Saying Goodbye to the Sun Read online

  “I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.

  “I said, you seem pretty interested on that doorway, you waitin’ for someone?”

  Not quite what I’d expected. I figured he’d ask me for spare change, or maybe if I knew where he could find a place to sleep. Without thinking, I shook my head, knowing as soon as I did I’d given him valuable information. I had just admitted that I was alone. A man walking alone in the middle of the night in undesirable parts of New York City can easily become a target.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why not just hand him your wallet and slit your own throat to spare him the trouble?

  I was sure he would just smile that unpleasant smile of his and wish me a good evening. Then get up and leave, walking only far enough away from the diner to sit and watch, keeping a vigil much like my own. He’d follow me a ways, to make sure I got good and far away so I couldn’t call for help. Then he would jump me when he deemed the timing right.

  But that didn’t happen.

  “If you ain’t waitin’ for someone,” he began, “then what’s so damn important about The Eye?” It felt like an accusation.

  “Oh, Nothing, I suppose,” I replied, doing a pretty good job of keeping the nervous irritation out of my voice. “Just trying to decide if I want to go in.”

  “Uh, huh. And I’m John Fuckin’ Travolta.”

  “What business is it of yours, anyway?”

  He studied my face, then gave me a dirty, condescending smirk. I’m tolerating you right now, Bucko, his smile seemed to say, but any time I want I can take you down, so be careful. That was the truth of the matter, and I knew it. The man had an unmistakable aura of danger and violence. Menace and mayhem on two legs. He made me nervous as hell, even scared me a little.

  I couldn’t let him see how frazzled I was, it would only make things worse. Like an animal, if he smelled fear he would have pounced on it. So I forced myself to remain calm, and when I could be sure I wasn’t going to scream like a banshee, I smiled back at him, hoping it didn’t look as strained as it felt.

  When I smiled, a ripple of surprise crossed his face. Not the good kind of surprise, but the kind that makes you think twice about what you’re doing. I didn’t know what it meant, but suddenly he didn't seem so sure of himself. He blinked twice, stared at me again, and extended a single, dirty hand.

  “Name's Kagan,” he said. “Joel Kagan.”

  When I didn’t take it, or offer my own name in response, he pulled his hand back and folded his arms in front of him, leaving a smudge on the smooth surface of the table. Kagan took a pack of cigarettes from his rumpled shirt, shoved one into his mouth, and spoke around it like a character in an old Bogart movie.

  “Lemme tell you somethin’, friend,” he said as he brought a lighter up and lit the tip of his Marlboro. “You don't have to like me, but I’ve been watching you staring at that club for the last three days. Being the helpful, friendly sort of guy I am, I wanted to offer you this warning.” He blew out a cloud of smoke, right into my face. I forced myself not to cough or flinch. Kagan lowered his cigarette and pointed a single, grubby finger at me, nearly poking me with it.

  “Bad things happen at The Eye,” he said. “If I were you, I’d stay away from the place.”

  “Oh?” I asked. “Should I?”

  Kagan nodded. “If you give a shit about your soul, anyway.”

  With that, the unasked for and unwanted conversation ended. Kagan stood up, fixed me with another long, angry stare, and walked to the front door. On the way he absently dropped a ten spot on the table to cover his order, which had not yet arrived from the kitchen. Rose moved to remind him he had not received his food, then thought better of it and let him leave.

  She picked up the ten, and as she walked past me whispered, “Better to just let that guy go, and take his smell with him. Kagan can be an awful ass.” Something else Rose and I agreed on. The room already seemed brighter and smelled better than I remembered. I guess next to Joel Kagan, the scent of cigarette smoke and fatty foods frying on the grill was a welcome change.

  “But on the bright side,” Rose continued, “he did just buy me dinner.” We both laughed at that, then she walked to the kitchen to retrieve her meal. She surprised me by sitting at my table to eat it.

  “Do you mind?” She asked, “I’ll only be a few minutes. It’s too busy to take a real break.”

  “Not a bit,” I said, glad to have some real company. My encounter with Kagan had left me feeling soiled, dirty, and badly in need of a shower. I couldn’t imagine why Rose would want to sit in the same spot he had (she wiped off the smudge his hand left on the table before she started eating), but if she wanted to, she was more than welcome. It also gave me the chance to ask her a few questions about Kagan, but I let her enjoy her short-lived rest before I bothered her with them.

  “Who is that guy?” I asked when she was almost finished, “What does he have against The Eye?”

  “Who knows? With him, who cares?” she replied around a mouthful of food. “He started coming in about a week before you did, always watching the club with that sour look on his face, like he’d just tasted something that didn't agree with him.” She polished off the last bite of her burger and continued.

  “Although, judging from the size of his belly, I’d say there ain’t much that doesn’t agree with him.” With that, Rose stood and made her way to the kitchen, stopping only long enough to inform a newly arrived couple she’d be right with them.

  With a smile on my lips from Rose's joke, I turned to resume my vigil, thankful the horrible man was gone.

  Threatening me, I mused. ‘If you give a shit about your soul.’ Who does that fat slob think…

  My thoughts trailed away as I saw the object of my stakeout appear from the doorway and walk off into the night. I couldn’t see her face, but there was no mistaking that long, black hair. I wondered why I hadn’t seen her go into the club, and surmised that it must have happened while I was occupied with Kagan. Damn the man! Because of him I had missed Raine entering the club, and would have to run to catch her before she was out of sight.

  I dropped my own ten on the table and rushed out the door and onto the sidewalk. I looked up the street and just caught a glimpse of her as she disappeared around a corner. Without bothering to wonder if I was crazy, I took off after her. Determined to catch her and make her talk to me. This time, she would not get away.

  Movement on the edge of my vision caught my eye. Kagan. The fat bastard was running down the street in the same direction as me. Did he plan to try and cut me off? Maybe shove me into an alley up ahead? Perhaps he had a partner, another filthy, unpleasant transient to help him with his ugly business. Probably just as big and twice as mean, with my luck.

  But Kagan didn't seem to notice me. His attention was focused on a point up ahead. He never even looked in my direction, just stared straight ahead as he ran faster than any man his size had a right to go.

  Up ahead, I couldn't see anything except the familiar haze of a New York summer night. Then I caught another glimpse of Raine, who was also running. Her long black hair blew backward in the breeze crated by her stride, looking like the tail of a dark comet. Every now and then she would turn her head to look behind her.

  Then it dawned on me. Kagan! Raine was running from Kagan.

  The improbability of the notion did little to ease my concern. It would explain why he’d been watching me as I staked out the club. But why? That’s the question that concerned me. Jealousy? Maybe, but I didn’t think Raine would have anything to do with someone like Joel Kagan. A Stalker, perhaps? That seemed more likely.

  I considered crossing the street and having it out with him then and there, but doing so would mean losing sight of Raine. Who knew when I would see her again? Especially if she had goons like Kagan after her. No, better to just beat him to her. Then at least I might be able to talk to her for a minute before the fireworks start.

  Though large and round, Kagan ran very fast, and showe
d no signs of exhaustion. I thought it odd, given the man's physical condition. Yet there he was, keeping pace with me on the other side of the street and showing no ill effects for the effort. He was even a little ahead of me. Then he noticed me on my side of the street. He smiled, showing me a mouth full of crooked, yellow teeth.

  Just wait, he seemed to say with that smile. Just wait until I am done with her. Then I will go to work on you.

  The guy's got stamina, I'll give him that, I thought as I redoubled my efforts to catch Raine, determined to reach her first. I might not be able to protect her, but if nothing else I could give her a warning, or perhaps even some time to get away. Of course, what I didn’t know at the time was Raine was not the one who needed protecting. Of those involved in the chase that night, the person most in need of protection was me.

  At last she came into view underneath a cone of light from a streetlamp, then faded out again as she exited the glow, only to reappear in the next one. She had crossed to my side of the street and wasn't running anymore, but walking fast down the sidewalk, casting furtive glances into every alley she passed. She seemed to be looking for something.

  Something found her first.

  As I watched, a hand shot out from an alley and clamped down on her arm. Faster than my eyes could follow, Raine was pulled into the shadows, into what horrors I could only guess. I thought about the kinds of things that usually happened to women who were dragged unwillingly into dark corners in the middle of the night. Robbery? Rape? Both?

  Not this time!

  With a wild yell, I raced to the entrance and jumped in, even though most of the alley was shrouded in darkness. A glint of light to my left, reflecting off something silver and shiny. A knife! I thought. He’s got a knife! Laughter echoed through the hallway. sinister, vile. I threw myself at the shadow of a tall, thin man who held Raine's arm. His laughter cut off as I barreled into him and knocked him to the ground. I raised my right fist and brought it down on his jaw. My fist connected, and I felt a sharp pain as his teeth cut the skin on my knuckles. The man groaned, and his shadowed head lolled to the side. He wouldn’t be getting up for a while, so I relaxed a bit.

  I looked up from my half kneeling position and tried to see Raine, but it was too dark.

  “Raine?” I asked, “Are you all right?”

  Fire exploded on the side of my head. The impact knocked me on my back, and all of a sudden I remembered the fat man who had also been running to this spot.

  Kagan! In my panic I’d forgotten about him.

  He jumped on my chest, pinning me to the alley floor, then started pounding me with rock-hard fists the size of grapefruits. I tried to dislodge him, but he was too strong. Much stronger than he had any right to be. As he rained blow after blow upon my skull, I felt around for something, anything to use as a weapon. My thoughts became less and less coherent, and I knew I would lose consciousness soon if I couldn’t stop him. If that happened, Kagan would probably kill me. Or wait until his partner woke up and let him do it. Desperate, I searched for an edge of some kind. A trash can lid, a rock, anything. Dear God, I thought, give me something!

  As my vision began to fade, my hand closed around something hard and metallic. Sending up a brief prayer of thanks, I swung it in a full arc with every ounce of strength I had left.

  It was a good hit. A solid hit. Perhaps the hardest I’d ever hit anyone in my life. Desperation and fear gave me a rush of adrenaline I’d never felt before. With it came a strength I didn’t normally possess. The object struck him hard in the left temple. If Joel Kagan felt anything, it was only for a brief instant as the metal cracked his skull, breaking a hole in it and sinking into the gray matter beneath.

  Without so much as a grunt of pain, he slumped down, and did not move again. With a sizeable effort, I pushed him off me and rose to my feet on shaky legs. I looked down at Kagan's massive prone form, and soon noticed a small pool of blood trickling from his mouth. Had I killed him? It seemed pretty likely, though it took a bit for the idea to penetrate my mind, and when it did…

  Oh, SHIT!

  Knees wobbling, I looked away from him, afraid that further study would reveal I had actually done it; I had killed someone. For what seemed like an eternity, I stood unmoving, looking at the wall, the ground, anywhere but at the prone form of Joel Kagan.

  It was Raine who broke the spell.

  “Kagan,” she said, “you killed him.” Her words had a hollow, echo-like quality, as though she were speaking through a drainpipe. Lost in my thoughts, I couldn’t be sure she had really even spoken at all.

  What she said next caught me completely off guard.

  “You were too easy on him. I would have made the bastard suffer.”

  Shocked, I didn’t notice as my hand loosened its grip. I didn’t feel the object I’d used to slay Kagan slip from my fingers. The loud clang it made as it hit the pavement brought me to my senses, and I looked down to see what I had used to commit murder. It was the same object the other shadow had been holding when I barreled into him. I’d glimpsed it briefly in the dim light, and thought it was a knife.

  It wasn’t.

  There on the ground, inches from my foot, lay a silver crucifix. It shone an eerie red in the moonlight, stained as it was with the blood of Joel Kagan.

  Chapter Three:

  Murder and Cognac

  I stared at the bloody crucifix for what seemed like hours, transfixed by the sight of it. Everything else seemed secondary. The most prominent memory I have from 1985 is of that simple silver implement lying half in and half out of a filthy puddle, while tiny trickles of scarlet ran from its smooth surface to mix with the oil and the dirt.

  I looked from the crucifix to my hands, and sure enough they, too, were stained with blood. In the moonlight, the blood took on a different hue. Not red, but an empty black. Empty, like the lifeless eyes of Joel Kagan.

  I brought my hands to my face to get a better look. A tiny drop of blood fell from my fingers. I watched it crawl towards the earth to land soundlessly among its fellows. Then a strange numbness took hold of me. My legs buckled, and I fell to my knees in the small red puddle, unable to pry my eyes away from my hands.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered. “What have I done?” I couldn't say anything else, I just sat there in the alley, mouthing the word murderer over and over again like scratched vinyl.

  Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and Raine turned me to face her. She was so beautiful I could have cried. Her face lit the way back from the edge of sanity. Until then I hadn't realized how close I'd come to losing it. But she wouldn’t let me. She knelt in front of me, her face full of concern.

  Her lips were moving, but I couldn’t make out her words. I forced myself to concentrate and focus on her, and not think about the dead body only a few feet away. As the world inside my head quieted, I heard what Raine was trying to tell me.

  “…would surely have done something horrible if not for you. Are you listening? Can you hear me? You saved me, Vincent! Thank you. Vincent? VINCENT?”

  “What… who is he?” I asked.

  “Vincent, you’re OK,” she said, smiling. “I thought you were lost.”

  She threw her arms around me and pushed my head onto her shoulder. I returned the embrace with every ounce of my strength, wanting and needing to hold on to her. Her fingers kneaded through my hair. Once again the sweet smell of roses enveloped me, pushing away the dirty scents of hot asphalt and blood.

  And I wept.

  I am not ashamed of my tears, and Raine did not make me feel so. She sat with me in that oily puddle and listened to me sob like a little boy; all the while softly whispering to me, telling me everything was all right.

  After a few moments I got myself under control. Once my thoughts returned more or less to normal, I started to wonder what was going on. Only one way to find out.

  “Raine, why was Kagan after you? And who is that other guy?”

  “Vincent,” she began, “It’s not imp-”


  “No!” I shouted. “Don’t tell me it’s not important! That guy’s dead. I’d say that’s pretty fucking important!”

  Raine flinched, and I felt sorry for raising my voice, but I couldn’t help it. My nerves were shot.

  “I did it for you,” I said. “They were after you, weren’t they? Why? And why did they have that?” I finished, pointing at the crucifix.

  “Vincent, I-I don't know where to begin. It…”

  The peal of sirens cut through the night, interrupting her. Someone had called the police over the ruckus in the alley.

  “And this is not the time or place to explain,” she said. “Follow me.”

  With that, she grabbed me by the wrist and led me down the alley to the other side. Once out of the alley, she turned right and ran, dragging me behind her.

  I thought we were going back to the bar, but before we got there she turned into another ally. We ran down it until we got to a big yellow moving truck with the word Hertz painted on the back. It took up the whole alley. The only way past it was under it, and that would take too long.

  A dead end. There was no time to waste, so I turned and tried to run back out of the place. She grabbed my arm.

  “Not that way,” she said.

  “Then where?” I asked, “Where do we go?”

  “Through the door,” she replied, a hint of a smile betraying her impatient tone.

  Just as I opened my mouth to ask what door, Raine reached her hand to the wall and curled it like she would around a doorknob. That’s when I saw there was a door. In her hand she held an ornate knob, which had not been there before.