E. R. Torre's COLD HEMISPHERES Chapter One

COLD HEMISPHERES

by E. R. Torre

CHAPTER ONE

I was sitting out in the cold beside a pair of mud-caked garbage cans that smelled of rotten oranges and vomit. The temperature was in the high 20's and windy and of course I couldn’t stop shaking. A dull silver zeppelin flew high overhead. Its engines sputtered as it fought to keep its course against the breeze. The noise disturbed the otherwise funereal silence of the docks.

By now I was very familiar with the area. The concrete and wood platforms stretched out on either side and disappeared into a frosty white mist that crept along the shore. Just beyond the docks were at least five rusted out ships. A couple of them were barely afloat. They were tied down and bobbed in the icy water. Because of the fog, they looked like they were floating on clouds.

I shifted into a more comfortable position. As I did, the butt of my gun jabbed into my ribs. I ignored the pain and cold and mist and instead turned my attention on the moon. Like a distant headlight she shone down, uninvolved and uninterested in the any of our problems. When I first arrived three hours before, she was half-hidden in the rusty horizon. Now she stood far above the docks.

It wouldn’t be long now.

I felt a cramp in my legs and turned away from the moon. My watch read 2:15 A.M. No, not long at all.

So, just how much longer would it take? I hadn't figured on spending this much time waiting, but those are the breaks. Things could always be a lot worse.

Out of habit I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Just before lighting up, I stopped. Even with this pea soup mist, someone might notice a flicker of light or a puff of smoke. Last thing I needed was to be spotted. The job was too damn important to fuck up because of a craving.

Then again, show me a job that isn’t important to the ones putting up the money. The take on this one was twenty grand, more than I'd made in the last ten jobs combined. That made this job as important to me as it was to my employer. It also made had me real tense.

The nerves were to be expected. Completing this job successfully meant I could walk away from it all. Ten years of sitting in cold alleys like this one waiting to spill blood have a way of rotting your soul. Better things were right around the corner.

I frowned. My stomach was twisted into knots. I gulped down the salty air and let my fists curl into angry balls. The tension eased. It helped to let the bad feelings out. It would be easy to spend what was left of my life with regrets, just so long as I had the money.

In the end, that's what it's all about, right? Money and the nice little things it buys you. At one time, I had plenty of those nice little things. When Lucky's organization folded, the money dried up. If I were an ordinary man with an ordinary job, I might have had a pension to fall back on. Just to keep busy, I might’ve taken a job as a bag boy at the Yellow Circle Grocery store to make ends meet. But that's the problem with working underground. You don't draw a pension no matter how many years you’re on the job, and putting groceries into bags sounds as appealing as cutting your legs off.

When things blew over I hunted down jobs in my field. Without ties to any of the remaining big boys, it was easier said than done. I ran some numbers and twisted some arms but, in the end, the only good paying jobs were the ones no one else wanted.

The type of jobs where you meet your employer in an out of the way hotel room at the stroke of midnight and are given a cash advance, a black and white photograph, and just enough personal information about your target so you can plan the kill. In exchange, you try not to shake too much when you hunt your target down. Afterwards, you go home and clean up and think about something else and forget about what you just did. When the heat’s off and you’ve collected the balance of your pay, you make sure to keep your mouth shut tight.

If you do your job really well, you develop a reputation. When you do that, there's the chance you’ll get offered bigger jobs. And if you get a big enough job then maybe, just maybe, you pocket enough cash to get out of the business once and for all.

In the meantime, you get by and you lay low and you stay alive. Things were easier a long time ago. Now they aren’t. They’ll be easy again, once I collect the balance of this job.

I muttered a curse under my breath. Too many hours had passed without action. I felt like an archer who was holding his bow taut for much too long. My mind was going off into crazy directions and beating me down and I needed that goddamned smoke. Again I looked up at the night sky. The zeppelin was a speck now. It was on its way to the Continent and the sunny world to the east. They say women there are young and pretty, the beaches are clean, and the drinks aren’t watered down. Tomorrow at this hour I'd be on that Graf Zeppelin. All I had to do was pull the trigger one last time.

A low rumbling interrupted my dreams. A storm approached from the west. A stiff breeze shot through the docks and blew past the trash can. It sent debris flying in crazy circles and chilled me to the bone. Despite it all, I grinned.

It took a while for the breeze to die down. When it did, a light snow fell. The snowflakes turned to water when they landed on me. After a few minutes my trench coat and hair were soaked and my teeth were clattering. Nature picked a fine time to let loose the first snow of winter. I pulled my gun out of the shoulder holster and pointed it at the sky. The sky wasn't impressed.

I let out a stupid chuckle and returned the gun to its holster. In the sky, the zeppelin was all but gone. Her silver bullet body vanished into the darkness and mist, though the buzz of her engines was heard for a little while longer.

The snow was letting up when I noticed a pair of dim headlights at the far end of the docks. I took another look at my watch.

It had to be him. He arrived late, much later than he should have, but there was no sense in worrying about it. I again pulled my gun out and checked to make sure she was loaded and ready. She was as ready as she could be, considering she was a cheap .38 I picked up from some stoned teenager who tried to mug me a couple of weeks ago. Good thing I had gloves on when I took her from him. If I was lucky, his prints were still on the broken handle or the bullet cases. When the police find this .38 next to my target's body, they'd hopefully identify the prints and send that snot nosed bastard where he belonged.

I aimed the .38 directly at the coming car. It slowed as it approached and crawled right past my hiding place. Near as I could tell, the driver -my target- didn’t see me.

The car's slick black surface reflected what little light came down from the moon. He was driving an Omega Mark IV, the so-called "sedan of the future". Its windows were tinted an icy blue and its black body was impeccable. It was his car, all right. The Mark IV's left rear tires kicked up a puddle of slush as it passed. Tiny droplets of half-frozen water fell within inches of my hideout.

The car made slow progress down the dock before coming to a stop some forty feet away. The car's engine idled smoothly and the driver shifted the car into park. I didn’t know what story my employer had fed him to get him here at this hour, but I was warned he wouldn’t stay very long.

I took another quick look around the docks and made sure there were no witnesses. Once certain, I took a deep breath. My hands shook and my nerves were raw. The feeling was familiar, that adrenaline rush that kicks in just before you do it.

The indecision also returned, and why shouldn’t it? This target was different from the others. He wasn’t some punk with one too many notches on his belt or a corrupt lieutenant that everyone wanted taken down. Near as I could tell, the only person my target seemed to have pissed off was my employer.

Air rushed out of my lungs in a sudden burst. The moment of indecision was over. The car was a few feet away, but not for much longer.

I stepped out from behind the garbage can and, while sticking close to the shadows that lined the path to the car, moved forward. My pace was economic and quiet. Each step took me closer and closer.

And not ten fucking feet away from the car it was back. That goddamned indecision. I eased into a depression in the wall and gritted my teeth.

"Damn," I spat. There was movement in the driver and passenger seats. “You were supposed to come alone.”

Yeah, and I was supposed to become a world famous doctor, marry some rich broad, and live a life of luxury.

What I didn’t need was another complication. Killing one person, with the right tools and the right plan, isn’t all that hard. A well placed bullet and you're on your way. But when you’ve got two targets, things can easily get out of hand. Especially when you’re carrying a cheap piece of shit .38 caliber you ripped off a teenage stoner. She’ll give me that first shot, no problem. We’ll see what happens afterwards.

I took in another deep breath. Rather than fade away, the indecision grew. It was no longer a small voice in the back of my mind. It was the wail of a freight train.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Again I checked the .38. She was still loaded and ready to go.

Just a few more steps, a voice told me from somewhere deep within. A few more steps and the pull of a trigger. Then you’ll be free and on your way to the continent. First class all the way. You’ll get drunk and forget all about this fucking night and have the best damn time of your life. All you got to do is take a few more steps and pull that trigger.

A sound like an explosion ripped through the silence. It came from within the Omega Mark IV. The driver's side window shattered into thousands of pieces that tumbled to the filthy dock floor. The glass was covered in a film of blood and flesh. The car’s driver slumped down. His lifeless head fell on the steering wheel and set off the car's horn. As it wailed, a trio of dark birds fluttered out of their hiding place and scattered into the mist.

There was movement on the passenger side of the car. The car's passenger opened his door, jumped out of the car, and ran like hell down the dock. Like the birds, his body was quickly enveloped in the mist. I tried to make out who he was, but all I saw was a shadowy figure. When he was gone I wondered if he or the stiff in the car was my target.

I ran to the driver's side door and looked in. The driver's body was hunched over the steering wheel. I reached in and pulled his head back. The horn stopped wailing and the dock once again was quiet. The driver's body slumped back in the chair and I caught a good look at him. Despite the blood and gore and the fist sized hole on the right side of his face, I recognized him.

I took another look down the dock, to where Dr. McKeever's killer disappeared. There was no point in trying to chase down the killer. For all I knew, he still had his gun on him. If so, he was armed and dangerous and had purposely cornered himself in a dead-end dock. Either he was a complete fool with a death wish, or he had a getaway already planned.

I’m no expert in water crafts, but it sounded like the killer had a small boat waiting for him. The noise quickly faded as she headed out to sea. After a while the noise faded, leaving behind the sound of waves lapping up against the dock’s supporting columns.

A chill ran down my spine. Did the killer know I was here? Given his quick getaway, it was possible. Then again, people don't usually stick around to catch the sights after taking someone out.

There was another possibility. Perhaps my employer lost faith in me and hired another person to do the job. But if he had, why would this second mechanic arrange his job at the very same time I planned to pull it off? Why take the risk of running into me?

Which meant there was a third possibility: That someone else planned this killing at the same time and place purely by coincidence.

So I had two possibilities that didn’t make much sense and one possibility that made no sense at all. I also had one final question: How did the killer get so close to Dr. McKeever?

Another chill ran down my spine. As it rattled out my system, it left behind something I hadn’t felt since the Big War.

It took me a long time to accept the McKeever job and in the end it was ripped from my hands.