Slow Poison - Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Seated in a dark corner of The Rode Leeuw, Trim removed his black kid gloves and folded them neatly and placed them upon the tabletop. He took the diary from his coat pocket and opened it at random. He read the familiar passages for several moments. No one had noticed him enter the bar. He knew he should wait, but he needed a drink.  

“Waiter!”

The waiter scanned the room for the owner of the voice. 

“Sir?”

“Gin.”

Juniper berries. Juniperus communis. He thumbed through the diary and found the small coloured sketch. Most of the colour had faded, but there was still a bluish tinge to the berries. He noticed a small brown needle caught in the spine of the book. Part of a leaf. He prised it free with a manicured fingernail and held it to his nose. At that moment the waiter arrived with a tulip glass of genever. He inhaled deeply the heady scent of juniper. He flicked the small spiny leaf onto the carpeted tabletop, where it hooked itself into the red tufts like a dagger. He closed the diary and put it in his coat pocket. He downed the genever with one gulp and looked around for the elusive waiter.

“The bottle, please.”  

Noise. In The Victoria, all exits and escape routes had been sealed. The Six were still drunk, building up to the crescendo heights that Den had long since scaled.

“This knife. It is yours? You are the owner of this knife?”

“I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT! GOD’S HONEST TRUTH! TELL ‘EM WILL YA? I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT!”

The police had their hands full. The officer in charge was contemplating sending through to headquarters for reinforcements. It looked as though it might come to that.

“I DIDN’T FUCKIN’ DO IT! TELL ‘EM MART! KEV, TELL ‘EM FER FUCK’S SAKE!”

Den sobbed out his words to the patient policeman, to the deep plush of the foyer, to his uncertain allies. A detective had arrived and was down below, examining the spot. He asked his questions in a voice that was little more than a whisper. The witnesses were eager with their accusations.

“They were very aggressive all evening!”

He faced The Six, in the foyer. The whisper cut through the noise.

“I will ask you again. This knife. Are you the owner of this knife?”

Den said nothing.

“These letters here. On the handle. These are the letters of your name?”

It was Den’s knife. His initials had been stamped into the handle. Kev had done it for him in the chassis workshop. D.M.R. Dennis Michael O’Rourke. A policeman checked his crumpled visitor’s passport

“Dennis Michael O’Rourke, you must come with us to the bureau. And you, the others also.”

“YOU CAN’T TAKE US IN! WE ‘AINT FUCKIN’ DONE NOTHING!” Kev shouted in panic.

They were all still drunk and slightly out of control. All except for Den who was completely out of control. He snivelled into his grubby hands, 'L.O.V.E.H.A.T.E.' tattooed across his knuckles. He shivered in the warmth of the foyer. His jeans stank of urine. The police officer signalled to a colleague.

“Take them away.”

To The Six; “We take you all to the bureau for questions.”

“Does that mean we’re all under fuckin’ arrest?”

“Yes, you will be charged. You will have an advocate assigned to you, should it become needed.”

Den whimpered like a child.

“Stick with me lads, you know I didn’t do nothing.”

All they knew was that they hadn’t done it. So, if they all knew they hadn’t done it, well that left Den, didn’t it? And it was his knife after all. Still, he was a mate, wasn’t he? He was one of the Pack. And that old geezer had got up their noses, hadn’t he? They had meant to duff him over, that much was true.

“Yeah, course we’ll stick by ya, mate.”

Like mud they would stick. Like shit. Like it or like it not. 

Candlelight fell across the yellowed pages of the open diary. Trim traced a delicate finger over the pencilled handwriting. Then suddenly, he snapped the diary shut with a loud report. Several people glanced across, and then looked away. Had his heart missed a beat? Worlds turned on sounds like these.

“CITY! CITY!”

At seven o’clock alcohol was taking hold, and the groups of supporters were finding their voice, seeking out their kind, growing as a threat to the brightly lit Christmas windows. A dozen or so were kicking their way along the Warmoesstraat when the first of the squad cars arrived. Pack colours were identified as Den climbed out of the lead car in the company of policemen.

“CITY! CITY!”

The other cars arrived and came to a halt in front of the police headquarters. There were raised fists. 

“PIGS! PIGS! OUT PIGS, OUT!”

A stone from the cobbled street hit a windscreen, cobwebbing the glass.

Inside the station house, the desk sergeant exchanged weary glances with the telephonist.

“CITY! CITY!””

“Jesus! What now?”

Beery breath on frosty air. Some of The Six smirked with sudden self-importance. They were hustled into the station just in time to miss the first blows.

“FUCKIN’ PIGS! CITY! CITY!”

The desk sergeant tried to assess the situation; the enormity of it all, or with luck, the transience. He made his decision. The Pack meant business. 

The street looked quite pretty illuminated in the glow of the blazing Fiat, festive clouds of noxious smoke pouring from its smouldering tyres. The wall of policemen moved slowly and deliberately toward the drunken revellers, cheered on by the gable-high onlookers. The noise from the drunks spiralled into the night sky; sending scores of startled pigeons fluttering like grimy snowflakes from their rooftop perches. At a signal, the police broke rank and moved toward selected targets. Doorways burst in and the cafes and bars of the Warmoesstraat filled with the pack in all its colourful guises.

“Gis four pilses, guvnor.”

The overhead aquarium, casting aqua-lights over the bar, held so much water. How long had it taken to fill it to the brim? A day or more, the owner remembered. The glass sarcophagus was over two meters long. The owner prayed that the cracked glass might hold out just long enough for him to run to the cellar for the silicone sealant. He thought it might hold out just long enough for the police to arrive and prevent a second blow.

“BASTARD WATERS HIS FUCKIN’ BEER! IT’S GNATS PISS!”

A second glass was hurled against the aquarium wall, but it was the bar stool that brought the tropical fish to their deaths on the beer stained floor. How could the hundreds survive? The regulars, soaked and frightened, ran for cover, slipping and sliding on the squirming floor. The owner, as tough as they come, took the full force of a broken bottle in his left cheek, a futile tube of sealant in one hand. “Godver-de-godver! Scum!” Beer mats and fish floated out into the gutter, eddying away into the drains.

Above the city the moon rose, a week away from fullness. It hung haloed, like a broken opaline lamp. Most of the city was peaceful, the taxis and trams and cars and bicycles moving along, unaware of Hell in progress, growing like a malignant tumour in one of the many arteries.

Fred was at the outer edge of death when the young surgeon reached him.

“Heartbeat? Pulse?

There was no heartbeat, no pulse. He had already lost so much blood. Poor Becky. She waited beyond the gates of sanity, her head resounding with the pounding of her own blood. The surgeon glanced across at her.

“This woman should be attended to. Give her a sedative.”

But Becky refused the bitter capsules. Then suddenly she knew that Fred had gone. She could not pinpoint the exact moment, but she knew. All her preconceptions of death had not prepared her for this moment. A thousand discordant thoughts rang through her. 

In the brief seconds before death, Fred could still not understand why he was dying.

“I’m Fred! I can’t die! Becky, Becky!”

Spiralling lights drew him away. He struggled against them.

“I’m Fred. I can’t be dying.”

And then he recalled the thrusting fist and the pale blue eyes.

And then he died.

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