Chapter 8

The cat’s out of the bag now I suppose. Now you know why I was hellbent on rushing to the park to investigate that night at the restaurant. I had stepped off in it this time. This was supposed to be a routine probe into the colony that had stood on its own for so long. Now I was up to my private parts in a mystery involving a serial killer who could make modern art pieces out of human bodies. I'd seen a lot of ugly in my life but I was unsure if I wanted to even contemplate what it would take for a person to have the strength necessary to mangle and contort those bodies. I'd only seen two but now I knew there had been others.

It didn't look real good for Hardcase that the watchmen were so worn down and complacent and jaded that they couldn't find a murderer in a cramped city like Grifter's End. I'd also noted his reaction when I named dropped Nellie. I knew he wasn't being entirely transparent about his knowledge of her. I chalked it up to her being right. When it came down to it was it worse for the denizens to blow money on boobs or illegal weapons?

Personally I'd have preferred neither of those options but as the folks back on Earth were so fond of saying it is what is! Even after I made it back to my apartment and was settled in, my mind was still whizzing around in circles like a merry-go-round.

I sat my hump on the couch, switched on the light strip beneath it for ambiance and tried to unpack all that was stuffed into the luggage rack of my mind.

I hadn't been entirely dishonest with Nellie that first night at her establishment. Life on Earth had not been kind to me especially in the postwar years. The truth is Tom MacGaven as everyone knew him had perished in that war. What remained, what was now sitting in lavish prisoner housing at the rear-end of the Galaxy was a ghost play acting as though he were still a man.

Meeting Warden Delaney had stirred up memories I had tried for so long to erase. I made the mistake of falling in love during my time as an intelligence officer. The nation was in apocalyptic upheaval from North Dakota all the way down to Missouri. I moved my lady love into my little bachelor pad in Kansas, somewhere I thought she'd be safe until things cooled off.

I was so darn good at my job that the Danes and Canadians put a bounty on my head. If I had any sense I would have told my girlfriend to get out of my life and pretend she'd never heard of Thomas MacGaven but instead I was a love blind fool. I stashed her in my house still enjoying the thoughts of our future marriage.

One day I had an occasion to return home for a brief leave. I was unable to contain myself like a hormonal teenage boy staring at a bikini calendar. I was going to elope with her that very day. I knocked on the door but nobody answered. I called her name and silence replied.

Even as my gut churned like a rough sea I called her cell phone and heard it ring from inside. I didn't even bother unlocking my door. I pulled out my glock and kicked the door open with a sound of thunder and splintering wood. Deathly silence followed. I gripped my gun in both hands and made my way inside. Laying in a heap between my living room and the small kitchen was the woman of my dreams.

From around the corner whirled a person in black clothes and a matching ski mask. They lunged forward with a bayonet. I squeezed the trigger on instinct and just as the point of that sinister blade was inches from my face the attacker fell dead at my feet! I tore the ski mask from their face and recognized Antoine Kirkman, a French-Canadian assassin. I unceremoniously kicked the lifeless Canuck out of the way and scooped my love up in my arms. I was far too late. He'd taken her out with a shot between the eyes that left an exit wound in the back of her cranium. To this day I can not eat meat sauce on my pasta.

You know the rest. I spent my post years bouncing from agency to agency. The truth is like I said I was just a ghost play acting being alive. Now in double billing I starred as both a con artist and a detective. I'd have to be the one without casting suspicion on the other and be the other to cover for the one.

At least I had solved the mystery of the gun in my welcome package. The Warden was foolish for that! Suppose I got caught with it? It would blow my cover or lead to a mess of trouble. Still I would be carrying it from now on discreetly.

At last I had unpacked my thoughts. When I finished doing so it was later than I'd have preferred and a troubled sleep overtook me.