"Assistant District Attorney Chaplin has found credible evidence leading her to the conclusion that Barry Electric is innocent of the crime of rape, the crime for which he was convicted and served fifteen years in federal prison. However, Electric is almost certainly guilty of several killings since his release, in New Jersey as well as in New York City where he is currently believed to be hiding out from the law.
“Electric, if you are out there and if you can here me; turn yourself in! We understand!"
The old lady flipped off the set, the screen went black and the room went dark with the afterglow. I was sitting at the table stuffing my face with buttered biscuits and thick slices of glazed ham, swilling cold beer from a tall mug.
Luna and the dizzy whore were nowhere to be seen as the decrepit old woman shuffled over to the table and sat across from me. I almost reached for my guns, but that didn't stop her from clawing at my hand and prying my palm open so she could read my fortune. I let her. I was eating her food and so far no cops had come banging at the front or the back door of the strange gothic house planted in the middle of Chinatown back streets.
"You are wanted by the police," she croaked.
"Tell me somethin' I don't know, grandma. How'm I gonna get the hell outa here?"
She raised her dark piercing eyes, clear eyes set far back in her shrouded wrinkled head.
"My niece will be back shortly. She will have the answer to that question for you."
"Is this Deja Vu or what? That's how I met Luna the first time. Why does everything seem to be repeating?"
She coughed and let out a nasty cackle. Her eyes dropped to the open palm, scarred with gunpowder burns. "You have left something unresolved in your past, that is why. You will be doomed to repeat your fate until you have confronted it and put it to rest."
I nestled myself back in the soft chair. "Yeh," I said agreeably. "Yer right. I have whole lotta unresolved stuff in my past. My sergeant framed me. My wife left me. The whole town turned against me. How do you suppose I put all that to rest?" I was bitter and it came out in the harsh tone of my voice. The old woman just nodded.
"Those things are not important," she said weirdly. "I see your wife in the arms of another man—" She looked up quickly in case that pissed me off. It didn't. She dropped her head again, observing the bumpy calluses of my hand.
"What do you see about Bolton? He's the rat set me up. I don't care who Margie's goin' down on these days. She's got a right to happiness wherever she can find it. It's that fat pig Bolton that I want. He's the son of a bitch—" I leaned in across the table, clenched my hand and caught the little old lady's fingers in the ball of my fist and crushed them as I squeezed. She threw her jagged mouth open and groaned what could have been a scream from her ancient lungs.
"Barry!" Luna shouted from across the room, stepping over quickly. "What are you doing?" I let go of her aunt's hand and stood up. Without warning, Luna let go of a slap that stung the side of my face like a straight razor slicing tender muscle. The pain sent sparks shooting to my brain and I couldn't see her for the bright blinding flashes. I wheeled and took my head in my hands, not knowing why the slap hurt so much. I didn't think it was because my teeth were rotten and she had whacked me on an impacted wisdom tooth. I just thought that was the last straw. I didn't mean to hurt the old lady and would have apologized. I appreciated the fortune telling and would make sure never to hurt her again. She was just a sweet little old gypsy that was trying to help. I ate her food and slept under her roof and she never tried or wanted to rat me out to the cops. But I turned back quickly at the sound of the bulldog being cocked.
Luna held the short black pistol at her hip. Her face was as bland and cold as starch.
I peered past her shoulder to see the whore on the beat up loveseat complexion glowing like a bouquet of freshly cut daffodils. There was only one way she could have a smile on her face and look even halfway healthy. Luna had gone out with her to cop a bag of dope and now that the skank was all shot up with it and could afford to smile like an idiot. She'd be on the nod in a few minutes and wouldn't know what the hell was happening. At the moment, however, I faced a thirty-eight in the hands of a crazy gypsy whose thin face looked about as serious as cardiac arrest.
"Whoever shot those cops had to have walked right up to 'em in broad daylight. That's impossible," Kosova was saying to his partner as Richards inspected the small room where Electric was last known to be.
"Yeh, but whoever shot 'em also made that pile of shit stink out in the alley. Those freaks were executed one by one without a second thought."
Kosova nodded philosophically as Richards wiped the dust from his hands. "I don't believe Electric acted alone. I'm not even sure Electric's responsible. It's too uncanny.
How can one man blast his way through so many people and still be invisible? We've haven't had a sign or a report of his presence for more than twenty-four hours. What's he got, a gypsy fortune teller tellin' 'im where to go and when to move?"
Kosova laughed, " A gypsy fortune teller! That's rich, Rich. Let's go grab a bite."
Richards looked back in anger as he left the dingy room. He didn't have any answers and the bodies didn't reveal any clues. Every set of murders was unrelated and the only connection between them were the exploding hollow points that Electric seemed to have plenty of. The cops that were gunned down in front of the cheap hotel had been armed with them, but the cops’ guns had never been fired, never even gone for and then taken from them along with their gun belts.
"It's like they just said, 'Here, Barry, take our guns. We don't need 'em. We're dead anyway's."
Kosova laughed again, thought about Assistant DA Chaplin and her soft firm thighs and enhanced swollen breasts. That was all he thought about as he bit down on the fatty ham sandwich on rye with extra mustard. Richards had a Pastrami BLT, but it didn't remind him of Patricia. He wondered how Electric could commit murder like he was performing miracles.
"Are you gonna use that thing or are you just gonna keep pointin' it at me?" I growled defensively as her eyes rode up my grimy tight jeans to my soiled and spattered flack jacket’s pockets bulging with shells and settled on the big hunks of holstered steel beneath my pumped and vascular arm. She lowered the pistol along with the heavy lids of her big purple eyes. "Luna," I said and when she raised her eyes wretchedly, I backhanded the angular cheek of her face. She went flying across the room, landing on the floor, gun inches from her splayed fingers.
She was foolish enough to go for the fallen pistol and surprisingly, I didn't blast her, not in front of her aged aunty who had been kind to me. Instead in one giant step I brought my boot down on her hand, pinning it to the floor and ground my heel. Luna's eyes shot upward, wincing in pain and disbelief, and stare into the big bore of my .357. My face must've been somewhere in her line of vision but there wasn't anything in it that said I cared. "Not now," I said. "My war's not with you." I moved my eyes to the sleeping whore on the loveseat. "What's with her?"
I removed the hard sole from Luna's crushed hand and she retracted it quickly, taking hold of it with her other hand. The tears streaked her dark olive face, legs curled beneath her bony pelvis and thighs. Her eyes sparkled like flashing moonstones when she turned to face me again.
"They are called 'The Avenging Shadows'. One of them is her brother," Luna explained.
"Hmph," I replied gruffly and moved off, lifting the mug of beer and draining it, swooshing the warm liquid around in my jaw, over my aching teeth and swallowed.
I met Luna's gaze as she remained on the floor. She hadn't removed her long coat and the bedraggled material was sprawled about her. I couldn't deny that she was beautiful, but I'd be damned if I were going to say it. "So why was her own brother's gang kickin' her ass?" I asked taking the last swig and setting the mug back on the table.
"They think that she can lead them to a fortune beyond their street hardened dreams."
"Izzat right?"
I put the gun away at last, took a step, and picked her Bulldog from the floor, tucking it into my blue jeans' waistband where she could see the checkered butt and hard bulge. "Now how would she do that?"
"She can't," Luna replied, still rubbing her sore hand.
"No kiddin'."
"But her mother can."
"Her mother?” I uttered loud and incredulously.
"Yes. She will bring us to her, but not tonight. You must rest, as you have been saying—
Come morning we will go see the woman who will reveal to you something beyond your own terrible dreams. Barry, soon all this will end. Your nightmares will cease, but even then it will only be the beginning."
I took what she said seriously without a word. It was her 'gift' acting up again and I took it in stride. I lifted her from the floor, taking her by the elbow shakily. I put one arm behind her and reaching the other beneath the warmth of her trembling legs picked her up in my arms and carried her to the bedroom.
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