-of-fact.

  That was the kind of man Leroy was. He didn’t ever kill because it was personal, and Cameron knew at that moment that he couldn’t give less of a damn about Ruby’s girls. Donovan Mayfield didn’t die because he killed Mariah, Yasima, and Coriander. He died because Leroy was paid to kill him—and that was it.

  P.S. - That paper Cameron found in Leroy's apartment (from Chapter 17) will come up again, stay tuned!

  LEROY WATERS

  CAMERON KESSLER

  RUBY SHAKUR

  DONOVAN MAYFIELD

  MR. HUANG

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