It was eleven-thirty the following day, and my cell phone rang persistently. With my eyes still closed, I kicked off the bed sheets and groped through the bedroom to find the device. I put the phone to my ear and patiently listened to what they had to say; then, I went back to bed. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fall asleep after hearing it.

It had been an insane night last night, and my memories rushed into my mind again. Naturally, a la Rambo part of my ill-considered adventure was only in my imagination. The reality was far more trivial than this. After letting the Hondsu slide down the street and luring so many enraged Chins into a hunt for me—some of them hanging outside on my car like fucking stuntmen—I didn’t have many options, as I said. There were just a few: I could surrender, kill myself, or disappear magically from the scene. Eventually, I chose the third option because I had always liked magic and didn’t have the guts to do any of the other two. I hit the display to unlock the doors and slid outside onto the sidewalk unnoticed. The jerk working on the front windshield didn’t see me because it was already too dark, and the glass was cracked. After that, I left him, the Hondsu, and all the other Chinese, joining forces and running into the squad car, waiting at the end of the street.

Then, yet again, I had to run through half of Nuuk, breaking Olympic records and exceeding speed limits. As I sneaked away from the scene, I heard screaming behind me and the clash of metal, which proved my little plan had worked. Ironically, it didn’t seem as big of a deal back then as this morning. That’s what the phone call was actually about. The police wanted me to explain, and even though they didn’t say it explicitly, the reason for calling me so early was more than obvious.

After trying fruitlessly to fall asleep for about twenty minutes, I got out of bed, frustrated, and went to the bathroom to shower. Then I made some coffee and thought about the situation. I was going to have a rough time, for sure. My dream of being a shepherd in Romania suddenly came back to me, and for a brief moment of desperation, I was almost on the verge of checking the flights from Anuk Airport to Bucharest, Romania. Unfortunately, such an act wasn’t going to solve my damn problem with the police because Romania was also in the Confederation, and besides, I couldn’t run forever.

In such a shitty mood and with thousands of false stories going through my head—each of them a thousand times more absurd than the others—I left my place at three p.m. and took a cab to the Twelfth RPS. As I sat in the backseat, I wondered whether the Chinese had really known about the car or whether it was only a coincidence. If they had seen the shooter arrive in this Hondsu and then set up an ambush for him, then my Chinatown mission was incredibly foolish and had no point at all—it had just made things worse. I also wondered what the police might know about the accident, and as I did, I suddenly remembered something that made my skin crawl and terrified me even more than the upcoming questioning. I was supposed to be with Jill last night! I had promised her, and what was worse, I would probably meet her at the police station now.

After about half an hour, no matter how badly I wanted to hijack the cab and make the guy drive me to Romania, we pulled up to the curb in front of Twelfth. Feeling totally dejected, I paid the driver, stepped out, and went to identify myself with the gamer in the reception booth. He gave me a pass; I climbed up the stairs, and a few minutes later, there was no escaping—I was standing before two-o-seven, knocking.

The door opened almost immediately, and Dunkin let me in, beaming from ear to ear. I was in his hands now, and the bastard knew it. There were also two other guys in the room. The first was a man I didn’t know, but the other was someone I was afraid to meet here the most—Jill Sanders. They were both sitting in chairs beside the window, looking at me grimly.

“Hi, everybody!” I saluted them, trying to appear as innocent and cheerful as possible under the current circumstances.

Nobody answered.

“What ignorant people!” I thought, aggravated, as I slowly stepped inside. Their hostility didn’t bode anything good.

“This is an unofficial inquiry. This here is James Hartoongatta.” Dunkin explained, briefly introducing the stranger to me. “He’s a forensic expert in Seventeenth.”

The man gave me a dry nod without saying “hello” or anything else. He was a short, chubby, bald-headed man who had about fifteen extra kilos on his body. A pair of giant glasses were precariously balanced on his nose, and their lenses were thick enough to start a nuclear reaction!

“And, of course, you know Jill!” Dunkin added afterward. He sounded almost ecstatic when he announced that.

I looked at him, irritated. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing and why she was there, but I said nothing. Instead, I gave Jill a gentle smile. She totally ignored it and fixed her eyes on Dunkin’s desk, where various leftovers from lunches and afternoon breakfasts resided peacefully on the desktop. She was obviously invited to witness my spectacular crucifixion.

“So, how did you sleep last night, Mellrow?” Kathungattachek initiated the dog and pony show when he saw the “jury” was ready for my questioning. He also waved his hand toward a plastic chair by his desk, inviting me to sit in it, but I remained standing.

“Like a rock!” I shrugged, smiling at the chubby guy to lure him into a joyful professional conversation. “Or maybe like a dead man, if you will!”

Nobody laughed. Everybody ignored my witty joke as a team. Clearly, they didn’t think it was funny enough, and it sucked because they played three against one.

“So you weren’t, by any chance, in… Chinatown?” Dunkin continued.

I was about to crack another joke and say, “Why would I? Hookers and booze are much better here!” but fortunately, I stopped myself in time, just mumbling, “No, I wasn’t. Why are you asking that?”

“Well, your car,” Dunkin went on slyly. “It was found in a ditch a few blocks away from one of the Chinese restaurants in the neighborhood. And the place is sketchy enough, so—”

“No way!” I exclaimed, sincerely surprised and delighted at the same time. If that was why I was in the police, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem as I initially thought. “I came out in the morning, and my old beauty was missing. I thought I would never see her again!” I immediately started with my bullshit.

“And why didn’t you report that?” the cop wanted to know.

“Well, it happened this morning, as I said. You kind of beat me to it, Dunkin. Next time, I will be faster, I promise!”

My three judges looked at me very seriously, as if I had just made a joke about my dead mother, not about my car. Jill, especially, was extremely bleak.

“Don’t make a fool of yourself, Mellrow!” Dunkin frowned resentfully. “There was a massive shooting in the area, and it was reported to have started from your car. This is a serious accusation!”

“And because of that, you presumed I was playing a midnight cowboy?” I asked, seemingly calm, but inside, I was worrying again. “You know how I make a living! It could have been someone whose toes I’ve stepped on.”

The cop discreetly cleared his throat. There was something more to it; I could feel it in my bones.

“We’ve found another car in the area as well.” He carefully prepared my coffin, grabbing the adze to nail the lid over my head.

“Was it involved in the shooting, too?” I mumbled, ever more concerned. They had obviously found the Hondsu, and I was expecting to face real troubles now.

“No, it wasn’t. But it was involved in a car accident with a police cruiser from Seventeenth. There was a whole bunch of Chinese around the vehicle, crushing it, and they happened to be the same men who were involved in the shooting.”

“Really?” was all I could say.

“Um-hum! Really!”

“And why the hell are you telling me this? What does it have to do with me?”

“It has to have something because every clue points to you. And the clues are pretty convincing, you know.” Dunkin slowly increased the pressure when he saw I wouldn’t cooperate.

“Oh, come on now!” I exclaimed, falsely frustrated, but my mouth was already dry. “This is complete bullshit. And you know it!”

“Listen, Mellrow,” the cop puffed impatiently. “The stupid games you try to play won’t take you anywhere! We’ve found a bunch of photos on the backseat of your car, or more precisely, printed pictures of the Chinese restaurant in question. The place is the den of a local gang involved in the drug business, so it can’t be a coincidence. There were also receipts for photographic materials and other incidentals in your glove box, and we have every reason to believe you were actually in the car when the shooting happened. It’s obvious that you were spying on someone there, and that’s why the Chinese were so frustrated!”

“What about the other car?” I simply asked, ignoring his accusation, because I needed time to think. “Whose car is that?”

“The vehicle is registered to GTS. Its presence on the crime scene is weird, and we hope you could shed some light on it. We need to know everything you know about it!”

“It’s registered to what?” I asked, surprised since the name sounded familiar.

“Global Transportation Service. Menelaus Henry DuPont owns it. Were you working for him on a case?”

I looked at Dunkin, confused, and then glanced at the others. This entire thing was getting more and more weird. The forensic expert and Jill remained silent the whole time and just listened like an actual jury observing the trial. The analogy was so intrusive now! I thought about it. GTS was probably the biggest corporation in Greenland—one of the biggest in the world—and its boss was a trillionaire. I couldn’t even imagine what business I might have had with him if I had any. Besides, if I had worked for a guy like him, I’d have had no trouble now, let alone sitting here chatting with these people.

“If you’re so confident I work for DuPont, why don’t you ask him about the accident?” I turned my eyes back to Dunkin, annoyed. “You know full well that I couldn’t discuss my clients’ business with you, or anyone else for that matter. Go talk to his lawyer!”

“We’ll surely do that,” Kathungattachek said, not very convincingly. “But now we are talking to you. You are neck-deep in trouble, buddy, and I would definitely forget about my clients and be more cooperative if I were you. Otherwise, the entire shit will be on you!”

“No, I can’t do it.” I decisively shook my head. “But I can tell you that I don’t know the guy, and if I really worked for him, his people would have been crawling all over this place now. There would’ve been no room even for you! Don’t you think so?”

“But if you don’t work for him, why would his company’s receipts be on your backseat?” Dinkin didn’t give up.

“I don’t know. They were slipped in.”

“And why would you have pictures of the restaurant?”

“Will you stop repeating the same thing over and over again?” I suddenly snapped, almost losing my temper. “What about the damn pictures? They were slipped in, too, just like the receipts!”

Dunkin didn’t reply right away but sighed heavily and went to his desk to sit in his chair. He started nervously tapping his fingers on the desktop. The bald guy by the window remained emotionless like a bronze statue, and Jill just rolled her eyes. They were both pissing me off already with their silent and hostile disapproval. However, their weird behavior indicated there was something more about this ridiculous car accident.

“Listen, Mellrow.” Dunking spoke sharply after a while. I’ve got no time for this crap, and I’ll be straight with you! This is an unofficial inquiry, and I agreed to it just to do a favor to a person. However, you’re making it much more complicated than I hoped. So, you’re either giving me a reason to keep this accident here—in Twelfth—or I’m leaving it with the colleagues from Seventeenth. In this case, you’ll have this interview with them and probably with the Feds again. It’s your call! You have one minute to decide, and if you choose to talk, I want everything! I need to know about these photos and about the Chinese because even if your car was really stolen, there was a reason for that, and you surely know it! And if you really don’t work for DuPont, I want to know about the receipts. Between other things, you can also tell me about the coke we’ve found in your glove box, and keep it in mind that I won’t accept one of your stupid jokes as an answer!”

I hiccupped when I heard this. Coke in my glove box! These bastards who had messed with me would really go to any lengths to achieve what they wanted! I could hardly imagine what it might be with such inconsistent and chaotic clues, though.

“You know what, Dunkin?” I turned to Kathungattachek calmly now. “You’re a cop, for Christ’s sake! Can’t you see this is all bullshit? Do you really believe I would stuff my glove box with snow before going to work? You know me; I’m not a junkie! It was a setup.”

He looked at me without saying anything.

“No matter what you’ve found in the stupid car, it’s all fake,” I continued. “It was planted there. Think about it for a moment! Would I keep receipts inside my glove box that can be tied back to me if I knew I were going to a dangerous place like Chinatown to spy on mobsters? And why would I print the pictures at all and leave them in the car instead of delivering the memory card to DuPont? Someone clearly wants me to be a patsy; it’s so obvious! And besides, why would I use a car registered in DuPont’s name if I spied secretly on his behalf? Moreover, why do you even think I have anything to do with this vehicle if it’s his fucking car?”

Dunkin briefly scratched his head and glanced uneasily at the jury. The guys were still silent. The forensic expert was wiping off his glasses, and Jill just looked away.

“It’s because of what we’ve found inside the car!” The cop said quietly. “It was full of your fingerprints and DNA, and that’s why Hartoongatta is here. And also, because the backseat was smeared with your semen. Are you going to say this was also a setup now?”

I hiccupped again. I froze with my mouth open and forgot to shut it afterward. After the commotion with the Chinese the previous night and my interrogation now, my little play with Sharon in the backseat had completely slipped my mind. Terrified, I looked at Jill, but she refused to look at me. She was staring at the wall to her left and biting at her lower lip, barely stopping herself from crying.

Almost a minute of unbearable silence followed. I knew it didn’t work well for me, but I simply couldn’t decide what to say. All the while, I was playing with the wallet in my pocket, trying to reach my ID card and rip its chip off. However, I knew it would be a useless act of desperation. My entire biometric information was replicated on hundreds of police servers anyway, from the day I was born. In the end, I had to give up my stupid resistance.

“Okay, then. Here’s everything I know about it.” I said, turning my side to Jill so I didn’t have to look at her. “I’m in the middle of a terrible mess of a case, and it becomes more and more complicated with every second! At first, I thought my clients were just pulling tricks on each other for some strange reason, but now I’m starting to think it all runs deeper. At least one of them is connected to DuPont in some way or plays behind his back to involve him with the Chinese. I still don’t know why, but I’m sure it’ll become clear soon enough.”

After that, I briefly filled the cop in on my cases, sparing some of the most delicate details. I was sure the pictures he talked about weren’t from any of my cameras because the moron who stole my devices had to develop the film, find a place to print a few shots, and drive back to the restaurant to ditch the car—all through the night. Most probably, he prepared them in advance and left the vehicle there right after the accident. I asked Dunkin to see the photos, and he showed them to me. On most of them, there was just the Red Dragon. Those few with people in them had caught other Chinese, not Li Jin Tao. It was clearly an amateur and hasty job, and when I saw all this, I realized the idea behind the setup. If Chavez’s thugs or the Chins had caught me there, it would’ve been perfect because I would’ve served my purpose and compromised DuPont. If I escaped, however, as it happened, and if they found my car later, as the police found it, they would’ve seen receipts signed for GTS, and since the other vehicle was also registered to GTS, it would have been a clue that I worked for DuPont and spying on the Chinese. It was simply a fallback in case the first scenario didn’t work. The only thing I didn’t understand was why the jerks needed the GTO’s boos and the Chinese connected.

I shared this with Dunkin, and we discussed it for about a quarter of an hour more, but eventually, he had to let me go because there really wasn’t anything serious against me except for a misdemeanor charge for vandalism and possible possession of drugs, which he knew wasn’t mine anyway. The cop went to consult the bald guy with the glasses, who had been chatting with Jill for the last ten minutes. I was careful to avoid looking at them. In the process of the questioning, I told Dunkin about Sharon’s broken car, which explained my fingerprints inside, but I desperately kept off the subject of semen. Fortunately, he didn’t insist on it, probably thinking it was self-explanatory, or perhaps he simply felt uncomfortable with Jill listening. As a result, that part of my story stayed in the doorway like an elephant the entire time, but the elephant never actually entered the room.

After a few minutes, when Dunkin finished talking to my jury, I pulled him aside, still angry about what he did to me. “What’s the matter with you, goddamn it?” I hissed in his face. “Are you playing the tough guy to gain self-respect, or what?”

“What do you mean?” He looked at me, truly surprised.

“What do I mean? You’re so full of shit. That’s what I mean! Why did you have to bring Jill here in the first place? Is she really part of your investigation, or are you too scared to resolve your personal problems with me?”

Dunkin didn’t reply and just glanced uneasily behind his back.

“You know you have nothing against me! This is all bullshit, and every lawyer will just blow up in your face if you decide to take this in court,” I went on. “You can’t even cook up a charge for car theft because I bet nobody reported that car stolen!”

“You finished?” the cop asked me when I paused for a second, gasping for air.

“No, I’m not! You are pathetic, you know. Next time you want to impress a woman who doesn’t want you, do something really nice to change her decision! Making her watch your little revenge on me probably hurts her feelings, and that won’t make her love you.”

I abruptly stopped since I couldn’t figure out what else to tell him. Dunkin kept looking at me, waiting for me to go on, but when he saw I wouldn’t, he opened his mouth.

“I’m not the pathetic one, Mellrow; you are!” he said calmly. “This case was already opened in Seventeenth because their officers were involved. And since your fingerprints and other stuff were everywhere in the Hondsu and you are registered with us as a PI, they agreed to stop the investigation if we cleared up the circumstances behind the accident. As for Jill, I didn’t invite her here—she wanted to come! She wanted me to hear your story first. That’s why this is still unofficial. Otherwise, you would’ve been talking to the guys from the Narcotics Division right now, not to me! She just tried to protect you, even though you didn’t deserve it. Unfortunately, you cannot be protected from yourself!”

Dunkin sharply turned around and left me hanging with my mouth open. I couldn’t think of anything to reply to him, even if I wanted to, and, in fact, I doubted anyone in my situation would have come up with an answer. Then, out of the corner of my vision, I saw Jill leaving. I jumped after her and held her by the elbow, just outside Dunkin’s office.

“Hey, babe, listen to me!” I said.

She turned around abruptly.

“You know what, Mellrow?” Her eyes looked at me piercingly. “No one is special in this world! No matter how handsome, how funny, or clever they are, no one is. You ain’t either!”

Then she angrily pulled her arm away from my grip and went down the corridor, leaving me staring after her, speechless. I just remained there, completely unable to move, and felt like the entire world was collapsing upon me. I had really, really screwed it up this time. I literally hit the rock bottom!

©2016 S.T. Fargo
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