The Last Case

Chapter 6

“-dn’t have brought him here.” A man’s voice spoke loudly through the gloom.

“No choice,” deep booming voice of another man.

“Get rid of him or we,” the trailing, raspy voice of a woman

“Can’t. The,” some series of words from the first man. I was barely able to hear them. I drifted in and out of consciousness.

“Take the and the,” the woman.

I felt a tugging on my jacket, my belt, my pockets. Then there was darkness again.

My hands were pulled, arms stretched back, and there was a sudden pain sharp on my wrists. The pain snapped me out of my daze and I pulled my head back and tried to open my eyes. The lights hurt my eyes. I saw two blurry figures in front of me. As they came into focus, I realized that I recognized both of them. I didn’t know their names, but I knew them from the previous year’s investigation. They were bit players in the racing world. I was expecting my contacts to outline them and help me with an identification, but a quick blink told me that they were not there anymore.

The girl was pale and muscular. She was wearing a tight tank top, likely to show off her powerful arms, and a pair of long gray cargo pants. In her hand, she twirled a long knife that was serrated on one side and had a glowing laser edge on the other. She was sitting in a half lean on the corner of a large wooden desk and was watching me very carefully. She looked like she’d put on a few pounds since I saw her last year, and she had scarification on her shoulders and upper arms that disappeared into the back of her tank. What was her name?

Next to her, seated in a chair beside the desk, was a well-dressed gentleman with long brown hair. He was wearing round glasses with red lenses in them. When he smiled, he showed of a grill of gold teeth. A name popped into my head. Shrike? No. Sikes. Sikes Mahoney. He was low level gambler with an interest in car racing. He’d escaped the investigation last year because he was too unimportant. He was just a chump that hung around the garage waiting for his next score. Judging by the décor, his clothes, and the expensive teeth, I guessed that he must have risen up a few rungs on the scumbag ladder.

“Pig,” said Mahoney. “Please help our drowsy friend come back to the land of the living.” He nodded toward me.

I looked up and saw the massive frame of Pig standing behind and above me. He must have been seven feet tall. He was wearing a large baggy t-shirt and smelled like old rotting meat. He was completely bald, and I mean completely bald. There was no hair, his eye lashes were an invisible blond color, and he had no eyebrows. He drew back one of his large mitts and slapped the side of my head. He waited a second and hit the other side.

“Ah fuck,” I said. I shook my head. The rest of the small room came into focus. It looked like the sort of place that car parts went to die. The whole room was stacked with fenders, spoilers, chrome wheel rims, and a whole host of miscellaneous car parts that I didn’t recognize. There was a mirror behind where Sikes Mahoney sat at the desk. In the mirro,r I saw a better picture of the beast standing behind me, and also where the door was.

I lifted my arms, but I didn’t get very far. My wrists were tied tightly together with restraining wire. I started, on instinct, to pull and twist my hands. But I stopped when I thoughts of Pig’s meaty paws slapping me around. When I shifted in my seat, I noticed that my ankles were also attached to the chair. I took a deep breath, felt a squirt of blood fill my mouth from the place inside my cheek where Pig had slapped the soft meat into my teeth. With defiance in mind, I leaned and spit onto the ground.

“Do you remember me, Inspector Rook?” asked Mahoney.

“Can you refresh my memory?” I said.