'It's international short story day so this is my thing for it. I've hawked it about and it's always come back with flat no's. It's a bit experimental and it may be that it just doesn't work but I think it does, maybe. Possibly the pacing is a little off towards the end but that's sort of the point. I think it gets what I want across. It's also one of those things I've written that I'm genuinely appalled by. The language and attitude of it are all so totally alien to me that it may be part of my doubts about it. Don't know. Anyway, I don't think enjoy is the right word but maybe it is. I really like the title but it probably makes more sense once you've finished.
And Then a Sudden Deterioration
of the Situation.
8.48pm on the sort of
hot summer Friday where the pissing down rain seems like gift. The
rainbow scent of curry wafted over from a nearby restaurant as my
partner, Detective Sergeant Milo Bonn give Agam Singh the kicking of
his fucking life in an underpass. I stood out in the rain, showing
the badge, moving people on.
'Police business
love,' all that. Most people just wanted to get inside, quick and the
Heckler and Kosch MP5 I held at port arms scared away all but the
most drunk. The weight of the gun felt like a ghost from Afghanistan.
A couple of barely
dressed girls; giddy with drink, too young and stupid to be anything
more than curious about the sounds of violence, tried to peer behind
me and into the darkness of the tunnel.
'Fuck off,' I
whispered into blond hair rock-solid with cheap, eye-watering,
hair-spray and they cackled as they moved away in quick, tottering
steps. They probably wanted to get to the next pub before their
hairdos were ruined. In the moment before the veil of rain obscured
their features one of the girls gave me the finger.
Eyes screwed up in
distrust behind the veil.
We'd just returned
from the chippy when we got the call. I was relieved. Milo had been
in full, ranting, flow about his divorce - again. You could never
forget his voice; as acrid and coarse as the vinegar fumes that
filled the car and heavy with threat no matter the subject. As he
gestured and shouted he spilled chips and spat little gobs of food
out to hit the inside of the windscreen where they stuck. Moist white
dots spattered across the glass.
'Fucking witch!
Talking about pressing fucking charges. Cunt.'
I mentally faded out
Milo's harsh grate out as a report came in over the radio. A car
matching the description of one used in a shooting up in Undercliffe
had been found abandoned in the car park near the Inland Revenue
building in the centre of the city, engine still warm. I threw my food out the window
and hit the lights as Milo hit the accelerator. Ten minutes later we
were doing an armed sweep of the city centre; just in case they were
still there.
Which isn't as
unlikely as it sounds. Most criminals are thick as fuck.
We'd been searching
half an hour and it had become pretty obvious we weren't going to find
anything. That's when we came across Agam.
Agam Singh was a
career burglar and smalltime dealer who spent most of his cash on
speed, cider and prozzies. A nothing. Always unlucky. Never the type
to carry a gun. We came across him and Milo recognized him. Got in
his face, got in his territory, dwarfing the wiry little man with his
own bulk.
They had a quick,
whispered conversation that ended in an explosive shout from Milo.
'Fucking cunt!'
Milo grabbed Agam by
the lapels of his dirty jacket and dragged him into the underpass.
Shooting me a knowing look as he continued to scream abuse at the
panicking man.
I didn’t know why
Milo was giving him such a kicking. Grunting with each kick.
Punctuating each blow with a curse. His voice rising and falling
with effort.
'Kick. Your fucking.
Face in. You fucking. Cunt. Bastard.' Echoed through the underpass.
Maybe he thought Agam
knew something. Maybe he knew something about Agam. Maybe Ali Baba
had said something to Milo. Maybe he’d spat at us.
That happens a lot
in these small villages .
I didn't approve of
what was going on and there was no way I was going to take part in
it. But I knew Milo would have a good reason for it.
The kicking.
Even without a good
reason. I wouldn’t try and stop Milo Bonn. I didn't need that sort
of grief. We called him ‘The Neanderthal’ but never to his face.
He knew though.
He liked it.
I didn't mind
partnering with him, we'd both gone from the police to the army and
back again, both done tours so we shared a lot of experiences and,
say what you want about him, Milo got things done. It also helped
that I could call in a lot of favours from cops who wanted to swap
out of working with Milo. Everything balanced out in the end.
When he’d finished
pasting Agam, Milo sauntered out from the underpass, wiping his bald
head with a hand before putting his riot helmet back on. Behind Milo
Agam crawled sluggishly out the underpass; oozing blood from every
hole, a blood-slime trial marking his progress over the tiny, dirty
blue tiles that made up the floor of the underpass. The place smelt
like the open sewers of Kabul.
Milo gave me a grin.
He had a face like a baby, soft and round; though his blue eyes were
colder than any kids. He showed his teeth again and shook his head as
he held up a small baggie of marijuana.
'Spoils of war.
Fucking little cunt…'
You learn to
recognize the killers. Learn it at the checkpoints, the ones with
nothing left in their eyes apart from the determination to do what it
is they intend to do.
You have a split
second to act. I knew what was in Agam's hand. There was no maybe
about it. It wasn’t a toy, it wasn't a fake. There was a heaviness
in the way he held it. A specific mechanical purpose in the way he
moved. He was so badly damaged: he was so determined to strike back.
My reaction was
instantaneous. I didn’t warn him that I was armed. I didn’t ask
him to drop it. I didn’t even shout out that I was the police.
Take stance.
AimFire.
I shot the boy between
the eyes.
Identify-yourself --
Run-forward-- do-not-take-the-barrel-of-the-gun-off-the-target --
kick-away-any-visible-weapon.
I shouted it.
'British Armed
Forces! Drop your weapon!' and again. 'Armed Police! Drop. Your.
Weapon.' I didn’t think he was alive. Training. I had to say it.
Shoot it out.
Armied Police.
Make-the-target-aware-before-you-fire.
Adrenalin powered
through me. I pushed Agam with my foot. Small hole in his forehead.
Slightly off centre.
Not a perfect
shooting.
He rolled, moving
like a doll filled with wet sand. Dead, you don’t do a tour
without knowing dead. He’d pissed and shit himself.
Brains and bright
blood splattered the turquoise wall of the subway.
I turned to Milo,
adrenaline draining from me, to say, 'that was a close one.'
Milo slumped against
the wall of the subway under the twitching shadows of a flickering
neon. His legs splayed out in a 'v'. He looked uncomfortable, wrong.
His riot helmet was about three and a half meters down the mosaic
floor of the subway. It rocked slightly: noisily. His naked head:
seeming jaundiced under the flashing sodium light.
I ran across the
desert sand, keeping low and screaming into my radio. 'The Sergeant's
down. Sarge is down.'
I thought he was
dead. I turned him. Blood streaming from his mouth. Those cold blue
eyes aware, alive. He didn't look like a baby any more. He had a face
like a clenched fist as he bit down on the pain. I checked his body.
A hole as big as my hand in the front of his vest. I’d not even
seen the gun go off.
Focus-on-the-target.
Mind racing. The hole
was huge. For some reason it seemed incredibly important to find
Agam's gun. So I knew the calibre of the bullet. Stupid. Stupid.
Combat can make your
mind work in funny ways.
I pulled off my
helmet, better to search for the gun without the narrowed view of the
riot helmet. Found it.
'Moving!'
Milo grabbed my arm.
It felt like being cuffed. I thought that’s what he'd done. It was
a joke. He'd set this up with Agam and now he’d got me near he'd
slipped on the cuffs as proof that he’d outsmarted to me.
When he spoke I knew
it wasn’t a joke; harsh, gurgling, chewing out the words.
'Did you get him?'
'What?' surprised he
could speak. His hand felt cold through my wet jersey.
He started again.
Even though he was shot, he was furious at having to ask the same
question twice. I could see it in his eyes
'Did. You.'
'Yes, the towel
head's dead, we’ll piss on his gr…'
He squeezed my arm so
hard I thought something would break.
'Fucking look at me,
Steve,' it came out as a hiss.
Those action-hero
eyes locked with mine.
'You have my
undying,' gasp, spit. 'Fucking,' rattling breath. 'Gratitude.' He
passed out. According to the
pathologists report his undying gratitude lasted another four
minutes.
But the pathologist
was wrong.
The first time I
heard from Milo again was a week after my demotion.
Not mental things.
Not his voice talking bollocks or telling me to worship the devil and
kill students. It'd have been easy if it was that cos then I’d know
I was a mental.
My arrest rate has
shot up over the last two years.
Thanks to Milo.
Honest to fucking
God.
The first big one was
a week after the wife first mentioned divorce. Anonymous caller and
we found a prozzie dead on the Lane, stabbed once. Clean kill.
A few suspects. We
liked the husband for it but he had an alibi; he’d been fighting in
the Crown and Crescent over Leeds way and got arrested the night of
the murder. He could still have done it but it would have been tight
timewise. Any good lawyer would destroy us on it without a
confession. We were looking at johns and doing a canvass around the
estate where she’d lived, just in case someone saw something.
I was on my seventh
‘fuck off’ when Milo started talking. Telling me he knew who’d
done it. After the stress of the inquiry into Agam's death my own
instincts had fled and I'd come to rely on Milo's hints. It’d been
little nudges at first. Barely a bastard whisper, but always right. I
carried on with the canvass while his voice told me we could solve
this.
Another three ‘fuck
off's’ from friendly housewives trying to peacefully shout at their
kids and by then Milo wouldn't fucking shut up.
Those nudges though.
Always right before.
I binned my
canvassing sheet and clipboard to follow the voice of a dead man. It
wasn’t just the vague directions of a celebrity psychic. These were
definitive. A rat-tat-tat in my head.
“Fucking bastard,
she was only twenny-one. Fucking cunt. Left. Bastard. Fucking head
kicked in, fucker. Left and first left. Fucking bastards. Twenny one.
Fucking cunt. Needs a good fucking kicking. Twenty one! Left.”
Building. Hateful.
Always right.
Nasty bastard
murdering a twenty one year old. Little fucker. Milo’s voice
swearing and giving directions. Animal rage building up. I just
wanted to rip shit out of whoever answered the door.
The husband.
Just like we thought.
Fucker.
He could see Milo in
my eyes, knew what Milo was capable of. The fucker fell down to his
knees. His face seemed to stretch and he let out a moan, started
sniveling and crying. I hardly had to hit him at all before he
coughed up. Just kept saying, 'I’m sorry,' and 'I didn’t mean
it,' for about five minutes. I stared down at him, breathing heavily.
My leg twitched; wanting to give out a kicking. Instead I hissed.
'You fucking cunt.'
I bent down, cuffed
him and called it in.
The wife wanted counselling. Said she knew I'd been through a lot and we should try
and make things work. Cunt.
Milo’s always with
me. He won't leave
The other cops are so
fucking stupid sometimes, I have to shout them down in case meetings.
Such fucking stupid bastards. I know who's done it. I don't need to
hear their words only Milo's.
Same at home.
Fucking them.
Bastards.
The voice, the hints.
He's always right.
He never shuts up.
It’s fucking there from the head moment I get up to the bastard
moment I drink myself cunt in to sleep.
It’s been getting
harder to kick your fucking head in and harder to ignore.
And I lost it last
week. Not even with a fucking bastard criminal.
With another cop.
Did my head in over a
parking space.
Cunt.
Needed a fucking
bastard kicking.
They had to drag me
off him.
Go home.
See the shrink.
Get away from the job
for a while.
Sort things out at
home Steve.
Milo can't quit the
job, fucker.
He doesn’t go away
just because I’m not at bastard work. And he doesn’t have the
outlet I need anymore. She's taking about divorce again. Cunt. A
fucking reminder here kicking and there to make sure the bastards
tell it straight is all that's needed. Don't go, please. The tension
in my neck. Kick fucking the head in cunt. What have I done?
Where do I begin?
Whose face in the
mirror?
The sound of
violence.
Eternally fucking
grateful
I need help.
A specific mechanical
purpose
Kick the fucking cunt
in.
Armied Police!
Don't leave.
Blood splattering the
wall.
What.
Have.
I.
Done.
AimFire.
Interesting piece, a bit violent, liked the ending.
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