Subtropolis: Shadow Theatre - 1/13 (Original; ~30k words; 15+)
[ Full Headers | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | E | Read on DW ]
There is a city behind every city, a shadow of a place, a Subtropolis where those who have slipped through the cracks -- be it deliberately, or by no fault of their own -- can find new lives away from bright lights and glass towers. Below every city is a place where the tired, the hungry and dispossessed can find a little comfort and a great deal of mystery. The magic and the monsters never went away; they just took up residence in the Subtropolis.
subtropolis:
shadow theatre
"I'm not saying violent, bloody, gruesome death is ever a good thing," Kenny started and then, frowning, corrected himself, "Well, except for Death Row prisoners. That I'm cool with."
Boston stared at his partner with barely concealed annoyance.
"What? If they didn't want to die horribly, they shouldn't have raped and murdered innocent people. In fact," he decided, "they should be offed in the manner of their crime. You know: set fire to the arsonists; beat up the abusers; give them drug overdoses -- hey, they'd probably even enjoy it! You can't say fairer than an eye for an eye, is all I'm saying."
"Murder the murderers," Boston offered dryly.
"Rape the rapists!" Kenny agreed with cheerful volume, earning glares from people around them. "Yeah, yeah; move along! You see my badge, pal? Yeah, you see it. Move along there!"
He glared right back at the pedestrians until they moved away from the crime scene tape and then slurped loudly at his coffee.
"What was I--? Oh, yeah. See, what you do is, you get one of those, you know, neurotic drill things--?"
"Pneumatic," Boston supplied wearily.
"Yeah, those. Stick a fifteen inch dildo on the end and wham! Bam!" Kenny made rhythmic punching motions. "Fuck you mister-man!"
Boston pulled a face. "I think I just learnt more about your kinks than I ever needed to know."
"Hey!" Kenny complained. "I mean, dude, sure, if Torres wanted to walk on someone in those hot little stilettos of hers then I'd be up for the job, if you know what I mean, and I think you do!"
"And I really, really wish I didn't," Boston muttered.
"But I don't go in for that sort of back door action," Kenny continued. "Like, no disrespect to the nancy boys, but my pooper is one way only."
"Kenny!"
"What?!"
"You're a dick, you know that?" Boston glared.
Kenny flipped him off, grinning around his coffee. "Anyway, what I was saying -- what I was trying to say was that, you know. If you're gonna be a whore--"
"We don't know this guy was a sex worker," Boston pointed out. "We don't know anything except that he's very much dead and we're walking the ropes while forensics and actual detectives do their work."
"Yeah, this district? Whore. No, don't be giving me that look. I've got nothing against whores. If pathetic bastards need to buy some play, then why shouldn't people sell it to them, right? Should legalise the whole thing, save us time and money. Make a fortune in taxes, spend it on schools."
"You're a real humanitarian," Boston offered dryly.
Kenny laughed. "Damn right I am."
"'If you're going to be a whore--'"
"I'd bag hot chicks only." He scratched himself obscenely. "Yeah, ride the money-maker, baby."
"No, you said--"
"Oh! Yeah." Kenny waved his coffee at the blood-splattered alley behind them. "You do the job, you take the risks. It's all part of the trade, amigo."
Boston took another look behind them. In the harsh flashes of the crime scene investigators' cameras, shadows burned away. Blood looked almost black, splattered in increasingly thicker patches the further you got from the alley entrance. As he watched, one of the workers lifted a hand -- part of a hand -- out of the garbage strewn from the over-turned bin, and dropped it in a Mylar bag. Boston quickly looked away.
"Agonising death," he said to Kenny. "Part of the trade."
"I'm just saying. You play your cards and you take your chances." Kenny shrugged. "This is just how it goes sometimes. Slap a suicide note on it and be done."
"Wow. No, wow, no, I was wrong," Boston said. "You're not a dick."
"No?"
"You're a whole bag of dicks."
Kenny laughed. "Hey, man, I had my way, whores would be legal and then how often would you see this? Never, I'm telling you."
"I admire your faith in people." Boston kept his gaze moving, sweeping the area. It was late enough in the morning that the foot traffic was suits and ties: cheap suits; crumpled ties. People who could afford good suits drove to work, if they lived in the area at all. It was starting to warm up, and he tugged absently at the jacket of his uniform.
"Shoulda worn short sleeves, man," Kenny said. "Told you it'd be a hot one."
Boston turned back to answer and his attention got caught half-way by someone watching them, a scrawny teenager in clothes too bulky for their frame, too thick for the weather. Boston couldn't tell if they were male or female. White, maybe Hispanic, even Arabic; the shadow of the pulled down Yankees cap made all of them possible. The teen moved back as soon as he noticed Boston, vanishing into the shadows.
"Did you see--?" Boston asked, turning the rest of the way to Kenny, which meant he was also facing back into the crime scene, where a black man in a long grey coat and matching hat was now standing, surveying the area around him. "Son-of-a-ditch! How'd he get in there?"
"What you say?" Kenny swung around to look. "Well, shit; how'd he get in there?"
"Watch the line," Boston said, ducking under the tape and jogging towards the man, ignoring Kenny's noise of protest. "Sir? Excuse me, sir?"
He got a flicked look of dismissal for his troubles. Up close, he could see the man had a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, sharp cheekbones and old eyes; Boston revised his mental profile from thirties to a well-preserved late fifties.
"You can't cross the line," he said, reaching for the man's arm and somehow missing completely.
"What's going on?" demanded a woman in a Medical Examiner's uniform, pulling latex gloves off as she rose. "We told the other detectives, we're not done here."
"There are footprints in the blood," the man said. His voice was deep, rich and cultured.
When he turned his black gaze on the ME, she actually took a half step backwards before rallying. "The entire scene was documented before we entered; if anyone is contaminating evidence here, it's you."
"Sir," Boston said, resting a hand on his gun. "I'm going to have to ask you to move away from the crime scene and show my some identification."
"There was no struggle," the man said, ignoring this. His coat swirled a little, as if he were standing in his own private breeze.
"And I'm Mother Teresa," the ME snapped. "You wanna tell me my job? Get him out of here."
"I really don't want to have to draw my weapon," Boston said.
"I do," Kenny said cheerfully from right behind them. Boston, startled, cursed under his breath. "Tall, dark, and creepy got a name?"
"I told you to watch the line."
"Yeah, but I'm older than you, so you watch the line, and I'll shoot this guy. He's probably the killer. They always come back to the scene of the crime," Kenny added, giving the ME an appreciative once-over. She flipped him off.
"Rarely always," the man said absently.
"Is there some reason you're not just pulling this mook out of here?" the ME demanded.
"I, uh--" Boston shook his head, reached for the guy again, and once more found his hand closing on nothing. He couldn't see how the guy did it. It was like he was made of smoke or something.
"The refuse lies on top of the blood spray," the man said, from where he was somehow now crouched down, examining the floor. "It's been turned over, by wind, and foraging animals, no doubt, but the blood went down first."
He stood is a smooth movement; there was a flash of metal as his coat swung out and both Kenny and Boston drew and pointed their guns. The man just smiled thinly, showing them his glittering silver badge.
"Detective Nylar," he said. "This is my case now."
Boston lowered his weapon.
"Yeah, I'm going to have to confirm that," Kenny said, keeping his up. "So you just stay nice and cosy while I call dispatch, capisce?"
Nylar ignored this, vanishing his badge back inside his coat -- and seriously, Boston wondered, why isn't the man sweltering in that thing? -- as he stepped pointedly around the medical examiner.
"Hey!" Kenny yelled. "What did I just say?"
"Put your damn piece away," the ME said. "You're making me jumpy."
"Just call it in," Boston agreed.
"You watch him. If he looks squirrely--"
"Cuffs out, first sign of a tail," Boston nodded.
"Fine." Kenny backed off, re-holstering his gun (though he left the snaps open), and reaching for his radio instead.
"Is he right?" Boston asked the ME. "Nylar, about the blood."
"Given how much this place was churned up, it's probably as good a guess as any other. It's still a guess, though," the ME called after Nylar, who raised a hand in acknowledgment without looking around. He was wearing black gloves, leather looking but somehow perfectly matte, no shine at all.
Boston followed his movements automatically, in between glances at the line to make sure no-one else was wandering in. Nylar checked the line too; after each thing that caught his attention he would take a few steps back and run a sweep in a full circle before moving on.
"Like a ritual," he said, not realising he was thinking out loud.
"Bloodbath is the word you're looking for, kid," the ME said, watching Nylar as well. "Man, I hate me some tight-ass detective know-it-all bullshit. I have twenty-five years of field experience," she raised her voice, "you're not going to find anything the team missed!"
Nylar ignored this too.
"If it turns out he's really deaf, I'm gonna feel a right ass," the ME muttered. "Man, I would kill for a smoke."
Boston resisted the urge to point out he'd have to arrest her if she did.
"Worse of it is, a week from now, Spooky McSleuth there will have moved on. Always happens in cases like these."
"Not always," Boston said automatically.
She chuckled, bitterly. "Twenty-five years kid. You don't get a hit in the first twelve hours, you don't get a hit at all. You know why people target sex workers? Because once their fifty bucks is up, no-one gives a monkey's fart about them. Oh, the family, if there is one, will cry for a bit, but that dries up real fast once they learn you get no sympathy for having a son or daughter who was a dirty whore."
"Dirty's good," Kenny said, coming back to join them. "Dirty pays more. Guy checks out legitimate; dispatch gave me an earful. Next time?" He poked Boston's chest. "You do the call in, I do the stand and gab."
"If my credentials have been verified," Nylar said, appearing at Kenny's shoulder, "perhaps you would go back to doing your jobs?" He smiled his thin smile again. "If you'd be so kind."
"You are one creepy ass mother-fucker," the ME said. "I'm going to go get coffee. They make that shit with nicotine in now, right?"
She stormed off. Nylar stared blankly at Boston and Kenny until they retreated to the line, and then wandered off deeper into the alley. From the line, Boston could just make him out, moving back and forth like a ghost, still doing that all-around sweep every few paces. Like some weird dance routine.
"Are you getting all saviour complex on me?" Kenny asked with an edge of disgust. "You've got that 'I want to help people' look in your eye."
"I don't have a look," Boston said, watching Nylar move from side to side across the alley.
"I've worked this sort of case before, you know. There's always some rookie officer or junior detective or lawyer who gets a bee in their butt about the whole thing, goes all public crusader, fight the good fight, rah rah rah. And you know what they get for their trouble? Buttkiss!"
"It's 'bupkis'," Boston sighed, "and I don't have a look."
"I'm just saying," Kenny said, shrugging. "The world will roll right over you my friend, and it won't even notice."
"Uh-huh," Boston said, not listening.
He watched Nylar crouch again, fingers brushing the floor -- no, just above the floor, not actually touching. The angle and the building shadow obscured whatever he was looking at. Kenny was still blathering on about something. Boston nodded along when the sound seemed right for it, moving around a little, trying to get a better view. There was something off about the alley, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, something out of place in the grime and the gore.
The word 'clean' popped into his head.
"--out of sight, out of mind," Kenny said. "Same shit, different day. It's all -- are you even listening to me?"
"No," said Boston, thinking, clean, why clean, what's clean? His eyes flicked across the alley, again and again, until he caught the glint on the fire-escape.
"You are the worst partner ever," Kenny groused.
"What did you see?" Nylar asked.
Kenny jerked away, swearing. "Stop sneaking up on me!"
Nylar ignored this, training his black gaze on Boston. "You saw something."
"I-- No," Boston said, shaking his head. "It's nothing."
"Then it doesn't matter if you tell me," Nylar said.
"It's just--" Boston pointed. "There, on the fire-escape? There are clean bits, brighter than the rest. It's-- Really, it's nothing."
"I have no idea what the hell you're pointing at," Kenny said, peering in the same direction. "Man, you must have eyes like a goddamn hawk."
"Mm," Nylar said, tonelessly. "Officer--?"
"Craig," Boston answered automatically. "Boston Craig."
"Like the city," Kenny offered helpfully.
"Yes," Nylar agreed, turning his steady, unblinking look Kenny's way, making him take a long stop back. Nylar smiled his thin smile once more. "Like the city."
"Ken Gutierrez," Kenny added. "I can tell you don't care, but, hey, introductions all round, that's fun, right?"
Boston grabbed Kenny arm, pulling him away so he could whisper-yell "Could you maybe stop being an asshole for one second?" at him. Kenny just snorted. Boston turned back, saying, "I'm sorry, Detective--"
There was no-one there. He swung around trying to see where the guy had gone, but there was no sign of him. A few passing pedestrians, cars, a yellow cab sailing smoothly around the corner, but no detective; no sign of the man at all.
"Where did he go?!"
"Where did who go?" Kenny asked.
"Nylar! He was just right there!"
"Who?" Kenny asked and then cracked up laughing when Boston turned on him in surprise. "Nah, I'm just fucking with you man. There's, like, a hundred corners he could've ducked-- Hey! Back away from the tape, you little punks!"
He charged off after a bunch of laughing and cat-calling teenagers, leaving Boston standing bewildered and alone in the middle of the street.
[ Full Headers | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | E | Read on DW ]
There is a city behind every city, a shadow of a place, a Subtropolis where those who have slipped through the cracks -- be it deliberately, or by no fault of their own -- can find new lives away from bright lights and glass towers. Below every city is a place where the tired, the hungry and dispossessed can find a little comfort and a great deal of mystery. The magic and the monsters never went away; they just took up residence in the Subtropolis.
subtropolis:
shadow theatre
"I'm not saying violent, bloody, gruesome death is ever a good thing," Kenny started and then, frowning, corrected himself, "Well, except for Death Row prisoners. That I'm cool with."
Boston stared at his partner with barely concealed annoyance.
"What? If they didn't want to die horribly, they shouldn't have raped and murdered innocent people. In fact," he decided, "they should be offed in the manner of their crime. You know: set fire to the arsonists; beat up the abusers; give them drug overdoses -- hey, they'd probably even enjoy it! You can't say fairer than an eye for an eye, is all I'm saying."
"Murder the murderers," Boston offered dryly.
"Rape the rapists!" Kenny agreed with cheerful volume, earning glares from people around them. "Yeah, yeah; move along! You see my badge, pal? Yeah, you see it. Move along there!"
He glared right back at the pedestrians until they moved away from the crime scene tape and then slurped loudly at his coffee.
"What was I--? Oh, yeah. See, what you do is, you get one of those, you know, neurotic drill things--?"
"Pneumatic," Boston supplied wearily.
"Yeah, those. Stick a fifteen inch dildo on the end and wham! Bam!" Kenny made rhythmic punching motions. "Fuck you mister-man!"
Boston pulled a face. "I think I just learnt more about your kinks than I ever needed to know."
"Hey!" Kenny complained. "I mean, dude, sure, if Torres wanted to walk on someone in those hot little stilettos of hers then I'd be up for the job, if you know what I mean, and I think you do!"
"And I really, really wish I didn't," Boston muttered.
"But I don't go in for that sort of back door action," Kenny continued. "Like, no disrespect to the nancy boys, but my pooper is one way only."
"Kenny!"
"What?!"
"You're a dick, you know that?" Boston glared.
Kenny flipped him off, grinning around his coffee. "Anyway, what I was saying -- what I was trying to say was that, you know. If you're gonna be a whore--"
"We don't know this guy was a sex worker," Boston pointed out. "We don't know anything except that he's very much dead and we're walking the ropes while forensics and actual detectives do their work."
"Yeah, this district? Whore. No, don't be giving me that look. I've got nothing against whores. If pathetic bastards need to buy some play, then why shouldn't people sell it to them, right? Should legalise the whole thing, save us time and money. Make a fortune in taxes, spend it on schools."
"You're a real humanitarian," Boston offered dryly.
Kenny laughed. "Damn right I am."
"'If you're going to be a whore--'"
"I'd bag hot chicks only." He scratched himself obscenely. "Yeah, ride the money-maker, baby."
"No, you said--"
"Oh! Yeah." Kenny waved his coffee at the blood-splattered alley behind them. "You do the job, you take the risks. It's all part of the trade, amigo."
Boston took another look behind them. In the harsh flashes of the crime scene investigators' cameras, shadows burned away. Blood looked almost black, splattered in increasingly thicker patches the further you got from the alley entrance. As he watched, one of the workers lifted a hand -- part of a hand -- out of the garbage strewn from the over-turned bin, and dropped it in a Mylar bag. Boston quickly looked away.
"Agonising death," he said to Kenny. "Part of the trade."
"I'm just saying. You play your cards and you take your chances." Kenny shrugged. "This is just how it goes sometimes. Slap a suicide note on it and be done."
"Wow. No, wow, no, I was wrong," Boston said. "You're not a dick."
"No?"
"You're a whole bag of dicks."
Kenny laughed. "Hey, man, I had my way, whores would be legal and then how often would you see this? Never, I'm telling you."
"I admire your faith in people." Boston kept his gaze moving, sweeping the area. It was late enough in the morning that the foot traffic was suits and ties: cheap suits; crumpled ties. People who could afford good suits drove to work, if they lived in the area at all. It was starting to warm up, and he tugged absently at the jacket of his uniform.
"Shoulda worn short sleeves, man," Kenny said. "Told you it'd be a hot one."
Boston turned back to answer and his attention got caught half-way by someone watching them, a scrawny teenager in clothes too bulky for their frame, too thick for the weather. Boston couldn't tell if they were male or female. White, maybe Hispanic, even Arabic; the shadow of the pulled down Yankees cap made all of them possible. The teen moved back as soon as he noticed Boston, vanishing into the shadows.
"Did you see--?" Boston asked, turning the rest of the way to Kenny, which meant he was also facing back into the crime scene, where a black man in a long grey coat and matching hat was now standing, surveying the area around him. "Son-of-a-ditch! How'd he get in there?"
"What you say?" Kenny swung around to look. "Well, shit; how'd he get in there?"
"Watch the line," Boston said, ducking under the tape and jogging towards the man, ignoring Kenny's noise of protest. "Sir? Excuse me, sir?"
He got a flicked look of dismissal for his troubles. Up close, he could see the man had a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee, sharp cheekbones and old eyes; Boston revised his mental profile from thirties to a well-preserved late fifties.
"You can't cross the line," he said, reaching for the man's arm and somehow missing completely.
"What's going on?" demanded a woman in a Medical Examiner's uniform, pulling latex gloves off as she rose. "We told the other detectives, we're not done here."
"There are footprints in the blood," the man said. His voice was deep, rich and cultured.
When he turned his black gaze on the ME, she actually took a half step backwards before rallying. "The entire scene was documented before we entered; if anyone is contaminating evidence here, it's you."
"Sir," Boston said, resting a hand on his gun. "I'm going to have to ask you to move away from the crime scene and show my some identification."
"There was no struggle," the man said, ignoring this. His coat swirled a little, as if he were standing in his own private breeze.
"And I'm Mother Teresa," the ME snapped. "You wanna tell me my job? Get him out of here."
"I really don't want to have to draw my weapon," Boston said.
"I do," Kenny said cheerfully from right behind them. Boston, startled, cursed under his breath. "Tall, dark, and creepy got a name?"
"I told you to watch the line."
"Yeah, but I'm older than you, so you watch the line, and I'll shoot this guy. He's probably the killer. They always come back to the scene of the crime," Kenny added, giving the ME an appreciative once-over. She flipped him off.
"Rarely always," the man said absently.
"Is there some reason you're not just pulling this mook out of here?" the ME demanded.
"I, uh--" Boston shook his head, reached for the guy again, and once more found his hand closing on nothing. He couldn't see how the guy did it. It was like he was made of smoke or something.
"The refuse lies on top of the blood spray," the man said, from where he was somehow now crouched down, examining the floor. "It's been turned over, by wind, and foraging animals, no doubt, but the blood went down first."
He stood is a smooth movement; there was a flash of metal as his coat swung out and both Kenny and Boston drew and pointed their guns. The man just smiled thinly, showing them his glittering silver badge.
"Detective Nylar," he said. "This is my case now."
Boston lowered his weapon.
"Yeah, I'm going to have to confirm that," Kenny said, keeping his up. "So you just stay nice and cosy while I call dispatch, capisce?"
Nylar ignored this, vanishing his badge back inside his coat -- and seriously, Boston wondered, why isn't the man sweltering in that thing? -- as he stepped pointedly around the medical examiner.
"Hey!" Kenny yelled. "What did I just say?"
"Put your damn piece away," the ME said. "You're making me jumpy."
"Just call it in," Boston agreed.
"You watch him. If he looks squirrely--"
"Cuffs out, first sign of a tail," Boston nodded.
"Fine." Kenny backed off, re-holstering his gun (though he left the snaps open), and reaching for his radio instead.
"Is he right?" Boston asked the ME. "Nylar, about the blood."
"Given how much this place was churned up, it's probably as good a guess as any other. It's still a guess, though," the ME called after Nylar, who raised a hand in acknowledgment without looking around. He was wearing black gloves, leather looking but somehow perfectly matte, no shine at all.
Boston followed his movements automatically, in between glances at the line to make sure no-one else was wandering in. Nylar checked the line too; after each thing that caught his attention he would take a few steps back and run a sweep in a full circle before moving on.
"Like a ritual," he said, not realising he was thinking out loud.
"Bloodbath is the word you're looking for, kid," the ME said, watching Nylar as well. "Man, I hate me some tight-ass detective know-it-all bullshit. I have twenty-five years of field experience," she raised her voice, "you're not going to find anything the team missed!"
Nylar ignored this too.
"If it turns out he's really deaf, I'm gonna feel a right ass," the ME muttered. "Man, I would kill for a smoke."
Boston resisted the urge to point out he'd have to arrest her if she did.
"Worse of it is, a week from now, Spooky McSleuth there will have moved on. Always happens in cases like these."
"Not always," Boston said automatically.
She chuckled, bitterly. "Twenty-five years kid. You don't get a hit in the first twelve hours, you don't get a hit at all. You know why people target sex workers? Because once their fifty bucks is up, no-one gives a monkey's fart about them. Oh, the family, if there is one, will cry for a bit, but that dries up real fast once they learn you get no sympathy for having a son or daughter who was a dirty whore."
"Dirty's good," Kenny said, coming back to join them. "Dirty pays more. Guy checks out legitimate; dispatch gave me an earful. Next time?" He poked Boston's chest. "You do the call in, I do the stand and gab."
"If my credentials have been verified," Nylar said, appearing at Kenny's shoulder, "perhaps you would go back to doing your jobs?" He smiled his thin smile again. "If you'd be so kind."
"You are one creepy ass mother-fucker," the ME said. "I'm going to go get coffee. They make that shit with nicotine in now, right?"
She stormed off. Nylar stared blankly at Boston and Kenny until they retreated to the line, and then wandered off deeper into the alley. From the line, Boston could just make him out, moving back and forth like a ghost, still doing that all-around sweep every few paces. Like some weird dance routine.
"Are you getting all saviour complex on me?" Kenny asked with an edge of disgust. "You've got that 'I want to help people' look in your eye."
"I don't have a look," Boston said, watching Nylar move from side to side across the alley.
"I've worked this sort of case before, you know. There's always some rookie officer or junior detective or lawyer who gets a bee in their butt about the whole thing, goes all public crusader, fight the good fight, rah rah rah. And you know what they get for their trouble? Buttkiss!"
"It's 'bupkis'," Boston sighed, "and I don't have a look."
"I'm just saying," Kenny said, shrugging. "The world will roll right over you my friend, and it won't even notice."
"Uh-huh," Boston said, not listening.
He watched Nylar crouch again, fingers brushing the floor -- no, just above the floor, not actually touching. The angle and the building shadow obscured whatever he was looking at. Kenny was still blathering on about something. Boston nodded along when the sound seemed right for it, moving around a little, trying to get a better view. There was something off about the alley, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, something out of place in the grime and the gore.
The word 'clean' popped into his head.
"--out of sight, out of mind," Kenny said. "Same shit, different day. It's all -- are you even listening to me?"
"No," said Boston, thinking, clean, why clean, what's clean? His eyes flicked across the alley, again and again, until he caught the glint on the fire-escape.
"You are the worst partner ever," Kenny groused.
"What did you see?" Nylar asked.
Kenny jerked away, swearing. "Stop sneaking up on me!"
Nylar ignored this, training his black gaze on Boston. "You saw something."
"I-- No," Boston said, shaking his head. "It's nothing."
"Then it doesn't matter if you tell me," Nylar said.
"It's just--" Boston pointed. "There, on the fire-escape? There are clean bits, brighter than the rest. It's-- Really, it's nothing."
"I have no idea what the hell you're pointing at," Kenny said, peering in the same direction. "Man, you must have eyes like a goddamn hawk."
"Mm," Nylar said, tonelessly. "Officer--?"
"Craig," Boston answered automatically. "Boston Craig."
"Like the city," Kenny offered helpfully.
"Yes," Nylar agreed, turning his steady, unblinking look Kenny's way, making him take a long stop back. Nylar smiled his thin smile once more. "Like the city."
"Ken Gutierrez," Kenny added. "I can tell you don't care, but, hey, introductions all round, that's fun, right?"
Boston grabbed Kenny arm, pulling him away so he could whisper-yell "Could you maybe stop being an asshole for one second?" at him. Kenny just snorted. Boston turned back, saying, "I'm sorry, Detective--"
There was no-one there. He swung around trying to see where the guy had gone, but there was no sign of him. A few passing pedestrians, cars, a yellow cab sailing smoothly around the corner, but no detective; no sign of the man at all.
"Where did he go?!"
"Where did who go?" Kenny asked.
"Nylar! He was just right there!"
"Who?" Kenny asked and then cracked up laughing when Boston turned on him in surprise. "Nah, I'm just fucking with you man. There's, like, a hundred corners he could've ducked-- Hey! Back away from the tape, you little punks!"
He charged off after a bunch of laughing and cat-calling teenagers, leaving Boston standing bewildered and alone in the middle of the street.
[ Full Headers | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | E | Read on DW ]