Blood on Celluloid Read online

  BLOOD ON CELLULOID

  Other Books by B. L. Morgan

  Blood and Rain

  Blood for the Masses

  Night Knuckles

  BLOOD ON CELLULOID

  B. L. MORGAN

  SPEAKING VOLUMES, LLC

  NAPLES, FLORIDA

  2011

  BLOOD ON CELLULOID

  Copyright © 2008 by B. L. MORGAN

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  ISBN 978-1-61232-023-6

  Table of Contents

  BOOK ONE

  PART I

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  PART II

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  PART III

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  PART IV

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  BOOK TWO

  PART I

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  PART II

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  PART III

  CHAPTER 52

  AFTERWORD

  BOOK ONE

  PART I

  A STEP INTO THE HOUSE OF PAIN

  PROLOGUE

  December

  9:00 A.M

  White scratched at my eyes and dug a hole all the way to the back of my brain, creating an ache that I had a feeling would never go away. All the walls inside the East St. Louis Morgue were painted a harsh white. Bright neon flared from everywhere. The smell of formaldehyde burned my nostrils.

  Everything about this place told me to run and not look back and do not, DO NOT, take a look under the sheet that lay spread over the body in the center of the room.

  The harsh white light speared my brain. I’d never felt this bad when I was on a hangover from my worst drinking binge. Then, I didn’t care. The pain was only my body doing a slow slide toward death.

  Now, I hadn’t touched a drink for at least six months and was cold sober.

  I froze just inside the door. I didn’t know I had. Everything just shut down, my mind, my body. Maybe my unconsciousness was saying to the rest of me, Stand here long enough and you’ll wake up. It’ll be just one more nightmare and she’ll be OK.

  East St. Louis Police Detective Joe Briggs touched me on the elbow. “I know this is gonna be hard,” he said. “But you gotta do it.”

  I moved forward. Everything seemed out of kilter. The floor seemed to be further away than it should be.

  I walked to the autopsy table.

  The man standing beside the table was thin and nervous. A name tag read, Charles. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than where he was at that moment.

  I wanted the same thing.

  I reached out and touched the sheet and took it in my hand. I took a deep breath. My hand fell to my side as though it wasn’t a part of me.

  The thin nervous man stepped up to the opposite side of the table. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should do this.”

  He pulled the sheet down.

  The perfect features of my woman were revealed by the descending cloth.

  Sherry St. Claire, the woman who saved me from myself was dead. She gave me a reason to stay straight and not fill my body full of poison.

  Now she was dead.

  Joe Briggs asked, “Is that her?”

  “You know it is,” I answered. A buzzing filled my ears.

  I’d seen death before. I’d caused more than my share of people to be put in the ground. It never bothered me to look closely at a corpse before but this time it was different. This was not just some cold slab of meat.

  This was the woman I loved.

  Her face was a grimace of pain.

  I reached out and pulled the sheet down and off her naked body.

  “Wait,” the thin nervous man named Charles said. “You’re only here to identify her. You can’t do that.”

  The look I gave Charles made him take two quick steps backward. The look told him if he would have been within arm’s reach I would have knocked his teeth out.

  Sherry had been a beautiful woman, slim and attractive with all the right curves in all the right places. She was a mix of Asian and Caucasian parents. I always thought she got the best from both races.

  Now, both her nipples had been torn off. It looked like something like pliers had been used to rip them loose. Huge purple bruises and small cuts were up and down the sides of her arms, legs and torso. Oddly, her face had remained untouched.

  Her throat was slashed.

  Sherry St. Claire had been beaten and tortured, then murdered.

  Joe Briggs grabbed me from behind by the arms and hauled me backward. He was a big black bear of a man. I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d wanted to. I didn’t try to stop him.

  I’d seen enough.

  One glance showed me everything I needed to know. My woman had died after suffering extended extreme pain.

  Joe pulled me to the door and we ascended the stairs in silence.

  A cold rage was filling me.

  Sherry was dead!

  I would never hold her in my arms again and kiss her soft lips. I would never laugh with her again.

  Sherry was dead and it was my fault.

  Outside the East St. Louis Morgue Joe Briggs broke the silence.

  “You got yourself together real good John. I didn’t think you could. But you did. I’ll see to this case myself. I liked Sherry. Don’t do anything crazy.”

  “You know me better than that,” I told him and the look I gave Joe let him know that I’d make somebody pay for this.

  CHAPTER 1

  Where do you go when there’s no where you want to go?

  Who do you speak with when the only person you want to talk to is dead?

  * * *

  I started by going to the upscale gentleman’s club that Sherry owned named Patty’s Kitten House, and telling the bartender to announce that the place was closed until tomorrow and everyone had to leave.

  Officially I was no more than Sherry’s bodyguard and a bouncer at the club but everyone knew me and Sherry were together so less than ten minutes later the customers were gone, the doors were locked and the dancers, the bouncers, the bartender and the parking lot attendants were clustered around me wanting to know what was up.

  I didn’t mince any words. There was no sense in doing that.

  “I just got back from the morgue,” I told them. “I identified Sherry’s body.”

  There was a stunned silence. A few of the dancers held each other and wept in each others arms. Somebody said, “No!�
��

  Ron Martin, a large blond haired country boy of a man who was an ex-linebacker for the St. Louis Cardinals, was standing beside me.

  “You know how to run this place?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, I can do that,” he answered.

  “Good,” I told him. “You’re in charge until told otherwise.”

  I asked the room, “Does anyone here know how to arrange for a funeral?”

  One of the parking lot attendants, a small black guy named Paul Harris, said he’d taken care of the arrangements when his grandfather passed away.

  I asked him if he would arrange Sherry’s funeral. He said he would.

  “Ron, give him what money he needs,” I said. “Take it from the company bank account.”

  Ron nodded.

  I said to Paul, “Don’t spare any expenses. Do something nice for her.”

  “I will Mr. Dark,” he answered.

  “Write yourself a check for whatever you figure your time is worth,” I told him.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Paul said. “I don’t want nothing for doing this.”

  “I know,” I told him. “Pay yourself something anyway.”

  CHAPTER 2

  East St. Louis in December is bleak. Stark cold sinks through your clothes, and bitter winds drive the icy feeling all the way down and into your bones.

  I drove to the East St. Louis Police Department. My car now was a black Porsche, a gift from Sherry. My ancient Olds Delta 88 was parked in the far corner of the parking lot of Patty’s Kitten House. It was a beat up old rod with a reliable motor that had seen better days. I’m not sure why I kept the thing.

  The day Sherry gave me the Porsche I told her, “Hey babe, if I’d have known slinging my meat would get me this kind of stuff I’d have went into that business a long time ago.”

  She laughed and punched me in the stomach.

  “You’re good,” Sherry said. “But no one’s that good.”

  We kissed then and when we went to bed that night I tried to prove to her that I was that good.

  Thinking about that made me feel like crying.

  * * *

  The East St. Louis Police Department was, as usual, a zoo. Prostitutes were arguing with cops that their constitutional right to give blow jobs in alleys was being violated. Pimps were arguing that their right to sell women’s asses on the street was being denied. Drug dealers argued that denying them the freedom of choice to sell poison to children was immoral. Thieves were arguing that in a free market economy it was wrong to deny them access to the wealth and goods that others had earned.

  Everybody was arguing about something.

  I couldn’t be a cop. Somebody starts arguing with me about something and I’d just shoot the mother-fucker in the head and say, “I won that argument, idiot!”

  The Desk Sergeant was arguing with some big fat ugly black broad about her crack-head sneak-thief son being locked up for purse snatching.

  “I’m going to see Joe Briggs,” I shouted at him loud enough to drown out the woman’s complaints for a moment.

  He made a motion with his head that said, “Go ahead,” and continued his argument.

  After making my way through a jungle of desks and arguing idiots I arrived at Joe Briggs’ desk.

  An argument was going on there too.

  While standing and waiting, I got the gist of it.

  A burglar, a young black guy with a pockmarked face, was sitting at Joe’s desk. He was being released on a technicality and he wanted his burglary tools back. He actually said, “Those are the tools of my trade and you are denying me the right to earn a living.”

  I’d heard enough already. My patience was in short supply and I don’t have much to begin with.

  I leaned my face down into the black guy’s face, close enough to think, Fuck, this guy stinks and said, “Get your ass out of that goddamned chair and get the fuck out of here!”

  “You can’t talk to me like that,” he said. “Not in a police department. You cops can’t do that shit!”

  “I’m not a fucking cop,” I told him and picked him up by his collar and dropped him onto the floor.

  The man looked at Briggs.

  “You best leave,” Briggs told him. “I can only arrest John after he breaks your neck.”

  The guy scrambled to his feet and shuffled toward the door shouting at us, “I’m gonna file charges!”

  “Good,” I shouted back. I sat down in the vacated chair.

  Joe looked at me over the top of his desk, over the top of a tall stack of unlooked-at case files.

  “I know why you’re here,” Joe said. “I already told you I’ll see to Sherry’s case personally. I’m not gonna give you any information.”

  “You’ll see to her case like maybe after you take care of those, right?” I pointed at the stack. “I’m going to find out who killed Sherry whether you want to help or not!”

  “Look John, I know how you feel…”

  “No you fucking don’t!” I shouted at him and jumped to my feet. I leaned on the desk toward Joe.

  “Did you just see your wife dead and fucking ripped apart by some sack of shit that needs to be dead? Did you?”

  “Look John,” Joe started.

  I cut him off. “Look my ass,” I told him. “I’ll tell you how I feel.” I locked eyes with Joe. “I don’t feel anything right now. I’m a dead man. I’m dead inside. I don’t give a fuck!”

  I sat back down.

  Between us, there was a silence thick enough to cut with a knife. In the rest of the room everything continued, in the rest of the world the clock ticked and life went on, but here we were frozen.

  Time stopped.

  I broke the silence with, “I just want to know where she was found. I’ll find out eventually anyway and if I have to hurt some of your precious citizens to do that, you know I will.”

  Joe thought for a moment then said, “I’ll make a bargain with you. You find out anything, you share it with me and we’ll take these guys down together, deal?”

  “Deal,” I answered. I’d have told him anything to find out what I wanted to know and Joe knew that.

  “Sherry was found in the vacant lot at State Street and Fifth Avenue at twelve-fifteen last night. There were no clues. The usual trash was blowing around but nothing out of the ordinary. The ground was frozen so there were no footprints left behind. That’s it, nothing else to tell you.”

  “Why do you think two were involved?” I asked Joe.

  He started at the question.

  “You let that slip,” I told him.

  “It’s just a hunch,” Joe answered. “Sherry was a healthy woman with a little martial arts in her background. She was always aware of her surroundings. She wouldn’t have gone without a fight. Whoever took Sherry did it fast and without much of a struggle. I’m guessing it had to be at least two men.”

  I stood up and shook hands with Joe.

  “You find out who they are,” he said. “You bring them to me.”

  “Do you think I’m really going to do that?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Good, then we understand each other. You did your job telling me to follow the law. I’ll do what I have to do,” I told him. “I’ll let you know where their bodies are when I’m done.”

  CHAPTER 3

  There wasn’t shit out at State Street and Fifth Avenue, not a goddamn thing. The vacant lot covered almost a half block area. It probably measured around a half-acre of ground.

  No fence separated the vacant lot from anything else, but seeing where the boundaries were set up wasn’t a problem. Around the lot were vacant, old, weathered, rotting houses. In its best days this area never had very many people live out here and I doubt this area ever had any best days.

  About a half block away from the lot was a combination all night liquor store and tobacconist shop. The guy who ran that place probably made the majority of his business after the bars closed and he likely made it selling
drugs. Out here, nobody would give a shit anyway.

  A little farther away than that was an adult bookstore and triple x video arcade. There were a few cars parked in front of that place. The guys inside were probably in the booths beating their meat to the images of orgasmic females getting their brains fucked out. Or there were faggots in the booths swallowing each other’s tube steak.

  There was nothing else around except for boarded up businesses and emptiness. There weren’t even any bums around here laying between the buildings. I guess they stay in the areas where they can at least get hold of some food.

  Out here there wasn’t shit to eat.

  I parked the Porsche next to the curb at the vacant lot, got out and walked out onto the hard frozen earth. In the center of the lot a large square had been marked off with stakes and yellow crime scene tape.

  It was a barren spot.

  Dead weeds lay dried out and crumpled over. Paper things, candy wrappers, liquor store receipts blew into and out of the square.

  Joe was right. There was nothing here.

  I looked at the ground, the cold hard-packed frozen dead earth. This is the place where someone had dumped my woman’s body.

  Sherry was a lady who was accustomed to the finest silk sheets. She earned the money to live well and believed in enjoying it.

  Someone threw her onto harsh dirt.

  I was going to find out who that was and teach them the meaning of harsh.

  * * *

  I went in the liquor and tobacco store and went up to the counter. A white guy with stringy long brown hair sat in a folding chair reading a porno magazine behind the counter.

  He looked at me when I walked up to him.

  “I need to ask you about last night,” I told him.

  “Police already been all over me about that,” he answered.

  “Yeah, but I’m here now,” I told him.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “Same as I told them, I didn’t see shit. I was here all night. Look at the door you came in,” he pointed to the front of the store.

  Boxes of different kinds of whiskeys and wines and beers were stacked at least chest high in front of the plate glass window. A big life-size Tecate advertisement, with a sweet Mexican broad looking like she was going to deep throat a long neck bottle, was between the counter and the glass door.