Fallen Angels, Part two - Falling From Grace
#2 of Fallen Angels
Chapter one
Falling From Grace
"Daniel?"
"Speaking."
"Quinn here."
Inspector Quinn?_I reached for the remote and put _Kind of Blue_on pause. Quinn is one of the few people outside of my family who knows about my unusual condition. He's also chief inspector of the Oakfort Police, and possibly just as crazy as I am. Quinn is twice my age, but at forty-six he is more fit than I have ever been. He has red hair and a short cropped red beard. And he loves coffee. Lots of it, and he gladly drives across Oakfort to hunt down the place that brews the best_latte. He has a habit of rating every coffee house he visits on a scale from one to ten. Then he writes down the score on the inside flap of a book of matches. Until now, the only bean-joint he has awarded a full 10 of 10 is Port Salute Caf_é,_down by the docks.
"Can't put my finger on it," Quinn explained. "There's just something special about the place. "
I visited that café on his recommendation, because he once caught me drinking out of a_Starbucks_cup.
"Not worth the asking price," he grumbled and awarded _Starbucks_a modest rating of six, but to be honest, I couldn't tell the difference. The waitress in _Port Salute_was a sweet Romani girl with eyes black like the coffee she served. Her smile made me feel less guilty about spending my cash on premium coffee when I couldn't even afford to pay my rent. None the less I returned the next day for another coffee and home made apple pie. It's like Quinn said; there is something special about that place.
"Are you still hearing voices?" He asked.
"Always."
"What are they saying right now?"
"They're telling me to hang up and put Spotify_back on. My voices and I may have our differences, but we all dig_Davis."
"Listen; are you on meds these days?"
I'd given up on medication since I investigated the murder of a games designer named Kendall Duran [*]. For the past seven years I'd been through every prescription drug in the book to mute the voices in my head. But during the Duran case, I'd come to appreciate them. They see the world in their own unique way, and that helped me crack the case, and I've stayed off meds ever since.
"So, your senses are not dulled in any way?"
"No, for fuck's sake! Will you get to the point?"
"Point is, I need your help."
"The police needs the help of a college dropout, half past midnight on a Thursday night? Sweet Joni Mitchell, you've lowered your standards," I laughed.
"You're more than that," insisted Quinn. "We both know as much."
"Bullshit!" I snapped. "I'm a guitar player with finely tuned senses, that's all."
I know I'm crazy; I've known it since I was seventeen. I hear invisible voices, I see things that are not there. But Quinn is not much better off himself. He's convinced I'm an _other._That's his word forsomeone who is part human and part demon.
While I was investigating the Duran case, two government agents of the MI-16 secret service threatened me and my sister at gunpoint, and I went berserk. Fueled by fear and adrenaline, I tore into the two armed agents with my bare hands and ripped them apart in a display of barbaric brutality and quivering limbs. In my rage and delusion, I believed I was some kind of near indestructible demon from a parallel universe called the abyss.
Paranoid psychosis._That's what my therapist, Dr. Ellen Campbell calls it, and that's what makes me dangerous. But my fit of rage put a gory conclusion to the case and earned me the friendship of the local police force. I haven't heard from the MI-16 since the incident, but I guess you won't find me on their Christmas gift list. The case also earned me the questionable reputation of being a bad-ass, but Quinn remains convinced of my demon side. _He can tell, he insists, believing himself to be a werewolf. So, there you have us: Daniel Kent_and _Amari Quinn, nutcases extraordinaire. Only, inspector Quinn is a nutcase with a job.
"You need my help, huh?"
"I need your sight," said Quinn. "It'll only take thirty minutes out of your night. Forty-five max."
Maybe he was right, or maybe we were both crazy. But the truth is, solving that last case had granted me a substantial reward. I'd been living off it ever since, but by now it was almost depleted and I couldn't find a proper job. Not all employers welcome demon-spawn from hell. Besides, the _Duran_case had been the most excitement I'd had seen in years.
"Great!" said Quinn. "I'll dispatch Sgt. O'Hare to pick you up in fifteen."
"Hey, wait!" I cried. "I never agreed to..."
But he'd already hung up.
Halfway across the city, Sgt. O'Hare pulled the patrol car into a Twenty-Four-Seven_service station. "Be right back," he said and left the vehicle to do some late night groceries, while I lit myself another_Pall Mall.
_What did Quinn need my eyes for?_I wondered. He claims to have the nose and ears of a werewolf. I have the eyes of a human. Now, I don't know the first thing about werewolves, but apparently they have senses that are hundredfold better than mine. O'Hare left the service station with something in his hand that looked like a bottle of booze wrapped up in a brown paper bag. The sergeant is in his thirties. He's a muscular cop of Irish descent, who stands a full head taller than me. He's also Quinn's right hand man, but he has a weak stomach and pukes every time he sees blood. So he shies away from homicide cases. He went around the car and put the booze in the trunk. Then he got in the driver's seat and bummed a cigarette. I didn't mention the bottle, and he didn't bring it up. If spare-time boozing was a hobby of his, it was none of my business.
"Where are we going?" I asked. We were driving north. "The station is in the west end of town."
"We'll meet with Quinn at the hospital of St. Mary's Grace," Replied O'Hare. "There's something he wants you to see." He sucked on his cigarette like his life depended on it.
"Is it that bad?" I asked, knowing how O'Hare chain-smokes whenever he needs to settle his stomach.
O'Hare nodded. "Oh, it's bad alright."
"It's real, real bad."
We pulled into the parking lot of St. Mary's Grace. It's a private hospital with a price tag so hefty, they charge you by the minute. The moment your credit card runs dry, the surgeons wipe their scalpels and call it a day. In a place like that, you need to be connected, or have a fat insurance to have your appendix taken out.
We found Quinn next to a cherry red Plymouth Prowler. He was kneeling by something that looked vaguely like a human body. But in its current condition it looked mostly like a collection of meaty chunks inside a white lab-coat. Everything was smothered in a layer of crimson tar, including the interior of the Prowler.
"He missed the car by inches," Quinn looked up at the tall building in front of us.. "He took the dive from up there; eleven stories."
"Who is he?" I asked.
"Tracy Gill. He was a surgeon at St Mary's Grace, right until he flew out of that window."
"Suicide jumper?"
"That's what you're here to help us decide." Quinn put his nose to the corpse. "Do you smell anything around his mouth?" he asked.
I winced. Wouldn't even know where to look. The corpse was so mutilated from the fall, only a few tufts of hair suggested where the head had once been.
"There's no goddamn way I'm sticking my nose into that."
Quinn sniffed the air. "Can't you sense it - there's no scent of bourbon."
"Why bourbon?" I too sniffed, but soon regretted it, as my nose filled with the stench of exploded entrails and stomach contents.
Quinn frowned. "Doesn't the _other side_grant YOU a heightened sense of smell?"
I didn't want to start an argument at this time of night, so I humored him. "It's mainly visions and sound. You're the nose of this team."
I looked to the moon peeking out from behind a stray cloud.
"Actually, it's not even a full moon."
Quinn sighed. "To a werewolf, a full moon is like a bright summer's day to humans. It's inviting, but we can transform any time." He lost interest in the late Dr. Gill and looked to the moon.
"I always miss how I darted through the woods of Farvale under a pale moon. My pack and I." His voice carried a sensation of longing I had never known my otherwise collected friend to have.
"I was only a cub when my parents taught me how to howl. You never forget that first shift. Those were the days, my friend."
He took a deep breath, and I was sure he would let out a long and mournful howl. Either that, or go Mary Hopkin on me, so I yanked his arm.
"Not HERE!"
"Then come along," said Quinn. "I gotta show you something."
We rode the elevator to the eleventh floor, where Dr. Gill had his office. It's unusual for hospital staff to have their own office, and the sheer size of this one was overwhelming. It was the size of my home apartment, and sported a mahogany desk, two leather couches and a panoramic view over the city skyline.
I whistled. "This is not an office; it's a penthouse."
"I spoke to a nurse," said Quinn. "Gill was a popular man. He'd take in the penniless and the homeless, and treat them for nothing. I guess an office space was somebody's way of showing appreciation."
"For free, huh?" I quietly wished Dr. Gill had been a psychiatrist instead of a surgeon. The sessions with my own therapist was costing me a small fortune every month. The office window was open and a slight breeze sent waves of night air through the thin curtain. I envied Gill the view over the city from here. It must have been one of the most desirable offices in Oakfort. Yet eleven stories below, a team of paramedics were wrapping up his remains. It seemed the patron saint of the destitute had forgotten to flap the white wings of his lab coat.
"Do they scream when they fall?"
"Only in the movies," said Quinn. "The reflex is to inhale and gasp."
I took a quarter dollar from my pocket and let it drop. An eternity later I heard the tingling sound of metal meeting asphalt.
That fall would have been the loneliest last seconds in a man's life.
A half-empty bottle of _Farvale Bourbon_sat on the desk. The screw-cap was off and a tumbler contained a few drops of remaining liquid.
"He drank half a bottle of bourbon before take-off?"
"Someone did," said Quinn. "But it wasn't Gill. When you down half a bottle of bourbon, you can smell it on that person."
"-and you didn't pick up anything. Not even with that werewolf nose of yours?"
"Not a trace," said Quinn. "So if Gill didn't drink it, then who did?"
I shrugged. "The murderer? Had a few drinks before sending the good doctor flying?"
Quinn stared at the bottle like it was a disobedient kid.
"I'm gonna have this baby dusted down for prints."
My friend seemed to have the case under control and I was growing confused about my own involvement.
"So, why did you bring me here?"
Quinn turned his attention away from the bottle and looked at me. He wanted to say something, but wavered as if he feared I would pop a fuse.
"Listen... I'd like to draw on those visions of yours, to see what happened. Maybe somebody gave the good doctor a little nudge while he was admiring the view."
Quinn always refers to my hallucinations as "visions". True, they helped us solve the Duran case, but I have no control over them.
"You know I can't will them to happen," I objected.
"Remember the way you exposed Burris, when he pretended to be a psychiatrist? [*]" hinted Quinn.
"He made a professional screwup; he offered me a drink without knowing alcohol is a powerful trigger for my episodes..." I cut myself off. "Wait a minute, you're not suggesting..."
Quinn grinned broadly and produced a bottle from the bag O'Hare had carried from the Twenty-Four-Seven.
"Farvale Bourbon?"
"Very fitting for the occasion, don't you think?"
I stared at Quinn, speechless. "Are you suggesting I trigger an episode right here?"
"Please, Daniel. If your visions can show what happened before Gill took the dive, we'll know if we're dealing with a suicide or a homicide. Just help me on this one, and I swear I'll drive you home myself."
In hindsight, I should have left. I should have laughed at Quinn's insane idea and hailed a cab from the lobby. But I was strapped for cash and O'Hare had already left the scene on an empty stomach. Besides, I was beginning to find the whole situation a bit exciting. It was also a boost to my wounded ego that someone found me useful for a change, so I accepted the bottle.
"You'll owe me for this one."
"Big time," he agreed.
It had been years since I last had a drink, and the first shot was like gurgling liquid gold.
"Smoooooth!" I rasped.
"Don't rush it," said Quinn. "We've got all night."
"You promised this would only take thirty minutes."
"Would you have come if I said we'd pull an all-nighter?"
"Bastard!"
By the time I had my third drink, I'd almost forgiven Quinn for manipulating me into following his harebrained idea. By the fifth he was my best buddy again. The room was spinning by the seventh, I hungered after a bag of peanuts and the voices in my head were droning on incessantly. If I had paid attention to them, I could probably make sense out of their complaints, but I was too drunk to give a damn. My mind was racing, and my thoughts were as uncontrollable as Mexican jumping beans.
Peanutspeanutspeanuts... peas are not nuts so why call them nuts grow on trees don't they? FOCUS, DAMN YOU! Except peanuts they grow underground you pee on the ground maybe that's why they call them peenuts.
"I...Gotta pee!" I slurred and got off the couch. I staggered towards the door, then the room went dark, dreamlike and contrast-rich.
I was having an attack!
[*] in Havana or Hell