And The Street Screamed Blue Murder! Read online

  And The Street Screamed Blue Murder!

  By

  Jason Michel

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  PULP METAL FICTION

  And The Street Screamed Blue Murder!

  2011 Copyright Jason Michel

  ISBN 978-1-4659-3223-5

  Cover designed by Jason Michel

  Edited by Jason Michel

  *****

  Table Of Contents

  Part One

  Part Two

  Author's Bio

  *****

  Part One - Death Street

  ***

  Chapter 1

  You cannot find it on any map of Paris.

  Most people will tell you that it doesn't exist out there in the “real world”. But then they would probably tell you that Inspector Dupin was just a character in a book written by a depressive old raven. That they are both just figments of fantasy.

  But he wasn't.

  And it does.

  If ever one day you find yourself wandering lonely in Paris in the winter, as the chill air nips at your ears and other extremities uncovered, and you find yourself in Strasbourg St Denis, just off the arch on Boulevard Sebastapol, across the road from where the old Asian hookers stand nonchalantly in gloomy doorways as they dream, not of being loved, but of never being touched again. You may realise that you are walking past all the North African grocery shops selling nothing but colour and suspicious glances and laundries where toad faced women standing in billows of cabbage stench steam speaking loudly to jackal faced men who grin and sneer, wishing humorous misfortune upon each other.

  It is there.

  Between the cracks in the pungent granite glares and the breath of fresh pollution. Just out of the corner of your eye. A glimpse, that it is not your time to see, and so you ignore it as the sharp buzzing in your ears eases. You carry on about your inane daily business, blissful or miserable, either way unaware that anything bizarre has happened. That is until you wake one night as your eyes burn and they stream with tears and the dream continues to play out until its bitter end.

  Rue De La Mort is not a place. It is a secret. A moon haunt filled with messes and spit. The paving stones seem to scream bloody murder as you step. The rats dance every night until the cats get them. Drunken Sicilian fighters spill out onto the streets brandishing daggers in bloody hands as they elegantly defend their mother's honour. Women have beauty spots under their black eyes. A musk pervades the air of a locale filled with pencil moustaches, gold toothed skinny smiles and serpent tattoos. Black dogs roam the streets in feral gangs shitting where and when they like. Screams are greetings there.

  Some say that if you die in Paris, your bad unresolved thoughts, those shameful objects that you've kept hidden and sealed up deep down inside yourself, find a home here and whisper to passers by who cross themselves.

  You cannot go there by your own volition. It chooses you. It knows when your time is up and, buddy, you'd best be ready. Not that you have a choice in this or any other matter.

  You say this place is not real.

  Well, friend, I say it is.

  I've been there and danced through its tarred lungs and scorched alleys.

  In my imagination, I have touched its walls and felt its heart beat.

  Chapter 2

  Picture this:

  The time was precisely 07:03 a.m., on 25 of January, 2011, a dreary Sunday morning and Alfie Lime had a dead girl in his bed.

  The still body's ribcage had been sliced open in clean surgical chops and breaks. There was a hole where the heart should have been. If you had cared to take a closer look, you may have noticed the deep contrast between the ample body's subtle paleness and the visceral wound's deep and dark gash. All those shades of wet red. You may have wanted sniff it then flick your tongue into that profound place. Just for a second.

  The eyes were closed and the face serene. A money spider was walking across the corpse's long eyelashes making them twitch and sway like weeping willow. The now ultimately pointless black hair fell upon the pillow. It still, mockingly, I think, seemed to contain the shine of life. The room showed no signs of struggle or dispute. In fact everything seemed as ordered and in its place as a man-with-no-strings-attached's room could ever wish to be. There was a Donnie Darko poster on the wall with Frank the rabbit glaring down at the bed and some dog eared magazines carelessly thrown into a pile. The top one's cover story brassily declared “Vatican's Secret UFO Files Exposed!”.

  Except for the heart on a black cloth with a nail hammered through it, that lay on the sideboard, all would seem well with the world. Flecks of yellow dust were scattered around the cloth and organ as if the wind had blown in the pollen of blossoms.

  Lime was still asleep at 07:04 and 07:05. It was at 07:06 that his front door clicked closed and his eyes prized themselves open. He lay there on his stomach for moment after moment, feeling his shallow breathing's difficult passage as it made its way in and out of his nose. Various dream images lingered, then they were gone, forgotten. A smell of rotting fruit permeated the air.

  Lime realised that what he felt on his legs was not a curled up sheet but a leg. He remembered that he had picked up a lady the night before. Well, let's be honest here. Not exactly picked up. That would have required an effort, as Alfie ain't exactly what you'd call a looker. Face like a stubbly potato and the body of a night club doorman who'd seen better years. No, the only thing he had picked was the wallet out of his pocket, and that was just to pay for the wine and cigarettes for their little soiree. Simple pleasures and a little of the other. It was most he could hope for.

  It was a surprise to Lime, as he was sure that he had felt the bed lighten and her leave in the early morning. They usually do.

  Turning slowly onto his back and yawning with the morning impulse to inhale as much of the sky as he could, he wiped his eyes instinctively. His hands weren't red. Good. He had had the fear of finding his hands covered with blood ever since seeing The Godfather as a child. The horse's head scene. How horrible to do that to a horse. He still had to guard his eyes whenever he watched that particular sequence.

  Lime stared back at Frank the rabbit and smiled. At least she had stayed all night. What was her name? Oh, yeah. Véronique. Classy name, if a little old sounding but then didn't all French names sound like that. He realised that he did not feel any guilt at buying this lady's company for the night nor feeling any special need to look at her first thing in the morning. He knew she was there and remembered what she had looked like as he had explored her body the night before. He would give her the space to leave in her own time. She hadn't left in the middle of the night robbing him blind as one or two had done.

  She had fallen asleep comfortably.

  Though not in his arms.

  He understood and even though there was a pain of sorts he bore her no malice.

  His eye's itched and he rubbed them and let his arm fall lazily where he thought her body to be. His fingers gingerly explored her hips and belly and he felt the urge to move on up towards her chest.

  It was not what he expected.

  Cool skin and a hole and inside … jam on steak tartare?

  Alfie Lime looked at his fingers. He moved and turned fast. He saw. He froze. He felt his bulging eyes would never close again. Completely transfixed. Irrationally and instinctively he leaned over her and shook her shoulders this just made matters worse. He was trying to wake her. He did not know why he had done that, he just had. Little specks of blood flew onto the sheets and his chest and chin. Poor Véronique.

  Then Alfie Lime knew, really knew, that the girl that was once called Véronique was dead. He flew backwards
off the bed tripping over the magazines as he went until he crashed his back into the wall and brought his hand up fast, clenching it up into a fist. A fist, not of fury, but of fear, forcing it into his mouth to stop himself screaming or shouting out loud. But inside Alfie Lime, oh, inside him, he wailed and wailed with horror and sadness as he brought his teeth down onto his knuckles until his own blood dribbled down his chin mingling with the dead blood of the girl. His other hand suddenly covered his eyes. For a moment the bad thing was blocked out of his mind and just when he thought he would go mad, he removed his hand from his face and saw the heart and the nail. As the trees outside danced with the wind and played mischievously with the sunlight, the muscle appeared to be beating of its own accord. He felt his teeth gnaw bone and raw nerves.

  There was blood on poor Alfie Lime's hands now.

  Chapter 3

  15th of January, 2011.

  The reflection in the mirror that Alfie Lime was staring at always seemed to be more misshapen than he expected it to be. As if someone was constantly moving his parts around his face for him. He had once tried growing a full beard but the itching had driven to distraction. So, shaved head and face on display, it was. He knew that his gift was that of the gab, like that of all ugly men. Better to face the world naked and honest. Even if he knew the reaction of others. Life had taught him that.

  Life had been unkind to Lime.

  A father from the merchant Navy who had never been there and when he was, had sat in the armchair for days just watching the horses or footy on telly and it was nothing more than, do this, do that and get me my fuckin' rum, boy! Don't argue!

  Alfie remembered, one Christmas Eve, being seven years old and learning from his mum that his father had fallen off a cargo ship carrying goods to Norway. The rotten old bastard had been stinking drunk, was playing silly buggers and had slipped. They never did find his body. So there was nothing to bury. Little Alfie had felt a sigh of relief back then, it was something that he could never tell anybody about. It just didn't seem right. Ungrateful, even if he had been an old cunt. and he certainly couldn't talk to the women who thronged to their two up two down in Cardiff in the wake of the tragedy. They scared him did those hard faced women who swept down on them like crows on a lamb's carcass. All prods, knitted brows, stern advice and endless cups of tea.

  The service was held in a Baptist chapel on a cold January morning and the congregation was a hundred percent female except for Little Alfie, of course. They put on decent show, mind. Even had vol-au-vents. Far too decent it was, Little Alfie secretly thought, as he was fussed over and preened. Even then Alfie could read people and he soon sussed out which ladies truly meant well and which were just there for the food and gossip. He could see the folded arms and jealous squints. This pampering lasted for another couple of weeks. Until they got bored or buried under with their own misfortune, that is. One or two stuck by her, but by then his mum was just another hard luck case in a second rate city. Those times were hard for all. When the chips are down, it is human nature to look after your own.

  His mum. The dear had tried her best for Little Alfie. A few months after his demise she had gotten a job as a cleaning lady for a local newspaper office building. It was terribly paid but it kept the wolves from the door. Sometimes, if she had to work late, she would take Little Alfie with her and he would sleep on the reporter's chairs or do his homework at their desks and some of the hacks, who were working late, would take time out of their way to entertain him with stories of murder and mishap that they had seen or were working on.

  It was there that Little Alfie had met Jimmy “Gallows” Reid, a Scotsman and reporter who had particularly taken the young fellow under his wing. Gallows, so called for his acid wit and his propensity for booze which most thought would end sooner rather than later, used to entertain Little Alfie for hours when he should have been working with the more bizarre and macabre tales that it had been his good fortune to stumble across.

  Ghostly postmen, naked fat women stuck in telephone boxes, eunuch flashers, the whole gamut of the ghastly underbelly of reporting everyday life was laid out from this man's tongue. These were the stories that Gallows would actively search out and as Little Alfie sat, all ears, in a moulded plastic chair opposite, the Scotsman would recall them with such aplomb and brazen humour that the seven year old would sometimes hold his belly and laugh so much that his stomach hurt. Or sometimes he would become so scared that he would begin to tremble.

  Gallows would always chuckle, “There's more t' life than people think, young Alfie. More to life”.

  It was because of Gallows that Little Alfie had decided that he too would one day become a journalist. Previously, he had thought of becoming a comedian, and who knows, with his tragic life he may well have been good at it. But a hack he was to be.

  Of course, life has a way of taking the good things from us just when are beginning to take them for granted and so it was with Gallows.

  Little Alfie had returned one afternoon from the cinema earlier than expected as it had been shut down by the police for showing a late night showing of a Horror film that had been setting vicious old women's tongue's aflame with Satanic hate. Little Lime had been there to see a film about an nice alien who rode bicycles in the sky. Mrs Lime had seemed awfully eager that Little Alfie went out that afternoon and when he returned and slipped quietly into the kitchen to find some grub, he began to wonder just what that banging was on the ceiling. Being the budding reporter that he was, he had decided to investigate this strange phenomena and as he tip toed up the stairs as silent as a mouse, he noticed that the banging was accompanied by shrieks and grunts. He made his way to his mum's door and there was his mum on all fours on the bed, and there was Gallows kneeling behind her. He was smoking a cigarette.

  Suddenly, the door creaked and his cover was blown. His mum shrieked and grabbed a sheet to wrap around herself but the Scotsman just knelt there, his hard wet cock now in his hand. He smiled sadly at Little Alfie. Little Alfie smiled back.

  *

  Little Alfie never saw Gallows again. The next day his mum resigned from the job at the newspaper. It was the shame of it. Just imagine the gossip that would stalk her at every corner and at every newsagent doorstep. When some prying questions came her way she just dodged them mentioning “cuts” and that was that.

  A year later Little Alfie read in the second hand newspaper, that he had gotten into the habit of reading, that Jimmy “Gallows” Reid had suffered an aneurysm and died while sat on a bar stool. He was only discovered dead when it came to last orders. The bar staff had just thought he had drunk himself into oblivion again.

  And in a way, he had.

  Things became really difficult then. Things cost money and his mum did part-time work here and there but it never seemed to be enough. There were always bills to pay. Her moods became erratic and her behaviour even more so. Little Alfie would sleep in the same bed as her then. Listening to her talking to herself into the small hours or crying herself to sleep.

  Then suddenly she had her breakdown.

  One day Little Alfie came home from school and found her sitting in the armchair that still bore the dark greasy marks of his father's occupancy. She said nothing when he came back just sat there stock still while he wandered around from room to room just following him with her sad glassy eyes. That night Little Alfie prepared himself a meagre meal and sat in front of the telly to watch a film. It was called, The Godfather.

  After she hadn't moved for the second day Little Alfie thought it best to tell someone. She was starting to smell of piss and something else more unspeakable. So, that evening Little Alfie put on his coat and made his way down to the corner shop. He walked past the graffiti on the forlorn red brick wall that simply said PAKIS GO HOME and opened the door that tinkled as he did so. He went straight in and told Mr Rachid everything. Mr Rachid had always looked after his mum when she was a little strapped for cash. She often found extra eggs or bread or a chocolate bar for Littl
e Alfie in her basket when she arrived in her kitchen.

  His mum was sectioned that night and Little Alfie was sent to an uncle's to live until he was old enough to take care of himself. His uncle at least was a kind childless man. Little Alfie saw his mum every week until she finally passed away one May afternoon as the sun was high in the sky.

  “It's a funny old life, Alfie”, the old man would often cheerfully say as he read the stories of revolutions in South America or UFO sightings in the Lake District.

  *

  Lime felt shaved and suddenly better than he had done in months. He stroked his scratchy head to increase the feeling of well being and made his way down St Michel towards the offices of the paper.

  He was thinking of his latest investigation. Some leaked documents implying a cadre of members of the British parliament were being charmed with a flow of illegal “donations”, that included Caribbean family holidays, by an obscure think-thank in the higher echelons to steer and influence the already right wing neo-con “liberal” ruling body into something that Lime felt was wholly more sinister. This insidious gathering of snobs and elitists gave itself the preposterous title of Her Citadel Of Tenebris and they apparently met under such close-lipped and ritualistic circumstances that would make the Masonic Lodge blush with accusations of tardiness. Lime liked to call them The Shitty-Dell. His source was a certain Tony McKnight, a very minor backbench MP and the only one from the fringe Scottish Libertarian Socialist Party to have a seat in both the hallowed and - de facto - obscene House Of Commons, as well as the Scottish Parliament. McKnight had been a source of reliable information in the past and Lime saw no reason to doubt him now.

  It was THEM again.

  THEM.