nowhere inc.

Chapter 1

He walked calmly along the street. His hat protecting the un-filtered
cigarette he smoked from the torrential rain falling around him.
Flickering neon signs on dark brown art-deco sex shops scanned across
his eyes. Buildings loomed over his head looking down on his solitary
loneliness. Each step taking him closer to nowhere.

Nowhere Inc. was his detective agency. A private dick, the only job a
burnt out ex-homicide detective could manage to do. Surviving on single
malt whiskey, strong black coffee and no sleep allowed him to shut out
the ghosts he saw on the faces of the living or made it worse depending
on how sober he was.

13 floors up his office was four walls, a stack of paper and an ash
tray for a desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet in which he kept his 2/3
empty bottle of single malt in the third drawer up. On the walls
cockroaches crawled across the damp rotting Marilyn Monroe film
posters. An air conditioning unit, broken for the past ten years, span
slowly with the wind outside.

Rain played the backing drum to his ritual 6:30 am drink. He had been
up all night trying to get lost in the city. Changing every night the
city was a maze but every night it took him back to nowhere. Everyone
ends up nowhere eventually, he just ended up there every night.

He hung his coat on the back of his chair, and threw his hat onto the
hook on the back of the door. He never missed, it was the only piece of
luck he had. No-one had rung his phone in months. It being disconnected
for the past year wasn't the point, no-one ever tried. No-one ever
knocked on his door, thirteen floors and a lift that had been out of
action since 1992 was too much for most people to make the effort. Once
a man had almost made it to nowhere but he died on the 11th floor, he
must of reached his own nowhere. In his hand he held a red note book
with every single page torn out something I should of investigated but
if no-one payed I wasn't going to work it out.

Slipping into disturbed drunk sleep he fell, a stack of files his
pillow.

"Knock Knock" came the noise on the door.

"Knock Knock" came the noise.

Patience wearing thin he opened the door and walked in. He was balding
and short, not dwarf short but just not tall. His pristine black suit,
black shirt and black tie looked out of place against the damp peeling
wallpaper of the room. Banging on the desk the sleeping man
awoke.

"Jack Nowhere" Mr. Knock asked knowingly.

"That's me" Mr. Nowhere answered.

"I have a job for you Mr. Nowhere" giving him a file and $2000 in cash
before walking out of the room.

In his half sober half awake state got up to follow him but when he got
to door Mr. Knock was gone.

Back at his desk he opened the file which simply contained a polaroid
of a naked woman laying on a bed, a business card and a note. The room
was irrelevant compared to her flowing blonde hair and beautiful eyes,
on the back was written in obviously man's handwriting "Clarence Hotel,
New Orleans, Three days ago". The note read:

Dear Mr Nowhere,
Find her!
Call me.
Mr Knock

On the business card it had just a phone no.

Chapter 2

He didn't know what to think. So out of practice he didn't even know
where to begin.

"Have a drink hope your natural instincts kick in" he thought to
himself.

Twenty four hours later he woke up.

"Shit!" he called out loud. "So natural instinct is to get pissed and
fall asleep."

Rain still falling through broken windows on the staircase he descended
to the front door.

"Missing for four days eh?" he asked himself. "Is she still alive?",
"Does he want her still alive?"?

All he had was questions.

"Better find some answers then hadn't you Mr. Nowhere!" he said to
himself in the third person.

He lifted the collar up on his trench coat, tapped a Malboro out of his
soft pack and lit it under the arch of the doorway. Walking down the
street, blue/grey smoke rising from underneath the rim of his hat.
Calmly he stubbed out his cigarette and hailed a cab.

"JFK airport please"

"Ok mister" replied a mexican driver.

These were the last words he heard from the driver, his constant banter
drowned out by his immersion in the photo. Staring at her beauty he
became transfixed. Giving the driver a $50 he walked towards the flight
desk. He handed over the cash and got on the plane.

"Would you like a drink before your meal sir?" the stewardess
asked.

He looked at his watch. "Ok but make it a small one?I should really try
to remain sober for this" wondering whether he thought or said the last
part.

She gave him his whiskey poured over rocks in a tiny plastic cup. Ten
minutes later his food arrived. He hadn't eaten in nearly 5 days and
was starving but his first meal wasn't going to be some microwaved crap
and the smallest bread roll he had ever seen. He would eat when he got
there. He loved Creole food but hadn't eaten it in nearly ten years.
1990, second honeymoon, french quarter, New orleans. It was the last
day he was married. Killed by a gunman. He raised his hand to his
shoulder, slipped his hand into his shirt and felt the scar. The bullet
had gone through her into him, she died he didn't.

Next day quit his job.

Next day Nowhere inc. happened.

Next day he married the bottle. At least if the bottle died he could
buy another one and it would be exactly the same.

And for the past ten years he has been on a whiskey honeymoon. With
nothing bar three affair cases to distract him. His police pension
paying his way.

Chapter 3

At the airport he got into the fresh air and lit his first cigarrette
in 2 hours. His head swam with the nicotine messing with his head.
Claustrophobia set in. People seemed to be swarming round him, his eyes
blurring out fading to black. He passed out.

A young man picked him up and sat him against the wall. A glass of
water was splashed over his face. Groggily he came round. Reality faded
in slowly, he could see the woman in the photo looking down on
him.

Confuison when young man spoke "Are you ok?"

"Fine now why the Fuck did you throw water over me and where did she
go?"

"Where'd who go?" confused.

"Nothing, don't worry, need drink, where's nearest bar?"

"Oh he's just a drunk leave him to it!", "Smells like one?" the crowd
exclaimed as they walked away.

"Fine ignore me then!" as he got up and hailed another cab.

At least the rain had stopped but the buildings and streets were the
same. All dark lifeless shells windows giving nothing away bar
darkness. With his hangover subsiding blurred faces became ghosts. The
ghosts were fragments from his homicide days.

Every day a different innocent life, every day a different way to die.
Everyone is innocent when they die, it doesn't matter what they did in
their life. Once in a while though you get a death that breaks through
the numbness and gets inside your head. I was a cop for twenty four
years thirteen days four hours twenty seven minutes and forty nine
seconds. In that time this had happened five times. Children all of
them. Raped, cut, and strangled. All their innocence sucked out of
them. Their beautiful faces turned to frozen blue. That's what hurt,
those are the faces I still see. Those are the faces I see passing me
as I am driven along this street. These are the faces I see on every
street.

The french accent of the black driver is the only thing that gets
through, his words a garbled blur.

The Clarence Hotel, old french in design, wrought iron balconies at
every window. Out of the cab he lit another cigarette. Inhaled twice
and crushed it with his shoe.

He checked in and went to hotel restaurant. He had no luggage to drop
off no clothes to change into only a cutthroat razor, his PI license,
$1400, a photo and a business card occupying space on his person, so
food came first.

After cajun lobster came two and a half hours drinking single malt at
the hotel bar. The ghosts needed numbing again. He sat on his own in
the bar chain smoking Malboro and wondering why his wife had never
become a ghost. Secretly he was pleased she had died, it had put her
out of her misery. He was a bastard. He hit her on a regular basis, he
couldn't help it. Being numb drives you to find greater passions to
fill the voids, but numbness has an angry sense of humour. You lash
out. You scream with your fists, you try to cry quietly but all you do
is shout.

He misses her, he is broken but somewhere inside he is happy. Happy to
be nowhere.

Nearly five days gone since the photo. Time fading too quickly but need
to rest.

He sleeps, disturbed. Blue faces crying in his head, screaming with
their eyes, silent mouths.

Four hours went passed. 6:30 am flashed on the bedside clock. He woke
up.

"Just in time for 6:30 drink before I leave". He drank, showered,
dressed, and left.

"Room 312" her room. He closed his eyes and could see her on the bed.
Breathing deeply, a bead of sweat swimming across her chest. Blonde
hair sprayed over the sheets.

Chapter 4

$50 to the dark haired twenty-something gave him some information and
the key. Room had been booked and paid for for one week under the name
of White, Frank White. Five days ago tall attractive blonde had gone up
to his room, neither had left the next day and room had been empty
since.

Room was exactly like the photo but something was missing. It felt as
though something had walked in and sucked all of the atmosphere from
the room. But then maybe it was just the absence of her. Searching the
room was a cold exercise. Nothing. Maybe he was just looking for the
wrong thing.

Sitting on the bed chain smoking he wondered what to do. Staring at the
photo. Staring.

Finally something clicked. He had been staring at the image of her
instead of taking in the whole scene. It had been moved. The mirror
gave it away. Why had he been so stupid not to notice the obvious. 20
inches nothing more but so obvious.

Comparing the room to the photo he pushed the bed to where it should
have been. What was there didn't surprise him he had seen it many times
before. A dried pool of blood 6 inches by 40 inches long. What was
strange was the purposefully placed polaroid at its centre.

He picked it up