Death from the Shadows - Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREEAbegail walks in the opposite direction that Nyeusi walks, heading towards the corner, where she knows she can flag down a taxi to get back home. A cab approaches, and she signals for it and waits as the cab pulls up to the edge of the sidewalk. She opens the back door, gets in and closes the door."Where ya headed to mon?" asks the cab driver, his voice thick with a Jamaican accent."Huh? Oh, sorry, Watershed building please," Abegail says, as she looks down at the location that the panther had written down. The location is an alleyway that is the dividing line between where humans are allowed to move about, and where the hybrids are... well caged essentially. The area is known to be quite hostile towards humans, so going there is not something she is relishing but if she wants this interview, she has to play by Nyeusi's rules."What'sa pretty lady like yourself doing in this part of the city? This part of the city is no good. It's dangerous, and you stick out like a sore thumb, ya know?" The cab driver glances up at his rearview mirror to look at Abegail, as he pulls away from the curb.While what she is doing here is not the cab driver's business, leaving the entire ride back her apartment silent is not something Abegail thinks she could handle right now. She decides that answering the question wouldn't hurt anything, so after stuffing the paper into her purse she considers her answer. "Oh, I was meeting someone at the bar here or rather I was supposed to. I was told he would be here tonight, but he wasn't. Wasted trip but I had nothing else planned." A lie, yes, but one that under the circumstances is a necessary evil."Oh, that place...the..."Dark Iron Tavern", ya? Ya shouldn't be getting caught up in that place, and not with anyone that goes there. That place needs to be condemned and shut down, ya know?" The cab driver flicks on his windshield wipers as a few drops of rain begin to hit the windshield. "Gonna be a rainy night. S'good though, we need it."Abegail turns her head to watch out the window, watching the city slowly transform from crumbling buildings to buildings that are kept up. It's amazing what a small distance can do to a city, and how quickly things change. "What do you mean it should be condemned and shut down? I really didn't see anything wrong with it and the bartender seemed friendly enough. Wasn't very busy either.""Na mon, wouldn't be busy tonight. Lots of things going on in the city. Think some big museum thing is going on, not sure what though. I doubt that has much to do with it not being busy though, ya know? Too late in the month. Welfare money is already spent, so the regulars to that bar probably can't afford to go there."Welfare money? What would that have to do with how busy that bar is? Abegail did not get the sense that the bar was some low-class joint that only the poor go to. The people there did not exactly look the welfare type, maybe blue collar but not welfare. "Why would you think welfare would have anything to do with how busy that bar is?""There ain't no right-minded person that would go to that place. No, the only people I could think would go there are those that are drinking away the government's money. I have also heard that place lets those...things in, and I can't imagine any of those things having money that wasn't given to them by the government." The driver says this as nonchalantly as one would tell the time to someone. Great, she has to catch a cab with an obvious bigot driver. Just her luck."Things? Do you mean the hybrids?""Of course I mean those things. What else would I mean?" the driver asks, pausing at a red light for a moment before turning right, "I hear that that is the only bar that allows them to come in. Don't know how that bar stays open, as that is outside where those things are supposed to be. Maybe the cops are too busy with other things to notice."Abegail knows that the hybrids have never had the most respect, and she has heard murmurs about them, but she had never met someone so open about their dislike of the hybrids. She wants to delve a bit deeper into this dislike, but she has to be careful not to set off a tirade from this particular driver. After all she does need to get home."Why do you call them 'things'? I mean, they are different from us, yes, but that wasn't their choice. You can't change what you are." Yes, this is a risk, but Abegail is genuinely curious and her voice clearly reflects curiosity, not hostility."They are not human or animal, I think that would qualify them as things. They aren't right, they weren't created by God, but by scientists that were meddling with God's creation. The city dun good by sticking them in the place they are since no one would live there. The city would have done better to have stopped the creation of those things, or killed them all off."The driver is staying calm, so that's a good thing. He seems to have spouted this same thing off previously, probably many times before. Abegail wishes she could be getting this on tape, or jotting down notes, but that would lead to too much suspicion. Instead, she works to commit the speech to memory, in case she wishes to use some of these arguments in her book."I agree the project should have been stopped, as we shouldn't be messing around with humans as they did. Though, I don't know if it would be fair to kill an entire population for something they had no control over." The idea of just wiping an entire population out, for the folly of a group of scientists thirty or forty years ago is just absurd to Abegail."Ah, but you see, they are breeding too. Soon this whole city will be overrun with those things. They will want rights, and we will be forced to cater to those rights. Would be a sad day for this great city." The driver now pulls up to the curb next to the Watershed building and checks the fare, "That will be 12.50 mon."Thank god that ride is over. Abegail opens her purse and then her wallet. She finds only a couple of twenty dollar bills, which means she either has to get change from this bigot or give him a tip. She opts to just eat the money, since dealing with this cabbie anymore will just make her angry. She pulls out a twenty and hands it to the cabbie, "Smallest bill I have. Keep the
difference." She opens the door, and gets out of the cab, not saying another word to the cabbie, despite him thanking her for the tip.The cab pulls away and heads out back out to the street. As he leaves, Abegail shakes her head lightly, "You are espousing the same thing that was talked about, and perpetuated, during the slave movement. Do you not remember history? Sickening bastard."As Abegail heads up the walkway to the Watershed building, one quote comes to mind: "Those that do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it". Seems to be as true today, as it was when it was first spoken.**********Abegail makes her way up the steps to the entrance of the Watershed building, and the doorman opens the door for her. She walks through, not saying a word to the doorman, and heads to the elevators that are located to the right of the entrance. She presses the up button, waits for the elevator to come down and steps into it. She fumbles through her purse for a moment and finally comes out with a keycard. She slides it into the keycard slot marked "For Penthouse Suites", and pushes the button for the 20th floor. After a minute, the elevator stops door opening. Abegail steps out, walks across the hallway, and slides her keycard into the lock for her suite. The lock clicks, and she opens the door stepping into her apartment, then closes the door behind her and engages the secondary lock.Abegail's apartment is about as far as you can get from Nyeusi's apartment. The entire apartment is furnished in a modern style, metal and wood melding together in almost every inch of the apartment. She sets her purse down on
the leather couch that seems almost tiny in comparison to the large living room, pulls a small black book out of it. She tosses the black book on the black metal and glass coffee table, then hangs the purse up on the coat rack next to the door. She then hangs her jacket up on the coat rack and makes her way up a two flight set of stairs into the kitchen.The kitchen that Abegail enters is almost as large as Nyeusi's entire apartment is. She walks over to a small cooler that sits underneath the counter, pulls open the door. After a moment of thought, she picks one of the bottles of wine that occupy the cooler out and sets it up on the marble counter-top. She walks over to where the stove sits and opens a cabinet just above the stove, pulling down a wine glass. She walks back over to the wine bottle, pulls the cork out, fills the glass with wine, then replaces the cork. She returns the wine bottle into the cooler and walks out into the living room. She sits down on the couch, pulls a coaster over from the corner of the coffee table, and sets the glass on top of it."Fifteen-thousand... how do I get that kind of cash? I can't pull it out of my own account as there will be questions what the money is for, and I don't think explaining I want to hire a killer will be a good idea. No, who do I know that routinely takes out large sums of money. Hell, who do I know that does that, that I can even trust?"Abegail picks up the black book off the coffee table and starts paging through it. After a few pages in, she pauses for a moment thinking. She gets up, going over to her purse to grab her cell phone. She sits back down on the couch and taking a drink of the wine, she dials a number on her phone, and hits send. After a few rings, a groggy voice answers. "Hello?""Dave, this is Abegail."The voice on the other end of the phone clears his throat, before speaking. "Abegail, what the hell are you doing calling me? It's not even three o'clock in the morning, and I have a meeting later this morning. I would prefer to not walk into it half asleep.""I know it's early Dave, but I had to call you. I need a favor and you are the only person I can think of that can do this favor for me.""Favor?" the voice says now growing agitated, "Favor...Abegail you call me at three fucking o'clock in the morning to ask me a favor? You couldn't fucking wait until a regular hour to call me?""Dave, calm down. I had to call you now because I can never catch you during the day, and I need this favor by the end of today. Look it's important.""Calm down? I'm as calm as I always am when someone calls me in the middle of the goddamn night to ask me a favor. Fine, what favor do you need? Make it quick, because I would like to get back to bed.""Dave I need you to withdraw fifteen-thousand from your bank and get me that money by the end of this afternoon. I will get you a cashier's check to cover it and have it for you when you bring the cash.""FIFTEEN THOUSAND...Abegail are you fucking insane? You want me to get you fifteen thousand dollars in cash by the end of this afternoon. Fifteen thousand dollars...you...if you have the money why don't you just write a damn check?"Abegail pulls the phone away from her ear and hits the speaker button on the phone, setting the phone down on the coffee table. "Dave, you are starting to scream, I am not hard of hearing. Look, I found Black Death...I tracked him down. I want to talk to him and get him to admit to what he did. He wants fifteen-thousand dollars in cash to speak, and I don't think he's the type that will take a check."On the other end of the phone, Abegail can hear the man shifting, probably sitting up in bed. "Look, I'm sorry I started yelling, but Abegail that's a lot of money, and also I think you are delusional. One of those bottles of wine must have something in it to cloud your head. Even if I buy that you met this...Black Death person, that whole case is done with. What happened was tragic, yes but there is absolutely no evidence that this was anything more than a robbery gone wrong."Abegail shakes her head, even though the man cannot possibly see her shaking her head, "No, I know he did this. Look, this wasn't a robbery gone wrong, this was a planned murder, and I AM SURE that this Black Death did it. You read in the papers that he was suspected, they just lacked evidence. I am going to get evidence.""Abby...there is no evidence this was anything more than a robbery. Look, I know what you went through, but you can't blame everything in the world on conspiracies or someone being out to get you. You are paranoid...""I am NOT paranoid Dave, and don't ever call me Abby, you know I hate that. Look, people had something to gain from this crime, and it was all too convenient when it happened. No, this was a planned hit, and this Black Death had everything to do with the killing. I know it, I can sense it.""You know what, fine, it's your money you can throw it away however you damn well, please. My question is why do you call me? You can go take that money out of your account, just like I can, and I can go back to bed. I have no involvement in this, why should I take a risk for it?""Dave, you withdraw large sums of money out of your account all the time to flip those shitty houses of yours. Your bank won't even bat an eye at you taking fifteen thousand out. My bank would be asking me questions, and I don't think the answer that I am hiring a killer would go over so hot. The cashier's check I can explain away, pulling the cash out I cannot.""You know what Abegail...fine. I will get you the fifteen thousand, but I expect something in return. I expect that cashier's check to include an extra twenty-five percent for me doing this. Do not even attempt to argue me on that, I am not going to do this for anything less than an extra twenty-five percent."Doing the math in her head, Abegail sighs. So to talk to this Black Death it's going to cost her not just fifteen-thousand but an extra thirty-seven hundred and change. Well, she didn't do all the work of hunting that ass of a panther down to stop here. "Fine Dave, you get the extra money. I went through too much work tracking that killer down to argue over thirty-seven hundred and fifty bucks. Look, I will get the cashier's check first thing this morning, and be home the rest of the day. Buzz me when you are coming with
the cash.""You know Abegail, you are insane, but I am going to keep my opinions to myself. You are stubborn so I know my opinions will mean shit to you. I will be by your place by one this afternoon. Now, I am going back to bed." The phone goes dead. Abegail shoves the phone off the side and picks up the glass of wine, raising as if toasting. "Here's to you, you fucking panther. I hope they kill you in the most painful way possible."