Tobacco-Stained Mountain Goat_A Novel by Andrez Bergen

Author:Andrez Bergen [Bergen, Andrez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, sci-fi, noir, General, crime, Hard-Boiled
ISBN: 9780984559701
Google: DEKfZwEACAAJ
Publisher: Another Sky Press
Published: 2011-07-15T16:03:22+00:00

the jig is up

The dream is working its magic again. This time, though, the edges of my vision are bent at odd angles and bleed off into metallic-coloured nothingness. Maybe it’s because I’m halfway dead.

There’s a slow pan past the fading old road sign that reads Bush Street. It shifts back and forth between new and old, legible and ruined, colour and sepia. Trees along the street go through their cycles furiously, blooming, shedding foliage, then blooming again. And then there’s the rain, torrential on the decaying concrete and metal and plastic all about, but that never changes.

There’s water dripping through the canvas awning above me, and I’m hiding in the doorway, sans cat. I’m out on Activities in Abbotsford, remember, and I’d just spotted my quarry last time around. At least the core of the dream is consistent, even if some of the details aren’t.

So, as I mentioned before, I stay where I am in the dark alcove. My hand is beneath my coat, gripping the handle of the shooter pressed against my ribs. I step out just after the subject passes. The best way to go from here is to grab them from behind, cuff them, and shuffle ’em off to the nearest cop shop. It feels like there’s a mirror-ball spinning somewhere inside my brain.

“Freeze!” I’m immediately embarrassed for myself. I don’t purposely nurture or hone this schlock dialogue in advance, the lines just blurt out, the sound-bytes from thousands of old flicks queued up and ready to escape at the slightest provocation.

My canary spins in alarm, so bloody abruptly that she stumbles over and drops to the ground. Once there, she just lies still, cowering. Damn. She was a pushover. I begin to circle her very slowly, ensuring that I remained at the regulation two metres. I’d had enough experience on the job to respect that particular rule, snatched direct from the Handbook.

Maybe this one would scramble away and escape into the darkness. Run, I’m thinking. Go now. Or maybe this would be the larrikin that would go for me, fuck me over good and well.

“Okay, game’s over.” I can tell my voice is kind’a jittery. “Break it up. No sudden moves, d’you understand? Don’t be a bunny, get to your feet very slowly, and let’s go.”

“No.”

Huh? Shit. The obstinance in her voice is unnerving. Damn it.

“I knew you’d find me eventually.” Her face is mud-smeared, fearful yet defiant. She moves ever so slightly into the pall of an overhead streetlight and I notice that her eyes are nearly the same shade of green as Veronica’s.

This could so bloody easily be her.

Shut up. I focus hard on her nose, her mouth, her chin, her neck. No—it isn’t her. Not even close. This twist is too young, possibly in her early twenties.

“Listen, you’re going to have to do what I say.”

“I don’t want to die.” I can barely hear her above the cascade of the rain.

“Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen—not tonight.” I extend my left hand towards her, ostensibly to help her to her feet, but her wide-eyed reaction smacks of terror.

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