Hard Case

  By John Hook

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2011 by John Hook

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without the prior written consent of the author. Brief passages may be used for the purposes of a review.

  I love to talk with my readers.

  [email protected]

  Fiction by John Hook:

  Quentin Case Series:

  Hard Case

  Hard Corps

  Hard Reign

  For my wife, Susan: my first reader, patient advisor, friend and lifelong love. I regret that I didn’t end up with something a bit more literary to dedicate to you, but you knew what you were getting when you married me.

  Special and heartfelt thanks to those that volunteered to read, edit, advise and comment along the way: Linda A, Mark, Cecilia, Joe, Rick and Lori. Your help was invaluable.

  Finally, a tip of the keyboard to all the folks at the Alphasmart group on Flikr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/alphasmart/) who helped steer me to an Alphasmart Neo. This novel might never have happened without it. Thanks, Folks. Your support, encouragement and humor have been vital to keeping me going.

  1.

  The heat was off again. What a stupid little problem to end your life with.

  I was trying to be patient. I knew there were moves afoot to turn this dingy old tenement on the northern edge of Alphabet City into a co-op. There would be new management, I would get an insider’s price on Manhattan real estate, and the building would be renovated. For now, however, the building, one of the few that weren’t caught up in the several previous waves of gentrification, was falling into disrepair. The superintendent of the building was Rostov Janovic. He did little work and pretended (I was sure) not to speak English. He always looked like he had been drinking for days. It was the reason I tried to be patient-- there was something scary lurking behind those eyes.

  The trouble with being patient is that I worked at home. I wrote for a living. Well, I wrote, and sometimes people paid me for it. I managed to pay rent and buy groceries, and occasionally I did quite well for a few months. Nonetheless, it was always feast or famine. That’s why I lived someplace like this in the first place.

  I had a potential job that could be really nice, but I had to produce a first installment on spec and I just couldn’t get the old creative juices flowing in this cold. Or, maybe, it was trying to type with gloves on. January in New York City was a bleak month to get creative. So, it was time to quit being patient and try to get something out of Janovic. I would have to do this; I’d never make it through the night. I threw a jacket on over my two sweatshirts, probably for dramatic effect, and headed down to the first floor landing to knock on the super’s door.

  I came to the door and listened a moment. I could hear music, something with a balalaika in it. He was from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I never talked to him long enough to find out where. Since he lived alone, it wasn’t likely that I would hear voices inside. The door was painted dark green and had an oily texture to it. Some of it was peeling in thick, fleshy boils. On the lower parts of the door it was scuffed and wearing thin. I stood quietly for a moment, wondering whether I might catch something if I used my bare hand on it.

  I knocked.

  No one answered. I tried again, louder. I listened for any kind of thumping to indicate movement. I thought I heard a muffled high-pitched sound. Could that be female? Could he actually be entertaining? I shuddered at the thought. He was pretty much a loner with no noticeable social graces. The idea of him with a woman was actually a little disgusting. I knocked again, even louder, but there was no answer.

  I was annoyed and impatient. I drew up the collar of my coat and turned to go back up to my apartment, but stopped. The door blocking the entrance to the basement steps was unlocked, with the slightest crack of an opening. Was he actually down there already, in the boiler room? This was unheard of. I don’t know now if I needed to see this to believe it, or if I wanted to know how long it would take. I pulled the door open and descended the narrow, dimly lit steps.

  I had never been down here, but it was dreadful. It looked like no one had painted the walls or done any structural repairs in decades. Plaster was crumbling from water damage. Pipes were corroded and stuff that might have been asbestos for all I knew was flaking off their sleeves. There were rat turds and piles of greasy rags. Rusty metal shelves were filled with equally rusty tools, wire, dirty tape, scattered screws, washers and nails. As I walked out through the basement area I could see, against one wall, the long disused hulks of broken appliances that had probably once been in apartments. It was like being in an old tomb.

  Unidentifiable but unpleasant odors assailed my nostrils. I thought of turning back. I’m not sure why I kept going. Janovic was either working on the boiler or he wasn’t. In either case, there was little I could do and neither possibility promised heat soon. Somehow, I felt compelled to continue forward. I heard another high-pitched, muffled sound. It had a mewling quality to it. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, probably an apartment upstairs, maybe the sound I heard before.

  I called out. “Mr. Janovic?”

  I made my way back looking for the boiler room. One of the already dim lights began to flicker. Then they all dimmed. There was a sudden, very loud yet muffled cry from up ahead where a passage went off to the right. It sounded like a wounded animal and there was an acrid burning smell, something electric. What had happened? Had the super just injured himself?

  “Mr. Janovic? Mr. Janovic, are you there?”

  I came out of a junction into a long hallway, like a grotto. It ran off into the darkness in either direction, punctuated by dim, buzzing lighting that mostly served to increase the shadows. There were several old tenement buildings side-by-side on this block, including mine. This passageway probably ran deep beneath all of them. The walls were discolored by streaks of brown rust. The floor seemed permanently wet, with soggy heaps of I-didn’t-want-to-know-what everywhere. The hallway was stifling. There was no air down here.

  I noticed two recently made ruts in the wet slime on the floor, cutting through the many boot prints new and old that had been pressed into the sludge. They ran off to the left. Curiosity sent me down the hall that way. It was as if something had been dragged, but the ruts did not remain parallel at all times. As my eyes traveled ahead and tried to make out the darker area ahead of me, I realized there was a nearly motionless shape looming at the end of the hall. Buzzing, the lights flared a little brighter again. It was a man.

  “Mr. Janovic.”

  He remained still, silently looking at me. He had no shirt on and was sweating from the lack of air. He wore work pants, rubber boots and goggles that made him appear otherworldly. He was holding something, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

  “Mr. Janovic?”

  He said nothing, but kept his stare fixed. Then, slowly, without acknowledging me, he stepped off into another chamber of this maze-like basement complex. As if on cue, the lights dimmed a bit. I picked up my step and ran after him, hoping I wouldn’t slip on the muck. I was pissed about being ignored.

  I stepped into the room Janovic had entered.

  “Mr. Janovic? It’s Quentin Case, in 5C. I…”

  Even in the dim, flickering light of this room, I could see with far too much detail the entire tableau. The sheer horror of it was overwhelming, but it was as if in a dream. I could see a female tied against the boiler, duct tape over her mouth, signs of burns and gaping knife wounds over her body. A car battery sat on the ground wired to a switch and small chugging generator for maintaining the charge. Cables from the battery terminals were strewn carelessly on the ground. There was no doubt about their purpose. I looked up. There was still life somewhere in her eyes, but it was withdrawn behind a wall of trauma and hopelessness. Tears had once run from those eyes, but had since run dry. Blood ran from nearly everywhere else. I wasn’t letting myself think it through, but deep inside I knew this ghastly scene would be the last thing I would see.

  There was a sensation like an explosion in my head. Everything became dark.

  Pain brought me back. I awoke in horror to a knife blade being plunged into my chest, missing my heart. It was not the first time that blade had sunk into my torso. I could feel blood flowing over the grimy floor where my arm lay across it. Everything was moving in trauma-induced slow-motion. I still wasn’t registering that this wasn’t some kind of bizarre accident. I looked up. Janovic was squatting over me, behind him the horrific view of the boiler. There were sprays of blood on him, even across one eyepiece of his goggles. He had the strangest expression on his face. A look of joy and anger mixed in a very unnatural way. His nostrils flared as if aroused.

  “Hello, Mr. Case.” His voice was quiet, revealing no emotion. His eyes were fixed on me through blood-splattered goggles, unblinking. They didn’t seem human. In that moment, I knew there was no hope. No one to come to the rescue. No one to end either my suffering or the probably unendurable misery of his other victim. Had she been going about her normal business today, as I had, only to be somehow dragged down into this basement to end her life in horrid misery? I watched my blood flowing out across the floor. I was the lucky one. I would be dead soon no matter wha

t torments he had in mind for me.

  Janovic leaned close to me. His eyes were empty. Nothing lived there but pure evil. “What were you looking for, Mr. Case? Were you going to rescue her, like one of your heroes you write about, Mr. Case?” He smiled blankly as he brushed the blade of his knife along my cheek, cutting me, but not deeply. There was something taunting in the way he addressed me so formally. “No, this was just a tragic accident. Those mistakes people make that are impossible to undo. I cannot let you go. I just wish I had time to do a proper job on you, Mr. Case.”

  I was angry, but I had no strength. “Why…?” was all I could get out.

  He grasped my hair hard and wrenched my head around, forcing me to look at her. “Why? For the same reason you watch a movie. It gives me pleasure to watch people die slowly. You look for explanations. I am evil, nothing more.”

  Janovic let me fall hard to the ground. I was getting woozy. He sat back calmly in the grime and the blood–my blood. He set the knife down absently and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pants pocket. He removed a badly crushed and twisted cigarette from the pack, lit it with a match and then flicked the match off carelessly. He leaned his head back, drawing in smoke. He let the smoke out and looked back at me.

  “For the love of God, let her go…” The effort made me spit up blood. It made him smile.

  “No. What good would it do her if I did? She has already endured more than most people could bear. Besides, it is when they are like this that I am most aroused. I have much to do with her. I would save you and have you watch, but it is too risky. I cannot afford to lose control.”

  Fury exploded in the pit of my stomach and I tried to rise and reach for his throat. Unfortunately, adrenalin could not drive such a badly damaged body. I rose only slightly and he drove me back down with the burning end of his cigarette in my face. He reached into his pocket and took out a silver cross, putting it on over his head.

  I must have given some kind of look at the incongruity, though I was surprised I could muster any kind of facial expression. “Does it surprise you to know I am a Christian, Mr. Case?”

  I didn’t answer. He moved closer so that his face was next to mine.

  “Not a very good one, I’ll admit. Someday, however, I will get caught, and when I do, I will beg Jesus to forgive me. And you know what? Jesus will forgive me, and I will be born again.” He smiled and there was an almost beatific expression on his face. He brought the knife close to my throat. “I, Mr. Case, will end up going to heaven.”

  He turned to survey his carnage in the boiler room. He laughed.

  “She won’t, Mr. Case. I followed her after seeing her flirting in a bar. She had not accepted Jesus as her savior, and it did not occur to her to do so during all that I have done to her. She will go to Hell to endure more, endless torture.”

  I thought the lights had dimmed again, but I realized it was me.

  “What about you, Mr. Case? I bet you have not been born again. I bet you have not accepted Jesus as your savior.”

  He started laughing again.

  “No. You wouldn’t be here if you had. Satan sends me the sinners. I send them to the tortures of Hell. But I, my friend, I will be with the angels. Ain’t that a bitch?”

  As I lay on the floor in my own blood, I spotted the knife. The handle was an inch from my fingers. He was almost lost in his own sick reverie, drawing in another puff off the cigarette that had been deformed even more by being pushed against my face. I thought of the countless heroes I had written who had fought back against crushing odds to save things at the last minute. I reached into myself for whatever I had. I grabbed the knife and swung it up for Janovic’s heart.

  This wasn’t one of my stories. I guess I knew that somewhere in the back of my mind. I had no strength to swing up that far. The knife only sank into his hard, muscled torso. He looked momentarily surprised, then pained, then angry. Finally, a twisted look of pleasure and amusement roiled across his face. I saw him withdraw the knife.

  I’m not sure I knew he had cut my throat. I think I was beyond pain then. I felt far away. I wasn’t disembodied; I was still looking through my eyes, but from a distance. All I saw was that face-- that horrible, smirking evil face of a man planning on sleeping with the angels. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. I had left her in his hands.

  Then the world that I knew disappeared.

  2.

  I was floating. It was as if my body had complete buoyancy on calm, warm water. There was darkness all around. I don’t know how long I remained like that. There was little thought or sensation. No light. No tunnel. No thought.

  Then a single thought.

  “Is this it?”

  Like many kids, I had been raised to believe in a Christian afterlife, Heaven and Hell. My parents were actually what you would call devout. For whatever reason, it never really took and I was an agnostic by the time I was a teen. Maybe that was a sign that my parents never tried to brainwash me. My sense of spirituality mainly came from my imagination, which I later parlayed into fantasy writing. I just hoped one of the religions was right about there being an afterlife. I had actually been rooting for the reincarnation thing being right. It seemed a bit less drastic and judgmental. Maybe this was what waiting for the new life was like.

  Then again, maybe this was it. One chance at life, didn’t matter what you did, eternity floating. But why was I still me? Why was I still thinking as if having a conversation with myself? Why did I still have my memories?

  Memories.

  I remembered the last thing Janovic had told me, like a felon twisting the legal system’s loopholes to get out on a technicality. The murderer goes free because his Miranda rights weren’t observed. Under one particularly legalistic interpretation of Christian dogma he was right. He could accept Jesus. He could be forgiven. He could go forth and sin no more. He could enter the kingdom of heaven.

  It couldn’t be that easy, could it? Surely Jesus wouldn’t be fooled at the judgment table. Why not? Under the same strict interpretation, Hindus and Jews face the fires of Hell.

  It was ridiculous.

  My anger flared. I hadn’t figured out any way to move my body—probably because I didn’t have one—but I felt the emotional rush. How could that evil little man have gotten so inside my head? He was just some insignificant worm of a building superintendent who just might be a serial killer. Why did an agnostic like me even care about that psycho’s take on the afterlife? I guess because I was here. Faith was over. I was going to find out who was right. I hadn’t quite expected to still be a thinking entity.

  I thought of her: some unfortunate young woman who had committed sin in Janovic’s eyes and spent the last long hours of her life in unendurable torture for it. How could anyone do that to another? A great uncontrollable wave of sorrow came over me. It was deep and consuming. There were no tears, but there was sadness that knew no limit. Rage and sorrow roiled through me as something began to change.

  It was hard to tell what was changing since everything was dark. Whatever I was floating in became agitated and I began spinning around, picking up speed. The expression “circling the drain” occurred to me. Light appeared in the form of slightly illuminated, swirling mist. I was pulled through the mist, landing at last on solid ground.

  Everything was quiet. I looked up. I was in a large stone vaulted chamber with stained glass windows. It looked like a cathedral, but there were no giveaway symbols. No crosses, no angels, no Madonna. For that matter, no Star of David, no crescent moon, no Sanskrit. Nonetheless, it looked like a church. I definitely had a body now, with no signs of trauma. I was wearing what I had put on this morning. My white shirt was crisply pressed and my tan chinos looked new, as if someone had redressed me. There was no blood or grime from the basement floor. Somewhere I had ditched my two sweatshirts and coat, none of which had been sufficient to stop the super’s knife thrusts. It was all pretty weird, but I seemed inclined to just go with it.

  I walked through the vaulted chamber, my footsteps echoing. I was going to call out, but realized that recent experience had left me a little hesitant to announce myself in unknown situations. I passed through an arched doorway into a small, wood paneled hallway that ended in another arched doorway into a larger chamber.