His sister was dead. She sat cold under the ground. Days earlier, her
life had been taken. They found her body in an alleyway behind her apartment
with her legs broken and her skull bashed open. He didn’t know who killed her or why. The
umbrella was clasped in a fist above the cemetery, all the others had left, and
he stood alone.
The Death (or
Safe, Cheap, and Revolutionary)
October
12th, 1949
“He’s out with some whore, I know it.
He’s slept around before, I kept my mouth shut until now but I can’t any
longer.” She said in a howl “I’m gonna divorce him, and hang him out to dry,
that’s what he deserves anyway”
“I don’t work for loonies, miss,
unless the pay is worth it” he said, lighting his cigarette “and So I’m
thinking, what’s your offer?”
“I can pay you, I’ll pay you four-hundred
dollars”
Mrs. Evelyn Brooks a 51 year old
housewife who Roeper felt was “entitled to the greatest life imagined, or so
she thinks”
“6 days work you’d be paying me for,
along with my associates, doesn’t that seem like overkill”
“It doesn’t matter, my husband is
elusive and I am rich”
“up front.”
“of course”
“and what if I find out he’s just playing
hearts at the lodge?”
“you won’t, but my money is good and I trust that you are
qualified”
Roeper agreed and escorted the lady
out. He was suspicious. Four-hundred up front for a domestic issue? Generally
that was unheard of, especially for a case that would take him an evening to
solve. All he had to do would be to go to his work address, wait for him to
leave, then follow him until he arrived at his “destination.” A few pictures
and a case file, this would be cut and dry.
October
14th 1949
Pete Vaughn settled himself in one of
the office chairs, he had made the appointment a week ago just after the
funeral. He fiddled with his pocket watch which had once been his fathers. The
time on the clock face said 9:30. He would have missed dinner with his family
if he had one. He moved to the corner of the room where a record player sat. He
looked through the Investigators collection and decided upon an Ink Spots
record from a few years back.
Into each
life, some rain must fall/ but too much has fallen in mine
Roeper came in at 10:12. He was
carrying a folder of papers all dripping wet. His clothes were soaked as well. Pete hadn’t
even noticed the storm outside. The papers were Roeper’s case report. He had a
disheveled look on his face. He moved to his desk not noticing Pete in the
room.
Randall Roeper was a man of six feet,
two inches which was particularly tall for his place in time. He had moved to
New York when he was 25 in 1938, while he was looking for work in the city,
some people in Europe got angry with each other and decided to have a war
again, now this would have been all well and good, but a few of the Europeans
convinced some of the Japanese that it would be a good idea to get Randall
involved. After he went on vacation to Africa, Italy, France, and scenic
Germany, he came back to New York.
“Mr. Roeper” Pete spoke up
“Eeugh!!!” he answered, startled. “Who
are you? The office is closed.”
“Apologies, it wasn’t closed when I
arrived” he stated “we had an appointment for 6 o’clock”
“Did we?” Roeper responded “well if
that’s true then I suppose I owe you an apology, but I am very busy right now
so we must reschedule, is tomorrow alright?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Roeper, this is
an urgent matter” retorted Pete
“Well, unless you ‘just know your husband
is fooling around with some whore’ when in reality he’s with every broad on the
block, I think it can wait” he explained “I mean for Christ’s sake some of
these women were in her book club”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow” Pete
explained “but it can’t wait, if you’ll just hear me for a moment, I think you
will find my offer appealing”
“Ok kid, shoot”
Pete began “A week ago my sister was killed;
I’d like you to find out who did it”
Roeper’s expression shifted from
amusement to intrigue. “Son, I think you should seek out you’re the local
authorities”
“I can’t. Or, I tried. They don’t
think she was killed. See, my sister was not the type of person the police care
much about.” Pete said “She was a prostitute, not someone who raises a lot of
flags when they turn up dead, anyway the police called the death “an
unfortunate accident”
“Prostitute? Kid, I hate to say my
ex-boys in the NYPD are right, but” Roeper paused seeing the defeated look on
Pete’s face, he knew then this was the kid’s last resort. “Do you know who
would want to kill your sister?
“I’m afraid I don’t” Pete said “in all
truth, we were estranged. I hadn’t spoken to her in years, until one week ago,
the night before she died”
“What did she say?”
Pete went on “She said she was scared,
scared that there was a man who was going to take her away from her happiness,
she said she was sorry for abandoning the family after mom died. She said that
she was sorry for everything and that all she needed was a place to hide out”
Pete wiped his nose, as he spoke his voice cracked. “I told her that I was
sorry and that I couldn’t have her stay. I told her to act like an adult and
get her life together.”
“Hey, look, that’s not your fault you
had no idea what would happen” Roeper said, uncomfortably playing with his
necktie
“You don’t understand,” Pete said “I
wasn’t there for her, now is my only chance”
The desperation was boiling inside of
Pete, Roeper could see it now.
“And you think I can figure out who
did this?”
“I know it, I’ve seen your casework and
you have a knack for finding people, I can give you all of the information I
know and I’m willing to pay fifteen hundred, plus expenses”
“I don’t’ think you understand. I
don’t find murderers. I catch cheating husbands, I find little kids who run
away from home.”
“What is so different about this?”
Pete asked “I have placed my confidence in you, all you need to do is give me
an address, a name and I will take care of the rest.”
“Now, before we go doing something you
are gonna regret” Roeper said “you should think twice about this, I don’t
endorse guys going around who think themselves higher than the law”
“I just want justice for my sister”
Pete explained. “one way or the other”
“Alright..” Roeper felt Pete’s rage
burning in his heart, and suddenly it became personal “I’ll do it” Roeper said
“Thank you, I mean that sincerely”
Pete laid a file full of everything he knew on the desk and began to turn and
walk out
“Where’s a kid like you get that kind
of coin in this city anyhow” Roeper inquired
“I work for Delamont I&F. I am a
scientist.”
Delamont Industries and Futuristics
built the bomb. The atom bomb which we know of today was made four years
earlier in a lab just outside of Ithaca, New York. The story behind it was that
they built a model to see how a nuclear meltdown could affect large-scale
populated areas. When time came for testing they had no luck finding a place
big enough, they later found out that the Manhattan Project was blocking them
from testing so that the government would have the first test on a nuclear
weapon. Some of the men working on the “Large-scale Omegaburst Nuclear
Evisceration Radiator” or LONER still believe there were government spies on
the project. No one was sure what happened to the LONER after that, most people
think the government paid Delamont off to just lock it away in storage.
Pete Vaughn worked in a completely
different department however. Being just out of college on a degree in
Pharmaceutical science, Pete worked mostly with experimental drugs designed to
stop the spread of epidemic diseases in third world countries. With few
exceptions.
---
Roeper drove his car to a gas station,
the same one he always went to. It was a Gas-o-fil and it was one of the last
of its kind. K-28 was the new. It ran twice as long and twice as clean. He sat
in his car as the attendant filled the tank. In the passenger seat was his case
file which at this point was nearly empty, save for a slim piece of paper Pete
had scrawled his information on along with all the information he knew about
the event. It seemed when Pete’s sister, Phoebe Vaughn, had called Pete she
left him an address where he could find her, apparently where all the girls
were staying. Roeper figured he could get some information from her fellow
ladies of the night even if he didn’t get to speak with the pimp. 412 B
Eastland Apartments, Bronx.
---
Pete stepped out of the lobby which
housed Roeper’s offices and a law office of one Christopher Gottfried. Pete saw
that the storm outside had subsided and now the humidity from the air had
created a dense fog. Pete began his walk home, occasionally passing by a
drifter or a prostitute, all reminding him of his fatal error. The multicolored
city lights blurred in the fog creating a hazy cloud of smut and depravity. The
city killed his sister, Pete knew this, but worse, he let it happen. This neon
cloud had consumed her. He had to give her justice.
---
Roeper arrived at Eastland Apartments.
The streets were alive with what some people called culture. Roeper spent most
of his formative years in boarding school and the rest in the war. The various women of the night greeted him at the front
gates with promises he knew they couldn’t keep. The room they brought him to
was dark and smelled of sin. The man they brought him to was sitting on an
orange couch with two barely dressed women.
“Listen officer, these ladies are my
renters, I am a simple landlord” he spoke through his teeth
“Relax, I’m not a police officer”
Roeper said “I’m a private detective looking for a murderer”
“This must be about Phoebe, sad thing.
That girl was one of the best..”
“Spare me the details, can you take me
to her room?”
“Sure, man, whatever helps”
They went to the second floor; Roeper
thought things must be moving too smoothly. He thought for sure he would have
to break in to see the apartment.
---
Pete walked halfway home, he began to
be persuaded by the fog. He turned and went into a cheap place called
Yeardley’s. tonight it was empty. He sat down and ordered a beer.
---
Roeper stood and watched the pimp open
the door to the apartment. He turned to
Roeper and said in a whisper “You gotta find the guy”
“What guy?”
“The guy who killed her, he had been
coming to see her for a few weeks, then they get into a big fight, I tried to
break it up but he was gone” he went on “She was dead the next day”
Roeper could
only think about how his mother once said there was no honor amongst thieves.
---
Pete sat in a deserted bar, listening
to the radio, all the radio ever talked about was space anymore, space and K-28.
The bells attached to the door rang and a man in a brown leather jacket came in
and ordered a club soda. He was a foot taller than Pete, he had a buzzed
haircut and stained hands.
“It’s eleven o’clock and you are at a
bar, I gotta ask what’s up with the drink” Pete said half-drunkenly
“I don’t drink” the man in the brown
jacket stated
“Then what brings you here friend?”
“It seemed fitting, to grieve at a
bar”
---
Roeper looked through the room, trying
to step over as much of the filth as he could. Mostly trash. Unsavory things,
but nothing he wasn’t suspecting. He
looked down into the alley where she died, four stories down, as he walked to
the window he lost he tripped on a telephone cord and nearly fell out the
window, he caught himself on the curtains. He cursed the phone cord. The
telephone sat on the bed and the phone book was open to The “Va” page. Roeper
remembered that she called her brother the night before she died. Roeper picked
up the phone book and saw there was a dog-ear on another page. The page was
“Gr” he went for his notepad when he saw something on the bed.
---
“Where do you work?” Pete asked the
stranger
“Auto shop on 3rd street”
he responded
“So you must not be too fond of this
discovery”
“You mean the K-28? Ah I guess I
wouldn’t be fond of it if my little brother wasn’t one of the guys going to get
it”
“Your brother is a part of the
Voltaire 6?”
“Yes he is” The man looked distantly
at his glass “I just hope everything goes well.”
“Pete Vaughn” he introduced himself
“Frank Gratt” he shook his hand
“You say you’re grieving, may ask
about what?”
“Yes my…my wife just passed away” the
stranger said
“I’m sorry to hear that, but you’re
not alone. My sister just passed away.”
“That’s a real tragedy”
“Yes it is, she was killed actually, I
could have helped her too, she begged for help and I ignored her”
“You can’t think that way, I tried so
hard to save her life, all she did was resist me”
“What happened to her?” Pete asked
“Drugs. Weird drugs.” The man said
---
Underneath the phone book was a bottle
of pills, half gone and spilled on the bed. He looked at the label: Lucidite.
He had heard the name before, he wrote a few words in his note book. He walked
by the window again being careful of the phone cord, the window was open. He
looked down into the alley he could see where she died. We went downstairs to
look at the alley.All the blood had been cleaned off the pavement he saw a
dumpster that had an unusual dent on the outer edge. Roeper looked at the
dumpster and saw a red stain on top of the lid. Blood. On top of the dumpster,
he looked up and saw the open window of 412 directly above. He drove home.
Roeper sat at the end of his bed,
thumbing through a Time magazine. The main article celebrated the ten year
anniversary of the discovery of a planet outside of the known Solar System
called Galos. Roeper was not concerned with planets. He found the article.
Titled “The End of a Bad Night’s Sleep” the article went in detail about the
drug. The drugs main purpose was a sleep aid, but it worked by giving the
sleeper the ability to control their dreams, to give the dreamer a task, convincing
the brain it needed more sleep.
---
“What do you mean by that?” Pete asked
the man
“The drugs, they were for sleeping,
but she developed a condition, she didn’t know when she was awake”
Pete’s eyes widened, he was sober now.
“She jumped from a building, 4 stories
up”
“Oh my God,” Pete was aware now of
something “where was this?” Pete asked “If you don’t mind me asking?”
“Bronx, over by Eastland, why? Did you
hear about it”
“No, its just, I should be getting
home”
---
Roeper read the article: “The drug was
developed by a local pharmaceutical company funded by business powerhouse
Delamont I&F, (Industries and Futuristics) with no known side effects as of
now except for occasional sleepwalking. The
lead developer of the drug had this to say: ‘We are seeing new frontiers every
day. This drug is safe, cheap, and revolutionary, of course I recommend it’
Delamont I&F has of course seen an increase in stocks over the past few
weeks.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” Roeper answered putting the
magazine down
“It’s me, Pete” he took a pause “I
just wanted to say thanks for looking into the case but I won’t be needing your
service anymore, I left all the money we agreed to in your maildrop.”
“What happened?”
“I found the guy who killed her” he
said in a tone that almost sounded like he was joking
“Pete, what are you talking about? I
have evidence right here that says it probably wasn’t even homicide”
“Safe, Cheap, Revolutionary” Pete said
Roeper understood “Pete, what’s going
on, don’t do anything stupid, what are you doing?”
“I’m doing what I said I would do." Pete paused "Justice” He hung up the phone.
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