The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller

Author:Sam J. Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2020-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

“This is so fucking not good,” Chief Propst says, when Dom walks into the station. At first he thinks it’s being said to him, but no, the chief’s been saying it over and over again all day.

Word spread through the force fast, about what happened at Historical Materialism. Dom pours himself some coffee, sits down at his desk. Officer Van Vleck is typing under a blue tarp, from where the station ceiling’s leaking.

“The fucking mayor is on his way,” says the chief. The six-foot-six man has never seemed so small. He holds his hat over his stomach like a shield. Freshly shaved cheeks shine.

Dom reads the report. A rock through the window of the Warren Street store, and then a series of big paper bags stapled shut, all of which burst open on impact. Splattering rancid meat all over the walls and floor and countless priceless antiques. In the pictures it looks like more than one murder went down in there. The stink, to hear Chief Propst tell it, made eyes water and stomachs reject their contents.

Rome Byles had been out on patrol that night. He was on the scene within three minutes, drawn by the siren that went off when the window broke, and says he saw someone fleeing the scene. Young, white, male, hooded black sweat suit. A little red wagon was left behind, complete with meat ooze, but there are no fingerprints on it.

“So fucking not good. We got an election coming up, and Winter Fest right after that.”

Dom drinks his coffee, does some paperwork, gracefully exits before Mayor Coffin can arrive.

No wonder the mayor’s taking this seriously, Dom thinks, heading down to Second Street. The new arrivals got spooked bad enough by that billboard; this is going to make them lose their minds. They’ll be seeing hostile natives hiding behind every bush. And calling us about every loiterer and slammed door.

* * *

WHEN THE COPS HAVE GONE, and the CLOSED sign is hung on the door and the door is locked, Rob Creighton is alone inside Historical Materialism with the stink of death and a hundred ruined artifacts. The bottoms of his shoes are gummed with soft rotten fat. Flies buzz. Maggots from the meat already emerged from their pupae. There’s only a quarter of a bottle of bleach left, in the closet in the back of his store. I’ll have to go out and get more. I’ll have to venture into this city that hates me.

Wind whistles through the huge wound in his plate-glass storefront. Locals gawk, across the street. He sees his old tenant Heather, looking meek and helpless as ever. He wishes he had curtains. When he moved in he’d inquired about getting a steel gate installed, but all the other store owners said it would be “an egregious violation of aesthetic norms.”

We’re all undefended, he thinks, looking up and then down Warren Street. Our precious aesthetic norms might just get us all killed.

* * *

HEATHER GETS BACK to the couch she’s crashing on, and sits to savor the throb in her chest.

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