Free The Canal by Daniel Morris

got to know that I've got guys I can trust to
do the job. Am I right?"
    "Right."
    "Golden. Then all I ask is that you make this
case gone. However you do it, whatever you do, I don't care. And as
far as Lombardi goes... Just remember, you're the one I trust.
You're the one I'm gonna count on to do as I require and bring this
thing home."
    "Yes, sir."
    Bleecker smiled. Teeth so white! Capped! Gums
so fine!
    "Good man, good man." He placed one of his
royal hands on Alan's shoulder. "And let me just add that, well,
you do this thing for me, and... When I say the word 'promotion'
down at City Hall, they tend to listen."
    He had said... The man had said promotion.
That word. And it had heft, substance, like you could pick it up
off the floor and roll it around in the palm of your hand. You
could drop it in your pocket and feel it jangling there, like
change.
    It felt strange to Alan, in that moment. Like
he was looking at himself from across the room. So much of his
ambitions had seemed so elusive, for so long. And now, here it all
was. All that he'd thought he ever wanted, delivered as mandate,
inscribed on holy tablet. All he had to do was act.
    Womack returned with the coffees, passing
them out. Bleecker drained his in one go. It had to be scalding,
but he didn't seem to notice.
    "I'm leaving now," Bleecker said. "Gentlemen,
its been a laugh." He thought about that. "No, not really." Then he
carefully wiped his lips with a napkin. "Now make yourselves
useful."
    "Thank you, sir," said Alan.
    "Please," said Bleecker, "call me Bob."
    Alan averted his eyes as the man exited. Alan
wasn't worthy, in the most cosmic sense. How must people appear, to
such a man? Inferior, surely. Like a vast tribe of gaggle-toothed
natives, come across on expedition, with rods through their penises
and snorting zebra dung.
    "Bob," said Womack, slowly. And there wasn't
anything more to say than that.
    Alan looked in on the woman. Pavement
sleeper, trashcan digger, missionary meal'er. No rose was she. You
had to wonder about these types. These untouchables. Out in the
mud. Out past the frontier. They were to Alan as grit was to gold,
these types. Plotters. Schemers. Usurpers. Lazing in the damp with
their good buddies, Disorder and Disarray.
    And if she was as sick as Joe said, well,
Alan wasn't going in that room. He could just imagine the germs --
big-bellied, bleary-eyed, forbiddingly Slavic.
    No, he was not going in that room.
    "Get her to a hospital," said Alan. "Let them
clean her up. I'll deal with her later."
    "Hope she's not contagious."
    "Wear gloves if you go in. Don't
breathe."
    "No breathing, got it. Anything else?" asked
Womack. "The autopsy..."
    "The autopsy..." Alan had been planning on
going to the autopsy. It was an ideal process -- the private body
made public, its secrets weighed and measured, notes taken, reports
filed. The coarse and mysterious flesh transformed into cool
numerals and diagrams. He should be there. He should be dismantling
that body into its component cellular parts, into slurry, looking
for answers.
    But...
    But Alan couldn't ignore what he'd seen --
that wobble in Joe's sad clown disguise, the tremor at the mention
of this woman's name. Joe knew something. And when it came to these
cases, he always knew something. How did he always know? And why
was he always hiding it? Why was he always so vague? That's what
got Alan outraged. That's what made Alan burn, a slow simmer of
indignation. This was data we were talking about. This was
information. The truth deserved better.
    "Vincent goes to the autopsy," said Alan. It
wasn't an easy decision to make. But Alan had an opportunity that
couldn't be ignored, a chance to possibly neutralize Joe's
maddening advantage, all those fucking secrets.
    "And you?" said Womack.
    "Me, I've got to see some people."
    But first Alan needed a gun.

    >> CHAPTER SIX <<

    Zzzzzerttt...Zzzzzerttt.
    Paul was. He was confused.
    Zzzzzzzzerttt...
    A couch. His couch. And there