Force Of Habit v5
Authors: Robert Bartlett
FORCE OF HABIT
Robert Bartlett
Force Of Habit
Copyright © 2012 Robert Bartlett
All rights reserved.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.
Contact:
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For Sonya
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ONE
The weather was perfect. It had been pissing down all day. Only those with the most desperate needs would be forced out onto these streets. Those who were addicted to one of the very few commodities that couldn’t be gotten on credit and their last fix was fading fast. They needed cash right now and couldn’t afford to be choosy about how they got it.
Adrenaline coursed through his veins, white knuckles pressing sweaty palms into cold, hard plastic as he steered his way through dark, narrow streets of boarded windows and graffiti tagged doors. Anticipation prickled his skin and quickened his breath but the light in his eyes dimmed when he turned a corner to see the backside of a pair of perfectly formed jeans clambering into a car parked up ahead. Most of these girls were too skinny on account of the drugs. The drugs gave them a bad appetite, bad figure, bad skin, bad teeth - the skanky fuckers - but this one, this one might even have passed for normal. She must be new to the game.
As he drew closer a taller, older woman looked longingly, almost pleadingly, at him. He ignored her and looked into the other car. In back a bleach-blond that couldn’t have been more than seventeen was only feet away from him. Close enough to reach out and touch. She was wiggling that arse in between a couple of kids who didn’t look much older than she did, neither budging an inch, forcing her to squeeze in tight.
The pair in front leered through intoxicated eyes. The rain drowned out their nervous laughter. They looked like kids using cash from the bank of mum and dad to expand their education beyond the university walls. His fingers blanched as they tightened up another notch on the wheel. Rage swelled in his skull. A minute earlier and that could have been...
‘Arseholes!’, he cried, slamming a fist against the wheel. ‘Fucking little arseholes!’
Out on the pavement the older woman delved between the coins and condoms in her bag and noted the number as they drove off. She had tried to stop her, there was no telling how carried away four young men full of raging testosterone might get, but with the money they’d agreed there was no way she could have persuaded her not to go. They’d even offered to more than double it for a session with the pair of them, ‘you and your mum,’ they’d said, howling, the cheeky little sods, but she had told the girl she was strictly one-on-one. She hadn't seen the second car until it was too late and now she watched the tail lights of both disappear and she was alone again.
He caught a final glimpse of the blond as the kids roared past him in a brand new mini.
‘Pieces of shit!’
His clenched fists barely managed to steer him around the next corner. A moan started somewhere deep down inside him and grew. By the time he pulled over and stopped, engine running, still clutching the wheel, saliva was dribbling down his chin. He let out a yell that was deafening inside such a small space. His whole body started to judder. He reached over, popped the glove box and rummaged, blindly, until his fingers grasped a plastic container. It rattled as he wrestled with the lid, unable to manipulate the childproof top. He started smacking it against the dash until it broke and pills spilled out. He let out another yell, face crimson, the veins in his temples bulging. Out of breath he sucked in air, again and again. The fog began to lift. That’s it, breathe.
Breathe
. He had to remain in control. At least for a few minutes longer.
In. Out. In.
His groping fingers touched on a group of pills on the passenger seat and he pushed them into his mouth. He kept breathing, long, deep and hard. Focus returned to his vision and he stared at the pills on the floor. The urge for clarity returned and he fought the temptation to swallow those in his mouth. It would spoil everything, a blocker entering the maelstrom that was his blood stream, plummeting into his heart and pushing tranquillity up into his brain.
He lowered the window and spat them out. The rain was cool on his face. He kept spitting until he was sure his mouth was clear then let the rain wash in. It was best when his system was clean. Everything was more clear then. More heightened. And he wanted to savour every moment. He had to relax. He had to maintain control. Control was everything. He had to hold it together just a little longer. The waiting was almost over. He just had to get her to the place.
He focused on the image of the older woman he had seen. Every one of her forty odd years had been deposited onto her face with compound interest. That was partly why she was out here on a shit night like tonight, there were less punters, but even less competition. But mostly she was just desperate. He relied on it. He came out on nights like tonight to fulfil a desire that couldn’t be satiated any other way. To be out here now you had to have hit rock bottom. They had no one to turn to. No one to help them. Their lives were right royally fucked and chances were that they’d lost touch with or been abandoned by anyone who ever gave a shit.
He began picking up the pills, slowly, one by one, until they were all back in the glove box next to the broken container. He sat there. Assessed his situation. He was calm. He was ready.
When he rounded the block the vice clamped itself back onto his head - she was no longer there. His pulse bounced back up. He drove slowly, peering through the torrent into the darkness. She emerged from the shadows into his headlights, arms wrapped tightly around a long black coat that was her only defence against the elements. She looked like a widow at a funeral not somebody plying her body on a pavement.
He slowed the car and she quickened to its side, like she was scared some other young thing might suddenly rush from the shadows and earn her money instead. She was pathetic. He lowered the window and her face pushed into the car. Her old, skanky face. If it wasn't so wet out there the polyfilla on it would crack. He’d soon wipe that false smile right off of it.
She gave him the price of using that face but he couldn’t have fully masked his disgust because she opened the top of her coat where co-operative underwear thrust what bosom she had up into what she hoped was a tempting cleavage. The skin on her body was in stark contrast to her face. Smooth. Unblemished. He took it in, the excitement of what was finally to be unleashed flushing his face.
She sensed her moment and stepped back letting the coat fall aside. The skirt was short and tight, her legs long and bare. His eyes came to rest between them. She gave him the price for that too and he nodded, sucking in the potpourri of cigarettes and cheap perfume she brought with her. He always made a bog standard arrangement up front, putting out some personality to put them at ease. They mustn’t suspect what was coming. Their fear had to be sudden and prolonged.
He turned to the old trollop. His eyes shone as he gave her a reassuring smile and a fistful of notes that she quickly squirreled away. He eyed the cheap charm bracelet on her wrist. It would make a fitting souvenir. Back out on the rain lashed pavement there was no one to take any notice as the brake lights winked and the car disappeared round the corner.
TWO
North killed the engine and the thump of the Ramones was replaced by rain drumming into the chassis. Dead ahead a blurred column of white rose into the gloom, broken in those places where the lights had been smashed in the tower block stairwell despite their vandal proof casings. Drugs arrived at their final destinations in these stairwells, where small wraps were swapped for small notes. Some sold themselves in the same stairwells to pay for it. Now another one of them was dead.
He threw the door shut, pushing the key fob as he walked through the rain, away from the block of flats towards a row of maisonettes. There was a limp to his gait as he passed walls tagged with graffiti, thinking that no matter what kind of shit you found yourself living in there was always those that couldn’t help but make things worse.
The cold and rain suppressed the smell from rotting vats of communal garbage but he gagged stepping into the concrete stairwell as the odours of piss and disinfectant competed for his attention. Cigarette glows revealed a group of kids loitering in the tenement stairwell opposite. What looked like the runt of the litter cycled by.
‘The feds won't let no one in,’ said the runt.
‘I’m a fed.’
‘You don’t look like no fed,’ the runt looked him up and down. ‘You look like a bag of shite.’
North turned away to hide his smile and came to a halt in front of a PCW who was keeping all at bay.
‘The kid is right,’ she said with a look like he was fouling up the stairwell even further. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’
‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, too, PCW Deacon.’
‘You know what I mean. I thought you were still on light duties?’ She took another look up and down. ‘You look like you should still be on light duties.’
He was thin and pale, hadn't shaved in days and his thick, black hair was getting long and could do with a comb. He'd worn the same jeans and hooded fleece for the best part of a month.
‘I guess the brass have temporarily downgraded dead junkies into the light duties category. One minute I’m surfing for apartments on the Red Sea, the next ...’ he opened his arms to the surroundings. ‘Seems half the station has flu and the other half are wishing they had the flu they're so stretched so I've been sent to go through the motions on the OD.’
‘Something has gotten lost in translation,’ said Deacon.
North had to stop himself from taking the stairs three at a time. He stepped out onto an open landing that accessed the second floor two-storey maisonettes on his left. A fluorescent yellow jacket pinpointed the one he wanted. He offered his badge and nodded to the PC standing at the door.
‘You look as rough as a bear’s arse, constable.’
‘Are you sure you’re not seeing your own reflection in the window, sir?’
‘I'm going to get a complex,’ said North. The PC was visibly shaking. ‘Serious though, you should be tucked up in bed. Looks like you’re about to join our ever expanding sick list.’
‘Are you it?’ The PC peered back along the landing. ‘Where's the cavalry? Our shift finished nearly two hours ago. I'm going to catch my death out here.’
‘They've hauled everyone in for Operation Orange.’