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A Box for Black Paul
Posted: 05 Jul 2012, 05:41
by Lydie (DELETED 2769)
Detective St Martin was no saint, as his colleagues gleefully pointed out every chance they could get. There was nothing saintly about the way he roughed up suspects before he brought them into the station. It was hardly standard procedure, but it had results and as far as the OPP was concerned, as long as nobody filed any complaints it was A-OK.
Course, nobody ever filed a complaint.
St Martin sat in his unmarked with his cup of his coffee and Lydia Seguine’s case file open on his lap. She was a good kid, just like he had thought. Aside from a few minor juvenile stints—a shoplifting report that was dropped when she was thirteen, a couple speeding tickets a few months ago—her record was spic and span. Still, the specialist they called in said that what they had found in the apartment with Ms. Seguine’s things was legit occult ****.
Not that St Martin believed in magic. Oh, no. It’s just that some people did, and the theory was that Ms. Seguine was one of them: maybe in some kind of Satanic cult. Some kind of sacrifice. Sure, she’d said that it was her “stalker”, but nobody had any records of a “Liesin” anywhere. They all came up blank. So the homicide department decided, yes, she may be making it up.
It didn’t help her case that several hacking attempts were traced to their building. The techs couldn’t decide if it had been from Paulo’s computer or from Lydie’s, but one thing was for sure. That Paulo kid wasn’t no genius. He had a Lothario thing going for him, last time they checked from the interviews. It didn’t really suit St Martin’s image of him, being some kind of computer geek and pounding away at some keyboard in the dark.
And Lydia Seguine worked in an internet café.
The two-room apartment in the shitty tenement building was still considered a crime scene. But there were some things that the OPP had released to Ms. Seguine. St Martin took it as an opportunity to spy on her.
As far as his job went, nobody could accuse St Martin of being unenthusiastic.
He watched her park and go up the stairs, then come back down with a few boxes. She was looking pissed off, like somebody had said something bad about her mother or something, and she just looked more and more agitated as she came back down with box after box of whatever it was she was bringing out of the apartment.
Crazy chick was even muttering to herself.
Re: A Box for Black Paul
Posted: 05 Jul 2012, 05:43
by Lydie (DELETED 2769)
“You can’t live with me anymore. You have to get out of Harper Rock. When are you getting out?” She made a face as she stuffed her third box of records into the back seat. She mimicked Hamlet, putting on an exaggeratedly deep, gruff voice. “When you get your ******* head out of your ***, that’s when.”
It did occur to Lydie that she was being a *****—that she should have felt a little more grateful, considering that he kind of did stick his neck out for her. But **** that. Vampirism—or death—or whatever it was that he was going through, whatever fucked up parody of puberty—hadn’t changed him a bit. He was still a rude ***********, he still snapped at her for every little thing she said, and she couldn’t stand it.
And this stupid investigation! They weren’t ever going to let her go, were they! That idiot detective kept checking up on her, calling her to find out if she’d jumped ship. She hadn’t. Not yet. God damn, though. She wished she could.
Lydie threw the last box into the back of her car and drove out to Gullsburough. There were a couple of cheap motels lined up there; Lydie wouldn’t give Hamlet the satisfaction of letting him see her camping out in Tina’s office again. The best thing about Gullsburough was that it was near a few good internet cafés. She could do her hacking near there.
See, Lydie figured that one job wouldn’t get her out of Harper Rock as quickly as she might have liked, and she had a few programs that a friend gave her way back—showed her the ropes, you know—and so she decided to pick hacking back up. She didn’t do any real harm—not that she could, even if she wanted to. The most she got out of people’s bank accounts were sixty-four dollars on a very good day. A regular day got her twenty. That was a hundred a week, at least. That could tide her over for a while, while she saved up to move to Montreal. Or maybe Quebec, she was starting to think. Maybe even go further off, right into the USA.
But the cops had a different idea, didn’t they. The cops said: don’t leave town yet. The cops said: it’s not that we suspect you, we just want to clear your name—which was a load of ********. She thought about what a load of ******** that was all the way to her motel room, where she hopped a long, long shower.
Re: A Box for Black Paul
Posted: 05 Jul 2012, 09:24
by Lydie (DELETED 2769)
Well, ya know ah've been a bad-man
and Lord knows ah done some god things too.
But ah confess, my soul will never rest
until you've until you've built,
until you've built a box for my gal, too.
Nick Cave was on repeat. The gun that Jonah had given her was lying on the bedside table, waiting for something--for any sign of Liesin, maybe, or maybe Hamlet, because he seemed pretty pissed off at her last time she saw him. Not that he had a right to be. She had been trying to make conversation with---well. Whatever. The gun was there, at any rate, and it and Nick Cave kept her company while she tried to hack into a system from her laptop.
Free wifi was a boon. And God bless Steve Jobs, too.
A little further in the city, around Coastside, a red spot bleeped on a computer screen. The tracer program dotted a path toward the motel in Gullsburough, and the automated system contacted the police. Danger, it said. One of the main banks of Harper Rock--its database--was being infiltrated.
It wasn't long before the signal was cut off, but not before it had pinpointed the exact location where the signal was coming from.
Officer Rice was having a bad night. His wife had just left him--just hours before--and taken their three year old kid to her mother's. He tried to reason with her, tried to make her stay, but the fact was that she just didn't want to hear it. In the same way, Rice just didn't want to hear the goddamn bleeping he was supposed to be looking out for.
With a triumphant click, Lydie finally deleted the tracer. It had become like a game to her, and she hadn't gotten caught yet. Probably wouldn't start tonight.
The system sent the signal down to the operator. Mary picked up her headset and sent out a dispatch: "Any available officers, head to Louie's Motel on Gullsburough--"
Louie's Motel on Gullsburough. That was the very same building Lydia Seguine had disappeared into thirty minutes ago.
"--hacking in progress--"
Oh, ****.
"Room A25."
St Martin's mind raced. Lydia Seguine had been acting jumpy all week, moving from one place to the other--yes, he had kept tabs on her--with no pattern or rhythm. All the signs were there: she was going to skip town soon, whether the OPP liked it or not. This was an opportunity to bring her in before she tried it--to keep her in custody until they solved the grisliest homicide reported to them in years.
He grabbed his gun and his handcuffs and stepped out into the pavement. "Police business," he said to the homely chick at the front desk, though she didn't seem to mind that he was just barging in. This place was probably used to it.
Who'll build a box for Black Paul?
Ah'm enquirin' on behalf of his soul.
Ah'd be beholden to ya all
For a lil' information, yes some kinda information--
Nick Cave looped again. Lydie tried to read but she was restless, as though something were coming. Some kind of trouble. She wished the Abuela Sacnite would come to her with clearer dreams--would maybe come to her now, the Madonna mascot of their family, when she needed her the most. Her heart raced in her chest--pounded so hard that she couldn't hear the footprints in the corridor.
The images swirled around her like funhouse mirrors. Paul's head mounted in the kitchen. The dream. Abuela Sacnite whispering. Hamlet! His throat bleeding. And then dead on the floor of some crowded warehouse. The ultimate cliche. Paulo waking up in the middle of the night, probably gurling. How did he die? What was the last thing he thought, saw, wished?
For comfort, for any sort of comfort, Lydie gripped the gun Jonah gave her. God damn, she needed to get out of Harper Rock.
Black-puppet, in a heap up against the stoning-wall
Blud-puppet, go to sleep, ma-ma won't scold ya anymore.
Armies of ants, wade up the lil red streams
they're headin for the mother-pool--
St Martin heard the music. It was faint and muffled in the carpeted hallway, and sinister. The kind of **** you hear in funerals. He rapped on the door. "This is the police!" he barked. "Open up!"
Lydie jerked off the bed and, her gun still in her hand, stood up. She slapped the lip of her laptop down and cut Nick Cave off. What? What? The police?
St Martin didn't knock twice. He kicked the door in, and what happened next happened so fast that Lydie, even years later, would never be able to explain just quite what had happened--or what had come over her, because the trigger was light, the room was dim, and Lydia Seguine was a lucky shot.
There was an astonished look on his face--even irritated--as he put his hand on his chest and it came up red, as if he wondered what the cost for getting this shirt dry-cleaned was. His mouth moved, wordlessly, and Lydie watched in pure terror and incredulity as he fell, face first, into the carpet. She knew who he was. She remembered his eyes.
Get out, her feet said. Get the **** out.