Atmosphere Read online

  ATMOSPHERE

  Michael Laimo

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2011 Michael Laimo

  Copy-edited by: Darren Pulsford

  Cover Design By: David Dodd

  Background Images provided by: http://Xristoforos.deviantart.com

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  OTHER CROSSROAD TITLES BY MICHAEL LAIMO:

  NOVELS:

  The Demonologist

  Deep in the Darkness

  Sleepwalker

  COLLECTIONS:

  Demons, Freaks, and Other Abnormalities

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  Chapter One

  Shielding himself from the early morning rain, Detective Frank Ballaro of the New York City Police Department bent down, squinted, and checked to see if it really was blood he had stepped in.

  The showers, which had begun around six AM the previous morning, started out as just a sprinkle but strengthened as the morning gave way to afternoon. Throughout the day it paused at times—only to gather more strength before continuing to pour, leaving everything saturated in its wake.

  He should have known that at least two inches of water would be awaiting his loafers when he stepped from the car; New York City's streets promised that. In the past he would have cursed out loud a few times, letting everyone within his proximity know exactly what it was he had done to himself. But this morning extreme exhaustion impeded his desire to concern himself with any form of discomfort, and he accepted the slight mishap as simply another in a string of irks riddling his pressure-filled life.

  Summer 1998 had been hot and dry all the way into October, the drought making it seem as if there would never be any rain to cool New York City's streets and buildings. When the weekends arrived, thousands would flock to the beaches on Long Island in an effort to escape the stifling heat. Some would seek relief tinkering with the fire hydrants in prayer that they would release their short supply. It was almost as if the city were a great sand castle built a bit too far away from shore, just out of reach of the ocean's foamy crescents.

  But then summer segued into fall, and like magic the tide rushed in, transforming October into a cooling off period: nearly twenty days of rain that pounded the skyscrapers and saturated the concrete sidewalks, flooding the labyrinth of subway tunnels after all the water tables had drunk their fill, causing streams of water to race along the curbs and rush around the corners in a seemingly endless circular flow.

  The curb Frank stepped in was no exception.

  He hunkered down and rubbed a finger across the toes of his black loafers. Holding it beneath the dull incandescent glow of the streetlamp next to him, he dabbed it with his thumb. Deep red. Thick like syrup. Indeed, Frank had stepped in blood.

  He wiped his fingers on the rainy-wet lamppost, rinsing them of the red smear. He cautiously gazed about 4th Street, his mental wheels spinning in search of a clue to the cause of the blood, purposely averting his gaze from his apartment building directly across the street in an effort to avoid the temptation of being lured there. The world played dead: empty sidewalks, not a vehicle riding the street. Shops closed and shuttered. Everything nearly steeped in darkness aside from the streetlamps and the scattered glowings from within some apartment windows. Not even a distant siren called out. The disorderly pace that usually thrived in this neighborhood had ceased to exist, making Frank feel like the last human on a world that had suddenly stopped turning.

  He peeked at his watch, a simple act he had not once performed during the past twelve hours. Four-sixteen AM. Again he resisted the urge to peek across towards his apartment. A very hard earned three-day weekend awaited his company. All he had to do was carry himself across the street, lock the door behind and close out the rest of the world until Monday.

  And to imagine: a very rare occurrence started it all off. Lucking into a good parking spot. Hell, why not? He deserved at least that much. He had spent the last twelve hours wrapping up the final paperwork on the Carrie Lindsay murder that he and his ever-annoying partner Neil Connor had slaved on over the past two months. What a relief, to finally have the poor girl's older brother right where he belonged—behind bars, all the evidence needed to prove the case on paper, clasped in a manila folder and locked in his desk drawer. The judicial icing on the cake, as he liked to say.

  He sucked in a breath, tried to rub the looming headache from his eyes. For two weeks he had wanted nothing more than a good night's sleep. He always slept pretty well between jobs where he didn't have to obsess about who, what, and why, and with the closure on the Carey Lindsay case clearing a lot of space in his head, that's exactly where he was: in between assignments.

  But of all things, thirty-one year veteran Frank Ballaro hadn't anticipated stepping in blood.

  His detective mind set itself in investigation mode. He had to know.

  Imagining his first glimpse unreliable due to utter exhaustion, he bent down to look at it again.

  Swirling in the running water, the blood kept coming, carried by the ebbing current. It flowed with a smooth sensuality, spiraling down the curb into a wicked design before reaching a bump in the blacktop, where it gelled into a ball behind a twig like an oil slick on a slab of flotsam.

  Frank felt his three distinct personalities begin to do battle. The meek, weary, yet rational man in him tried desperately to ignore the blood and force himself to retire for the night, go shrug out of his stale wet clothing and into a warm bathrobe, have a bowl of hot chicken soup and sleep for sixteen hours. But that part—secondary and rarely listened to—succumbed to Frank's strongest personality: the brave truth-seeking NYC detective that had been commended with various honors over the years, the detective that was to retire in two years but still couldn't turn down a piece of challenging work when it presented itself, no matter what the circumstances, no matter what time it was.

  The part that always piled on the grind, but somehow, always eased him out of it.

  Blood on his shoes? It was coming from somewhere. Someone. He had to investigate.

  The early morning moon tore through a dispersing tapestry of blue-black rain clouds, adding a faint touch of light to the dull glow of the fading streetlamps. Thin wisps of fog sluggishly advanced in from around the buildings at the corner of 4th and Mason like skeletal fingers, adding a cold sheet of humidity to the diminishing precipitation. The moon's radiance gleamed palely from it, eerily illuminating the scene with reflections of Autumn beams. A wind picked up and hurled a few wet leaves across the sidewalk.

  Slowly and methodically, Frank paced along the edge of the curb, opposite the bloody flow, keeping his eyes glued to the hairline streaks of crimson wavering atop the stream of lapping rain water. He passed dark apartment buildings and storefronts on his left, cars parked alongside meters to his right.

  A taxi turned the corner ahead and roared by, ripping through the silence, speeding past Frank down the block over Scudder Place.

  From the gloom its former passenger appeared, footsteps approaching, tapping on the sidewalk. A girl.

  Frank glanced in her direction. She
sported green hair and a nose-ring, carried a straight-forward expression as heavy as an iron weight. Her jade eyes were catatonic, seemingly angry at the world. Frank thought of Jaimie, only nineteen years old, perhaps the same age as this confused girl. Dear God, how horrible would his life turn if his baby came home one day adorned with electric hair and a pierced face? Or worse yet: a guy with the same embellishments? It was hard enough getting her to turn the volume down on that damn music she listened to. He couldn't imagine engaging in some futile lifestyle conflict with her.

  He tore his eyes from the girl as she passed, returning his gaze to the curb and the blood. He continued his pursuit of the wispy flow to the north-west corner of 4th and Mason.

  All of a sudden he heard a squeak and looked down to investigate. In the gutter a rat groveled on all fours, its pink tongue lapping urgently at a patch of blood congealing in the litter-clogged grill. Its oil-drop eyes were aimed at Frank, beady, paranoid, seemingly saying come near my warm meal and I'll bite your little human finger off.

  Frank's weak and weary identity again begged him to turn around and head home, begged him to fight the sudden frivolous urge to pull out his .45 and pulverize the rat. Damn his third personality, that irrational part inside that always misguided his thoughts, tempting him to act foolishly and recklessly. The personality that would clearly get him into big trouble if he listened to it. Thank God this personality had never bared the strength to coerce his body into action all the time.

  Take out the gun, pull the trigger, then slide away into your apartment and start your three-day weekend.

  The lunacy of these ill-advised thoughts sent his body to shudders. Chills swam through his body like a school of fish. Clearly the fatigue was tearing his mind to shreds. But still, the rat's beady eyes, they just stared at him. And the whiskers, dappled with ruby droplets, tongue sliding in and out, in and out, lap, lap, lap.

  He placed a hand on his gun. C'mon, Frank, only one shot, that's all. Just one...

  Without a forewarning, a fierce scream ripped through the deadened silence of the night. Frank startled. His skin crawled, and he pulled his gun. The rat freaked also, squealing maniacally, darting into the sewer, leaving its tasty meal behind in a diluted puddle.

  Frank jogged into the street. He saw a taxi racing up Mason, its headlights floating like two beacons in the ocean. He glanced quickly to the south and then back up the street, saw only the approaching cab.

  The scream sounded again, louder this time, more intense. Frank stepped forward, his eyes searching the street. Nothing, at first.

  Then, its source finally appeared.

  A filthy man, completely naked, darting into the street a half block up, like a bat escaping the throes of hell.

  Right in front of the cab.

  The cab's wheels screeched. A jolting gunshot sound blasted. Frank thought the cab had blown a tire or backfired, but soon realized with horror that the explosive sound was the result of the cab's cold hard metal striking the naked man.

  The shocking sight caused Frank's eyelids to flutter. He swallowed hard and clutched his gut in reactive pain as the man's waist caved into an accordion shape at the point of contact, the opposite side of his body tearing open like a piece of citrus fruit, exposing a red swamp of liver, kidney, and entrails. The stricken man catapulted head over heels like a sailing gymnast performing an out-of-control cartwheel, struck the pavement and tumbled end over end on the concrete, like a fumbled football, pieces of his insides spraying about in a symphonic shower of red beads.

  The cab screeched to a halt and the driver leapt out—just in time to see the body come to a dead rest fifteen feet away.

  Frank raced to the body, hand cramping around his gun, finger wet on the trigger. The cab driver, wearing dark pants and a short sleeve Hawaiian shirt, sprinted forward on long, chicken-thin legs but abruptly stopped a few yards away, steeling himself in a surrender-like stance, arms in the air.

  Frank focused on him, puzzled.

  The cabby started yelling, face taut with panic, accent thick, "Don't hurt me! I-I did no see him! He come from nowhere!"

  Frank scrutinized the driver's defensive posture, his timid reaction, following his line of vision which was aimed at his own shaking hands. The gun.

  Ignoring him, Frank reached for his hand held radio but found only his empty belt. In the car! He had removed it earlier and placed it on the seat next to him. His brains too it seemed.

  Instead he gently brushed the man's long stringy hair from his face, gazing at his empty features through the jagged headlight beams of the taxi. Young, he was in his late teens at most, his blue eyes dilated and bleeding and virtually devoid of life, staring through Frank at an invisible blackness that could have been death itself looming over them. His sharp jaw trembled in syncopation with his entire naked body.

  Frank peered down along the length of the man's broken torso. A lemon-sized lump of guts emerged from the rupture in his waist.

  But most unspeakable was the damage in his crotch area.

  Hellishly bloodied, his penis appeared to have been shredded, as if slashed at repeatedly with a straight-edged razor or knife. His testicles were shrunken, like two small raisins, drawn in. Blood pooled on the cement between his legs. Frank felt a gorge rise in his throat, and he had to force a swallow to get the bitterness out from his mouth.

  Lightly pained whines escaped the victim's trembling lips. He appeared to be trying to say something, and Frank focused his attention on him, listening intently, hoping to hear something, any pained morsel of information that may clue him into a reason for the tragedy.

  But nothing came, only desperate wheezes. Shock was progressing upon him, cloaking his physical awareness. His weak whispering pleas were most likely instinctual.

  "I did not see him!"

  Frank jumped, nearly shot the cabby, who was now perching over him, arms wide in plea, clearly less scared of Frank now and more concerned with his own ass than with the condition of the man he’d just pummeled. Probably had visions of being deported back to his country.

  For the second time tonight Frank had to control the urge to fire his weapon. He waved it in the cabby's direction and the driver stepped back, cringing like a child warding off the blows of an angry parent.

  "Call for help. God damn it! Move!" He felt a wave of frustration race along his nerve endings. The cabby darted back into the cab and started shouting wildly into his CB radio.

  Frank placed his free palm on the boy's forehead. Cold and wet. His lips chattered uncontrollably, blue and chapped, devoid of moisture. His skin had released its tone and was now gray like cold fish. Frank swallowed a dry lump clinging to the back of his throat. It seemed that there was nothing he could do to help the boy.

  He still needed to find out what had happened.

  He took a cursory glance around. Aside from the idling cab and wild cries of the cabby attempting to explain to his supervisor what had just occurred, silence dominated, just as it did only minutes earlier when he stepped from his car into the bloody water.

  A breeze swept by, chilling the sweat on Frank's brow. It then seemed to blow down past Frank, through the boy's blue stuttering lips and into his dying subconscious mind, grabbing a single word from within.

  "Atmosphere".

  It emerged harshly, a barely audible whisper. Pained, yet emphatic. Garbled, but intelligible. But what did it mean? Was it possible that the boy could be trying to reveal a reason to his naked insanity?

  "What? What'd you say?" Frank's own words stammered as much as the injured boy's breaths. They garnered no response. Suddenly he wanted so desperately to feed his frustration, scrape at the boy's lips with his fingers and vainly attempt to pry more information. But he did not, resorting to his sensible mind, allowing the situation to unfold without any harsh interference. This left him only one option. Satisfy his curiosity with what he had: only one word, it being all he would ever capture.

  The boy's eyes sealed shut, two empty envel
opes forever closed.

  A police cruiser pulled up.

  And Frank sat like a zombie in the wake of its madly twirling beacons, a dead body in front of him and a single word challenging his mind.

  Atmosphere.

  Chapter Two

  The silent night surrendered to twirling siren lights and a whirlwind of activity. Four cruisers and an ambulance clogged the now cordoned off block. A few early morning enthusiasts watched from behind, craning their necks to get a good view of the commotion. Paramedics hunkered over the injured man, working frantically, administering anesthesia, taping his injuries with sheets of gauze. A few policemen from the 13th precinct gathered about the medical team, watching inquisitively, while others casually leaned on the cruisers and laughed amongst themselves. Frank heard them cracking gay jokes about the victim.

  "So Smoky...what brings you out at this time of night?"

  Frank recognized the voice at once. Smiling, he turned to face Captain Hector Rodriguez. Frank had worked his longest tour of duty with Hector at the 13th, nearly twenty years, before being promoted—and transferred—to the 12th eleven years ago.

  In 1968, his first month as a rookie cop, Frank had been posted at the corner of Bleeker and 3rd, three blocks from an open air concert being performed by the Grateful Dead. Greenwich Village in the late sixties always offered a great deal of culture to look at: drunk and stoned kids roaming the streets, all living life to its fullest, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Frank was just a kid himself at the time, and being from Brooklyn, had had many friends participating in all the far-out activities thriving at the time. The day of the concert he had been perched at the corner watching the semblance of activity, wondering with a bit of envy what his life would have been like had he not chosen to become an officer of the law. He pictured himself dressed in bell-bottom jeans, a tie-dye shirt, headband, John Lennon specs, and a cigarette dangling from his lip.