Hollow Point - Chapter 2, Part 1

The familiar chill of excitement fluttered in my chest at the sight of Billy Simpson's mutilated body. Disgusted with myself, I forced the sensation down.

I suddenly knew what had struck me as wrong about Crystal’s description of the murder scene. She had said the man who’d stabbed Billy wiped his knife on Billy's hoodie. The body spread out before me was dressed in worn and soiled clothing—including a blood-smeared hoodie—all of it too tight, in contrast to Billy's trademark tailored suits.

And his customary bling was gone. He always wore rings, a white-gold pendent, and a gold watch. But none of it was present.

From my conversation with Crystal, I knew the mutilation to his head and hands had been caused by a sledgehammer. I scanned the alley. There had to be something more left by whoever had killed Billy, a hint that might lead me to their identities.

I walked in ever widening arcs out from the Dumpster, trying to locate some small clue—the knife, the sledgehammer, a blood trail, a dropped quarter or dime, anything. I saw nothing but glimpses beneath the snow of the normal refuse that collects in a city alley around a Dumpster. Fast food wrappers, beer cans, scraps of nondescript paper, used condoms, and other things I really didn't want to think about.

I had been hoping, too, for footprints, anything to indicate the route the killers had taken into or out of the alley. But, predictably, the scene around the Dumpster had been well traveled, the snow trampled and packed, and here were far too many footprints to distinguish any in particular. I couldn't determine which direction the killers had taken entering or leaving.

#

My thoughts were clouded and grim by the time I reached my apartment. Not since Afghanistan had I seen anything like what was in that alley. I hadn't expected it in this part of the world, in this city. It left my legs weak and shaky—something I wouldn't have thought possible. Yet thought of it still sent the tingle of excitement fluttering in my chest, just as combat had done in Afghanistan.

Damn! I thought, and again suppressed that feeling.

Descending the five well-worn cement steps, I knocked on the door as I'd told Crystal I would, then used my key and let myself in. Although the covers on the futon were considerably more rumpled than they had been before I left, I didn't think Crystal had been sleeping. Her gaze was unfocused, her movements more jerky than before as she glanced around and scratched her neck. She hadn't bothered to change the sheets.

I took the weapon from the small of my back, then placed it on the table beside the easy chair. I put the newspaper's front section on top of it. Crystal watched me.

"What did you find?" she asked as I straightened up.

"Nothing."

"What do you mean nothing?" Her voice quavered, and I knew my tactic had only frightened her more.

"Not nothing," I said. "It was exactly what you described."

She nodded hesitantly.

"I have to go out again," I said.

"Why? Where?"

"I have to see someone." I didn't want to tell her who, or for what purpose; I didn't know what would come of it.

I reinforced the instructions about not opening the door, then told her to get some sleep. I went into the bathroom, shaved the stubble on both my head and my face and took a quick shower. Crystal was asleep by the time I finished.

Not wishing to wake her, I took my dark three-piece pin-stripe suit and fedora into the bathroom and dressed quickly and quietly. When I was finished, I took my overcoat from the closet and tucked the .44 into its flap pocked. I locked the deadbolt with my key as I left.

#

Snow still fell heavy and the wind howled. This was the season that produced blood about half the time when I blew my nose. The air was too cold to hold much moisture; it cracked my nasal membranes, and it hurt to simply breathe. In spite of having retired from the Navy SEALs and returning to Denver nearly three years before—Forced to retire, I reminded myself—my body was still accustomed to a more humid climate.

The two winters I had spent in Denver with Sylvia were beautiful. With her, the city became a winter wonderland—the weather not just bearable, but fun. Now, without her, the storms seemed simply cold, and a general pain in the ass.

I walked to the Market Street bus station through the driving snow and caught the free shuttle bus toward the Broadway end of the Sixteenth Street Mall. Small LED lights, strung in the leafless trees along the retail strip, whipped in the wind. Some of the shop windows were decorated for the holiday with bright dioramas.

The shuttle was nearly empty and I sat in a side-facing seat near the front. Two drunks sat at the rear of the bus, watching me with obvious bad intent. I was positive both the scar on my face and my six-foot-four, two-hundred-forty pound frame kept them from jumping me. It certainly wasn't the way I was dressed; my suit was cut to minimize my muscular build, no matter how unsuccessfully.

Part of me wanted them to try it. I craved the violence. Excitement again fluttered in my chest, and I forced it down, even as my hand rested on the pistol in my coat pocket.

The shuttle ride up the mall gave me time to think, and my thoughts turned to Angel. The rat and I had talked again tonight, as we had so often in the past three years. I'd told her what I planned to do and why I planned to do it. And in the end, although reluctantly, she had agreed with my reasoning. After all, under the circumstances it was the only logical thing I could do.

Of course, I knew the rat hadn't talked to me at all. It was all in my head, in my addled mind. I had been in a very fragile state tonight, before Crystal knocked on my door and pulled me out of myself—much more so than most nights. It was on such nights that Angel and I talked.

How long had it been since I'd slept? Four, maybe five nights. Too damned long. But then, I didn't want to sleep; I couldn't. The nightmares came when I slept, more memories than dreams. Memories of my last assignment in Afghanistan, and of my wife, Sylvia, and our unborn child.

#

Hollow Point - Chapter 1, Part 4

It took nearly half an hour to get her started talking again. She became incoherent, then cried for a while. We ended up sitting together on the futon. Holding her awkwardly, I let her sob herself out against my chest. I flashed back to the times I had held Sylvia like that, and again wondered why Chester had to send a woman.

When she finally calmed down I made coffee—instant. I keep a jar of decaf and a jar of regular in the apartment. I made two mugs of decaf; I figured neither of us needed the caffeine.

I handed her a mug, then sat in the easy chair. "What happened after the guy in the sweatshirt picked up the sledgehammer?"

She blew across the top of her coffee. "I don't know. That's all I saw. Then the man in the suit spotted me and pointed. The policeman turned toward me and I ran."

"To Father Albright's church."

"That's right.

I took a sip of my coffee. It was too hot. "Why did you run to the church?"

"That's all I could think to do. I couldn't go to the police."

"Did you get a look at any of their faces?"

"No. It was too dark."

"Where did all this happen?"

"In an alley somewhere east of Blake Street."

I waited until she drank some coffee, then said, "Where east of Blake?"

"I don't know—maybe between Seventeenth and Eighteenth. It was just a block or two from the ball park."

"Were you out to score? Is that why you were there in this weather?" During off-season, the neighborhood around the baseball stadium served as a meeting place for drug dealers, hookers, and their respective customers.

"I was supposed to meet Billy at the main entrance to the park. He was going to fix me up."

I put my cup down on the table beside the easy chair and got to my feet. "I'm going to look at the scene."

She jumped up from the futon, scratching at her neck and glancing around. "You’re going to the police. I told you, one of them was a cop."

"Calm down. I’m not going to the cops. Like I said, I’m just going to check out the scene."

"That’s all?"

"That’s all." She sat back down.

I took the .44 from beneath the newspaper and her eyes widened with fear. She scratched furiously at her neck, and her breathing became rapid and shallow.

Tucking the pistol inside my belt at the small of my back, I went to the small closet beside the nearly-as-small kitchenette. I pulled my short jacket from a wooden hanger, shrugged into it, and zipped it up.

"Take the futon," I said. "There are clean sheets in here." I nodded toward the closet.

Again she scratched at her neck. "I… I can't take your bed."

"You can, and you will." My tone informed her that the discussion was at an end, but I felt a sudden need to moderate it. "I'll be fine in the chair."

I went to the apartment door. "Put the deadbolt on when I leave, and don't open the door for anyone. I'll knock three times, pause, then knock three more before I use my key. Understand?"

She looked into her hands, folded in her lap. She didn’t respond.

"Do you understand?"

"Yes." She still didn’t look up.

I opened the door, stepped out into the blowing snow, and pulled the door closed behind me. I heard her set the deadbolt.

#

My eyes stung and watered in the stiff wind that blew snow around me in eddies. I walked north-east along Seventeenth Street.

It was the third week of December, just six days before Christmas, and already it looked like it would be one damned cold and snowy winter. The National Weather Service and the various almanacs called for a mild one, but I wasn't so sure. I only hoped there wouldn't be as much snow as there had been last year. For two weeks Denver had shut down, and only those who were willing to trudge through the four foot drifts went anywhere.

I hurried past stores and bars decorated in red and green Christmas lights. The stores were closed, but the bars were open, and the lights only served to make them appear more forlorn. They did little to improve my mood.

Somehow, those sad lights got me thinking about Chester and why he'd sent Crystal to me. He knew what I was going through—another Christmas without Sylvia. So, why had he sent her? And why in hell had I let her in? She'd interrupted my plans, and that upset me more than I cared to admit.

Of course, I knew the answer to that last question. It was because I'd had to let her in. This was all part of my atonement. Obviously, I wasn't through yet. If I had been able to kill myself tonight, it would all be over by now. But I hadn't, and it was beginning to look like it would never be over.

The universe simply wasn't finished messing with me yet. It had more in store, and I suspected none of it would be good.

#

I checked my watch in a street lamp's glow as I crossed against the light on Lawrence Street, heading at a brisk pace through LoDo—lower downtown—for Seventeenth and Blake. It was 12:22. Not many people were out at this hour, certainly not on a night like this. It was still too early for the bars to let out, and much too late for those not yet in a bar to head for one. The hookers would already have their last Johns for the night, and the only ones about were drug dealers and their customers.

I went down the alley between Lawrence and Blake, toward Eighteenth, my right hand resting on the .44 at my back. I glanced around, making sure I wasn’t being followed. I wasn't. At the end of the block I continued down the alley toward Nineteenth.

I found what I was looking for about mid-block, beside an overflowing Dumpster. Although it was too dark to make out the fine details, it ranked among the worst things I had ever seen.

The body was unrecognizable as Billy Simpson's; the man with the sledgehammer had seen to that. Hands and head were pounded to pulp.

Hollow Point - Chapter 1, Part 3

I chewed on something hard and it crumbled—the debris from my ruined front teeth. Small to medium sized chips of tooth filled my mouth.

"Just a minute," I said. I got up, went to the kitchen sink and filled a plastic tumbler with water, then rinsed out my mouth. The cold water sent a renewed lance of pain through my top front teeth.

I returned to the chair and sat. "Now, what happened? Why did Father Albright send you to me?"

"He said you'd help."

"Not until I know what happened to you. Maybe not even then."

When she finally spoke, her voice trembled with fear. "I saw... something."

"What did you see?"

"I saw someone killed."

"When?"

"Tonight," she said, and again her gaze traveled the room, as if she feared someone might overhear.

"You're sure about that?"

"I'm sure." She shivered again, more violently than before.

"And you didn't go to the cops?"

"One of the killers was a cop."

"How do you know that?"

"He wore a uniform."

"A cop’s uniform?" She nodded. "How sure are you that it was a cop’s uniform?"

"Pretty sure—it looked like one. And I think they saw me."

"The killers saw you?"

She nodded again.

"Did they get a good look at you?"

"I didn't hang around long enough to find out. I just ran."

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "What did you see?"

"Like I said, someone was killed."

"Do you know him—the guy who was killed?"

"I know him. It was Billy."

"Billy?"

"Billy Simpson."

It was my turn to fall silent. I knew that name. Billy Simpson was a large black man of somewhere between forty-five and fifty years, a small-time drug dealer operating in and around Denver.

I no longer used drugs, and was doing my damnedest to stay away from them. Whiskey was my current poison of choice, applied in quantity and often. I'd quit drugs more than a year ago, but I knew Billy from when I used. He was my supplier back then, and I'd seen him on the street a handful of times since I'd quit buying from him. He was still around town. Or had been, if what Crystal was saying turned out to be true.

"How did you know Billy?"

"He was my ant. I got my stuff from him."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Glass."

I was right—she was a meth head.

"How do you know Father Albright?" I figured I knew the answer to that question, too, but her response mignt give me something.

"I've been going to his church for food for the past year."

Father Chester Albright took care of the homeless around Holy Sacrament Catholic Church in lower downtown Denver. He ran a sandwich line most days, handed out socks, hats and coats, and saw that those who needed medical care got it. I'd had considerable contact with the priest over the past three years. We attended local mixed martial arts contests together where I competed about once a month—not trying for a title, just feeding my addiction. We worked out together at the downtown YMCA gym four times a week, and met for an occasional handball game. In special cases, when someone needed a place to stay for a week or two, Chester sent them to me.

But this was the first time he'd sent a woman to my apartment, and that bothered me.

"What exactly did you see?" I asked.

"I saw a short man pull a knife from his pocket, while the policeman held a gun on Billy."

"What was the short guy wearing?"

"Jeans, a gray sweatshirt, a Rockies ball cap."

"Was he white or black?"

"White."

"And the cop?"

"White."

"What else happened?"

"The third man—a large white man in a suit—held Billy's arms from behind."

"Was he large, or just fat?"

"Both. He wasn't as tall as you—maybe six-one or two—but he was fat."

"About Billy's size?"

She nodded.

"What color was his suit?"

"Does it matter?" I noticed a sudden edge in her voice.

"It might."

Crystal frowned, thinking, then said, "Black, I guess. It looked black in the alley’s dim light."

"Did Billy have his weapon?"

"He always carries a gun."

That was true enough. I, too, had seen Billy's gun on a number of occasions—a small nine millimeter Beretta. He had no problem waving it in everyone's face. But he knew better than to wave it in my direction. Had he ever done that, it would have become a permanent piece of his anatomy.

"He didn't use his gun tonight?"

"He didn't have a chance to pull it."

"So, the guy in the sweatshirt and jeans stabbed Billy."

Crystal nodded. "Twice. Once in the stomach, then once in the chest."

"The cop didn't shoot him."

"No. And the other two were taking orders from the man in the suit."

"What makes you say that?"

"The man in the suit told the man in the sweatshirt to stab Billy, and he did."

"Then what happened?"

"The man in the sweatshirt wiped his knife on Billy's hoodie and put it away." There was something strange about that, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

"And...?"

"He picked up a sledgehammer." She stopped and shivered again.

#

Hollow Point - Chapter 1, Part 2

The knock on the door was weak and timid, but enough to jar me, forcing me to jerk the barrel from my mouth. I winced in pain as the forward sight chipped a jagged arch out of my two upper front teeth.

My eyes snapped open and I waited. After a few seconds the knock came again, with a bit more urgency.

Damn! I thought. It was probably some idiot trying to sell magazine subscriptions, but it might also be important. Very few knew where I lived, and they wouldn't bother me unless they had to.

I removed my thumb from the revolver's trigger and placed the .44 on the small table beside the battery-powered radio, covering it with the front section of The Denver Post. Then I got up from the easy chair and went to the door. I unlocked it, pulled it open. Snow blew cold around a small black woman standing in the doorway before me—a woman I did not know.

The first thing to strike me was that she wasn't wearing a coat in the sub-zero weather. She was no taller than five feet two or three inches and extremely thin. Her hair was dirty and matted, her clothing—jeans, a green marijuana t-shirt, red high-tops with holes in them and no laces or socks—was soiled. Her nipples showed prominently through the t-shirt, emphasizing her small breasts, and her breath came in rapid pants.

She looked thirty-five or forty, maybe a bit older, maybe pretty once but street-hardened and haunted now. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes shadowed. There were a few small open sores on her face and her teeth showed a couple brown spots, indicating the beginning of decay.

One look at her soft brown eyes and I knew she was on something. That, and the amped-up way she moved—jerkily, scratching nervously at her neck, darting her head about as if someone was chasing her. Meth, I thought as she shivered in the doorway. I wanted to slam the door in her face.

"What do you want?"

She blinked twice, then took a step back. "Are you Scar?" she asked in a light Southern drawl.

"'Course I am." All she had to do was look at my face—the livid slash, pink against my dark-tanned skin, running from the outside corner of my right eye to the right side of my mouth. What else would my street name be?

"I need your help. Father Albright sent me."

The wind blew more snow in the doorway around her. "I'm into something just now—something important." I ran my tongue over my newly-roughened front teeth.

"Father Albright said you would help me."

There was something odd about the way she spoke. Her speech pattern was too clear, too precise—not at all what I would have expected from someone who'd spent time on the streets.

"Sorry," I said. "It's something I can't put off."

Tears filled her eyes, and she shook her head in frustration and disbelief. "I don't know...." She stopped, scratching again at her neck. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I... I need help."

And suddenly I knew she was as bad off as I was. Maybe worse.

I ran a hand over the stubble atop my head and sighed, then waved her in. "Hurry up. I don't want to heat the whole damned outdoors."

She stepped in and I slammed the door against the storm. It was too late—the meager heat had already escaped my apartment. We stood in the middle of the room, neither of us knowing what to do or say. I waved a hand toward the futon and she moved the faded blue comforter to cover the sheet. The futon's springs complained as she sat and shivered.

I returned to the easy chair, reached down to the space heater at my feet and turned it up a few notches. Angel rustled in her bedding and the woman looked over her shoulder at the rat's cage. Angel remained predictably silent.

The woman's body shook with more than cold as she glanced around the room. Her gaze finally centered on me. "This place is hard to find. No apartment number."

My grunt was noncommittal. "There's a reason for that."

It was an unmarked basement room with a kitchenette and a small bathroom beneath a rundown liquor store I occasionally watched for a few dollars or, more often, a bottle of cheap whiskey. I paid two hundred dollars a month rent in cash to Tony, the liquor store owner, and I maintained a minimal mail drop rented under an assumed name downtown on the Sixteenth Street Mall. I generated no traceable income, neither declared nor paid taxes, held no current driver's license, and did not maintain a savings account or credit card. There was no cable or television—only the radio for the news. It amounted to a bare bones existence without a paper trail.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Crystal."

I stifled a laugh. Last name Meth? I almost said. Instead: "Your last name."

She didn't respond.

"You're not going to tell me."

She shook her head, then shrugged.

"Crystal's okay—for now. I'm John Point."

She nodded. Chester would have told her that much.

The Anti-hero Protagonist

The anti-hero has become extremely popular in modern fiction. As a protagonist whose character is contrary to that of the archetypal hero, he often engages in amoral, anti-social conduct that shows him off as a villain more than a hero.

The Dexter series of novels, authored by Jeff Lindsay, and the extremely popular television series based on the books, is a fairly recent example. Dexter is an anti-hero. But when it gets down to it, he is really nothing more than a psychopath serial killer. It doesn’t matter in the least that those he kills are also psychopath serial killers.

So, why do we like anti-heroes so much?

First, although in many cases they are quite despicable, they are also deliciously dark. They feed our psychological need to occasionally peer into the dark side. It’s almost like dark chocolate. (Sorry, couldn’t help it. :P)

Although the anti-hero is often brutal, cold, selfish, and self-aggrandizing—those qualities which drive him further into himself and away from his links to humanity (which he can never really escape, and which tend to alienate him from those around him and come close to destroying him emotionally in the end)—he must illicit sympathy or affinity in the reader. The reader must feel for the character and his struggle. An anti-hero can’t just a bad-ass; he must occasionally, through quixotic bursts of nobility or love, perform heroic deeds that help others.

And that brings us to redemption. In an anti-hero, there is always plenty of room for redemption. And who doesn’t like a story of redemption?

In the case of John Point, the anti-hero protagonist in my work in progress, Hollow Point, Point begins the story not even wanting to save himself, let alone anyone else. In fact, his initial goal is to commit suicide. If that isn’t the ultimately selfish act, I don’t know what is.

He starts out unredeemed, and he believes himself to be unredeemable. He has no motivation to save the universe whatsoever. But he has grown fond of a few people in particular, and he decides that he at least wants to help them. And, although he has betrayed the trust of those who believed in him—or at least, he believes he has—he must struggle along to further his redemption, no matter how unfulfilled that might turn out to be.

#
Share your thoughts on the anti-hero protagonist in the comments below.

Hollow Point - Chapter 1, Part 1

Sometimes the universe interferes in the lives of men in good ways, and sometimes in bad. Which it would be this time I wouldn't know until much later.

#

"Goodbye, Angel," I mumbled around the .44's cold barrel.

Angel's soft female voice came from across the room. "Are you sure you want to do this, John?"

"I'm sure."

I gazed into the dark corner beyond the opened-out and unmade futon, to the cage on the shelf high against the wall. The white rat's eyes shone red, and I wondered for an instant if Angel's eyes were actually glowing, or it was a product of my sleep-deprived brain.

I'd quit drinking five days ago in order to clear my mind of the effects of alcohol. I wanted to make certain what I was about to do was a rational decision. But I hadn't slept in as many nights, and part of me knew my thoughts were far from rational.

My thumb rested on the revolver's trigger, the weapon turned around in my hand. The bite of metal mixed with the light taste of gun oil gagged me. Images of Sylvia flashed through my mind. Sylvia slim and athletic. Sylvia large with child, the soft smile on her face as she slept beside me.

Then I thought of those I would leave behind. Chester. My mother. My sister and nephew in Seattle. Frank Nelson. And, of course, Angel.

But would I miss them? After what I had planned, I doubted that would even be possible.

And would any of them miss me?

Angel rustled in her cage. "You still have much to do, John. Your work with Father Albright...."

"Chester can get by without me. He was doing all right before I arrived on the scene, and he'll do just fine after I'm gone."

The rat was silent for a few seconds, then said, "But you have accomplished so much, and there is still much you can do."

"Right. In fact, I've done too much—too damned much harm. If I hang around any longer, I'll only pile more harm on top of it."

"You've done good, too, John. You know you have."

"And I’ve done a great deal of evil."

Again there was silence. Angel couldn’t muster an argument for that. She knew only too well the pain and suffering I had caused.

The rat sighed, an eerily human sound. "Very well. If you feel you must do this, I know there is nothing I can say that will stop you."

"No, there isn't."

"Then... goodbye, John."

My thumb tightened on the trigger and I closed my eyes, attempting to clear my mind of all thought.

Slight Change of Plans

I was hoping to post the first couple pages of my work-in-progress tonight, but that won't be happening. I got the first chapter back from a critique partner, and some things must be changed.

Actually, I'm very happy to have such a critique partner. She saw where I obviously have a blind spot.

And that is the whole point of having a critique group. To save us from ourselves.

Whether you are new to writing, or an old pro, it helps to have another set of eyes on your work. Maybe many more sets of eyes.

A micro-synopsis of my work-in-progress - Hollow Point

Someone is killing homeless people on the streets of Denver, Colorado.

John Point, an ex-Navy SEAL, lives in an un-addressed one-room basement apartment beneath a liquor store. He uses a mail drop under an assumed name, has no driver’s license or car, and pays cash for everything. Neither a voter nor a taxpayer, he invisible. Or he hopes he is.

Then one day, his best friend, a Catholic priest, sends a troubled woman to him, turning his world upside down.

Welcome to the Charles Forgues Blog

This blog is meant to connect with readers and other writers, hoping that we can help each other improve our writing.

I will post here on a (hopefully) regular basis, Talking about my experiences in writing and sometimes leaving something from my current mystery/suspense novel. Occasionally, I will host guest bloggers.

Please comment and/or leave some writing of your own for others to comment on.

I also plan to collect links on this site that will be of assistance bo beginning mystery/suspense writers. If you have a link you would like to add, let me know either through this blog or by emailing me at c.forgues@att.net.