Ebenezer

Chapter 5 - Murder Inc.

1

In a rundown neighborhood, Marley follows Ebenezer a few steps until both men stop with quizzical looks around themselves.

The dead man grins wide. "Ah, 'ere we are!" he says. "The old stompin' grounds!"

A bicycle bell grabs their attention. Simon pedals close and dumps his bike against a chainlink fence.

The boy looks up at the street sign. The corner of CHANCERY CT. ­and LABOR ST.

His gaze falls on the "CONDEMNED" sign on the fence. He looks through the fence at the abandoned warehouse, its cinderblock walls covered in graffiti.

The walls drip as Simon steps warily through a wide doorway. It smells like engine grease and mold and damp concrete—the combination dredges up an intense flood of conflicting memories in Ebenezer's mind. As does the rat, skittering under a pile of broken kitchen fixtures.

The boy squints into the dark, gutted bowels of the warehouse and calls out, "Hello?"

From the darkness, a gun fires. Simon sees the muzzle flash in the same instant the bullet strikes a column near his head. A cloud of pebbled cement rains down on him.

"Fucking 'ell! You all right, boy?"

Jake emerges from the darkness, tucking the pistol into his shoulder harness.

Simon shakes dust out of his hair and off his t-shirt.

"You almost k-killed me!"

"Bollocks. If I was aiming for you you'd be dead, trust me. Just putting the fear of the devil in you, I was."

Jake chuckles nervously as he approaches. He lays a gentle hand on Simon's back, ushering him inside.

"Come in, come in. Consider yourself at 'ome."

"You always were terrible with a pistol," Ebenezer tells Marley as the two of them watch Jake lead Simon up a dangerous set of stairs, Simon looking around himself anxiously.

The dead man turns to him with a sneer. "Lucky for you, innit, you prat?"

In Jake's shockingly tasteful apartment on the second floor of the rotting warehouse, the man himself holds a glass under a beer tap and pours a Guinness. "Care for a bevvie?" he asks the boy, holding out the glass.

Simon sneers in reply.

Jake shrugs and guzzles from it. "So," he says, and licks a foam mustache from his lip. "Made up your mind, have you?"

Simon approaches him cautiously at the wooden chef's block Jake uses as a counter. The boy takes something out of his pocket and slaps it onto a steel chef's table.

Jake looks at the fifty-dollar bill, pieced together with tape. "What's this for?"

"To kill them," Simon says, in a tone implying he thinks it was obvious.

Jake laughs. "Is this a wind up? First off, I'm not the sort of man whose services can be procured by some bloke off the street, let alone for a pathetic fifty quid." He picks it up. "Is that Scotch tape? Bloody 'ell, lad!"

Simon looks off in embarrassment.

Jake sets his glass down and comes around the table. He kneels down. Sizes the boy up, and squeezes his shoulder.

"Aw, come on, boy," he says. "Just taking the piss. Listen, I won't kill them lads for you but what I will do is offer you my services. I'm willing to impart my wisdom, three days a week. I'll teach you what it takes to kill a man. Not just here—" He takes Simon's hand. "—but here." He touches Simon's chest. "If you can kill a man in your 'eart, you can kill him with your 'ands, yeah? You'll be my apprentice, like. All you have to do in return is do a bit of cleaning. What do you say?"