writing

Originally posted at IMWAN.com as part of a "Round Robin" with other writers, each writer following what the last had written, the following excerpts are my portions. Others writers filled out the rest of the story. The story is ongoing. Portions also appeared in Pitched!

excerpts from

The Wages of Sin

A window around the corner gave way easily enough. He pulled himself into a small utility closet. The air inside hung heavy. Mold clung to the walls, and spider webs knotted the corners. From there a hall, and an office, and another hall – the voices were all the direction he needed - and finally the inner office, six startled men ready for a fight, faces twisted and angry at the intrusion.

By the time he was through, he had broken two jaws, three arms, and a matchbook of ribs. One of them, the fat one with doughy ears and fake hair, was in the corner on his hands and knees, vomiting. Two others moaned and would not stop.

The thin man was not even breathing hard. He didn’t need to. It had been easier than he expected. No need to spit out a tooth or snap a finger back in place this time; they went down easy. Not that that gave him any solace. He didn’t like having to do this. Never did. But a job was a job. You get in, do your business, and pray to whoever it is that gets you through the night that you won’t have to leave any corpses behind.

This time, no corpses. That was good.

Outside the rain fell in an increasingly violent torrent.

“You boys,” he started. “Jeez, you boys should give a guy a chance to explain himself before you go giving him the what for. None of this would have happened if you just talked all nice like to me. That’s all I wanted to do. Talk.” He lit another cigarette, took two drags, and snuffed it out on a wall. “Hell, I can’t smoke right now. Smoke and blood, the smells don’t mix.”

The fat, vomiting man began to cry.

“Anyway, look,” the thin man said, “I think you know who sent me, and I think you know what he wants. Just show me what I want to see and I can be off.”

Outside, lighting tore the sky and thunder shook the windows.

***

Like sex unchained, all hips and lips and pouting eyes, she was there. She was there, and just like that his job took a hard left. It wasn’t easy having her here. She invited weak knees and weak minds. Her glance was a punch to the gut; her hair spun gold. Fool’s Gold, maybe. But gold nonetheless. Time was he would have cast himself into the fire for her.

Not now. Not anymore. But he couldn’t deny that her presence was a twist his sordid little tale did not need.

She was touching him. Her hand was satin on his shoulder. Why was she here?

“I’m busy. What do you want, Rach?” He did not meet her eyes.

“Too busy to talk to me? Cain, sweetheart, you always had time for me.” She leaned close. Whispered. The flesh over his eye began to itch. “Daddy said I might find you here, Cain. He knows what you’re looking for, and he knows who sent you. Pretty big stuff, even for you. Come on, baby. I’ve got a limo around the corner. It’ll take us to Daddy’s. Come talk to him and I promise it’ll be worth your while.”

Why was she here? Why was she so damn close to him? He smelled strawberries and saw black lace; heard a snatch of opera, distant. They were in a bedroom. A fireplace. Black lace. Red wine and strawberries. Sweat. Cain was beginning to sweat. Opera. Opera and strawberries and black lace.

He pulled away. “Get the hell away from me!” He was breathing hard, and his head was reeling. “You ain’t gonna do this. Not now, sweets. Not anymore. Get back in your damn limo and tell daddy I’m done filling caskets for him. You hear? Tell him I’m done.”

She frowned, and for a fleeting moment his heart quailed. “Cain, baby, I don’t think you mean that.”

“I damn well mean it.”

He had to fight it. Had to. Martin coughed red into the mud, but they paid him no mind. Just Cain and Rachel, their eyes on one another like toy soldiers in a silent war. “I mean it,” he said, but he didn’t mean it. And he damn well knew he didn’t mean it. Finally, she smiled.

“Well,” she said, her eyes suggesting possibilities, “I know you better than that, Cain. You never could turn down a tough job, especially not a job with … benefits. But if that’s your choice, I’ll let Daddy know you’d rather stay on with your new employer. Say,” and she stepped closer, “do you remember that night in Venice, when we—“

“Go to hell, Rach. You and your daddy both. Just go to hell.” And the war between their eyes ended. He pulled Martin up by the back of his neck and shoved him down the muddy lane from which he had come. “Get up. We’ve got business. Move!”

Cain turned his back on her soaking wet dress and honey hair spilling over shoulders of milk, turned away from the taste of strawberries and wine. He turned his back, and his stomach was in a knot, and he wanted something to hit, something he could hit until he couldn’t feel his hands.

Rachel watched him walk away into the grey chill, and she smiled. Daddy would be pleased.

***

INTERLUDE 1

He hated the city. Burned his eyes with its stench. When it rained, the walls bled decay. Sheets of rot sliding down the face of every building, the streets a sewer of filth and mud and maggots.

He hated the city.

Yet what could he do but wallow in its filth? There were things he had to get done. Very big things. If that meant swimming in a cesspool for a while, well, he’d take a dip. “Scotch,” he said, and the movement behind him was of loathing and fear. His drink came, ice tinkling like angels, and as the booze slid into his belly he felt a warmth this city could not provide. This wretched, wretched city. Out there on its wet and dirty streets cars fought for position, lemmings clamoring to be first off the cliff. Cigarettes softened the sidewalks, a carpet of cancer. Empty eyes stared from empty doorways, alive but tasting death. The stench and smell and ...

No. No more. “Have we gotten word?” he asked. “Anything yet?”

“Nothing.” The voice was small. “It’s been four hours, but nothing so far. We ... we expected a call earlier than this. The rain, I think. It’s ... maybe it’s the rain.”

His Scotch was empty, the angels silent, and the small voice more intolerable than usual. It cut. No, not the voice. It wasn't the voice cutting him. It had to be the light. He hated the light. It probed into corners, revealed things better left undisturbed. The light was not good. He did not want it to see him. But no time for that, not now, not with things in motion, with things so close. He looked at his glass and wished for scotch to appear.

“Send two. The one with the hands, make sure he goes. If he’s on something else, pull him. If this is a break, I want it sealed now. But tell them Cain is to come back here alive. Do you understand? Alive. No playing with this one. He’s got a role to play still.”

Footsteps, and the small voice was gone, off to push broken little chess pieces on a broken little board. There was only him now. Him and his thoughts; big, black thoughts of a time when things would move at his command. Not small things with small voices, but big things; grand things; people and places and … her. He wanted to move her. Fuck her father. Fuck what he had done, how her father broke him and burned him and pissed on the ashes. He’d move her, and Daddy would watch.

But first there was this Cain business. He had to get that out of the way first, get his prize in hand, arm himself with what Cain could bring him, keep that ghoul of the streets on his side, and then ...

And then?

Then they’d know his name.

END INTERLUDE

***

“Boss ain’t happy, Cain.”

He stared into the barrel of the gun, trying to focus, trying to shake the sleep from his throbbing head. His eye stung. He could still taste vomit.

“Still working on it,” Cain said. “Tell the boss I’m still working on it. They weren’t as … forthcoming … as I’d have liked, but I got what I need.”

“You didn’t even call, Cain. You were supposed to call. Boss thinks you’re cutting out on him.”

“I’m not cutting out.”

“Better not be, Cain. I’m not the only one on you tonight, you know?” He eased back, the gun still fixed on Cain but no longer in his face. His left eye twitched, two, three ticks at a time. “Yeah, one more on you tonight, too. Boss knows you were talking to the pussy, see? Don’t look surprised. He gets news fast. He’s not happy, Cain. Be lucky I’m the one who found you. He’s got Monk out there, too. Monk is looking for you.”

Cain hoped his poker face was working tonight. Monk? That worried him. The boss didn’t call Monk out for just anything. With those hands ...

No. No, he couldn’t think of that right now. Right now he had to think about getting out of here without any extra holes.

“Fuck, Jake, the boss doesn’t think I’m gonna work for them again, does he? No chance. I’m on this. You go back and tell him no more than twelve hours and he’ll have it in his hands.”

Jake smiled, tick, twitch, tick. Steadied the gun again. “Too late for that, Cain. Boss thinks this might be a slip. You’re off the job.” His sweat smelled like piss. Tick, twitch, tick. “And you know what that means, Cain.”

Jake’s eye went into a flutter, rank sweat drenched his brow, and his steel came alive.

Three gunshots. Smoke, and then silence. And then Jake knew he had made a mistake.

Cain smiled. He opened his hand and showed Jake three bullets. The cross carved into the flesh from which his eye used to stare pulsed red.

“You shouldn’t ought to have done that, Jake. I was all set to see this thing through, but then you had to go and do that. Bad choice, Jake. Now you won’t get a chance to tell the boss that from here on in, I’m on my own.”

Jake began to piss himself.

END EXCERPTS