The Monocle Man Read online

  Garrison creeps up to Brent’s side, leaning over to inspect his brother. He’s startled to find his brother’s eyes wide open. They’ve glossed over as if the poor boy hasn’t blinked in an eternity. Garrison stares longer. No, Brent doesn’t even blink. How long has he been like this? There are streaks running down Brent’s face. But his eyes remain eerily wide and staring forward. His mouth is partially open, but his lips vibrate with a low hum. It is guttural and throaty; much deeper than a boy his age should be able to conjure. Garrison is freezing now, standing there in front of the open window. He steps forwards and pulls the pane shut, shivering as the frame slides home. When he turns back to his little brother, the child’s eyes are just as wide. Garrison looks his brother up and down, noticing the darkened area beneath Brent’s feet. That, and the front of the boy’s pajamas are wet.

  “Brent?” Garrison questions, reaching a hand out and tugging at his brother’s arm. “Brent buddy, can you hear me?”

  But the droning continues. The mantra ensues. Garrison runs a hand through his hair, not sure of his next move. Does he shake the boy awake? Does he question harder? Should he go get his parents? What action might bring his little brother from this trance gently without causing too much of a stir?

  His parents. It’s the only logical thing to do. He’ll slide out of the room and go wake his dad. Either him or his mother will know what to do.

  “I’ll be right back B. You just wait here,” he whispers and walks past his little brother to the bedroom door. As he reaches the threshold-

  “Garrison?” Garrison freezes in place at the call of his name, in that same deep, mature tone the boy used earlier outside. He turns his head, but his little brother is still standing at the window, unmoving, hands at his side. “Gary. I’m out there you know. I’m somewhere out there.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  SATIN CITY WHARF

  SATIN CITY WHARF

  Reynolds can’t shake the burden of his work. His time with Satin City PD is relatively recent, still new in some ways. But in others, the time seems an eternity. The curse of being driven; clawing one’s way through the ranks with nary a moment’s rest. So yes, often, it feels as if he’s been at this job forever. Though he’s still got a way to go; plenty to learn. There’s not a soul in the precinct that will let him forget either. He’s gone from being one kind of rookie, to the next. The bolder of the bunch tug at his ear every now and again, pretending to reveal the wetness still marking him. It doesn’t matter the amount of thugs he’s brought down, or cases he helped crack wide open. His intuition, like no other is praised, while his inexperience is often highlighted, regardless of results.

  They mock him as well. Most, behind his back. But he catches them snickering often enough. His sense of right and wrong; the need to uphold a standard of morality make most of his peers uneasy. He loathes the idea that some rules are meant to be broken, or at least, bent. Justice? Justice is a word derived to supply some kind of suitable outcome to placate victims, and more often, the judicial system. A means to an end but rarely a reasonable finality. Still, it’s within this shared belief he and his fellow officers took an oath. To serve, and to protect. But this is not what drives Reynolds. He cares little for justice itself. What he cares about, even if he is singular in this train of thought, is right and wrong. And unlike most of his fellow officers, he has a hard time coming to terms with the gray areas that lie between. As it is often in those areas that the ideology of justice is implied.

  He can’t fault the others though. They’re good men, just doing their jobs. Each trying to make a living, support their families, stay alive and keep a level head while they cull the insanity the streets disembogue.

  Detective Jon Reynolds. The sound of it still makes him scratch his head. He wonders how long it’ll take to settle in and get used to. Probably a lot less time than it will take for him to get a grip on this new case he and his partner, one Johnathon Dori, have been working the last few months.

  Johnathon is, well, different. There is something about the man that rubs Reynolds the wrong way. Always has, for the few years he’s known the man. He doesn’t trust Dori entirely, though he struggles to provide a reason why. It is customary for a newer detective to be partnered with one having a veteran status for their first few years. And as the roll of the dice would have it, Dori was the only semi-senior detective without a current partner. Hence, the conjunction.

  The weeks bleed into one another. Every lead falters, sending them down the wrong paths, perpetuating more questions than answers. Reynolds always maintained that, if you weren’t getting the answers you wanted, you probably weren’t asking the right questions. But this line of thinking doesn’t hold much water for him at the moment. Every fiber in his body suggested they were in fact, asking all the right questions. Only, most of the answers eluded them. And one question loomed over the rest. Why did it seem Detective Dori was unbothered by it all? The crimes? The brutality of it? The riddles left in the wind? He thought back a few nights, when they stumbled not only on more bodies, but the unknown assailant as well.

  The call came in like most do, someone having seen something out of the ordinary. Although the ordinary this time around was that of a large, male, well over six feet, closing in on seven. A hulking thing, void of hair on his head and covered in scars. The newspapers were already tossing around the phrase, “modern day Frankenstein”. But then, the papers were always quick with things like that. What they lacked in fact-based information, they made up for with imagination and ingenuity. They had papers to sell, stations which needed viewers. But thus far, if it were to be believed, this “Frankenstein” was the man the police were searching for.

  And so the call came in. Detectives Dori and Reynolds jumped in their police-issued Crown Vic, Dori at the wheel. Negating the red bulb and siren they tore through to the other side of town. Few words were exchanged on the ride. Reynolds, caught up in his thoughts, mind racing through the details already attained kept his eyes forward, focused. Plus, he had little to say to the man next to him in the driver’s seat. As of late, every conversation the two had sparked some form of debate. Reynolds often got the sense Dori was baiting him. This night was one he could do without the arguments.

  At night, the wharf took on an eerie silence. The moon, nearly full, caught the bobbing waves in a rhythmic dance of light and sound as they crashed against and under the pier. Reynolds noticed first, as he stepped from the passenger side of the Vic, the birds gathering above. Circling. Testing invisible boundaries of sound and smell, waiting for the opportune moment of calm, before they picked away at what lie somewhere below. Reynolds thought to himself, ‘out west they’ve got ravens and crows, buzzards of variety. Here, we’ve got gulls. Nothing but too many damn gulls’. But as much as it agitated him, he knew they were a sure sign that both he and Dori were indeed too late. They wouldn’t find the next victim alive. Not with that many gulls circling.

  Detective Dori picked up on the gulls as well. He unholstered his sidearm, moving toward the feathered congregation, which whirled above an old beat up warehouse. Dori hitched his head in the warehouse’s direction. Reynolds nodded, pulling his own sidearm from its holster. Taking in a deep breath - Reynolds always loved this scent, that of salt water and open ocean air - he followed at John Dori’s heels, keeping his eyes peeled this way and that, for anything out of the ordinary.

  A vast collection of crates sat in front of the warehouse. They varied in size and shape, but most were large. Various names stenciled on the outside of each claimed ownership, though most, difficult to read in the shadows cast by the moonlight. Long, thick fishing nets drape over a handful of them. Reynolds couldn’t help think, for just a moment, how cliche the setting was. As if right out of a movie or some book he would have read as a child. A few gulls perched atop the crates and eyed the two men as they knelt behind them to survey the doors of the warehouse. The only sounds, the splashing surf and the gulls above. All was quiet, with no light coming fro
m within.

  Dori fished his small Led flashlight from his pocket, and motioned to Reynolds to come closer. Reynolds, hunched over covered the few feet between the two.

  “I’m going around back,” Dori whispered.

  “What about backup?” Reynolds questioned.

  “Well, we have nothing that might suggest we need backup, now do we rook?”

  “No,” Reynolds bit through gritted teeth. “No, I guess not.” He might be a rook, but he wasn’t stupid. As eager as he was to make a name for himself, he wasn’t the John Wayne type either. Dori, on the other hand, was a completely different story. He faced uncertain death as if he had nothing to lose, as if death itself, could not court a man like him. Reynolds wondered why he even asked about backup. He should have known by now Dori’s response. No, Dori would wait till the last possible minute. He wouldn’t want anyone else cutting in on the glory. That, and the hunt. Dori seemed to get off on the chase. Win or lose, catch the bad guy or let him slip away, John Dori was always satisfied plenty, just by having been in the hunt in the first place. Another place where the two men differed. Unlike Dori, Jon Reynolds only sensed that wave of completion once the culprit was in handcuffs and stuffed into the back of a squad car.

  “No, of course not. Not until we get closer to this thing. I don’t want to chance a hundred squad cars tearing in here, sirens blazing, lights flaring, causing all kinds of confusion and plenty of warning for our mysterious friend to slip away once again.”

  “Gotcha,” Reynolds confirmed, trying to sound game.

  “Now, I’ll head around back. Give me four or five minutes to get settled before you start in through the front. If we’re lucky, maybe we can trap this prick between the two of us.”

  “Ok.”

  Dori stood, but remaining hunched as he traversed the crates and disappeared around the side of the warehouse. Reynolds snuck a glance at his watch. The wait began.

  He fished out his own flashlight and set it atop the crate he crouched behind. Checked his firearm. Loaded, ready to go. Hefted it in his hand as he looked around the wharf. The warehouse looked an ancient construct of old, thick timber. A new coat of paint slapped on the facade did little to hide the fact the structure’s outside walls were splintering and coming apart. He looked up at the sign over the large double doors that took up a good portion of the building’s front. Read it to himself, and then glanced up to the several tall, narrow windows above the sign.

  The panes reflected the moonlight above. A shadow moved across his field of vision.

  Ducking down further behind the crate, Reynolds peered upward. Yes, the something, or, someone was standing there, unmoving. The figure took up the majority of the window, but appeared to be lurking several feet away from it, silhouetted in shadow. As Reynolds craned his neck for a better look, the figure stepped closer to the pane. The moonlight illuminated the figure.

  The massive hulk was unmistakable!

  What a figure it cut in the moon’s glow. The thing was huge, shoulders like mountains, beneath some rag-tag coat, and nearly as wide as the set of windows itself. The face was a patchwork of sorts, best as he could describe it. Scars switched back and forth across its contours, jagged, bulging in areas. Not the work of a skilled surgeon. And discolored. Each patch its own hue. Reynolds wondered a moment, what they’d gotten themselves into. He’s not sure that either of them were packing enough heat to bring something like this down.

  ‘Something?’

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘You’re letting your mind, and the images painted so well by the media get control of rational thought.’

  ‘So, knock it off!’

  But the eyes. The eyes were something else.

  Yellow, nearly jaundiced, but glowing somehow.

  As if irradiated.

  Electric.

  They incandesced, cutting through the night. They stared directly at Reynolds. Their eyes locked. And Reynolds stepped out from behind the crate, looking up. He wasn’t in a trance, no, but still taken with the thing’s eyes. The look, which should be menacing and violent, was rather docile, almost saddened. The look was pleading. All at once, Reynolds wondered if they’d gotten this whole thing backwards. If their facts were askew. He struggled to find any trace of murder on this man’s face. And Reynolds was good at picking up on such things. No, not good… great. His instincts had never let him astray. That gut feeling always tried and true and on point. And something in his gut now, told him this man, this thing up in the window, was about as violent as a stuffed animal.

  “Shit!” He spoke aloud, looking down at his watch. The hands ticked a few seconds past five minutes already. Gazing back up, he found the window empty.

  ‘What to do?’

  He wasn’t sure there was a clear answer to the question. His instinct told him that Dori and he were well off track. But what if they weren’t? What if there was more to this than even the two of them knew? This thing had been sighted at all the murders. And he’s here now. If anything, there had to be at least some kind of connection. But that connection eluded Reynolds at the moment. And for Christ’s sake, he had a job to do now. He may not like the man, his partner, but he couldn’t just let him walk into this warehouse alone.

  Shuffling past the crates, Reynolds jogged to the front of the building. Beside the two, large sliding doors in the front, enormous enough to drag a boat and sail through, there was a smaller, average looking door. The paint on the wood in contrast to the fresher sides of the building, cracking and crumbling, a few specs lying at the foot of the door. The window panes, small and framed, were blackened out.

  Or dirty.

  Either way, Reynolds couldn’t see inside. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. There was little sound coming from within. Nothing distinguishable. Turning the handle, he pushed the door, expecting it to screech on old hinges. But it opened with ease, well used and oiled. Reynolds stepped inside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ENGLAND, 1919

  ENGLAND, 1919

  Jakob was running late. This wasn’t unusual for the man, though today, he’d made an appointment he needed to keep. If things proved fruitful, he might make an alliance which could benefit his pursuit in the matters at hand. He only hoped the man, who had been gracious enough to set up the appointment, would be forgiving regarding his tardiness.

  It had been hell getting out of that house. Not just because of the nature of things, but his soul itself seemed to be somehow sewn into the fabric of that very foundation. A foundation which continued to decay and crumble. The closer he got to finding the answers he so desperately sought, the more his soul longed for some reprieve.

  He could still hear the screams of his little sister as he left. Shrill and piercing. They bounced off the walls; echoed through the hallways and down the staircase of his home. A scream primal. The poor girl might not make it another week at this rate. But he would give his own soul, his every fiber, if he could somehow save her. She was only eleven years old for God’s sake. Just a child.

  As he turned the corner and hastened his steps, he saw the man sitting there outside the little shop they’d chosen for this meeting. The man was wide in the shoulders, and from this distance appeared thick at the waist as well. He had a brooding look, with a stern countenance. With thick eyebrows over dark eyes and a pair of ears that looked almost as if they came to a point at their tips. His head was bald and he sat upright in his chair, sipping from a cup he lifted from a saucer where some of his tea had spilled, a small pool darkening the ivory.

  “My apologies,” Jakob placated as he approached. Nodding his head in regret, he stretched out a hand to the man at the table.

  “Time is fleeting young man. Regardless of how well we keep it.” Coming up from his chair ever so slightly, he took Jakob’s hand in his and gave it a good solid pump. His voice was deep and strong, sturdy. Plain, but well spoken and eloquent. A man of commonality and literature. “It is a beautiful day, and I cannot fault you, when wha
t you’ve done is propelled me from my normal introverted investigations out unto this fresh air and warm sunshine. Though I’d venture to speculate, the matters of which you’ve requested my companionship are far receded from such pleasurable things.”

  “Yes,” Jakob conceded. “Very much so. And I cannot thank you enough for seeing me Mr. Crowley.”

  “Please… sit.”

  Jakob pulled out the chair with a childish nervousness, born both of uncertainty and revere for the man seated across from him. Crowley looked upon him as a child as well. Jakob’s features were young, taut; a high forehead, narrow face, with thick, shimmering black hair and thin eyebrows to match over pools of hazel. He walked the line of masculinity and the fairer sex. Attractive for certain, with the right amount of timidness and insecurity to seem vulnerable enough. Jakob’s eyes darted around as he sat. He set his top hat down on the table, and removed his monocle for a moment, breathing onto the glass, wiping the fog with a handkerchief from his breast pocket. He refolded the small piece of fabric, returning it to his pocket, followed by the monocle, and took a deep breath.

  “You look a man of great burden?” Crowley surmised. “But before we begin your tale, would you like some tea? Coffee perhaps? Or something stronger?”

  “Tea would be fine, thank you.”

  Crowley gave a little whistle, one that seemed at the same time, commanding, if not a little rude. But from the front door of the pub a smallish waitress, her hair pulled up behind her head, came scurrying. She brushed the one lock that had fallen in front of her eyes. In turn, she gave each man a courteous smile and nod.