Jones - Chapter 1: Cold Snap

Chapter 1: Cold Snap

It was a bitterly cold day for what was meant to be the height of summer, Jones wore his coats collar up against the gale. The cold winds were becoming more frequent he thought, despite what the State Forecast said. Every time the arctic winds were due that red-headed Scottish broad would seem to smile with even more of those white perfect teeth and say “More unusual weather as wind change, make sure you wrap up warm!” Jones thought these days were becoming a lot more usual than the state wanted to let out and the apparent joy with which the woman delivered the new rubbed Jones the wrong way. The street was quiet but for the trickle of traffic, their hybrid motors purring as they flowed past. Jones pushed on against the wind not noticing the car rolling up behind him, and pulling to the kerb.   
 
Jones knew it was always a bad sign when a car door opens and someone yells “Get it” with an accent that just screamed mob. This was the not the best time for Jones to be abducted for no doubt some meeting involving intimidation and extortion; he really had something he needed doing. He looked down at the bag of groceries clutched in his arms, sighed audibly,  and climbed in the car. Sat next to him, presumably, the body of the voice he heard was a stocky, black haired man, presumably the muscle of this operation. The man reached over Jones and pulled shut the door. Looking across Jones saw a taller, slender man. His face was chiselled, long, and sharp, his nose crooked from a past break. “This better be quick, I've got ice cream in here.” Jones said rustling his bag” Both men were silent.“What’s this about?” asked Jones.   
 
That’s all Jones could remember. It was like that feeling you get when you walk into a room and you’ve forgotten what you came in for. You stand there unable to fathom that the hell you were up to. This was a lot like that, except Jones did not remember entering the room either, nor why he was cuffed to a chair. the side of his face was warm and worryingly sticky. Blood no doubt. All he could bring to mind about his journey here was fast, loud music. he could tell he had been struggling in his restraints for a while judging by his sore wrists. Jones sat in front of a desk, a sleek polished steel structure with large a rectangle of black glass on the far sides surface. The chair behind it was the only other piece of furniture in the room, it was leather and high backed, menacing. Jones shifted his weight calmly testing his restraints, the cuffs were tight and the chair was bolted to the floor. The room was silent but for the whir of air conditioning. A clunk behind him, a rush of hot air and the sudden bassy thudding of music through walls reported the opening of a door. The man from the car, slender faced, strode into the room and lowered himself, as if Atlas were to lower the weight of the world from his shoulders, into the chair. The door closed with that hermetically sealed hiss and thump combination and the whirring of the aircon took over the silent room once again.
 
The man laid his hand open on the glass. it was a thin, skeletal hand, and a screen eliminated under it and flashed green. He reached down lightly pressed his finger against the side of the desk, the steel around his finger tip glowed green and from the seemingly single steel piece slowly extruded a draw. From inside he produced a gun and placed it on Jones’ side of the desk. He tapped the screen twice. The desk beeped once. Something behind Jones beeped once, and he felt the cuffs came away from the back of the chair.  “Take a look at it” snapped the man, jabbing a bony digit towards the gun.
Jones leant forwards, as he brought his hand in front of him he felt the cord reel out from the chair, connecting each cuff to the chair back, not as free he seemed he thought. He picked it up,  ignoring the pain that shot down his right arm and the ache in his shoulder. He reasoned this wasn't the kind of time a guy would want to appear weak. He turned it over in his hands before opening the cylinder with a sharp flick of his wrist. The Man tapped his fingers on the desk eagerly. Jones spun the cylinder slowly between his index finger and his thumb, examining it carefully for a few rotations before snapping it back into the gun's frame.
“So?” snarled the man.
“Yeah, that’s my gun” Jones growled back, placing it on the desk.
“So?” sneered again the man across the desk. “Why do I have it?”
Jones’ face gave nothing away. It was the kind of face that could look down at a hand of the 2 of hearts, 3 beer mats and Mrs Chip the carpenter's wife, smirk and say all in. Jones gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes as if trying to physically harm the man by thought alone. The man scolded back at the collection of horizontal lines that were now Jones’ face.
“You know where we found this?” asked the man before immediately answering his own question. This was a trait Jones always associated with the incredibly impatient and those desperate to assert their authority. Jones disliked both groups and this guy he decided sat in that sweet spot in the middle of the two circles overlapping of a Venn diagram. An image Jones rather appropriately resembled an arsehole. “We found it next to one of our boys in Brad Block”
Brad Block or the Bradley Apartment Estate, was a state tower housing block thrown up decades ago that had now become home to some of the city's toughest gangs.    
“This boy, a runner by any chance?” asked Jones.
Runners were carriers for organised crime groups, generally young boys used by bosses to deliver and trade in the blocks, disposable members of the group for the most dangerous of work.   
“He was” agreed the man “until most of this brains were used to paint a wall in this joint, and it looks like the artist used that” pointing towards the gun sitting between them.       
“So you think I killed your guy?” asked Jones
Though these guys often expected their runners to die, he still didn't like it when they did and Jones knew what happens to people that piss off bosses.
“My boss thinks you did, but it doesn't make sense,” the man said as he leant back in his chair. “It's Police issue and it wasn't hard to trace the the serial number back to your state file.” he continued “you might have well as left you ID.” Jones' face remained blank but for its scowl. The man leant forwards, his elbows on the desk and his fingers interlocked as if he were a detective if only now solving a great case. “I disagree with my boss, that's why you're still alive”.
“Thanks” grunted Jones with as little sincerity as he could muster. The man tapped and pressed the screen, his fingers dancing across the glass. He leant back as the screen flashed green and above it was projected a cluster of files, upright in the air above the desk. The man raised his eyebrows at Jones and with a smirk of satisfaction he went about reading from the green translucent documents.
“7 years in the State Police, but you only lasted a year as a DC before” he paused smirking at Jones “discharged; medical reasons?” he mused. Jones’ chief had decided that Jones had psychological issues that caused him to be unfit to serve. It was evident that this man he read the apparently amusing medical assessment. “So now you’re a PI” continued the man “corporate work” with a swipe of the screen pictures flashed into existence, “nice apartment” he commented, as if he and Jones were good friends while examining, at first external views of Jones flat, then the photos of it empty from the real estate site, then finally a view through his window , no doubt a zoom lens had captured Jones inside surrounded by the clutter of his flat, sitting at his desk. With a flick of his hand the photos vanished and scans of financial documents scrolled through the air. receipts, bank transfers and credit statements flashed past.”A pretty clean life, nothing that would explain why you would decide to blow a boys face off and make off with 25 grams of Hit.” he reasoned. “Now it reasons that if you didn't do this, then someone wants us to think you did, hence the gun.” Jones felt like this was an idea that was favourable to his survival to support.
“I lost in on a job, a week back. The gun that is” Jones tried to explain calmly as if his life, or at least his body's natural symmetry wasn't at risk.
The man smiled, something Jones decided he was doing too much of as if he had expected this. “Corp Espionage,” he said, a statement rather than a question.  
Jones nodded once in agreement
“Which Corp?”
“You know I can’t talk about a job” This was true, PI couldn't talk about their jobs. If people found out he talked no one would hire him, and worse if people found out he was spouting secrets, they would be rather keen on making sure none of their own got out. This was generally down via assassination. A PI that couldn’t keep a secret was a dead PI. Most people knew this, so threatening one was fairly useless.
“Look here Mr Jones. How’s this, some Corp found you were snooping around. You saw something, or they think you saw something, that warrants you being killed. Fair enough, but when they didn't have the balls to do it themselves and tried to get us to do their dirty work, that’s when they fucked us, and my boss doesn't like being fucked.”
Jones decided to play along, this guy seemed to be on his own track and Jones thought be better just see where he's headed.
“So we don’t need to know who hired you, or what you were investigating. Just tell us which building you lost your gun in, okay?
“Kendrick 28th floor,” Jones said, something told him that this was his only choice.
“Checks out,” The man said, glancing at the screen as if checking this fact. He worked the desks screen with a series of taps and swipes. Again the desk beeped followed by the cuffs beep as if in acknowledgement as they opened and fell to the floor. With the last tap of the screen the door clunked and opened filling the room with heat and noise.
“You're free to go, Mr Jones”
Jones stood up, fighting the urge to cringe as his head pounded in his skull as if resisting his body's movement.
“Please take your gun, and you might want to have a look at this” with a tap of the screen what was a solid steel section of the desk's surface became a thin slot and square grey data cartridge was spat out. Jones took both his gun and the disk without question. He had a very strong desire that he wanted to get out as soon as possible, so strong in fact he didn't even ask for his shopping back as the muscle from the car escorted him out the room. 
 
He was lead down a corridor, it was hot and stuffy, and as they walked the blasting music got louder. 2 pairs of doors later he was standing in a club. Jones turned to the muscle about to ask what he was to do next but was interrupted when a coat was shoved into his arms followed by a bag of shopping. The man then proceeded to point a stubby finger across the club to a door. Jones happy to follow any order that seemed to lead to his leaving. As he stepped out through the door it wasn't the cold air or that morning that greeted him. It was hot, that baking dry hot. He could smell it too as the heat excited the whole city making its stink that much stronger. He looked at his watch, it was midday. But not the midpoint of the day he was expecting, about 26 hours must have passed since he got in the car. Jones pulled out the data cartridge from his pocket and turned it over, his fear was subdued now and curiosity was taking over.    

 

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