Honey By Chris Lee

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Honey

by

Chris Lee

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The kid was missing for twelve days before I caught on to where she was. Hellton Towers, shithole in the middle of nowhere, population: limitless scum. I didn’t enjoy wading through shit but my client had paid me a generous sum to pull my big boy pants up and get my floaties on. Kenneth Graham was a wealthy bastard who probably had his pockets lined with gold just because he thought it would look nice. When he hired me, he must have been bored, he definitely wasn’t desperate.

He didn’t seem to care that his only daughter Rose was kidnapped and being held for ransom, and he barely moved when I described what I found and what kind of place Hellton Towers was. I wanted to check his neck for a pulse. When asked how much the ransom was, he said more than she was worth. 

Dominic Honey is my name, or at least that’s what I see written on the door before I opened the office most mornings. Most women called me Honey anyway so it worked for me. Dom Honey Private Detective. Sign even shone gold at night.

The secretary downstairs worked for the building super, my office being in another rundown shithole in the middle of the city. When she buzzed Mr. Graham up, she gave me a warning. “El Diablo está aquí”. I thought that meant big money but I wasn’t great with my Spanish.

Kenneth gave me the usual spiel (I’ll spare the boring details), and I assured him that his money was well spent with Honey. I never turned a client away if they could pay the sweetest Private Detective in this infested city. Mr. Graham, who looked as if he could care less if my name was Dominic Kidnapper, handed me the placeholder fee of one grand and left just as quickly as he entered.

Worked for me, I never researched my clients, I just did the job and got paid. That was why people had an understanding that Honey is sticky.

I don’t pretend to be a hero. 

I took the first bus downtown in the morning to feel out the neighborhood and it was just as I thought. Skuzzheads, bozos, and freaks, the circus came to town and never left. I stood out like a priest in a strip club.

When I approached the vast entrance to the building, I could smell the trouble before I saw it. A gang of young kids hovered outside the front door, some playing dice with each other, some standing back with fistfuls of cash waiting their turn. They all wore ski masks. I think the kids call them “A Sheisty” after a rapper they like.

“Fuck you doing here bro?” One kid said, his fist clenched around three twenty-dollar bills. He watched my hands, eyed my cheap watch.

“Looking for somebody. Young girl. Seen her?” I kept it short; kids nowadays have no attention span.

He grunted and turned away from me, done with our brief conversation.

Or respect.

I brushed past the kids, who couldn’t care less about my presence, and opened the door to the Towers. The doorknob felt slick with grime and sweat and other bodily fluids. I tried not to wipe the juices on my coat and clenched my nose, entering the towers. Somebody in a nearby room screamed so loud I almost turned back.

The desk where the concierge should have been was empty. Upon further inspection I noticed the wall decorated with bullet holes and graffiti. It’s a wonder nobody tried to tear this place down. We could use more McDonald’s and strip malls on this side of the city.

Straight ahead of the desk was a long hall, elevators with an out of order sign, apartments either side of the hall, and an entrance for what I assumed was steps. There wasn’t much light for me to see. I could see a stained directory on the desk that seemed to suggest there were fifteen floors in the tower.

Shit, I’ll never find the girl. 

“Aye bro. You out of bounds.” A voice somewhere in front of me said. I could hardly make out the silhouette but I could tell he wasn’t selling girl scout cookies.

The shadow of his hand was holding something that looked a lot like the shadow of a gun. My own felt heavy at my side. The shadow stepped forward and revealed a large man with dreads, tattoos and a smile that would make Momma Honey cry.

“Sorry, names Dom Honey. Looking for somebody.” I said.

“Don’t care, Sugar. You can’t be in here, you out of bounds like I said.” Big guy said, this time he made sure to put some inflection on the last few words.

I wanted to tell him it’s Honey not Sugar but he looked like he cared more about hurting me than knowing my name. He was telling me I was in an area civilians shouldn’t be in, probably turf of the Hellton Towers Devil Kings. I decided to try a different approach.

Pulling out the picture I had of Rose Graham, young, beautiful, brown eyes shimmering, dark hair, smile of an angel, I showed it to him.

“You seen this girl around here? Been looking for this chick forever, I know she’s here somewhere with the dude she cheating with. My client has to know.” My tongue slid naturally toward Hellton area dialect.

Dreads didn’t look incredibly convinced but the drama seemed more interesting to him than the beatdown he wanted to give me three seconds ago.

“Look I just need eyes on her, nothing crazy.” I said.

“She up there with Martwan and them on like the tenth-floor bro. Go get her but don’t touch nothin else” Dreads said.

I went from fresh meat to snitching out a cheater in a flash and he moved aside to let me pass. I didn’t let him see me sweat, just passed by and slapped him a handshake like we never wanted to kill each other. It concerned me that he didn’t seem phased about the girl in the picture being more than likely a minor but I let it go.

My assumption the elevator wouldn’t work proved true and ten flights of stairs later I was breathing heavily in the doorway to floor ten. I could hear screaming again but couldn’t tell which door it was peeking from out under, so I walked slowly down the hallway and listened.

The door to 10-3 was wide open, showing some junkies shooting up. They saw me and tried to wave, their hands dead in the air.

The door to room 10-5 was cracked slightly so I let my eyes wander in, saw a couple in the middle of some extracurriculars and wandered past.

The door to room 10-7 was broken, almost in half as if someone had used it for football practice. A small red drop on the door showed where the culprit’s forehead connected. Should have used a helmet.

The final room at the end of the hall, which I assumed was 10-10, had no door. A faint glow of red light painted the hallway wall, and there was noise coming from the room which sent a chill through the air. I wandered slowly along and kept my hands at the ready, sure that somebody was waiting on the other side of that vacant red glow.

When I got to the empty doorway I stopped and processed the scene ahead.

The door was on the floor in front of its frame, a large dent in the center.

The hall of the apartment opened straight ahead with two doors on the left and one on the right, a living room after those rooms.

The red light came from a large TV stuck on a red title screen reading Daddy’s Girl.

In the living room was a couch. On the couch looked to be a body facedown with one foot dangling off the couch arm.

An arm grazed the floor from the body, clutching something tight.

The long, dark hair I knew from the picture.

The red light bathed the body in a bloody glow.

Rose Graham was dead.

I went up to the living room, my eyes grazing over the others as I walked. The kitchen was filthy, the bathroom dark and smelly, the only bedroom a mess of bugs and clothes. The living room itself was no prize, Rose’s body was probably the best décor in there.

The girl’s handheld a syringe, her arm shot to hell with marks where she jabbed or was jabbed.

I held my breath for ten seconds or I would have probably screamed.

On her right shoulder blade, you could make out a tattoo, a sun connected to a moon. Unusual for a teenager.

Everything felt red with danger. I wanted to throw up. The girl was quiet and free, freer now than any plans her father had for her. I took out my phone to call him, snapped a few pictures of the body, when I had the same thought that had been nagging at the back of my mind all night.

This had been way too easy. I walked in here, past a group of kids with no worries or emotions, past a brick wall of a dude into known gang territory and I wasn’t dead. I had expected to be Swiss cheese by now. So, where the hell were Martwan and them?

As if on cue I heard footsteps outside, the sound of more than a few men coming to sniff out the sole intruder standing over the cold, dead body in the room. I swore and reached for the gun at my hip, then moved to the side of the red living room where I could peek around the wall.

Three big guys waltz in, accompanied by the bigger Dreads guy from downstairs. They’re talking animatedly and joking as if Rose’s dead body didn’t lay five feet in front of them.

“So, you said you ordered wings AND pizza? Who got wing money? I ain’t paying so ya’ll can eat it all.” One of the men was saying, as he stepped over the broken door like it was a Lego. They stopped for a second, noticed the body and then, pure quiet.

I felt the gun in my hand. Rabid, wanting to bite.

“Was she dead earlier bro?” I heard one ask.

“Nah. She was breathin earlier.” Another answered.

“I know dude was up here. Sugar or whatever his name was.” Dreads said flatly. “We gotta find his ass before he flips his lips.”

 It became obvious he either set me up, or got dragged up here by whoever Martwan was.

“Okay fellas, let’s not start trippin.” I said as I stepped out from around the corner, gun raised and straight. There was no point hiding and I was ready to shoot my way out of the Towers if necessary.

Dreads looked surprised, the other three not so much. They wore yellow and brown, known Devil Kings colors. I didn’t drop my aim.

“Look chill Sugar, she just wanted to have a good time. We was told to keep her here until shit cooled down.” Dreads said. He was a lot less tough when being threatened with lead poisoning.

“Whose idea was it for you to pick her up?” I said.

One of the three men was holding a cooler and a scalpel. I noticed it glowing red from the TV light behind me. I watched my shadow against the wall and backed up to brace myself against the couch.

“Her’s. Said she wanted to teach her pops a lesson. We gave her dope to keep her cool man.” Dreads said.

“The ransom?” I prompted.

“That’s to piss her pops off man, she ain’t wanna go home.” Dreads said.

She wasn’t going anywhere now.

“What’s the cooler for?” I motioned with the gun. Two of the guys shrugged and one moved quickly behind Dreads. There was a shot and Dreads fell over, blood coming from his back.  

I didn’t hesitate, I put one in the closest goon’s neck while the other jumped into the kitchen on my left. The goon who shot Dreads was the one with the cooler and scalpel in his hand, the other pointed my way with his gun. He shot and I felt the bullet whizz past me, shattering the TV. The apartment was suddenly shrouded in darkness.

I crouched down slowly, watching the shadow of the man in front of me aim again. We shot at the same time, his shot a guess, mine at the flash of his gun. He fell in front of me and I felt my arm burn where he had grazed me.

There was still one man hiding in the bathroom, I could hear his breathing. I crept slowly, careful not to hit any glass or bodies. I opened the door from the side with my boot, and like I suspected shots started rapidly going where I would have been standing normally. When I heard the click of his gun I stood in the doorway and squinted into the dark, shooting him in the chest. There was a grunt and a loss of air. The room became lonely.

Checking my corners, I began the long trek back to the entrance of the Towers.     

When I called Kenneth Graham to fill him in on his daughter’s disappearance hours later, he didn’t sound surprised. He wired me an extra few grand hush money and told me he wished things could have been different between him and his daughter. He turned and looked out my office window for a long time before leaving again. I didn’t believe him.

Dread was dead, most likely a bodyguard for an organ harvesting ring, an unnecessary loss. I must have come during lunch, only four men had been there to protect the site. Hellton Towers. What a shithole. I never heard if the Devil Kings cleared out of that area and I didn’t care.

For the first time in a long time, I felt sticky taking the cash.

Still sticky. I couldn’t get myself unstuck. I counted the cash I earned, closed my office door and watched the letters shine gold in the night.   

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Bio:

Chris Lee is a writer living in Lancaster, PA. A lover of all things mystery and noir, he hopes to one day finish the novel in his head.

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