The Big City is bad. The Big City is beautiful.
The Big City blossoms pretty on the horizon, peering over its bored and beaten folk with a heavy heart and a weary smile. It twinkles like a discarded diamond ring cast to the trash heap. Jilted and forsaken. Neglected and rejected. Left in the lurch and out in the cold for wayfaring wanderers to come and stumble upon its marvel.
Yet only the toughest have what it takes to survive in a place such as this. For those among us who consider themselves wise, rational or particularly prudent in their approach…they already know far better than to tread these dirty streets.
The Big City takes no prisoners, you see. The Big City counts no blessings. Its charm and its delicacies come wrapped and packaged in the most unlikely of places. From the shimmering sky-scrapers and the empty penthouses glistening down on the humble peasants below. To the creeps and the crackpots, the pigs and the perverts...and the many sleazes, schmoozers, slime-balls and scum, all pilfering through the gutters for a one-way ticket out of this place.
The Big City discriminates against no man, woman or wild-eyed weirdo with a gun hidden beneath their belt. In every district you’ll find a dream. On every street you’ll find a story. And on every corner, you might just find…
…well, you might just stumble across Jonesy and I slumped behind the wheel of our four-door sedan…
…waiting to paint the city red.
*
We had been stationed on our little perch for over an hour. Seats rolled back. Lights all out. Observing the shadowy bar on the corner for any signs of life.
It was a quiet kind of evening. A buckled street-light flickered lazily above our heads as the neons blinked idly in the distance. Yet, aside from the odd beggar shuffling past on the street, or the rare trailing leaf falling through the cracks in the side-walk beside us...those aforementioned signs of life had proven both thin and fruitless.
Jonesy had the radio on low playing soft jazz that neither of us really cared for. We each had our windows wound down a touch, just enough to let our cigarettes tarnish the air outside with thick trails and smoke and sorrow. And of course, Jonesy was drinking too. He was always drinking.
Now, if you hadn’t already guessed it…we were waiting for our mark.
A man by the name of Warrens.
Poor bastard. What can I tell you about Warrens? He seemed like a hum-drum sort of guy; a local loser who ran the local bar for all the local blockheads and fools who had no other way to spend their lonely evenings.
I could almost picture him steeped up to his eyeballs in dirty glasses and unwashed tables whilst we lingered outside in the car, biding our time. The dimly lit abyss of empty chairs and boarded up windows would do little to save him once we finally showed our faces.
But, of course, we had to be patient.
Jonesy had pinned a faded photograph of the mark up upon the dashboard. He was an odd looking guy in truth, ‘ugly’ you might say perhaps. Warrens was the wrong side of fifty, possessing a rather hefty nose and a receding hairline. His hair itself was grey and untidy, much like the Big City itself, whilst the stubble upon his chin hardly told a different story.
The same could not be said for the frown-lines written across his temple, however. They probably told a few stories of their own. And as for the several gold chains worn around his neck, the numerous dark stains dotted upon his tank-top, and the look of pure uncouthness residing in his cold, barren eyes…perhaps the less said about those things, the better.
All in all, Warrens was pretty unremarkable to look at. But we hadn’t shown up just to gawk at the guy. No, we had shown up to put a bullet in his brains.
“Let’s change the station…” spoke Jonesy, one hand reaching sluggishly for the radio, “…I’ve had enough of all this ho-ha…”
For once we were in agreement. The life of an inner-city hood isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I was starting to get a little sick of all this cheap thrill seeking and late night creeping truth be told. I was starting to get a little sick of Jonesy too, in-fact. My so-called partner in crime was a bad guy, you see. A real bad guy. He was a squat, menacing kind of fella with a mean looking face and an even angrier set of features. The type of fella that wouldn’t think twice about splitting your head in two just for forgetting his birthday.
Believe me, I would know…
He had a wife and three kids tucked among some forgotten armpit of the Big City. A wife that he cheated on with a local dancer from some back-alley strip joint, and a set of kids he neglected worse than a pair of turkeys on Christmas morning. Not a man overburdened with compassion, Jonesy was about as honourable as a stray fox in a chicken coup. My partner was a treacherous, treasonable, two-faced, two-timing little back-stabber all rolled into one.
And boy, I wouldn’t trust the guy as far as I could throw him.
Yet almost as if the little trickster had suddenly read my mind, Jonesy soon stubbed out his cigarette on the side of the car and abruptly switched off the radio. He subsequently turned towards me with a newfound air of purpose.
“Just what exactly are we waitin’ for?” he asked impatiently, “…we gonna sit here all night looking up at the stars, or we gonna whack this guy!?”
I too stubbed out my cigarette and proceeded to roll up the window.
“Alright Jonesy…” I sighed, with little genuine objection, “…lead the way.”
It was time for Warrens to meet his maker.
When you get the go-ahead for something like that, when you get the all-important call…you can be sure that you are in for a long, laborious night.
It didn’t matter what Warrens had done to deserve such a grizzly end. Not to Jonesy and I. We were merely the harbingers of his misfortune. Two closed-mouthed mediators with a fatal message to fulfil. Perhaps Warrens was late on his debts or something. Caught splashing the cash when he should have been counting all those precious pennies. Or, maybe he had overstepped his mark in recent weeks. Become a little too big for his boots as it were…
Warrens could have winked at the wrong girl, eyeballed the wrong hustler, or even looked the wrong way at the wrong lost kitten on the wrong night of the week. Either way it was none of our concern. We only had one job to do, and that was to kill the guy.
“It’s a cold one tonight…” Jonesy complained, popping open his cache of pills and sinking two or three muscle relaxants to help calm his nerves, “…let’s just get this over with and get the hell outta here, ok?”
It was as good a plan as any. Before long we had exited the vehicle, slamming both doors shut with all the self-assured mettle of two guys about to get their hands dirty. We were approaching the establishment on the corner; a little known joint by the name of Jerome’s.
I say ‘little known’ for two reasons mainly. Firstly because all the lightbulbs on the sign had already been punched out and left to rot. And secondly, because no one in their right mind would be seen dead drowning their sorrows in a dump like this. Even the drunkest deadbeat from the darkest side of town would surely have to think twice before showing their face around here. It was what we call in a trade; a dive bar.
And a real nasty little one at that…
Jonesy prized the door open carefully, peering over his shoulder several times before barging headfirst into the bar.
“What the fuck is this!?” he exclaimed, taking a sharp step backwards.
I too had encountered the same gut-wrenching feeling of shock and revulsion. I distinctly remember wanting to haul myself into the corner in-fact, and proceed to hurl up my guts at the mere sight of the place. The stench of death reeked from pillar to post. Meanwhile, a whole host of imaginary butterflies had promptly risen from the depths of my stomach and embedded themselves in my throat, rendering me speechless.
You see, even in our line of work, the appearance of a newly dead body is rarely one you grow accustomed to. Somehow it knocks you off your feet every single time. And if the sight of one mangled corpse is often bad enough, then the vision of three…maybe four dead bodies, all bent up and broken lying helplessly before your eyes…well, that’s a whole different story altogether.
A young lady with a violent dent on the side of her skull lay directly at our feet. She was all twisted and contorted, left prostrate in a pool of her own blood with that familiar look of horror still etched upon her face. Next to her were two bullet-ridden old-timers with their bodies propped up against the bar. One of which was quietly choking on his own blood, the other laying decisively still and cold.
Yet slumped behind the bar itself, however, flat-out on the floor with two rough leather boots sticking out from behind the counter...
...our all-important man lay in wait.
Warrens remained unshaken. I recognised his face immediately from the picture. He held one hand loosely by his side, presumably in an attempt to grasp his fallen weapon, whilst the other lay gracelessly next to the open cashier full of untouched notes.
Whoever had arrived early on the scene had left no stone unturned. We were too late.
The show was already over…
“Well, what do we do now…?” asked Jonesy, still somewhat rattled by the sight of the corpses.
“Ain’t much we can do…” I told him, stepping backwards and closing the door behind us, “…someone already beat us to it.”
“Fuck…well that ain’t good news.”
“It ain’t?”
“Nope. We were asked to do a job tonight. And so far…we ain’t done shit.”
I stared at Jonesy for a moment…and he stared back at me. Both of us still trying to grasp the severity of the situation we had suddenly found ourselves in. Neither of us knowing what our next move would be. We just stood there. Locked in silence. Contemplating our options as the clock continued to tick slowly in the corner.
But then we heard something…
“Shhh…” spoke Jonesy suddenly, placing one gnarled fingernail up to his lips, “…you hear that!?”
“Hear what…?”
“Sirens…” he said, “…it’s the police.”
There was hardly enough time for me to straighten out my collar before the door burst open once again. In came six or seven blue-shirts, armed with a combination of compact sidearm pistols and vehemently smug expressions.
At the front of the pack stood a burly cop with his trigger-happy lapdogs circled all around him. The captain was moustached and menacing, observing myself and Jonesy as if we were a pair of succulent lamb chops hanging in a butcher’s window.
“Well, well, well…” he posed triumphantly, both hands resting upon his sizeable waistline, “…look what the cat dragged in boys and girls, a couple of scrappers caught with their hands in the cookie jar!”
The ensemble of wide-eyed cops suddenly burst into laughter. Each of them held their weapons aloft in our direction. Their itchy trigger-fingers flexed and ready for action…
“What’s this then…?” the moustached cop proceeded, “…a couple of dead ones, and would you look at that…a live one too! You two have been busy tonight, ain’t ya?”
As I peered around the interior of Jerome’s bloodstained bar in search of a way out, two of the aforementioned blue-shirts abruptly locked the door behind them and stood beside the boarded-up windows. Myself and Jonesy could almost feel the rug being pulled from underneath our feet. We had unknowingly stumbled headfirst into the lion’s den. And now, those same bloodthirsty assassins were closing in for their kill…
“I ain’t gonna ask you two again…” the captain remarked for the final time, “…what’s it gonna be? Will one of you finally find your singing voice this evening, or are we gonna have to prompt it out of you!?”
Still, we said nothing. We were rapidly running out of time. But the way I saw it back there, with the dead bodies fallen at our feet and their cold, lifeless eyes still glaring up at us…there were perhaps three clear options still left on the table.
Three distinct alternatives for Jonesy and I to consider…
One. We plead our innocence. We tell the cops that we were only robbing the register and hope they understand. The police presented themselves as a bunch of hyper-active hyenas pumped-up and ready for action that night, sure. But maybe we could save them the hassle of an unwanted trip back to the precinct. Maybe they would just slap us across the wrists and release us back into the night. It was a long-shot admittedly, and a tad unlikely too, but the morally ambiguous high ground was always a plausible option.
Two. We forget all about trying to reason with those smug-faced blue shirts and attempt to make a run for it. Sure they had guns, and sure they had enough hard-nosed adrenaline rushing through their veins to want to use them. Yet the police were a notoriously ponderous mob even at the best of times. Especially here in the Big City. If there was a hidden exit out back somewhere, or a conveniently placed side-door leading out to a narrow back-alley perhaps, I was sure Jonesy and I could buy ourselves enough time to escape.
Or three…and listen up, because this was perhaps the most conceivable outcome of all...
Three. Whilst Jonesy and I were busy staring around at the room, with our hands held aloft and our options wearing thin...I looked across at my partner’s eyes and noticed a flicker of something sinister. It was the kind of flicker that told me Jonesy was starting to feel the pressure. The kind of flicker his wife would have surely noticed, when inquiring about those red lip-stick marks on his collar and the smell of cheap perfume slapped across his neck.
Perhaps he was starting to sweat, and his knees were beginning to buckle. Perhaps if he were given the opportunity to rat me out in front of all those smarmy cops, he would have taken it. Bitten the bullet and never looked back again, as it were.
Jonesy was hardly the most trustworthy of hired killers, after all…
I couldn’t let him simply give me up like that…
I had to beat him to it…
“Listen…” I declared somewhat abruptly, “…I know what you want.”
The pig-faced captain laughed once again, striding forward like a proud peacock on ice, “…what I want is a name. That’s all, one simple little name. That shouldn’t be too difficult now, should it…?”
I remained still a moment longer. With the clock in the corner still ticking away furiously, and the cop’s beer-scented breath now breathing down my throat, I steadied myself. Preparing to send my ill-fated partner so far down the river…
...he would surely drown.
“It was him!” I motioned suddenly, turning on my arches and pointing an incriminating finger towards Jonesy, “…he’s the one who did this! I saw him, he just went crazy…and when I tried to stop him, he turned the gun on me! Thank god you guys showed up when you did, thank god for the police in this city!”
It was a defining moment. Jonesy had been struck so hard by my sudden accusation that he hardly knew what had hit him. All he could do was stare back at me, with a set of beady little eyes watching my every move. His expression narrowed so much I thought his face would somehow cave in on itself. Then, he dropped his arms from their previous position of surrender, launching himself at me like a wild animal set loose from its cage…
“You bastard, you…” he growled like some kind of prized fighter, “…shut your fuckin’ mouth!”
Suddenly the guy was all over me. Although Jonesy possessed a pair of squat legs with little meat or muscle to support his upper-torso, somehow his weight struck me with all the might of a cannonball. My former partner was fuming. He immediately punched me hard in the stomach, crumpling me almost instantaneously and forcing the air straight out of my lungs. I made an attempt at coming straight back at him with a jab of my own, but Jonesy was too quick. He struck me with a neat little combo right across the chin. First with the elbow, and then down with the knee. I stood little chance of beating him in a fair fight.
So I decided it was time to play dirty…
Jonesy shoved his dirty fingers inside my mouth and I responded by biting down fiercely. He howled in pain and quickly withdrew his hand. But by that point I had already grasped onto his wretched face, plunging my fingertips so deep into his eye sockets I might have well blinded him. My attempts at getting one over on the guy were nonetheless thwarted by a swift knee landing between my legs, and a subsequent leather-backed heel stomping down upon my foot.
We were locked in the midst of a battle, Jonesy and I. He smacked my lip. I bust him back in the jaw. He clawed for my ears. I ripped the shirt from his chest. Eventually the both of us had successfully drawn blood…and as it mixed with the sweat from our faces, the fury raging through each of our bodies, and the cold-blooded hatred permeating our eyes...
...the cops simply stood back, and laughed.
Perhaps I should have been observing my surroundings a little more closely. Maybe, I should have noticed how each of the cops had already sheathed their weapons, gladly watching the two of us enact our savage dance in the middle of the room. I certainly could have paid more attention to the one slimy officer who had arched his way around the counter, silently stifling the dying man’s final breaths with a bloody dishcloth. And possibly I should have perceived the actions of his blue-shirted colleague too, who proceeded to bag up the remains of the till takings with a rotten smile written across her face.
Yet perhaps all of the officers’ actions were merely circumstantial, when compared to the sheer semblance of smugness being exhumed by their pug-nosed captain.
He stood stagnant in front of the door, his thick moustache nodding up and down as he giggled unreservedly at the two angry chimpanzees fighting it out before him. Jonesy and I continued to brawl as if our lives depended on it. I could almost imagine the cops laying down bets and throwing their dirty money at our feet, complaining somewhat as the cuffs were eventually prepared and fastened behind our backs…
“But officer, wait!” I protested, noticing both of my front teeth as they spun like bloody dice on the floor beside me, “…it was him! Not me…I had nothing to do with this!”
“Save it, will ya!” the captain laughed at my defence, “…what good is one bird-brained fall-guy, when you can have two!?”
“But no! You can’t!”
“Take em’ away…” he reeled once again, “…we’ll send someone to clear up this mess later.”
And with that rather unceremonious disclosure of departure, we were off.
*
The murky interior of Jerome’s unloved bar soon became something of a distant memory once the pair of us were whisked away and shoved into the back of the squad car stationed outside. Jonesy spoke not a single word as we were slumped side-by-side once again, separated this time by a thin metal grill from the two cackling cops settled in the front seats. My former partner appeared cold and despondent. His hands rattled softly in his cuffs as he peered silently through the window. I, on the other hand, focussed mainly on the road ahead.
Keen not to meet the gaze of my narrow-eyed companion...
All the while the savage sights and salacious sounds of the Big City filtered past us, each boarded up window and dirty back-alley drifting by like fallen leaves in the wind. The distraction was a welcome one. Past busted buildings and severed stop-signs we rode, watching the shutters roll down on every darkened doorway and shadowy storefront that came our way. The sinners and scoundrels on the corner did little to detract us. We were mesmerised by the bright lights up ahead, stirred by the spider-like side-streets entangled all around us, and totally captivated as crimson faced preachers filled the night with their tall tales of impending doom.
The Big City was opening its arms to us. Like a reluctant mother greeting her bastard sons into the world through gritted teeth and a hollow smile. But this was not a place for the fainthearted. This was not a scene for the timid or the weak.
This was the Big City, of course.
And Jonesy and I were drinking it in one last time…
“Get me out of these damn cuffs!” my former partner suddenly roared, with the big grey police precinct now approaching in the car headlights.
The officers up front looked across at one another and sniggered.
“I said get me out!” cried Jonesy once again, rattling his sealed wrists in an ill-fated attempt to escape, “…get me out of these good for nothing cuffs before I wring your scrawny necks with them!”
That seemingly did the trick. At once the officer in the passenger’s seat peered over his headrest and began to examine us from top to toe…
“I wouldn’t worry about those cuffs if I were you…” the cop replied with complacence, arm cocked with a righteous smile, “…where you’re going, you sure won’t need them. In fact, you boys ain’t gonna be needing much at all, if ya ask me…”
The officer’s foggy sentiment failed to strike me at first. His meaning was not clear…and neither was the fact that they seemingly had no intention of stopping at the big grey police precinct, now just a few ticks away. Instead, his partner proceeded to put the pedal to the floor as we promptly soared past the station.
“Don’t worry yourselves fellas…” the first cop mentioned with threat, switching off the dashboard camera as well as the two recording devices situated on each of their vests, “…we’re taking you somewhere tonight. And boy, do I think you’re gonna like it…”
I began to fear the worst. The police precinct had now completely disappeared as it merged with all the other lofty condos and eerie apartment blocks creeping in from all around. Up front the two cops laughed once more to themselves, slowly removing their uniforms and unfastening their shiny police badges for reasons that would soon become clear...
Where were they taking us!? To be catapulted off the top of a towering building like two wayward dominoes fallen from their perch? Or to be dragged mercilessly to the depths of a bottomless pit somewhere, leaving the rats to gnaw away at our rotting carcasses in an all-night buffet for city vermin…?
One way or another, the cops in this city seemed intent on having their fun with us. And whether it be the warm rush of the executioner’s axe, the hot blast of a fiery furnace, or merely the cold prod of a pistol cruelly planted into the back of our heads…the two of us had little choice but to accept our fate. We had been chewed up and spat right back out again by the Big City and its endless string of charms.
There was no going back now.
As the car headlights continued to beam purposefully through the dark, interrupted only by the passing of faded billboards up high on the wayside, I began to close my eyes and sought to make peace with myself. The Big City is bad, I whispered. The Big City is beautiful. Bad and beautiful. Beautiful and bad. Bad like the thick smoke from a billowing fire, yet strikingly beautiful just like the blaze itself.
But of course, Jonesy and I had danced way too close to those flames. And now, the prospect of getting our fingers burnt was inescapable.
“The Big City is our playground, boys…” the cop behind the wheel mentioned slowly, pulling out his pistol and raising it in each of our directions “…and tonight, we’re sure as hell gonna play!”
And just like that, I knew it was over.
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