Perception

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

‘drink’ - slang for a bribe. The size of the drink indicates how greedy a person is or how many people are ‘thirsty’.

Jacks - slang for members of the police force

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     The back alley was swarming. Before everyone had arrived I would never have imagined so many people could fit in such a small space.

     Immanuel had ran off the moment he heard the ambulance sirens, I had managed to call him back long enough to throw him the plastic bag full of our stolen loot and knives. Usually I wouldn’t have bothered. With most Jacks, all one had to do was offer them a ‘drink’ and they’d happy to look the other way. Unfortunately, I’d seen Sargent Dooley on patrol a street or so over and I wasn’t willing to take the chance. That mongrel was so honest it’ll make your teeth hurt. If he had caught me with an illegal weapon or stolen goods, I would have spent those next six months in Longshanks Penitentiary – not fun.     

    Thankfully I had been right to be curious, Hooley Dooley and his new toadies was the first on the scene. They rounded the corner seconds after Immanuel had jumped the tall mini-orbed fence. Minutes later an ambulance arrived to take the hemorrhaging Vincent Romano away.

   It was chaos; all around us were people and noise. The sirens echoed off he high brick walls as the ambulance raced back the way it had come. One of the toadies, an officer Paula Braxston, was busy trying to secure the scene while curious onlookers spilled out of the mouth of that alley just to get a better look. Within the hidden warren of thieves and pushers, nothing stayed a secret for long. Even though the shooting had only happened ten minutes ago, everybody wanted to know who could have been so brainless as to take on Vincent.

   “Tell us again what happened?” Dooley stood over us tapping his stylis pen against his blackberry. Do you kno-“ his words kept on going in and out of focus, like someone messing with the volume on a radio, “to talk to us.”

    I was in shock, but not because of the blood or violence of the act. That was something that we had seen in one form or other everyday since we had ran away. It was the shear stupidity of the act and the knowledge of what was to follow. Not long after Cathy Romano was kidnapped and almost raped, her father had engaged in one of the shortest and bloodiest gangland wars this country had ever seen. Twenty-seven were confirmed dead, in horrible barbaric ways. Fifteen more have never been found. Roman had wiped out two whole crews to reach the top, and this slight would not go unchallenged.

   “Talk to me girls!” Dooley’s plea broke through my abstraction.

   “I don’t know,” Petra, snapped. “I don’t know who he was. Yes I saw him. Yes he ran right passed me, but all I registered was his orange hoodie. I was concentrating on Vincent.” Petra rested her elbows on her knees with hands upturned as she looked up at Dooley; were still caked in Vincent’s flaking blood.

     “It was some random mining junkie, that’s all I know,” I exploded, just wanting to get away from there. “He had on an orange hoodie pulled down over his eyes. dirty grey sweat pants and green running shoes. That’s all I could see.”

   “And that was from the ground where he threw you?” Dooley asked skeptically as he read over his notes. We had told them what had happened, editing were needed, but Dooley couldn’t get it through his thick scull that we really didn’t know who the shooter was. I think he thought we were holding out so we could sell the information to Roman. “How would you know the suspect was a miner?”

    God help me I snapped. “Because I am not an idiot. No I could not see his eyes but his fingernails were silver and so were his teeth. Judging by the level of shine he was a long-term user.“