Hunger (first four chapters)

                                                                                            Hunger

Silvery moonlight lanced into the huge room through cobwebs of briars and vines that grew in scribbles over broken, dirty panes of a once elegant and tall window. The refracted, broken moonlight wove chilling patterns across a time worn Arabian carpet that was once lavish with colorful designs. On either side of the tall window thick floor length red velvet drapes, heavy with years and embedded dirt, hung in the darkness like gelled cascades of lifeless black blood. In black ominous recesses of the room, laden with years of dust and uncounted spider webs, furtive generations of rats, mice and roaches competed for the remains of the old house.
In the center of the once elegant great room, where rays of moonlight burned through obsidian shadows, a body lay beneath the closed lid of a black coffin resting upon a bier of ornate rosewood.
From a pitch-black hallway that joined the great room to the rest of the house, the startling brassy peal of a grandfather clock began to declare the late hour. Upon the tenth announcement the old clock stilled itself.
Into the silence an erratic squeal of rusted hinges announced the slow rise of the coffin lid. Naked, Peter Amsel pushed the coffin lid fully open and sat up, stretched and yawned. The stained, aged, tattered silk of the padding and pillow of the coffin reeked of the metallic odor of blood turned to dust; the blood of his mother. He carefully slipped his naked body from the casket to the floor and waded through a tangle of moonbeams to the lone window.
Beyond the mottled windowpanes a night creature swooped over the neglected, dark estate—a momentary luminescence beneath moonlight, then gone. Snarls of weeds, vines and small tree overgrowth sloped away from the dilapidated house to where it offered support to an aged black iron fence that leaned and sagged on its journey around the property. Through thick overgrowth of night-black kudzu that draped from treetops to ground, he could see the yellow twinkle of town lights just a half mile away. A light breeze curled into the room through broken panes and washed over his nakedness with the warmth of summer. He was suddenly ravenous.
Turning from the window he crossed the room. His nude, bony body shattered moonbeams that played conflicted patterns around the darkness of the great room, revealing places that daylight seldom reached.
In a large bathroom off the hall that joined to the great room he lit a small coal lantern to give him light. Though he seldom bathed, he did wash his face and hands, then brush his teeth and shave. He finished his lavation and returned to the great room to a large elaborately carved shifrobe. He opened a mirrored door and retrieved black clothing then carried it to an antique chair; something his mother had called a Queen Anne. Age had turned the furniture into loose glue joints, and rats had gnawed the silver brocaded seat fabric to tatters. Filthy clots of cotton poked out like clotted fat. He donned the black clothing then sat in the chair and put on black socks and shoes.
He returned to the shifrobe and removed a wide brimmed black hat and a white silk scarf. He slipped the small scarf around his neck and tucked it beneath the frontage of his shirt. He turned to the blotched mirror on the shifrobe door. Peering at his weak reflecting, he cocked the hat upon a head that was too large at the crown and sharply triangular at the chin. Overly large eyes with bulging whites dominated his pale face. His lips were thin and purplish in the weak moonlight and his mouth drooped sadly at the corners. He again reached into the cabinet and retrieved a small black case once owned by his deceased father. He placed it into a coat pocket. Before he turned away from the cabinet he again glanced at himself in the darkened mirror. Perfect.
Peter Amsel wended his way through the morass of overgrown vegetation and trees  that had turned the once smooth driveway into a jigsaw of fractures. Half on an iron gate rusted free from its hinges lay embedded with growth, free from where it once closed off his mother and father’s world from civilization. Once through the gate he turned and looked back at the dark, aged, untended Victorian structure that loomed over him with sharp angles and foreboding shadows. 
He turned his eyes down to the small college town that lay at the foot of the hill. The silver-blue night had the welcome home appearance of a Currier-Ives painting. The wafting breeze was soft and clean. A narrow path worn by his nightly hunts wended through knee-deep grass and down the hill to the nearest street. As he made his way he imagined himself a mote to be dismissed, so covert that he moved over the land like a shadow; a fleet phantom.
Where would he dine tonight? There was the alley just off Main Street. A quiet, dark, deep, dead-end cave that harbored indigents. But it reeked of urine and unwashed bodies, and the cheap wine content of the food left him giddy and nauseated.
There was the place near the college; a good place to begin tracking a meal, but he had to go inside to find prey. It was noisy, but the food was always exceptionally fresh—never ever tepid—always hot-hot. The company was always interesting. The giggly college girls stared in amusement at his outdated dress but he was always reflective and quiet and exhibited impeccable manners. At such times he imagined himself to be the fantasy of handsomeness he carried in his mind. Sometimes, he felt the laughter directed at him rather than with him, but he did not let it show. Tonight, for one of the succulent ones, their laughter would turn to horror.
The fiery nearness of their bodies nearly drove him mad with their casual intimacy. It was not a sexual excitement—lest anyone think of him as being a dirty old man. No sirree. He was not a dirty old man. He had to step cautiously, but it was worth it. Such delicious cuisine deserved a bit of danger. It brought out the digestive juices. Unlike wine, the essence of whiskey and narcotics enhanced the danger as he shared with the victim the ecstasy of blood. There was no other worthy food; only blood. Fresh, hot blood There were those who ate raw fish and snails and drank their own urine. He would eat animal before he’d drink urine. As for fish—there was no nutrition in fish. It tasted of paper with a disagreeable odor, and dryness, nothing palatable at all. As for snail—he’d as soon eat snot.
He needed youth in his stomach tonight. Not that he felt old by any means. He figured he had a while before stiff joints and crippled fingers captured him. Of course, he could get that by not eating right and he certainly ate right.
He reached the campus and watched from deep shadows for a few minutes. Lights blazed in buildings and young voices called to one another. He stepped out of the shadow of a thick bush beside the street, straightened his clothing, correctly raked his hat, then pointed himself at the campus club. 


Chapter Two
Detective Sergeant David Roberts drove with one bloodshot eye on the winter street as he took another draught from the metal flask of liquor that was a perpetual guest of his coat pocket. The liquid burned his throat; a throat rasped by too many cigarettes.
The dented, rusty, green 1965 Mustang occasionally lurched and coughed as if it had the flu and would have to stop any second to get its breath. He shoved the accelerator down harder and dared the aged car to leave him stranded.
He rolled down the window and spit into the cold winter air. The gob twirled and fell short of a pedestrian crossing against the light.
Roberts figured it would have been justice if the ball of spittle had splattered him. The pedestrian, hunched inside a heavy winter topcoat, glared with eyes that wanted to beat the crap out of Roberts, maybe kick a dent in the door of Roberts’ Mustang. Roberts wondered; if the man knew Roberts was a cop, would it make a difference.
Well, a few new dents would not be evident. Roberts had kicked the car a multitude of times. The metallic, shake-rattle-roll, smoky Mustang was his security-rage blanket. He kicked it when it would not start. He pummeled it mercilessly when frustration and anger boiled in his chest after he viewed the mutilated body of some child left to rot in a trash dump.
He gave a quick glance in the broken, dirty glass of the rear view mirror. His fragmented, sad reflection accused him of the abuse he had put his body through during the last ten years. He ran fingers through his thinning black hair and tried to avoid the tired, hung-over eyes that stared back. He said a swear word to the unshaven face that made him look unbathed, blue eyes red-rimmed from too much to drink, too little sleep, and too many memories of dead bodies left twisted and torn by twisted and torn minds.
He rocketed through rush hour traffic, swerved the dilapidated Mustang from center lane to curb, braking hard. The front wheels hit a patch of snow-ice. Out of control, the Mustang thumped the rear bumper of a patrol car parked in front of the precinct station. The patrol car jumped forward like a startled animal. The Mustang lurched backwards from the impact.
"Damn!" Roberts muttered and looked around with a face full of guilt to see if anyone had spotted his skill.
Two young police officers, on their way out of the building, grinned evilly at him, enjoying a superior’s screw up. Roberts bestowed upon them the blessing of a bird and decorated it with a glare that dared further response.
The cops suppressed their glee, at least to the point that Roberts could not pin them down.
He shut the car down. It fumbled with the task as the engine shuddered and trembled on its worn mounts like a trapped critter. He shoved the driver's side door open. The bent metal squealed and popped. He slid out of the Mustang across ragged, green leather seats, then stood on the dirty, smelly, snowy sidewalk and shoved the door closed with a booted foot. The metal replied with a cacophonous din—like rolling up a steel warehouse door.
He ignored the fact that he was in direct view of the captain's office on the second floor and took a swig from his "canteen". He capped the flask, dropped it back into the right side pocket of his long black coat, farted, then like a man who trudged to his own sacrifice, climbed time worn cement steps into the ancient station house.( Posted1/13)
Chapter Three
Inside.
Another world.
A strange world.
Roberts's landscape. 
A multitude of cop and offenders voices roiled and twisted together like bad brush strokes on a bleak evil painting. The thick smoky air was filled with odors of old wood, aged varnish, mildew, sweat, vomit, urine, unwashed crotches, and stale sour lunches left uneaten on scarred desk by overworked cops who filled out useless forms on useless offenders.
He claimed part ownership, earned by years of futile labor to rid the world of human garbage, and in the process became part of the problem. It was impossible not to. The filth had fed itself on his emotions, there was no escape, until one day he found himself fragmented like his image in the car mirror. Alcohol helped. It did not numb him enough, but it helped. And prayer...when he remembered, when he felt it would be effective. He concluded that God listened then shrugged, but he had decided not to do a Steven Hawkins and deny the obvious.
Roberts forced himself up the worn stairs to the second floor.
Mingled voices from below echoed in the cavernous lobby as they pleaded, cajoled and demanded. The vile language of a female, probably a whore, demanded to see her lawyer. Roberts grimaced and rolled his eyes. If the whore had a lawyer, she had been here before. Generally, the hoi polloi did not have lawyers on call.
The second floor squad room door squealed like a tortured mouse when he carelessly shoved it open. The desk-filled room was busier than a franchised bookie joint. Mingled, multi-keyed voices cluttered the air like old confetti at a bad parade.
Roberts sloped toward his desk, head down, inside his own thoughts, his heavy, black winter topcoat flaring behind like the cape of a vampire. A wooden chair with squeaky steel rollers—a relic of the forties—spun away from a desk. A young detective screwed his head around like an owl and pointed at Roberts over his shoulder. "Two Cats, Captain wants to see you."
Roberts scowled at the young officer. Two days on the job and already too familiar. "Sergeant Roberts," Roberts sullenly corrected him.
"Whatever," the officer mumbled and spun back to his desk. He had already placed Roberts in the Out basket.
Roberts allowed a few cops to call him Two Cats—the rest caught his lowered brow and a scowl of disapproval. From the older, experienced officers the nickname was a mild joke. From the junior wet-noses, who had no idea how he came by the tag, it was an insult—at least in his own mind.
He had earned the nickname from a bad bust that had, at the time, been funny. It had since gotten old, but companies of men never turn a good thing loose. A copy of the innocent report he made out on the failed bust became ammunition.
The pushers had gotten the word somehow. When Roberts and his men busted down the door to the crack house, the building was empty except for two small kittens. When he wrote up his report he typed that the bust netted’ two cats’.
He glanced toward his desk. A female cop sat in his chair, busy with paperwork. What the heck? Anger flared in him. She could sure as hell find her own place to squat. When he was finished with the captain, he would give her traveling orders.
Roberts regretted that he took a drink on the street in full view of the window of the captain's second floor office. Very inappropriate public conduct. Hell, coming to work was inappropriate conduct. Being a cop in this city was inappropriate conduct. 
Chapter Four
Roberts thumped on the captain's office door. The dirty, opaque glass, with the name Captain H. G. Wills, made a noise in its frame as if it might shatter from age. When he received no answer, he opened the door and walked in. Wills, on the phone, glanced up at Roberts from behind bifocals perched on a bony nose, then dropped tired blue eyes back to papers on his desk. He muttered to the phone as Two Cats flopped into a dilapidated chair in front of the desk. Punctures in the worn cushion wheezed air like an old man with emphysema.
    Wills put down the phone, ran a palm over his bald shiny head. He studied Two Cats for a long second, then leaned over the desk with one palm outstretched.
  Two Cats played innocent. “What?”
  The Captain wiggled the tips of his fingers.
  “Right,” Two Cats growled and fumbled for the “canteen”. He slid it across the desk to Wills' open hand.
Wills screwed the cap off the flask, his eyes on Two Cats, sniffed the contents, took a drink, then made a face. “You musta paid at least a dollar for this stuff.” He slid the container back to Two Cats.
  “Two Cats returned his bland stare. “ Gimme a raise. Next time I'll buy champagne.”
  “It's bad image for a detective to be seen boozin’ on the street.”
  “It's bad image for the Captain to swig his Sergeant's booze. Is this why you called me in here, to drink my liquor?”
Two Cats screwed the cap off the bottle and had another, then dropped it back into his overcoat pocket.
  Wills slid a piece of paper to him. ”Read.”
  Two Cats glanced a question at Wills.
  Wills nodded to the paper as he leaned back and slid his glasses over his brow. His tired blue eyes were evasive.
  Two Cats sighed, sank back into the chair, glanced down at the paper, and immediately sprang upright. “What the hell does this mean?” He continued to read as he reached for the flask.
  “Forget the booze, Two Cats, just read.”
  Roberts did not look up. He took a hot swig, leaned back in the chair and propped the flask between his knees. He finished reading, then sailed the offensive paperwork back onto the captain's desk.
"A prescribed evaluation? What does that mean? Who made that up? And this crap about failure to perform efficiently?” Roberts knew he was blowing smoke, but his ego would not let him, like a good scout, accept the inevitable.
    Wills gave a feeble shrug. There was sadness and regret for Roberts in his eyes and voice. "I'm just a peon like you, Two Cats. I get my orde ..."
"Stop calling me Two Cats! Under the circumstances it’s...it’s insulting. Right now, we are not friends. I don't want to be your friend. I come in here, you drink my booze, then hand me this garbage with a feeble excuse that you're a peon like me. Cow cookies!"
  Wills sighed. "I'm sorry, David. I’m truly sorry.”
"This is nuts. Two weeks ago, I'm handed a box of medals, felt up by the chief and told I'm a good scout, now they drop me like I...” Two Cats sighed loudly, bit off another chunk from the flask. He knew his behavior was a performance. He slid the booze across to the captain. 
Wills took the liquor, met Two Cats' eyes, took a big slug of the booze and placed it on his desk halfway between them. The metal flask sat there like a fence, a depressing barrier neither could cross.
“Showing up drunk at the ceremony and whispering to the mayor what he could do with his medals, might have pushed him a little too far,” Wills said without sympathy.
Roberts reached into the breast of his overcoat. "I suppose you want my gun and shield." He fumbled at the shoulder holster. The holster was empty. He remembered. Like a rock in his coat pocket, the gun caused the left side of his coat to sag. He reached in and sheepishly pulled out the revolver. Wills scowled at him.
He put the gun on the desk and pushed it haft first toward the captain. "What do I do? Go home? Pick my nose and stare out the window, watch the sun shine?” He retrieved the flask, recapped it and let it slip back into his overcoat pocket
Wills beckoned with his hand, “Shield.”
Two Cats reached back inside his coat pocket, felt around. Where had he put the blasted thing? While the captain stared with annoyance, he searched his pockets like a roach on a desperate hunt for food. There was a metallic tinkle as he retrieved the badge out of the pocket that held the metal flask. He avoided Will’s eyes when he poked the badge at him.
Roberts stood from the chair, his eyes on the floor. Like a man who dragged an anvil, he crossed the floor to the lone window and stared out at the inhospitable city. The anvil was of his manufacture, and he knew it. Somewhere, he had passed the caution line, just blown right by it, boozed up, fed up and exhausted. He felt sorry for himself and he hated it. The force was full of troops that endured daily the same frustration, and they managed to keep a hold on reality. How and when he had slipped over the edge, he could not remember.
Wills broke the quiet." I've warned you for years, David. You've pushed the envelope too long. Look at you,” he said, not unkindly. “Hungover, unshaven, scuffed shoes, what is that crap on your coat. Did I fail to mention your attitude?"
  Two Cats just stared out the window. “Who gets my case load?” He asked over his shoulder. He had a sudden acid spill in his stomach as he realized who replaced him.
  "You really want to know?" Wills was skeptical.
  "No…Yeah, I do.” He turned to face his captain.
  Roberts heard Wills silently roll words around as if he had a mouthful of marbles. He came from behind his desk, opened the door and nodded toward Robert’s desk.
  Two Cats came from the window, looked over Wills’ shoulder. Still concentrating on paper work, she wore khaki slacks and a white blouse. On her feet were low shoes—the kind he liked to see on a woman. They were even more attractive because she had small feet. Like a waterfall made of honey, her long red hair flowed down her back.
"Fresh promoted homicide detective, Wells said. “ Cute, ain't she."
Two Cats gave a huff. "Too young to be an experienced cop."
"That ain't fair, David. She earned her shield. She's a good cop. She does what she's told, unlike someone else I know. Her personnel jacket says she’s a Christian, so watch your mouth."
Two Cats resisted the burning urge to take a drink. “She needn’t worry. I won’t be here to talk to her. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust myself to be civil.”
Wills lifted a shoulder. “Back off a bit. You smell like a brewery.”
Roberts was furious at himself, his life, the department, and all the infectious evil he had seen in the last ten years that had turned him into a cynical rule violator. He stared at the female detective. Despite resentment, he felt a stir. She was not a beautiful woman; not Hollywood beautiful, but she had an aura about her that exuded femininity. As far as he could tell, she wore no makeup, and in his opinion, she did not need any. She was all crisp and neat, like she had just stepped out of the shower.
Roberts sighed. “How long?” 
Wills pushed him back and closed the door. 
Roberts avoided Wills eyes. He put his hand on the doorknob, his final exit.
Wills went to his desk and sat down. “David, come, sit.”
Roberts paused, his hand still on the door knob. What now? After a moment he resignedly returned to the chair. “What, more bad?”
Wills shoved David’s weapon and shield back to him.
Roberts stared in confusion. “Some kind of sick joke?”
Wills stared back. “I thought maybe, just maybe, if you felt what it’s like to lose your badge you might wake up.”
Roberts almost collapsed from profound relief. He realized his heart was pounding. A heavy lump of something almost busted his chest. For a second he thought he might pass out. His mind reeled off the years of abuse he had put his body through. Could he leave off the booze, now that he had another shot? “You are giving me back my job…?”
Wills held Roberts in a determined gaze. “Not me. I told you, I’m just another peon. In actuality, they’re taking you back on for two weeks. The mayor, the commissioner and a host of politicians wanted to burn you down as an example. I argued them for another two weeks. If you screw up, David, my job won’t be worth a bean fart. You understand?”
Instinctively, Roberts reached for the flask of whiskey. Wells did not miss his sudden jolt of realization. “What do I do? Where do I work? You've given my job to the redhead.”
“You’re going to work alone, David. I have the option of placing you where I want. I figure if you slip, if you can’t work without the booze, there’s no use for the entire force to see the final fall.”
Roberts held his hands below the desk so Wells wouldn’t see the tremble. The nearly insatiable need for a drink seemed to posses his entire being. He would never be able to do it. Might as well leave the weapon and shield on the desk. What was the point? He was a loser. But the need to be a cop caused his hand to reach for and take the shield and weapon. He felt as if he might cry. “You want my booze?”
Wells sighed. “The question is, can you dump the booze? Me taking that flask don’t prove nothin’. If you want to leave it, if you think it would help, by all means leave it.”
Roberts smiled in spite of himself. “You’re just using psychology to get my booze.”
Wells chuckled.
“So,” David asked, “where do you put me?”
“I’m putting you on the Vampire case.”
Roberts once again stared at Wells in disbelief. “But you have four guys on that already. They won’t work with me. Are you nuts?”
“You work alone.”
Roberts flopped back into the chair with a sigh. “Will I get access to their files?” He gave an ironic chuckled at the paradox. “You know absolutely that the guys working the case are liable to shoot me if I even hint at looking at the case files. What kind of double jeopardy have you put me in, Captain?”
“I want a fresh approach on the case, David. No one will know you are on the case. Just me and you. You’ve always been a loner, and a good one. I’m hoping that two weeks gives you enough time to discover something, anything important.”
“Roberts shook his head in exasperation. “ You are nuts! Two weeks? No discovered info? Are you trying to make me fail?” Desperation welled in his chest. He felt as if he were in some kind of Catch 22. “And you know…you know that an hour after I leave here, everyone in the entire department will know. I ain’t got a chance! You can’t hide weirdness like this. Them asses upstairs already put the word out, I’ll bet. They want me to fail. They want me to fail, don’t they? I got too many citations, too many medals to outright kick me off the force. People will complain. Might even cause the mayor to lose the next election. If I quit on out my own, who’s to complain.”
“David, let’s face a few facts. You got you here, they didn’t. Though you’ve pissed off the entire flange of department heads, they still remember what a great cop you were, and can still be. I think they are being very generous. Get rid of the booze. Clear your head. Find something, anything to keep your job. If you make good, maybe the top suits will forgive you. Now please, David, do both of us a favor. Get out of here and save yourself. Hell, save me.”