It’s Such A Perfect Day

 
Wednesday, 2nd September
14:40

It had taken just over three hours to clean the office and make a complete scan of the property for any leftover evidence. On the flip-side, it had taken less than a few minutes for the CCCC manager to work out the three-figure cost. It had been billed directly to Julian as the business owner, who was on the verge of turning fully grey by this point after trying four different credit cards - all of them being rejected. The manager had offered the girls jobs ‘dancing’ at his cousin’s ‘place downtown’ in order to work off the cost, but was halted by their uncharacteristically aggressive boss shoving a fifth card into the round worker’s chest. That one went through and the cleaning crew left with a few playfully perverted coos, and two business cards for said ‘gentleman’s establishment’ in the female’s palms.

Watching the backs disappear through the main threshold and then the barrier shut, Julian yipped, “who the hell do they think they are?”

“The guys who just cleaned up an exploded human being?”

“You shouldn’t let people treat you like that. Neither of you, no matter what state of dress you’re in.” He looked at Alex and then remembered she was still near-nude and turned away. “Bloody put my coat on. I’ve told you four times, already.”

“I think I’ve had enough blood for today.”

“You know what I mean; you’re going to-”

“-what, catch a cold?” Alex asked and Julian opened his mouth to argue only to pinch his lips when he remembered her inhuman constitution.

“It’s not right that you have to walk around like that.”

“That’s very chivalrous of you, Jules, but I think you forget the kind of things I did before I met you.” Inhaling the smoke from her vice, the blonde sorted through the order forms for the week that had thankfully remained in their folders on the workstation downstairs. “I did some dancing in a few clubs, and Dom worked as a Bottle Girl at Lynx, for Christ’s sake. We’re no strangers to skimpy uniforms and flirting for cash - it’s a service, not a lifestyle.”

Domino nodded as she started popping the lid of one of the wooden crates yet to be inspected. “Most of the guys that went in Lynx were sports personnel, pilots and ship Captains, and bouncers wanting a break from the PCP-sniffing, pill-popping, Molly-ragged club-rats at their own places of work. Ninety nine percent of them were polite, and had dough.”

“The guys who went in the clubs I worked were the club-rats and their angry meth-head girlfriends when they ball-squeezed our bouncers in order to push past and fight their cheating ‘others’…” Alex rolled her neck to crack the joints as she sauntered across the open space with paperwork resting on a clipboard balanced on her inner left forearm. “I only went into Lynx twice; once when dealing with that stalker who kept stealing your uniform, and before that when I was first getting out of street theft. A doorman for the club I worked at the time passed me a job as a covert bodyguard to some weedy little prick - he was a misogynistic arsehole but he paid well and the club was slick, even back then.”

Watching the female pair converse about the establishments he considered glorified strip clubs, Julian bit at the air, “you’re both smart enough to work proper jobs; why would you consider going back to that kind of work?”

“Criminal record-”

“-staff benefits-”

“-mental health record-”

“-good-looking company-”

“-free drinks-”

“-fantastic tips-”

“-even better minimum wage per hour, and don’t get me started on over-time and holidays-”

“-lying to people and getting paid for it-”

“-meeting new people with interesting stories every night…”

“Really, I just liked the fact it brought in easy money and I could sleep through the day,” Alex nodded to herself as she stubbed out the end of her cigarette.

“You’re both terrible.”

“Jules, ‘you saying you’ve never been to a gent’s club?”

“I’d hardly call those kinds of places somewhere a gentleman would go.”

Domino brushed a bit of stray sawdust off her chest when the blonde went ham on a wooden crate with the crowbar. “We had burlesque nights every Wednesday for amateurs, Pro-Shows on every second Saturday, and full-on productions at the end of every other month.”

Glancing up at the steel rafters in thought, Alex quirked her brow at the very different level of work, a fresh, unlit cigarette wiggling between her lips as she took her frustration out on the innocent packaging. “We had two-for-one watered-down shooters most week-afternoons until 3pm and staff would bet on whether the owner would be punched before the bouncers saved him after he ran his mouth to the wrong person…”

Facing the blonde but keeping his line of sight on the ground, Julian wrinkled his features. “I know you don’t like showing the back of your body, so how did you do a job like that?”

“I never took everything off, and I always wore a nude lace bodysuit under whatever get-up I was wearing. I danced; I wasn’t a stripper.”

“I didn’t mean it li-”

“-Jules, it’s fine. I knew what you meant. You can ask me questions like that, y’know? I’d much rather you ask than just make up some sordid little story in that over-active noggin of yours to fill the gaps.”

Turning away, he mumbled under his breath, “it wasn’t sordid.”

Domino paused to jut her jaw at their employer with a grin, “he’s sulking now. Look, you made him sulk.”

“If you want to pop home and get some clothes, you should probably go now. We’ve got a delivery coming just after five so we should eat before then.”

“I’ll grab lunch on the way back; what do you both want?”

“I’m put off Chinese after smelling that one by Jules’ house yesterday, and I had Indian last night.”

Scratching off a tick-box, Alex kept her eyes down on her clipboard with a semi-suppressed grin, “are you talking about food, or…?”

“Shut it, you.”

Sweeping up the mess the women were making, Julian looked around to ponder only for his eyes to settle on his office door. His stomach twisted into a knot and an attack similar to indigestion bombarded his gullet in remembrance of the slew slops of flesh from earlier, “why don’t we try a vegan lunch?”

Both women’s heads snapped to look at the man. He didn’t think he’d ever offended anyone so much in his entire life by their shared appalled expression.

“I’ll grab Japanese if it isn’t packed. Text me what you want when you’ve decided.” Heading for the door, an obnoxious cough from her fellow female halted the blonde.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“What?”

“Um, clothing?”

“Yeah…If I got pulled over or was at a light next to a lorry…” Taking Julian’s khaki Mod Parka off the table, Alex threw it on and zipped the front as far as it would go before picking up her bag. “I’ll only be gone about forty minutes, depending on the queue for food.”

“Drive safe.”

 

18:08
The Other Side of the Town Centre…

On the footpath of an underpass beneath a cross-junction, a first-time meeting between minacious individuals was taking place as the city began to gear up for the night. What Julian Darby had hoped for the most had fallen on the deaf ears of any higher power whatsoever. Not only had Finley McCauley recognized Alexandria Baines at the hotel yesterday, but he had taken the trouble to traverse down dangerous channels in order to contact a man barely named by even the majority of his most nefarious connections to the spanning, seedy underworld he excelled in.

The back end of a strong Irish accent cut through the bitter evening air and the exchange which had started only ten minutes ago. “I thought I killed that bitch after throwing her out of a window almost a decade ago. Kids these days are so resilient.”

“Excuse me, Mr McCauley, but we are speaking about the same - and I use this word lightly - person, aren’t we?”

“White hair, mouth like a sailor, the eyes of a killer, an inextinguishable blood-lust,” holding his palms up at his suited chest, Finley made a cupping motion with both hands as he quirked his brow with an eye-roll, “stacked.”

“Ah, most definitely the same one.” Holding his hands clasped in front of his torso, the pale-suited man stoked the request he’d been summoned to fulfil, “what are you wanting me to do about it?”

“I want her dead.”

“I’m sorry, Mr McCauley, but I can’t do that.”

“I was told you’re a crossroads demon,” the usual lack of emote was tinged with understated mockery. “The one who tempted Faust himself, the one who gave Robert Johnson his key to success. The very man who went down to Georgia with his golden fiddle.”

“All of that is true. Phenomenal iced tea down in the South of the New World,” the dark-skinned man nodded to himself in recollection, “but I can’t interfere too much on the front of your foul-mouthed pair of breasts on legs.”

“Did she get to you first? If that’s the case, I’ll bring you more of your desired currency and out-bid her.”

“I think you’re misunderstanding. Even,” glancing up, the pale-suited man thought about the right words, “forces such as myself have to abide by a set of certain rules. You know, red tape, branch management, eternal incineration; you know the drill when it comes to power-hungry bosses and complaints from the higher Powers That Be when it comes to international corporations.” Pinching his lips in a faux-gleeful smile, the taller man held his hand out to the side. “If there’s nothing else I can help you with on the matter, I have a new batch of virgins in-”

“-are you telling me she’s not a human?”

“Sir, you crushed her oesophagus, stabbed her in her appendix, threw her off a second-floor and left her to die. She suffered injuries even a car crash victim with a seatbelt would die from three times over, yet she is still sauntering around meddling in matters she has no business in.” Wrinkling his nose in distaste for the Northern inner-city air, Mephistopheles pursed full lips. “She literally got up and walked away from your murder attempt. You tell me if in all your time travelling the world and working the jobs you have if you’ve ever heard of something like that.”

“Then, how about you give me something that I can use to kill someone not quite human.”

“Now, Mr McCauley, you’re asking the right kind of questions.” A dark smile twisted full lips up into a satisfied grin. Gesturing to those in black suits stood around like Feds at a MIB cosplay convention, one of them brought a palm-sized wooden case over as soon as the gesture was made.

Opening the lid of the simple tin, Mephistopheles nodded to the contents. “I think this could be of use to you.”

Finley was clearly unimpressed by the lack of grandeur. “What’s that supposed to be? A gardenia fertilizer?” He jutted a disfigured index finger towards the contents: it looked like a vial of piss he left back in the science closet in secondary school.

The much taller man opened his mouth, his grin growing maniacal. “This is what you need to break her.” Shiny daggers for teeth glistening in the flittering light, the seller’s lips pinched in sheer joy as he explained the item. “It’ll heavily disable her if it gets in contact with her skin, but ideally, ingesting it will be best.”

“But will it kill her?”

“And there I was thinking you were a man of means…” Glancing up from the item, bistre irises glittered gold under the faulty flickering under-pass spotlights few and far between. “Do you not want to finish the job all by yourself, Mr McCauley?” There was a pause as the pale-suited man watched Finley’s frame tense and his facial muscles twitch in a type of anger that could only be savoured. “Forgive me for thinking you’d want to watch the life slip from her eyes when you finished what was started all those years ago.”

“You really are a tempter, aren’t you?”

“It’s in the job title, so yes, of course.” Taking a thick cigar from an out-held case via one of his lackeys, Mephistopheles inhaled the first drag with a coo. “Don’t judge a man for his ambition.”

“It’s not so much judgement as it is suspicion: what do I get from this supposedly handy loophole which clearly serves one of your purposes too?” Placing the slim case into the inner pocket of his woollen peacoat, the Irishman returned his line of sight to the monster amongst men enjoying the expensive rolled tobacco leaves.

“You’re all too ready to give up on a weapon that clearly has value just because it isn’t all ‘flash-bang-wallop’. Such is man, I suppose.”

Snorting, the pretty man with high cheekbones plucked the premium cigar from between Mephistopheles fingers just after he had taken the first puff. Sniffing the smoke merged with the offset of the autumn evening air, McCauley brought the luxury to his lips and took a slow drag. Holding the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds, he hummed in appreciation for the vice he had literally just pilfered from a celebrity amongst demons. “You have a gripe with her and you can’t deal with it yourself, isn’t that right?”

Mephistopheles held his hand out, expectant for a handshake or the return of the weapon. “Do you want it, or no?”

Wetting his lips with his tongue, McCauley grasped the weighted palm. Keeping his line of sight on the darker male in enviable threads, he shook the hand thrice with a firm grip. “I guess that’s a deal.”

Mephistopheles’ jaw pulsed twice and he released the grip, his narrowed crescents scanning the Irishman who was clearly used to getting away with taking liberties. “I’ll come back for what you owe me even if you happen to fail again.” Turning away to walk back to his car, he held up his hand past his shoulder in farewell, “keep the cigar.”

“I was planning on it.”

Updated: 26th August 2021 - 16:46