Chicago Coursing

#13

The dark gray fog sweeps down the alley ways of Chicago. Another year has crept by at a monotonous pace. The air is bitter with spite. Sleet slides sideways with an impaling touch across my bare skin. The hunt. She moves with a snail’s pace it seems. A woman of the streets. Just like the rest. It seems I know what she will do next before she does. The dull roar of the “L” swoops down the street.

This one though has a stride about her. She is about 5”6 with long wavy blond hair beginning to matte down around her neck. Her overcoat shines from the streetlight’s gaze. In her hand is a crumpled and tattered piece of paper. One she has been carrying for the last 3 weeks. She doesn’t know what to do with it other than to clench it in her small fist until there is somewhere to turn it in. Her name is “Sandy.” At least this is what she goes by out here.

Three more blocks and she’ll make a left into the shithole of a bar called, The Shake. Never seen the inside of it, never have wanted to until tonight. She’ll make the 13th. My veins feel like an overstuffed sausage, soon they will break containment. She makes her entrance. In the distance sirens race away to some street, to some problem; the key being away.

The heavy oak door with stained glass almost wants to stay shut. The stench is thick and I can feel my nostrils constrict to ward off its full blast. Somehow the bar seems darker than it is outside. The monstrous derelicts of duties crawl into the booths and seats to waste more of what little they have. The floor seems like some sort of blind carpenter’s joke. Almost every other plank in the floor is gone leaving Sandy wobbling in her clear high heels. She sits at a green leather covered stool at the bar. Most of the stools are worn out and cracked, and the farthest one seems to have had a run in with a St. Bernard or German Sheppard. The bartender approaches her.

“What’ll you have?”

With the pale glean of sweat and sleet coating her face like tarnish engulfing bronze bars. “Tonight seems your night,” she says.

“No night is my night sweetheart, I’ve got a woman and she’d cut me quicker than you do you duties.”

“Vodka cranberry,” she says.

The bartender chuckled as he made her drink. We both knew vodka would lessen the smell of the alcohol. No man wants a drunk, and they definitely don’t want to pay for one. I can see a good profile of her from the booth. At the back of the bar, there are what seem to be two older regulars. They are too far gone to be of any consequence other than moans and groans. The one on the right bobs up and down almost drowning his beard in his beer stein. The other one sways back and forth with a somewhat rhythmic quality to it.

Everyone is pasty white. Not enough sun gets through the stained glass window from five in the morning when the doors open and four in the morning when it closes. She is unsettled by something. Oh, Sandy. It is that little note you have.

“Glenlivet, 18 years, on the rocks.”

The bartender nods and walks back to the bar. He dusts off the bottle from the mantle in back of the bar and pours out a glass. The first sip warms my insides and creates a chill that shoots from my ass to my brain. As he returns to the bar Sandy looks back to find the way point on the other side. Hook, line, and sinker. Her feet slowly walk towards the booth. Under the brim of my hat, I see the edge of the electric red skirt that is now exposed.

“Tonight seems your night,” she says. Must be the Ice-breaker they teach at Hooker University.

“How so,” I make sure not to look up.

Sandy leaned forward putting weight on the table. “Well you’ve come to me, and that is what matters,” she says.

“Well, you’ve come to me, actually.”

“Well, well, aren’t you the smart type,” she says with a smack of gum in her mouth.

“Have a seat, it’s a free country. Now, I guess you may be right Ms...?”

“Your pleasure. Certainly, we can find one of those, now can’t we?” she says tilting her head to the side trying to get within my view.

“I, I don’t know if you’d be up to the task, to be certain I would guess that someone like you would shy away from certain aspects.”

“I can do anything you want,” she says.

“Oh I do feel this may be more of a challenge than you would assume, “

“I do like a challenge,” she says. Sandy released her white-knuckle grip on the piece of paper and moved to put it in her purse.

“What’s that?” I asked motioning to the piece of paper.

“Oh this, you don’t care about this, hell I dunno why I even carry it around with me,” Sandy says.

“All the more reason to share.”

“Just something I found slid under the door of my place a few weeks ago, probably some asshole playing games with me,” she said. Her face begins to flush a little.

I reach for the paper. She hesitates but gives in. How likely. The piece of paper is special to her. As I unfold it I notice it is thick and rigid. The tattered quality is the bottom section; it was torn off from a large piece. The note reads, "Tonight you will die." The print is in a bright red ink. I look at her wide eyed.

“When did you get this, again?”

“A few weeks ago,” she says finishing off her third drink.

“Well, the good news is you aren’t dead, eh?”

She laughs. “Yeah, not that funny of a joke though but in my line of work, nothing is that funny really,” shaking her head side to side as if I will confirm her statement and put her to ease.

“Well now it’s getting a little late, should we get a move on?”

“Sure, honey, “she says.

“You got somewhere we can go?”

“Ya, got a place down the street,” she says getting up and putting on her over coat.

We get up and walk out. The wind whips down the street making our pace quickened. The building Sandy lives in is an old two flat. The downstairs in unoccupied and she lives on the second floor of this rickety brick colored construct. The stairway smells rancid; the downstairs must have been a squat for the random homeless of the neighborhood. Her apartment is somewhat nicer than expected. Nothing too fancy, I doubt she lives here. It is just an “office” of sorts.

“So now for the money, it's 500 bucks,” she says.

“Okay.” I handed over her note I still hand in my hand. She looked at it and rolled her eyes setting it on the nightstand near the bed.

500 dollars, in the front pocket of my jeans. I pull out a stack of cash and count off 500 from the top and hand it to her. She begins to strip down to her lingerie. Now is the time. I reach into my other pocket. I pull out a piece of paper. It is torn at the top. I hand it to her. She takes it looking somewhat perplexed. I watch her eyes as she reads over it. "And I will be the one to do it." The color in her face drops, she is almost to panic mode. They all have done this, every time it is the same reaction and the same ending.

She inhales to scream and I cover her mouth with my hand. Her eyes like deer in the headlights and her breath is caught.

“I did say there would be certain aspects of this that you might not like,” I said throwing her down to the bed. I push my knee down into the small of her back and pull my knife from its sheath on my belt. The sheen of the sharp serrated blade reflects in Sandy’s eye. She begins to squirm and scream. The nearby passing train muffles her cry but I can feel the horror channeling through her body.

I slash her throat. The sound was that of a butcher separating animal parts for an order. The last sound Sandy makes is a gurgled scream. The blood sprays across the wall and begins to pool on the bed. I wipe the knife off on the sheets. I reach for her purse and open her wallet. I pull out her I.D.; her name is Angie Federa. I slide it into my wallet. I see my badge, officer # 3486. 365 days a year I am a hunter, some nights the prey is just different.