Dare to Make a Difference

I spent most of my time drunk those days. The seediest bar in town – The Purple Duckling – has a bar stool with my arse mark permanently imprinted in the old, worn out leather. It’s a dive, but the cheap booze makes up for it. Cheap booze can make up for a lot of things.

I remember it was raining that night. Raining cats, dogs and every other god damned animal worth mentioning. The Purple Duckling was crowded with all kinds of low-lifes, including yours truly. Cigarette smoke permeated the air, arresting my nostrils and making my eyes water. Most of it came from the chain-smoking Marlowe wanna-bes that made up The Purple Duckling’s clientele. It always used to make me laugh to think that those ass-holes thought they were cool. I guess no one told them how Humphrey Bogart died – even if someone did I think the irony might have been lost on them.

The old hard wood door opened with a screech of rusty hinges, the racket from the rain outside getting louder before the door swung shut. A guy in a suit swaggered in, casting his eyes around the room.

‘Oh shit.’ I muttered, averting my eyes. I knew that suit. That suit had never been good for me.

The bastard saw me before I could even move. He ducked and weaved his way through the fedora caps and trench coats to the bar where I was sitting. He was a tall guy, ten years my senior, and ugly as a mule in a floral print dress. Light skin, ginger hair and an overlarge nose that looked like breaking it would probably do some good. He’d often reminded me of a clown who wasn’t funny. Clowns really freaked me out.

‘Evening, Peakes.’ he said grimly. He had bags under his eyes and smelt of out-of-date coffee beans.

‘What do you want Collins?’ I asked downing the shot of whiskey I had been nursing. He didn’t answer; he just took the stool beside me and ordered a white wine spritzer. What a fag.

Collins had a suitcase with him. Yet another hard-boiled crime fiction reference. One of those old fashioned brown ones with the golden clasps. The man would have been a walking parody if he were funnier.

Anyway, it’s not really the suitcase that matters – it’s what was in it. It’s what he placed in front of me on the counter, next to my empty shot glasses.

‘You gotta be kidding me.’ I muttered, pushing the manila envelope back at him, ‘Not interested.’

Collins took the envelope and opened it, drawing photographs from the depths and tossing them onto the counter. I winced at the pictures.

‘Still not interested,’ I said. A little girl was in the pictures. A dead little girl. With enough bullet holes in her chest that she might as well have been a human sieve. The photos showed her from all angles, her bloodstained dress from above, a close-up of her wide, vacant eyes. Golden hair spread around her tiny little head, like an angel’s halo. Jesus, she can’t have been older that seven.

Collins was looking at me intently, studying my reaction to the gruesome sight. I tried to keep my face impassive, but I didn’t do a good job. I guess it’s the mother in me.

‘We need your expertise on this one, Robin.’ said Collins.

‘Not my problem.’ I replied, tossing my short brown hair from my face and tossing down another shot. It burned all the way down and I stifled a grimace. Collins sighed, and took another envelope from his pocket.

‘This is our offer.’ he said, opening it and drawing out a card. I smirked. Like he couldn’t just tell me the offer – he had to be cool and write it down on a piece of card. What a fag.

The card drew my attention more than the photos did. That was a lot for one job. That was a lot for a month’s worth of jobs! I tossed back another shot and cast my eyes to the photos. The mother in me was telling me to catch the sick bastard that killed that little girl. The cynic in me was contemplating telling Collins where he could stick his stupid little card. It wasn’t as if I could bring that little girl back. I couldn’t make much of a difference in her life. Still… that money was mighty tempting…

‘What do you think?’ asked Collins hopefully.

I shook my head to clear the cigarette smoke and whiskey, ‘I’m in.’


*


A ceiling fan spun slowly overhead. Collins’s office was lit by cheap florescent lighting made him look even more pale than he really was. I didn’t hold it against him though. Florescent lights make me look orange.

Collins had turned up the fan full-ball, but it was barely moving. I got up from the crowded desk and turned it off. Waste of electricity, ‘Her name was Cecilia Dunwoodie.’ said Collins setting a coffee pot on the table and knocking a few files off the side, ‘Six years old, killed in a drive-by. 9 mm Glock – we got some shells from the scene. Twelve rounds, two different guns. Must have been a driver and a hitman...’

I rubbed my temples and took the coffee Collins offered. One taste was enough to put me off caffeinated beverages forever. Collins turned his back for a moment, and I took the opportunity to Irish up the dark liquid from a flask in my purse.

‘What kind of car?’ I asked taking another sip.

‘If we knew that, we wouldn’t bring you in.’ said Collins, taking a sip of his own coffee and grimacing. I glanced around the tiny, overcrowded office and thought angrily that I could have been home and half drunk by now.

‘Why did you bring me in?’ I asked with an edge to my voice. I already knew the answer Collins would give me. The usual spiel… that I have experience and ‘that old magic’… I half expected Deckard to come sprinting into the room, screaming about replicants. Jesus, Collins was so clichéd – a god damned crime encyclopaedia.

The truth is I don’t have any magic, and I’ve got plenty of experience, but almost none of it was in cooperation with the feds. No, Collins needed me because I had made a lot of friends in my time. The types of friends who wouldn’t go near an uptight suit like Sergent Alexander Collins with a ten foot semi-automatic. Back when I P.I’d on a regular basis, I made a lot of these types of friends who owed me a lot of favours. That was probably my main attraction to the team investigating Miss Dunwoodie’s murder. At least I hope it was. I don’t really like to think about what my major attraction to Collins might have been.

‘Dunwoodie?’ I thought out loud, ‘As in Jacob Dunwoodie?’ Collins nodded, ‘Jesus H. Christ who’d wanna ice Wily Dunwoodie’s kid?’

Jacob “Wily” Dunwoodie was on of the major crime lords in town. Mostly drugs and porn – but he was known to float into the people-killing business occasionally. I couldn’t really imagine who would have the testicular density to go after Dunwoodie.

Collins handed me the Dunwoodie file, and I feigned interest and flipped through the pages as though ten-or-so years as a P.I in this town hadn’t made me well acquainted with the major crime families.

‘Suspects?’ I asked, ‘I mean… shit, there aren’t really many people Dunwoodie hasn’t pissed off. But gunning down a Mob boss’s daughter takes a big pair of brass ones – can’t really see anyone trying it.’

Not only did it take a lot of balls to go after a mob boss – but it takes a heart of stone to kill a child. Collins had shown me Cecilia’s school photograph with her crime scene shots. Golden curls, bright blue, cheerful eyes and rosy dimpled cheeks. A little angel… a mob princess; and knowing this town that was probably why she died. More than likely, that little girl was dead because her father had pissed off the wrong person. Nothing would change that. In the end, even when the bastard that killed her was behind bars, Cecilia Dunwoodie would still be dead. It wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

‘Jesus.’ I breathed, downing my Irished-up coffee, then taking my flask out and taking a swig from that. Collins gave me a hard look,

‘Flasks aren’t very lady-like.’ he said simply. I responded with the finger.

‘When did you start drinking?’ asked the man himself while he bent over a filing cabinet.

‘Around three o’clock.’

‘I meant –’

‘I know what you meant and it’s none of your god damned business!’

I’d actually started drinking right before I shut up my P.I business and parked my arse on a stool at The Purple Duckling. Back when the knowledge of my inability to change what can’t be changed, to fix what was broken and make a difference in the world became very clear. Jesus H. Christ. That last case took the cake. It took the whole god damned bakery. And the Chinese place down the block.

Collins knew me well enough to know not to piss me off. Instead, he handed me another, thicker file.

‘Giovanini?’ I said incredulously,

‘He’s been trying to buy Love-it Productions from Dunwoodie.’ said Collins, ‘Apparently Dunwoodie was fighting him hard.’

I gave a humoured snort and took another swig from my flask. Shockingly enough, I’ve had a lot of dealings with Love-it. There aren’t really many businesses of that nature that I haven’t associated with in my time. Especially in my younger years – back when there had been plenty of demand for a body like mine. Now it’s all stuck-up stick figures with fake tits and pouty lips.

‘I’ve got a few old colleagues over at Love-it.’ I said, ‘I’ll check it out.’

Collins raised his eyebrows at me, like it was really so shocking that I’d once worked in porn. I sat back in my chair and skolled the rest of my flask. I wasn’t too excited about looking up Feely Phil again. Still, after all the scum I’d rubbed elbows with over the last few years, Phil would be a breath of reasonably clean air. What the hell, I thought, with the money they’re paying me, I can burn all my clothes if they get contaminated!

‘Lieutenant Collins?’ a timid voice called from the doorway. I looked up at Collin’s secretary: a tiny little slip of a girl in a yellow sundress, ‘Telephone for you, Sir.’ She was eyeing me. I guess I struck her as presumptuous – because I was sitting in her boss’s chair with my feet up on his desk. She probably wondered where I got the nerve. I wondered where she’d gotten the dress so I could find the store and burn it to the ground.

Collins took the call on the extension that had been buried, up until then, by files and old candy wrappers. Little Bit kept string at me from the doorway; and it was starting to freak me out, ‘You got somewhere to be?’ I asked. Her eyes went wide, and she bolted like a deer caught in headlights.

Collins put the phone down, ‘Try not to traumatise my secretary.’ he said. Our relationship had evolved over the years, so that it had gotten to the point where he could withstand my antics with a kind of mild resignation. It made things easier for him.

‘That was CSI.’ He said, grabbing his coat and tossing me my leather jacket, ‘We can go take a look at the scene now.’