Chapter Eight
I woke up the next morning when the pounding refused to stop.
I opened my eyes and stared blearily at the ceiling, my mind was muddled and I didn't quite comprehend where the pounding was coming from. I covered my eyes with my hands and grumbled to myself as the banging noise continued.
“Shut up for half a minute, and maybe I'll answer you!” I shouted, my voice was hoarse and thick with sleep and it echoed angrily in my own ears, adding to the headache forming just behind my eyes.
I was definitely hungover. I didn't get hangovers as often as I used to, so this was an unpleasant start to the morning. At least I wasn't throwing up.
I pushed myself into a sitting position and waited for the world to right itself before I tried to move much further. The bottle of gin I had went on a date with sat on its side by my feet. Curiously, I bent over to pick it up and examine it. There was maybe a rocks glass worth of the clear liquid left in the large glass bottle. I groaned to myself. The bottle had been two-thirds full when I'd started drinking last night. My drinking habits were pretty straightforward: feel the need for a drink, have a drink. Drinking came with the territory of working in law enforcement, and at least I wasn't one of the lifetime cops who drowned himself in booze every night. I was just regretting how much I'd actually drank before I passed out.
The pounding on the door started up again, more demanding than it had been at first, if that was even possible. I groaned again and pressed my fingers against my temples, hoping futilely that it would make the pain subside as I stood. Apparently, I had fallen asleep on my couch at some point while drinking gin straight from the bottle.
My apartment was nice, but not clean. I was a terrible housekeeper. I kept the walls intentionally devoid of anything, no art, no cork boards, nothing that would remind me of work. The walls were painted a neutral brown colour, kind of like coffee with a lot of cream in it. The hardwood floors were so dark as to be nearly black. The same colour scheme was in Trixie's apartment below me when she moved in, and she hadn't painted over it, but her decor was much nicer than mine.
The living room was large, and open, with all the walls covered in huge bookshelves filled to overflowing with books, except for the wall across the room from the hallway that led to my bedroom and bathroom. That wall was where the fireplace was. I loved my fireplace, it kept my heating bills down and it was a definite turn on for any dames I brought home. Not that I ever brought dames home. My kitchen looked over the living room, facing the fireplace, and there were a few dishes piled on the counter next to the sink. All my fixtures were brass coloured amidst the dark wood and granite of the cupboards and counter tops. Newspapers were stacked up in the corner of my living room, I always forgot to take them out. I didn't own a television, or a computer. I saw no need. Books were my thing. Any vintage paperbacks I could get my mitts on would find their way onto the massive shelves I kept in my apartment and every spare inch I had was filled with more shelves to accommodate my books. It might be an addiction, but there weren't enough people reading these days, and the pulp fictions that were produced nowadays were so much better than the things that passed for literature in the late twentieth century.
I shuffled across the hardwood toward the thick door. I slid the deadbolt, impressed that I'd managed to remember to lock the door behind me, and pulled the door open.
Trixie was standing in the hallway, her fist raised to continue the assault on my front door. She was dressed professionally today, tan slacks and a white blouse with a matching tan blazer over top. Her hair was braided down her back, instead of in the bun she typically wore, and her shirt didn't bare any cleavage for me to tease her about. She wasn't wearing a corset either, and I noticed that she was wearing flat shoes.
I flashed her a grin. “You look nice,” I said sincerely. My secretary was a pretty thing, no doubt, and she knew how to work it. “Is it an errands day?” I asked, rubbing my eye with one hand. Trixie usually only dressed like this when she was making appearances on behalf of the firm.
“I thought that since we're working for Wayside, and it's a high profile case,” Trixie began slowly, trailing her wide green eyes over my body critically as she spoke, “that I might try to look a little more professional. Unlike some of us.”
I glanced down at myself, realizing for the first time since I'd woken up what, exactly, I was wearing. It wasn't much. Apparently, I'd stripped in the night while I'd been blackout drunk and was currently standing in front of Trixie in a white wife beater tank top and my boxers.
“Thank your lucky stars I ain't naked,” I teased. “You might not have been able to control yourself and I am far too hungover to fight with Jackson.”
Trixie rolled her eyes at me and crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh really?” she asked, a smirk touching the corner of her lips. “I'd better warn Jackson that your attempts to seduce me have gone from playful banter to outright insanity.”
I laughed, and then winced at the pain in my head.
“Hurry up and come downstairs,” Trixie instructed gently, patting my shoulder affectionately. “I'll make some coffee and get you some aspirin.”
“You are an angel in a well-tailored suit,” I informed her in return.
Trixie smiled brightly. “And you still don't pay me enough for it!”
“I know,” I conceded as she turned and made her way down the stairs.
I closed my door and sighed, leaning against the wall as I peered around my messy apartment. I honestly didn't remember what I had done after we'd accepted the Wayside contract. I had come upstairs and drank myself into oblivion. Why I'd decided I needed to be undressed, I'd probably never know.
“Gin, you are a fickle mistress,” I grumbled as I spied my clothes in a heap on the floor. Nadia was sitting on top of the clothes I'd been wearing the day before. At least I'd had enough sense to take her off and not pass out with my gun in hand. That happened once back when I was on the force. It wasn't a pretty sight. What can I say? I have an itchy trigger finger when I've been drinking. At least I hadn't killed anyone, and doorjambs are surprisingly easy to repair.
I grabbed Nadia and carried her to my bedroom to find something to wear that was at least somewhat clean. I'd been neglecting my household duties for the past couple of weeks out of spite.
Oh right. My room was a disaster, laundry piled all over the floor, my king sized bed was piled with the comforter and pillows, but also with more books, and case files I'd pulled recently as I was searching for further information about the corruption of the local cops. It was a never ending battle.
I slipped Nadia's holster over the half post on the foot board of my bed and searched my closet for something cleaner to wear. Black trousers that were clean but wrinkled all to hell and a pale blue pinstriped shirt that I didn't remember buying seemed to be all that I had left. Oh well. I changed my clothes and slipped Nadia over my shoulders, buckling the familiar straps in place. I went to splash some cold water on my face in the washroom, give my teeth a quick brushing to get the taste of hangover outta my mouth, and attempt to make my hair look less messy, but gave up after thirty seconds of fussing.
Whatever. My vanity only extended as far as my reputation was concerned.
I grabbed my boots from next to the door and padded my way barefoot down the cold concrete stairs that led to my offices.
I emerged into the bright sunlight that filled the offices and I scowled at the beauty of the day. I could see clear blue skies and more sunlight than should be legal after a night of binge drinking through the plate glass. Trixie was already fixing me a cup of java, the smell alone was enough to make me swoon, and I could have kissed her then and there.
“Where's Jacks?” I asked as she handed me the biggest cup of coffee I'd ever seen. It was one of those fancy latte mugs and it was, I kid you not, as big as my head. I was damn sure that I didn't own anything like this, I vaguely wondered where it had come from, but the question escaped me when I took the first sip of the blessed ca
ffeinated beverage. Nectar of the gods, I swear.
“He's in his office,” Trixie said with a frown. “He's been on the phone all morning.”
I shot a glance at the clock on the wall. It was nearly noon.
“Making calls or taking them?” I asked.
“Making,” Trixie informed me.
I wrinkled my nose and took another sip of my coffee. “Is this all about Wayside?”
Trixie shrugged. “If it isn't, then it's about you bein' charged with murder.”
Dammit. I'd almost forgotten that Stringer still wanted me to get the electric cure for a murder I didn't commit. You'd think we'd have abolished that crap by now, but we hadn't. And I certainly didn't wanna fry for something I didn't do. If I'd killed the Doctor, well then, we'd have to talk about that when we crossed that bridge. As it was, I was still innocent of this particular murder.
I snorted derisively into my coffee. “Well, here's hopin' it isn't about me bein' charged with murder. I really don't feel like being dragged outta here and hauled back to the big house today.”
Trixie laughed and shook her head before settling herself behind her desk to do whatever work I was paying her to pretend to do. I took one last sip of my coffee and started for Jackson's office door.
“Hey, boss?” Trixie called, stopping me in my tracks.
I turned to look at her and she held up a bottle of aspirin. My face split into a thankful grin and she tossed me the bottle. I caught it with my free left hand and gave her a little salute of thanks before disappearing into Jackson's office.
“Mornin' sunshine,” I said, closing the door behind me so that we could talk privately. I set my coffee down on the edge of Jacks' desk and popped a couple of aspirin into my mouth. I held out the bottle to him, shaking it.
Jackson looked up from what he was working on. If he was dishevelled yesterday, today he looked like he'd been run over by a horse-drawn carriage and dragged through the streets. His suit was different from the one he'd worn yesterday, a dark brown one I hadn't seen before, but it was wrinkled. He hadn't shaved and his eyes were rimmed with dark circles. And I thought I had looked bad this morning.
“Didn't you sleep?” I asked as Jackson accepted the aspirin from me. I took a sip of my coffee and swallowed the pills, before handing it over to Jackson.
“I slept,” Jackson replied, accepting the coffee and gulping it greedily.
“So what? Did Trixie just wear you out?”
Jackson wasn't in the mood for my jokes, apparently. If looks could kill I wouldn't have had to worry about being sent up the river and gettin' the chair. Trixie must have taught him the unimpressed look because Jacks had perfected it.
“Sorry,” I muttered, jealously eyeing my coffee mug, still in Jackson's hand, as he took another long drink. I cleared my throat. “So, what have you been doing all morning?”
Jackson set my coffee mug down and I stole a glance at it. Empty. Of course.
“I have been making the necessary calls to get us access to Doctor Jones' house so that we can begin our investigation of his murder as private investigators on contract with Wayside Firms,” Jackson replied flatly. He was mildly distracted by something flashing on his computer screen and I couldn't read the words through the back of the panel that made up the screen.
I made a gruff noise in the back of my throat and sat down on the edge of his desk.
“I got you clearance,” Jackson added absently, still reading whatever was flashing past his eyes. “And you'll be pleased to know that based on whatever Kali had done in the morgue yesterday, you have been cleared of all charges relating to Doctor Jones' death.”
I had to restrain myself from doing a little fist pump of victory. Score one for the good guys! Thank you, Kali. You and your fancy science mumbo jumbo. I would take her a dozen roses and a new scalpel on Friday to show my appreciation.
“So,” I said instead, keeping my words very calm and even to avoid showing Jackson exactly how pleased I was about this, “you're telling me that Stringer is gonna spend the rest of this investigation with some serious egg on his face?”
My sentiment had finally gotten Jackson's attention. He looked up at me with tired eyes and grinned.
“Yeah,” he agreed slowly. “Guess so.”
My hangover headache was starting to fade, and the good news definitely helped. “Does this mean that Stringer's being pulled from the case?”
Jackson shrugged. “I don't know,” he admitted carefully, knowing that this was going to make or break my mood. “As far as I know, the police are still calling this an open investigation. As far as I've been able to gather through various phone calls with about thirty different paper pushers, they're pretty much done with the house so we have free rein to go in there and do our own investigation.”
Another point to improve my mood.
“What about Jones' family?” I asked, frowning at the empty coffee mug and debating on going to get another cup.
“No word,” Jackson said. “And there's nothing about family in his personnel file.”
“Hmm,” I mused unhappily. “Well, then we'd better get down there before Wayside moves back in and decides that they're taking back what was purchased with their money.”
Jackson frowned up at me as I slid from my spot on his desk.
“What?” I asked.
Jackson shook his head. “I'm more worried about what's gonna happen to this guy's practice.”
“What do you mean, Jacks?”
Jackson rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed with me for being thick. I blamed the hangover.
“He works with these Gearheads, right?” Jackson explained slowly, making sure that I was following. Bless his not hungover little soul.
“Yeah? And?”
“Well what's gonna happen to them now?” Jackson asked.
I ran my hand through my hair, scratching the back of my head. “I dunno, Jacks,” I admitted sheepishly.
Jackson leaned back in his chair, still frowning. This was upsetting him.
“From what I could pull on Doctor Jones' operations, he had several halfway houses in operation. Plus a practice to do his medical procedures. All of these places are within Hell's Kitchen. He had a very small staff, one or two assistants to help make appointments and to help him in the OR.”
“So?” I asked, not trying to be rude, but it wasn't our department to worry about the estates of the victims of murder. We weren't hired as legal aides, we were hired as detectives.
“So, there's a list of kids waiting to have their implants checked out!” Jackson all but shouted at me. “There's kids in pain, with shoddy implants and all manner of complications out there in the Kitchen. We know that these are kids who don't have insurance, or money for that matter, and a lot of them are homeless and living in these halfway houses that Doctor Jones had set up to try and help get them off the street. Someone killed this man. Someone has taken away the only thing keeping these kids from turning back to crime or prostitution or God knows what else to sustain themselves. Without Doctor Jones, these kids are going to end up sick and dying in the streets. Or in jail. Or worse.”
I nodded slowly. I didn't know what to say. Jackson was taking this case far more personally than I had ever seen him take a case before. I had to wonder what had happened with him when he had first gotten his implants. He never really talked about his life between the explosion, the operation that gave him the implants, and his joining up with me to open our firm. I'd seen this man take on murder cases before and not lose a minute of sleep. I'd seen this man chase down armed suspects without a second's hesitation, and with no regards to his personal safety, so long as no one else got hurt. I'd seen Jackson work steadfastly without question or hesitation on crime scenes where greener cops would've tossed their cookies.
And yet the murder of a good Samaritan in Hell's Kitchen was sending him over the edge.
“Why are you taking this so personally, Jacks?” I asked gently. I didn't get overly emotional on a
regular basis, but Jackson was like family. I considered him my brother. I didn't want to push him too far on this if he was gonna go off the deep end. I couldn't afford to lose him.
Jackson shook his head in defiance.
“Don't make me beat it outta you,” I warned. I would make him talk about it if he liked it or not.
Jackson sighed again and leaned forward, cradling his head in his hands. “I never wanted these implants,” he explained, refusing to look up at me as he spoke. “The fingers, the eye... I should have died when that piece of shrapnel hit me in the face.”
I felt my shoulders droop. I hadn't even realized that I had been all tense, and on the defensive, when Jacks had started to shout. I'd never seen this side of him before. I'd seen him upset, sure, but not like this.
“These implants aren't pleasant,” Jackson continued, staring at his partially robotic hand. “It's not as simple as they make it out to be in their magazine ads and their propaganda. It's painful. It's the most excruciating pain you can imagine. All those stories they tell you about the torment you'd suffer in hell? Hot pokers and eternal torment? Yeah, that's pretty much what it's like when they fuse the metal to your bones and replace your nerve endings with little copper sensors,” he clenched his metal fingers and his mouth curled into a sneer of hatred.
I opened my mouth, but closed it again. I was speechless. I hadn't known about this. How could I have? I'd never had any body modification, and I'd be damned if I would voluntarily get it done. I was blind, a sheep like everyone else, believing the lie that Wayside and Five Points fed us daily. Believing that the implants were safe and painless when done by a trained medical professional.
“On a good day, you're drugged up enough during the procedure so that you don't feel a thing,” Jackson told me, interrupting my thoughts. “You're put under and pumped so full of painkillers during the procedure that you can't feel your limbs for two days after. Sometimes it works,” he shook his head again, as if trying to clear the ghosts of horrible memories from his head. “These kids, these so-called 'Gearheads' who are addicted to these surgeries? Most of the time they don't get all the fancy equipment. Most of the time there's not enough morphine to dull the pain. These kids are lucky if they get the proper anaesthesia to fully knock them out. There's horror stories of kids waking up on the operating table and freaking out when they see their leg being torn apart by their so-called 'doctor'. There are horror stories about people in the hospital waking up during a procedure. They get pumped back full of drugs so that they can't feel the doctors sawing through bone and fusing molten metal to their skeleton. And you don't even want to know about what it feels like if your implant gets infected.”
I hesitated, unsure if I wanted to know or not. The thought of these inorganic bits getting infected? The look on Jackson's face as he stared at his clockwork hand, though, told me that he needed to get this off his chest before it killed him.
“Tell me, Jacks,” I croaked. “Which one of yours got infected?”
“My eye,” Jackson replied, finally looking up at me. “The one that was a goddamn miracle. The one that my body nearly rejected.”
And then it finally hit me.
“You were one of the first ones to have an eye implant, weren't you?”
Jackson nodded.
Shit.
“Did Doctor Jones do your operation?” I pressed.
Jackson shook his head. “I don't think so,” he admitted. “I honestly don't remember. I was so drugged up that they actually had to bring in a lawyer to speak on my behalf. I'd just broken up with my fiance at the time, she didn't want me risking my life every day and she'd walked out on me when I refused to quit the force. So instead of family, or someone who would have made decisions based on love and wanting what was best for me, I had a cop lawyer making sure that I wasn't signing things that were going to put me in the poorhouse. Or the madhouse. Hell, I wasn't even signing anything, they were making decisions for me. The doctors and nurses could have broken every human rights law in existence and I wouldn't have known. All I remember is how much it hurt, Blaze. It was like someone was constantly drilling a hole in my head. I wasn't missing my eye, there was just a three inch shard of metal in it and it hurt like hell. It had torn apart my optic nerve and I was just lucky that it hadn't penetrated my skull any deeper otherwise it would have been lights out permanently.”
I nodded. I knew that he'd been lucky. Half an inch more and he'd have been dead. I was still on the force when this had all gone down and I'd heard about it after the fact. It had been a hot topic for weeks. We'd all wanted a piece of the bastard who had tried to blow up our people. Poor Jacks.
“So the eye got infected?” I asked with a grimace. I didn't want to know. I wanted to believe that it was just as safe as the media pretended it was. I wanted my nice little bubble of oblivion to remain intact, but it's true that we can't always get what we want.
“Yeah. My body wanted to reject it, apparently. The implant on my hand was all right, but my eye didn't take properly. It swelled up something awful, first,” Jackson explained, unconsciously touching his face. “And the pain... It's indescribable, really. It's like the worst migraine you could imagine, combined with the feeling of a hot needle stabbing you just behind your eye. They had to remove it again, clean it out, and try over. I was under the knife four times just so that they could get this damn thing to work,” he pointed at his clockwork eye and shook his head. “They have to remove the implant, take out all the pins and screws. They have to scrape off all traces of metal from your bones, Blaze. Imagine that! They take files and picks and hammers and chisels to your bones. It's like having dental braces removed only a thousand times worse since you have the sensation of the burning, feverish infection in your flesh to deal with on top of it. And there are kids who suffer the burning and twisting feeling without the benefit of medical treatment,” he pressed on.
I nodded in understanding. My stomach twisted at the thought of the torture that Jacks was describing. It was medieval in its barbaric nature. And we called it advanced medicine. Advanced technology. It was all a lie. And no one told you about it.
“How do they keep it quiet?” I managed to ask weakly. I felt like I was going to be sick, the thought of anyone willingly going under the knife for a surgery to implant clockwork knowing this was insane.
Jackson shrugged. “No one interviews the kids who can't afford proper medical care for the six o'clock news.”
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes and groaned. What the hell had we gotten ourselves into? I let my hands drop to my sides and stared long and hard at Jackson. The guy had been through hell, and I hadn't known. We didn't talk much about how we ended up here. It didn't do well to dwell on the past, and yet Jackson had just spilled his guts to me about the most painful memories, and experiences, in his entire life. It all made sense to me now, why he was taking a personal interest in this case. He knew what these kids were going through, and he had been lucky enough to have proper medical care. I couldn't imagine the pain. I didn't want to.
I hadn't realized just how much of a good guy this Doctor Jones guy had been.
“Jacks, I'm sorry,” I said sincerely.
“Yeah, we all are,” Jackson replied bitterly.
“What do you want to do about it?” I asked.
“I want to find whoever is responsible for taking away the only hope these kids had left for a normal life,” Jackson said, his voice flat and hollow. He was beyond rage at this point. “Because there will be hell to pay when we find him.”
I nodded. “Yeah, Jacks. Don't worry,” I assured my partner. “We'll get the bastard, and he'll get his comeuppance for it.”
I only hoped that Jacks would be able to control himself long enough for us to make a case. I knew we'd find the guy responsible for this, we always did. I'd just never had to work with Jacks compromised like this before. And I was honestly a little scared.