Chapter Eight
Detective Simon performs a mental inventory of his fridge at home as he prepares to leave the office. He can vividly picture the sad scene; an ancient box of baking soda, a flat half liter of soda, and a half dozen eggs, bearing a sell by date that’s the only thing he can’t picture. He turns off his computer, weighing his options. He’d have to go somewhere for dinner, which means he’d blow at least fifty bucks. He doesn’t know what this city is coming too. Every restaurant and shop is too expensive for working class people to afford, the very people that keep these streets clean and running.
He’s almost talked himself into trying the kebab place again (last time it gave him diarrhea) where he can get a large portion for a cheap price, when his phone rings. The sound of it makes his knees hurt. He’s ready to get home, to get out of these shoes.
“They don’t fucking pay me enough,” he grumbles, picking up the phone. “Detective Simon.”
“This is Detective Simon?” It’s a woman’s voice, one he doesn’t recognize. He can tell she’s trying to disguise it, making it lighter and higher.
“I just said that. Can I help you?”
“I know where you can find Jack Larsen.”
The woman is curt, and sounds sure of herself, much different from the raving lunatics he usually hears from, who claim Jack Larsen is a voice in their head.
“What’s your name?” Simon asks.
“Write this down.”
Simon doesn’t take kindly to being bossed around. But the woman starts rattling off an address. He grapples for a pen and paper and writes it down.
“Jack Larsen is in Queens? Has he always been there?”
But the woman has already hung up. Simon listens to the dial tone while clutching the address in his hand. This is the first call about Jack Larsen he’s gotten in a while. When the case was dominating the news cycle, he got a dozen calls an hour, from people having Jack Larsen sightings like he’s Elvis. Every one of them was a dead end.
And this one probably is too. Simon crumples the address and tosses it in the trash bin. He shuts off the light, and closes the door behind him. In the hallway, he finally acknowledges how desperate he is. He bursts back into the office and shoves his hand in the trash bin.
Detective Simon can’t risk another embarrassment with the department, so he sets out to Queens himself. All he needs to do is glimpse Jack Larsen, and he’ll send for backup. Then, the day will be saved.
Why would you ever think your luck would turn around, he thinks, sailing over the bridge, the skyscrapers of Manhattan retreating in his rearview mirror. It’s been over sixty years, and you’re still waiting.
Simon ignores his grumbling stomach as he parks on the block of the building Jack Larsen allegedly occupies. He can’t help but think this is a huge waste of time. He could be parked in front of his television enjoying kebab and rice. He thinks back to the last time he had that meal, and starts to feel a little green. Maybe it’s for the best his dinner plans fell through.
One of the lenses of his binoculars is cracked. He’s been hesitant to ask the department for a new pair, since he’s already broken three this year. The spiderweb crack obscures his vision, but they work, more or less. He trains them on the balcony of the apartment, and waits.
He’s still for about twenty minutes. There are two people at this residence, a male and a female. Simon is sure Jack changed his appearance, but the male looks nothing like him. His physique is different. He’s much bigger and more muscular. The lighting is dim in the apartment, preventing Simon from getting a good look at the man’s face.
“Chasing unicorns,” Simon scolds himself.
If he leaves now, he can make it to the kebab place before it closes. But he can’t quite tear himself away from this building in Queens. Forced to choose between food that makes him queasy, and a dead lead, Simon chooses the dead lead. He puts his chair back, making himself comfortable, and settles in.
*
“So what’s our story?” Amber says. She’s massaging Jack’s head. His hair is thick between her fingers. Jack looks up at her, groaning softly. Amber swats him teasingly. “We have to know it inside and out.”
Jack fiddles with the button of her pants. “I’d like to know you inside and out.” He unzips her jeans, then slips his fingers inside to stroke her panties.
Amber leans her head back, trying to concentrate through Jack’s distraction. “Your name is Pete Shepherd. You’re in finance,” she recites. “Since you work with foreign markets, you work in the middle of the night. During the day, you’re sleeping. That’s why you’re never seen.”
“Very good.” Jack taps against her clit, rewarding her. “And what about you?”
Amber feels her panties moistening between her legs. She hears the jingle of Jack’s pants as he takes them off. Jack hooks his finger in her mouth. Amber sucks it softly, tasting the salt of his skin.
“I’m Amber Parker, your fiancee. I’m an aspiring writer. You’re supporting me.”
Jack grasps her hips, pulling her down so she’s lying on her back. He climbs on top of her, straddling her shoulders. His thick thighs pin her arms to her side. The head of his cock probes heavily at her lips.
“And you suck my dick whenever I tell you too, isn’t that right?” He grabs her hair, pulling her head back. Her mouth falls open.
“That’s right,” Amber says, his lips grazing against his hardened flesh as she speaks. “I’m yours to use whenever you wish. I’ll be a good little wife.” She circles the tip with her tongue, tasting his pre-cum.
Jack’s balls tighten. He loves when she talks like this. He pushes himself inside of her mouth.
“That’s right. I own you. I own your mouth, your ass, your pussy.”
Amber makes a tight seal around his shaft with her lips. Jack’s knees nearly buckle. Her warm wet mouth is the perfect antidote to his raging hot erection. He pulses his hips softly.
“Touch yourself,” Jack commands. “Get yourself ready for me.”
Amber’s hands move between her legs. She rubs herself. When she moans, her voice vibrates around Jack’s cock. He strokes her hair back, looking at her face.
“That’s good,” he says. “I need you soaking wet. I don’t want to hurt you.” He pushes himself further into her mouth. “You’re going to take all of this, deep inside of you.”
Amber says something, but her voice is muffled. Jack pulls out of her mouth and tells her to say it again.
“I want you now,” she says, massaging her own tits. “Please, I need you inside of me.”
Holding his cock, Jack climbs off of her, and inspects between her legs. She’s very wet. His fingers slip easily inside of her, but not wet enough. Jack strokes up and down her slit, and reaches up to twist her nipples, just how she likes. It seems Amber likes her pleasure tinged with a little pain, and Jack is happy to oblige. He spanks her ass, hard enough to leave a red mark.
“Not wet enough yet,” he growls. He slides the tip of his cock between her folds. “Don’t you want this?”
Amber’s eyes shoot open. “Yes, please. Fuck me, Jack.”
Jack nibbles at her neck. “It’s Pete. Calling me Jack is what got you in trouble in the first place.”
Amber recalls the terror of that night. The darkness twists around her desire, strengthening it. Jack slides the head of his cock inside of her.
“Good girl,” he groans, stretching her open as he goes deeper. “That’s a good girl.”
Jack fucks her, making her come so many times that in the end, she can barely move. When he pulls out, he shoots all over her tits. While Amber swirls her fingertips in his semen, Jack’s reminded that although he’s had plenty of women, he’s never had one quite like this before. Amber is a balance of tough and feminine. She can handle his aggression. She even seems to crave it.
Once Amber regains strength in her legs, she dresses for bed. When she’s in the bathroom brushing her teeth, she hears Jack putting on his shoes.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
Jack grabs the car keys and puts them in his pocket. “I should be able to say what happened to me that night, I was there.”
“Where are you going?” Amber repeats.
“I have this urge to go to my father’s office. Maybe it’ll drudge something up.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You stay here. I won’t be long.”
Amber feels a tingle of dread. She wants Jack here, in bed with her, where no one can see him. But he didn’t ask her, and he’s already out the door.
*
After waiting awhile, Detective Simon looks through his binoculars to see if they’re still fucking. He’s no boy scout, but he’s not a perv. Besides, these are probably two innocent civilians. They don’t deserve to be spied on by an aging detective.
The couch is empty. The female is dressed in a nightgown. Detective Simon scans for the male. He can’t find him anywhere.
He nearly shits his pants when the male exits the door of the building and jogs down the steps. Simon tries to concentrate on his face. There’s not much to see beneath that thick beard. The man unlocks a car, something much too dumpy for Jack Larsen’s taste, and gets in the driver’s seat.
Since he’s already wasted so much time on this, Simon decides to see it through. Keeping a safe distance behind, Simon follows him. The man leads him across the Queensboro Bridge, back into Manhattan. When they head in the direction of the Financial District, Simon’s scalp pricks with a realization.
He’s going to his father’s office. He’s returning to the scene of the crime.
Fresh energy pumps through the detective, revitalizing him, and making him forget his empty stomach. The car ahead of him parks on the street two blocks from Larsen International. It’s the last available space that Simon can see. Even though the Financial District is dead this time of night, every parking space is occupied, so Simon has to drive right past.
“Goddamn this city,” Simon says.
In his rearview, he sees the man exit the car, and start hoofing it down the street. Simon drives around the blocks in an ever widening circle, cursing under his breath the entire time. He finally finds a place much farther from where he’d like to be. He quickly throws on a ball cap to cover his white hair, his most distinguishable feature, and starts walking to Larsen International.
*
Ever since he got off the bridge into Manhattan, Jack had the sense he was being followed. He’d checked his rearview mirror more times than was safe, and didn’t see anyone there. He dismisses it as paranoia, but still, he’s not taking any chances. He takes a winding, convoluted path towards the office building, and he doesn’t go right up to it. He hides in the shadows of an alley across the street. The wind is howling tonight. It whips up the grime of the city, stinging his eyes.
Larsen International is a foreboding skyscraper, all cold steel and glass, much like the men who work inside. Jack’s eyes find his father’s office window, and silently begs the building to give up its secrets. He concentrates, mentally bringing himself back to that night. He remembers Club 64, he remembers Chloe, but for the life of him, he doesn’t remember walking into that building the night of his father’s murder.
While dwelling on this, his mind is soon invaded with images of blood and brain matter spewed throughout the room. Jack’s chest tightens with panic. His breath becomes shallow. His search for the truth has given him purpose, and so has Amber, but at the end of the day, his father is dead. His father, a man Jack hated for most of his life, can’t help Jack as he always had.
Jack presses his palm against his face, and finds his cheeks are wet. He’s crying. The tears are hot and desperate. He wipes his face with his shirt, and chokes the emotion down. Why am I here? What did I think I would find?
Jack spots someone at the end of the block. He steps back into the alley, waiting. The figure is nothing to be afraid of. Whoever it is is small, and walks with a bullish clumsiness. Jack quickly decides he could take this person, if it comes to that. Jack hopes it doesn’t, so he waits for the person to pass.
But he doesn’t. Jack squints through the darkness, watching as the man hides in the shadows of an awning. He holds something to his eyes. It’s binoculars. Jack’s core tightens as his body debates between fight or flight.
Just wait. Be patient. Don’t do anything stupid, just like Joel said.
The frigid wind picks up again. Jack steels himself against the cold. There’s a flash of movement on the other side of the street. The man chases his hat, which has blown off of his head into the road. Under the glow of the street lamps, Jack clearly sees the swath of white, wiry hair, the same head of hair that sat across from him in the interrogation room, asking him what he was doing in his father’s office the night of the murder. Jack curls his hands into tight fists.
“Simon,” he growls.
He watches the detective wipe off the hat and place it back on his head. Simon stands in front of Larsen International, his hands on his hips, looking around the deserted street.
He followed me here. He knows about the apartment.
Jack slips back through the alley, exiting at the opposite end. The gears in his head grind and turn as he tries to sort through this. The fear of losing everything keeps him from thinking clearly. What should he do? Should he race back to Queens, gather Amber and take her somewhere else? But where would they go?
Jack sticks to small side streets and alley ways on the way back to his car. The entire way, he tells himself what he’s going to do. He’s going to get in his car, get back to Amber, and they’ll figure this out together. He comes to the block where he parked. Simon is crouched beside the car. He cups his hands over his eyes, looking in the window. Jack stops in his tracks, and peeks out from behind a dumpster. The detective circles around the car, studying it. He pauses at the license plate, and jots the number down on a notepad.
It can’t end now, not before it’s started, Jack thinks.
The dumpster stinks of rotting food. Even in the cold, flies buzz around it. Is this what Jack has been reduced to, hiding with stinking trash? Would Jack’s father roll over and give up, or would he take what’s his? There’s always a way to get what you want. Jack’s father had always taught him that. There’s always a way…
Before the plan is fully formed in his head, Jack is walking forward, out of the darkness. He doesn’t make much noise, so Simon doesn’t notice him walking up. The detective is studying the vin number, when Jack grabs him from behind and slams his back against the car. Simon gasps, blowing the white hair out of his eyes. When he sees Jack, his face goes white with terror. Jack tightens his grip on Simon’s shirt, squeezing it tighter around his neck.
“What’s your price?” Jack says through gritted teeth.
Simon is shaking so hard he can barely speak. Jack slams him against the car, repeating his question. The detective takes a shuddering breath, and finds his voice.
“Jack,” he says, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Jack, I can help you.”
Jack shakes his head. “You didn’t see me here. What’s your price? The money will be in your account by morning. You’re getting old, Simon. How would you like to retire a wealthy man? Don’t you think you’ve earned it?”
Simon takes pause. He’s never been asked to make this kind of choice before. How much does his job really mean to him? Yes, he has a duty to uphold the law, but hasn’t he already done enough of that? Whether he takes Jack up on his offer or not, Simon knows Jack could kill him with his bare hands. He’s all alone out here, with aching joints and atrophied muscles, with this beast of man.
Simon nods, prompting Jack to loosen his grip. Simon doubles over, gasping. “I think we can work something out.”
Jack stares at him darkly for a few moments, then gives a quick, curt nod. He grabs Simon hard by the arm, then unlocks the car.
“Get in,” Jack says, shoving Simon into the passenger seat.