“Sam Spade,” Ray called out, shuffling the papers on his desk. “Have you seen my article on the broken-down car lying around?”
“What?” James called back from the living room, his notes strewn across the table.
“The article I wrote about the car that broke down last week.”
“No, what did you say about Sam Spade?”
“You asked who was in The Maltese Falcon. Sam Spade.”
“Then who was it in The Big Sleep?”
“Philip Marlowe.”
“Damn it! They look exactly the same; how the hell am I going to remember this?” James yelled, slamming his notebook down on the table.
“They look the same because they were both played by Humphrey Bogart,” Ray said, still frantically searching. “And if you had read the books instead of just watching the movies you might actually know that. Spade is Hammett, Marlowe is Chandler.” James got up and walked over to the bedroom door and stood next to Ray’s desk.
“Fuck, man. If you know everything, why can’t you help me with this shit?”
“’Cause I have my own problems to deal with, most of which stem from the fact that I can’t find this article.” Ray glanced at his watch. “Damn it, I have to go.”
“Are you going to meet Jennifer?” James said, slumping down on Ray’s bed.
“No, man. We broke up last week,” Ray said, sounding frustrated.
“Ooh, sorry man. I forgot. How are you doing with that?”
“I’m trying to get by. I really have to run. I have a meeting with my professor in three minutes and he’s ten minutes away. If you find my article, let me know, okay?”
“Can and will.”
Ray quickly exited his apartment, the glass door slamming shut behind him. He always anticipated the day that it would smash into glass splinters.
The sky hung low above the city, the sounds of buses and subways muffled by thick fog and coming rain as he hurriedly made his way down the street. He weaved his way between people, his arms swaying at his sides and the strong winds blowing back his black hair.
“Can’t even be early on your own time, can you Ray?” Professor Talbot said as Ray appeared in the doorway eight minutes late for the meeting. “I mean, it is one thing to always show up late on my time, but when it’s your schedule that we are working around, I assumed you might actually make it.” He hadn’t raised his head from his computer monitor since Ray had walked in.
“I’m sorry Professor Talbot; I was trying to find an article I wrote so we could go over it. I didn’t mean to be late.” His professor’s eyes finally met his.
“What kind of story did you get for me this time?” Professor Talbot said coldly, leaning back in his desk chair.
“A car broke down on my street. I covered the whole thing. I got interviews with people who heard the engine sputtering, interviews with the driver, and even got some stuff from the tow-truck driver. It’s pretty solid.” Professor Talbot removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I know that you are perpetually late, so I am going to assume that you were late on the first day of class when I went over this.” He put his glasses on the desk and his eyes came up to meet Ray’s again. Ray almost preferred when Professor Talbot wasn’t looking at him. “This class is set up so that you go out to find stories that will give you real-life experience in the world of journalism. Stories that mean something! I don’t want a broken-down car. I want you to cover a contentious meeting at City Hall! I want you to go to the court house and find a case with a smart defendant and a dumb lawyer. I want you to go to the police station and find the craziest person they have hauled in! You are too good a writer to get sidelined with car mishaps, Ray; I want you to stop being lazy and find a real story.”
“I try to! I really do! I go out almost every night, blowing off work for my other classes, just to get a story for you every day!” It was now Ray’s turn to be frustrated. “I really do try. I just don’t have the luck to walk in to a bank while it’s getting robbed!”
“Well, you either make your own luck or you work harder. It’s all on you, Ray. I can’t find these stories for you. You have to find them yourself. We are almost at the end of the semester here. You’re short on stories I don’t want to have you take this class again.” A knot was in Ray’s stomach. “If you want to pass this class, your next story needs to be a big one.”
Ray walked out of Professor Talbot’s office, his mind spinning like a boxer after a ten-round match. He went outside and sat on the front steps, burying his head in his lap.
****
It was getting late and everyone had gone inside. Ray walked the streets alone, firmly clutching the tape recorder in his pocket, prepared to press record at a moment’s notice. His open over-shirt blew in the wind as he casually looked from one side of the street to the other, taking a drag on his cigarette. He had been out on the streets for the past five hours, searching for a story into the early morning and he had found nothing. Leaving the downtown area, he found himself in a small residential neighborhood where the lights were out in all the houses except one across the street, the Phi Delta Gamma house, which was holding a party that the house could hardly contain.
Ray threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped on it, small embers skidding out in front of his shoe. One more cigarette, he had said to himself, and then I am done for the night. With the last cigarette now out, and an empty pack resting in a garbage can ten blocks back, Ray turned to go back to his apartment.
The door of the Phi Delta Gamma house opened and a boy and a girl came spewing out as if vomited by an inebriated front door. As the two stumbled down the stairs, the boy gave the girl a kiss on the forehead.
Two bodies, camouflaged by the darkness and dressed in black, flew out of the bushes out front and quickly descended upon the two party-goers. Before Ray had a chance to look away, he became a witness. The two figures brandished aluminum bats that reflected in the street lamps. Quicker than one was brought up, it was swung down across the jaw of the boy, knocking him to the ground like a crumpled rag doll. The other bat then came down, smashing the boy’s knee cap, spraying blood on the lawn like a broken sprinkler. The boy’s leg twitched and the girl looked on in horror. Before she could react the bats were raised again, this time striking in unison, one a sweep at her ankles, the other a blow to the side of her head. Her face glowed red in the moonlight as she squirmed on the front lawn, her broken jaw jutting at an angle. A bat came down on her rib cage and a snap echoed down the street. Another met her lips, shards of ivory scattering across the sidewalk and into the gutter. She did not twitch. Ray crouched in the shadows across the street, his arms holding him up as he scurried away from the scene and backed into the shadow of an oak tree. The two assailants took off down the street and seconds later a car could be heard speeding away, tires skidding as they turned the corner. Ray vomited on the lawn, but he could not look away from the scene of carnage that lay not twenty feet from him.
The paramedics came by after a girl coming out of the house had discovered the bodies on the front lawn. Ray, still petrified, remained hidden as an ambulance pulled up to the side of the road, blocking his view of the bodies. Ray heard the EMS say that boy was in critical condition and the girl had died. Ray hastily got to his feet and sprinted away between the houses, making sure not to be seen.
****
Ray hadn’t slept. After arriving at his apartment he had lain on his bed and stared at the clock hoping that as the numbers flashed they would tell his brain how late it was, allowing it to finally shut down. He could not shut down; he couldn’t even blink. All he could see was the girl’s face.
As the sun rose and peered into his window, Ray gave up, got out of bed and walked outside. The sky still hung low but it had not yet started raining. As Ray sat on the stoop, hoping that the cool autumn air would blow the memories of the previous night out of his mind, something caught his eye. His next door neighbor’s newspaper was idly sitting on the sidewalk. Slowly, his body exhausted, Ray grabbed the newspaper and began searching for anything about the events that had occurred the night before. On page five he found the blurb. The event had occurred too late at night for the paper to write a full story.
College Football Captain Found Beaten Outside Party.
With a feeling of inner confusion he could not identify, Ray read on. The boy who was beaten was the star running back for his school. Because he was struck in the legs the police came to the conclusion that this was an attack by the school’s rivals. A week before, on a nationally broadcasted game, the boy had spoken some harsh words about the other team during an interview. The police had judged this crime as school sprit taken too far, with the girl being unfortunate collateral damage.
“This isn’t right,” Ray remarked to himself shaking his head. He had always hated the term collateral damage, but that was not what was wrong. He replayed the events in his mind. The boy was attacked first. He was hit in the head to put him down on the ground and was crippled with a blow to his knee. Police said that the attackers wanted to stop him from ever playing again. Ray knew better. The attackers didn’t want him recovering from the first blow and chasing after them. The girl was attacked second. If the attackers were going after the boy, they would have either attacked the girl first to get her out of the way or not bothered with her at all. The girl took four blows, while the boy took only two. There were no witnesses except for Ray, so nobody could have known who was attacked first. The target of this crime was not the captain of the football team. These assailants were there for the girl. “This is my story,” Ray whispered.
****
The next few days passed rapidly. Research uncovered the girl’s name: Sarah Becker, a junior who had grown up in the area. Interviews with friends gave her a personality. She was a junior studying in pre-law. She had a very close relationship with her mother. She never seemed to have a steady boyfriend. She was an angel. The search for answers was becoming frustrating. It wasn’t until his last interview, with a girl named Rebecca Thurman, that he got some helpful information.
“What did you say?” Ray asked, his pen stopping on the pad.
“She took last year off,” said Rebecca. “Sarah wasn’t exactly rich. The school wasn’t giving her much in the way of aid and she was paying her way through college. She didn’t have enough money last year so she took the year off to get a job.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just amazed nobody else told me about this,” Ray said.
“Actually, I’m not. Even though she lives close by we never really got to see her. We assumed that she got a job but none of us every really ran into her and she never seemed to pick up our calls. We were all really bummed about it at the time but when she came back at the start of this year I guess we forgot about it.”
“Do you know where she lived?”
“I assume that she was living with her mom.”
“Where is that?”
“Down on Baker. Number twenty-five. Her mom will probably talk to you. She was always so nice to us and I’m sure she’s taking this pretty hard. Sarah’s dad left awhile back, so she would probably appreciate someone to talk to.”
Ray, the story now expanding in his mind, began to sprint down to Baker Street.
He knocked on the door and a woman in her sixties with auburn curls answered.
“Yes?” she said.
“Hi. My name is Ray. I don’t know if she ever mentioned me, but I was a friend of Sarah’s from freshman year and I was wondering if I could talk to you.” He lied so easily it almost unnerved him. He hadn’t done that for the other interviews. Ms. Becker nodded and opened the door to let him in.
The house was dark, with the window shades pulled down and all of the lamps switched off. He peered into the kitchen to see a sink full of dirty dishes. Ms. Becker motioned for Ray to sit on the sofa.
“First off, I just wanted to say that I am deeply sorry for your loss. Sarah was a beautiful girl. She was really something.”
“She was the greatest daughter a mother could have. I would listen to my friends talk about how their daughters would scream and yell at them, but not Sarah. Sarah and I were always close up until…” Her voice trailed and tears began to swell in her eyes.
"I heard that she had taken a year off.”
“Yeah. Sarah never wanted to burden me with paying for school so she took last year off to make some money.” Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. “She never told me where she was working, but with only a few months left in the spring semester she already had enough to make it through senior year.”
“So she was staying here?”
“No, she was staying with a friend who got her the job.”
“Do you have the address where she was staying?” Ms. Becker nodded her head and stood up to go into the next room. A swell of guilt rose in his throat. As she came back, he could see that she was holding two pieces of paper.
“This is the address, 2517 Post Avenue. And I want you to have this.” The other paper was a photograph of Sarah. She held the two out on her palms, presenting them to Ray. “I have been giving her picture to people who have come by to pay their respects. I think that it is important for her face to never totally leave the thoughts of those she cared about and those who cared about her.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more.” Ray stood up and took the photo and the address. “I am truly sorry for your loss Ms. Becker.” Ms. Becker nodded and sat back down.
****
Ray got home and took out his wallet to look at the picture that Ms. Becker had given him. The bottom corners had bent and the way it was sitting in the wallet gave it a backward-arching curve. Using his thumb and index finger he gently removed the picture from the small pocket, careful not to bend it further. He tried to flatten it out with his thumb. Her mother had handed him this photo with such care, bringing it out to him on her palms like a sacred object. Ray already felt bad that he had not treated it better. He lay down on his bed, the picture in both hands, and angled to block the glare of the ceiling lamp.
It was a standard yearbook photo from high school, with a blue background. Sarah had done her very best to look beautiful that day. She wore a soft burgundy sweater that hugged her shoulders gently and was neatly clasped in the front, allowing the white blouse underneath to show only at her neckline. He couldn’t see her hands, but he looked beyond the picture to see her fingers interlaced and placed in her lap, her fingernails beautifully painted with a deep red, matching the sweater. Her flowing auburn hair, the same color as her mother’s, graced her shoulders and framed the garnet necklace she was wearing. She smiled with an open mouth, proud to show off her perfect teeth. The camera man probably told her to tone down the smile to avoid the glare, Ray thought to himself smirking. Her crimson lipstick framed her smile perfectly. The smile dropped from his face when he realized that this was the outfit she had worn the night of her murder.
****
Ray started by knocking softly, careful not to alarm the people inside. He had always been told that this was an area of the city he should never enter, and certainly not alone. Hammering on the door like the police was likely to get you shot or worse. When no answer came, he knocked harder. Looking to his left, he saw a call box, which he found strange for a residence. He reached over and pressed the button. It was only then that he saw the camera above the door.
“What do you want? Fuck off!” a gruff voice barked at him from the box.
“I’m sorry. I was just hoping I could ask some questions about a girl who used to work here or live here... I’m not really sure. Her mom gave me this address.”
“I said, fuck off!” Not to be dissuaded, Ray looked up at the camera and began to walk slowly backwards, the camera following him the entire way. Keeping his eyes on the camera’s movements, he soon found that he was far enough away that he was no longer in the camera’s sights. He leaned against a lamp post farther along the sidewalk, his eyes never leaving the door. He reached into his coat pocket to pull out a cigarette. His questions needed to be answered, and they would be answered by the first person to exit the house.
After hours of waiting, determination keeping him focused, Ray finally saw movement. The door knob twisted and a girl stepped out. Wearing too-small clothes, a long blonde wig and looking nervously both ways down the sidewalk, she began to walk away. He quickly tossed his cigarette down and stomped it out. He waited for her to get halfway down the block and then began his pursuit.
After walking four blocks at a safe distance, Ray decided that they were far enough away from the house for him to approach her. He raised his hand and began to run towards the girl.
“Hey! Wait up!” The girl shrieked in terror and straightened up against the brick wall behind her.
“Please, please don’t hurt me.” At closer examination he could see the damage that ran up and down her cheeks, including a fresh cut on the side of her neck and a black eye that had swollen to the point that it looked like it would hurt to blink.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, raising his palms.
“I just came back from seeing Billy. He gave me more time. You don’t have to do this, please.”
“Look, I don’t know who Billy is. I just wanted to ask you about Sar…” Before he could finish, he was down on the ground, grasping his face in pain and screaming. The burning of the pepper spray prevented him from being able to open his eyes, but he could hear the girl’s footsteps as she ran away. He righted himself against the wall and closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the burning to stop. He took out his wallet, and although he couldn’t look at it, he cupped Sarah’s picture in his palm.
****
He was done with the run-around. The burning had stopped and after a wasted day recovering in his apartment, Ray was back at 2517 Post. He pressed the button until he thought it would break.
“What the fuck do you want?” It was the same gruff voice.
“I’m here to talk to Billy,” Ray said, with anger in his voice.
“What fucking business do you have with Billy?”
“We go way back. What do you fucking think I want? I just want to talk to him”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
“Look, my name is Ray Cain. I am a journalist over at the college and I just want to ask him some questions about Sarah Becker.” The call box stayed silent. “Is anyone there? I just have a few questions and I’m gone. Poof. You never see me again. I don’t care what is going on in there. I just want to ask some questions.” The silence remained. After a few minutes, in anger, Ray pressed the button again. “FUCK YOU!” He picked up a rock from the side of the house and smashed against the call box and tossed it at the camera, knocking it to the ground. He stormed off down the stairs. This house was a dead end, and he had no way to get around it.
****
Ray lay in bed, unable to figure out what to do. He had not gone to class in a week and his voicemail box was filled with messages from friends wondering where he was. James’ schedule had kept him stuck in his room doing work or in class at all hours. Ray didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. None of things mattered nearly as much as Sarah. He went back to the house everyday, but with the callbox and camera gone, had no communication with the people inside.
A fumbling sound by the door got his attention and brought him out of bed. Coughing into his hand, Ray looked down and smiled. By his feet was an envelope with RAY CAIN written in bold letters.
12:00 PM ELEVATOR AT 1515 WASHINGON
He quickly opened the door but heard only the slam of the glass door closing. Ray looked at his watch. They didn’t give him much time. I have be there in five minutes and it’s ten minutes away. Ray grabbed his coat and his tape recorder and headed out, thinking that he would be meeting his Mark Felt in just a few minutes and finally get some answers to what really happened to Sarah. The picture had graduated from his wallet and was now taped to the underside of the recorder.
The building loomed over the street, but cast no shadow. Ray had read about this building in the news, but hadn’t made the connection to the address until was in front of it. Formerly an office building, a fire had rampaged in its upper floors to reveal serious construction flaws that tied back to cheap construction during the Depression. The construction was an effort to put the unemployed back to work, but most who signed up for the job had little or no construction experience. Deemed unsafe, it closed down, displacing over a thousand workers. This was now where Ray had a meeting in its elevator.
Ray made his way into the building through the revolving glass doors. Although the building had been closed for several months, the interior was not in terrible shape. The elevator was against the back of the large lobby. He walked up to it and pressed the button. The doors opened immediately to reveal a giant. Standing about seven feet tall, the man seemed cramped in the small elevator. His face was accented by a goatee and he wore a button-down shirt.
“You’re not here to talk to me, are you?” Ray said. His pen dropped to the floor and rolled away. The color rushed from his face and his heart stopped.
“No,” said the giant gruffly. Things quickly faded to black as the giant held a chemical-soaked rag over Ray’s face.
****
Ray woke up to find himself in a cell. Not a prison cell, but a dark basement with peeling walls and no light. As far as he could tell, the door across the room was the only way in. His attempt to stand was thwarted by ropes that bound his arms and legs. He looked down at his shirt to see blood stains and realized that they had worked him over a bit. His entire body was sore, his neck was stiff and his shoulder was dislocated. Someone was not happy with what he had been doing. The door burst open with a glare of light and two men entered the room. The first to enter was the giant who had drugged him, while the man behind him was considerably smaller. Shorter than Ray, the man was older, his hair already white. He sniffled like someone with a bad cocaine habit, and a bulge under his jacket indicated that he was not a peaceful man. No introductions were necessary. This was Billy.
“The sad part about this, kid, is that you already figured all of this out. You even figured out how it’s going to end, which, I have to admit, takes a little bit of the fun out of it for me.” He didn’t as much talk as hiss, speaking with a streetwise accent. He kneeled down in front of Ray and grabbed his face. “When I first saw you on my doorstep, I could tell you were gonna be a pain in my ass, but I must say, this experience has been rather cathartic. That dislocated shoulder and blood-soaked shirt is me letting out my emotions.” Billy rose to his feet and began shaking his head. “That fucking bitch. That fucking bitch should have known what she was getting into. Fuck that, she did know what she was getting into. She just should have been smart enough to realize that it wouldn’t be that easy to get out. College educated my ass. I didn’t get where I am because I let every two-bit tramp slip through my fingers. If I did that I wouldn’t even be here. That fucking bitch thought she could undermine me.” His words about Sarah burned in Ray’s ears. “If that whore had just stayed and done her job, we wouldn’t be in this fucking situation. That whore came to me for help, and lord knows I didn’t need to help her. She said she was too fucking good for the work she was doing. Stupid bitch was delusional. She fucking came to me.”
“Billy, I know what you did. I know everything that goes on at 2517 Post,” Ray said, a smile creeping across his face. “I met another one of your girls.” He was grasping at straws, but made sure that neither his voice nor his face showed it. “Prostitution’s only legal in Vegas, Billy. And the drugs Billy? Well, you don’t seem like the ‘legalize it’ type. You probably leave that to the hippies.” With a look of rage, Billy leaned over towards Ray and pulled him to his feet. He grabbed him by the shirt collar and choked him against the wall.
“You don’t know shit! Who the fuck do you think you are? Fucking Sam Spade? This isn’t some fucking dime-store novel kid, this is real life! You’re not some fucking detective! You’re a fucking kid! I’ve killed many more than just that tramp you are going after. And there will be more too ’cause they just won’t ever understand.” Billy threw Ray down to the ground. Ray couldn’t muster tears because he didn’t feel sad. He couldn’t tremble because he wasn’t afraid. Emotions had not been created for the type of situation he was in. “You know what she told me before she walked out my door? She said that she was going back to school to get rid of guys like me.”
“But you got rid of her first. I get it,” Ray said. Billy swung his fist hard against Ray’s cheek, leaving an oval imprint with his ring.
“Fucking smartass. Know this, kid. You get to be a martyr for that bitch.” Ray’s ear drums cracked as the gun shot echoed around the stone walls and he was stuck to the wall. He had been hit in his dislocated shoulder. Billy walked over to the giant, who knelt down to allow Billy to whisper something in his ear. The voices were indistinct.
As he lay there, blood trickling down his arms and off his fingertips, Ray realized that he had stepped into a world beyond his own and far beyond his reach. He had tried to help the girl, but failed. He had solved the crime; a malicious murder and assault were committed out of fear and desperation by an illegal operator who couldn’t let anything go. Billy knew that Sarah didn’t need to die, but for him it was a satisfying message. As these thoughts went through his mind, Ray closed his eyes, wanting to ignore the dark walls of the basement and the sharp pain in his shoulder. He felt the cool blade press down softly on the left side of his neck and a hand grasp a clump of his hair. As quickly as they came to him, his life and Sarah Becker were released. But not before he was able to press the stop button on the tape recorder.
© Eric Eisenberg, All Rights Reserved