💯 Story Challenge
In Search of Sal’s Redemption
№13 — He didn’t take her seriously. Who would? When the rookie puffs up and says she's going after the City’s worst serial killer. Got herself nailed to a wall like a bug.
Detective Frank Banning kicked the door in.
Wood splintered and light lanced the room. Loud Betty in hand, cocked and ready, he found Jerry the Lips hiding in a pool of shadow, wedged into the corner like the bricks could hug him and hold him.
“Never been to your place before, Jerry,” said Banning.
Trash and old food containers, the debris of a man only ever chasing two needs. He crushed dirty syringes with his boot heel as he bent down to the man’s twitching face.
“You knew I’d be coming, Jerry,” he said as he hauled the man up to his feet by his collar.
Then gently, almost like a kiss, he pressed Loud Betty up against his skull. Jerry said nothing. His lips quivered and the floor beneath him dripped and splattered as he lost control of his bladder.
“Tell me!” said Banning.
“I don’t know!”
“Not good enough,” said Banning and fired a round into the crumbling brickwork. Red dust sprayed Jerry’s face, clinging to his wet cheeks.
He placed the hot barrel back on Jerry’s forehead. It sizzled and Jerry whimpered, “I swear Banning I don’t know shit. I wasn’t there. I know she’s gone. I know it was him, but that’s all I know.”
“That’s not nothing,” he said.
“Everyone knows that, every warm body on the streets, knows he’s out again. Why’d you think I’m here?”
He dropped Jerry to the floor and held back from kicking him like the mangy mutt that he was. Banning didn’t kick dogs, but human trash…
“You’re wasting my time, gimme something, otherwise I gotta redecorate your place. You know, add a bit of colour to the walls. The place needs it, it’s looking a bit drab, Jerry,” he said.
He shoved around Jerrry’s matchwood furniture and pulled back the threadbare curtains. The window looked over an alley, not the same one, but similar enough to twist the knife in Banning’s gut. Jerry’s words wormed their way into that pause.
“You can kill me, go ahead, better than him finding me lips flapping.”
“You said you knew nothing,” he hissed. He turned back to Jerry and stalked toward him.
“Sal never hit me once,” Jerry said, and scrambled across the floor and under his rickety table, “‘Catch more flies with honey’, she’d say, Banning.”
“Well, Sal ain’t around no more!” He said and kicked the table away.
He hauled Jerry up again. “No more playing nice,” he leaned in close and whispered into the man’s ear.
Jerry’s eyes shot open until the white was visible all around his beady eyes. “You wouldn’t?”
“I would in a heartbeat.”
“I wasn’t there. I didn’t see anything, thank God, but I heard a whisper. That someone saw the body drop. Saw him doing his … thing.”
“Gimme a name.”
“Cheryl the hooker, but she’s done a runner.”
“I’ll find her.”
“Go easy on her, she panicked.”
Banning grunted as he left.
Jerry called out as Banning hit the landing, “When you find him, put a bullet in his head.”
“That’s the plan.”
Next chapter:
💯 Story Challenge (13/100)
A simple challenge to kick-start a new year; 100 stories in 100 days, at least a 100 words long using Unsplash Instant as my muse.
This Serial Fiction use prompts from February Theme: Love/Hate
Chapter List:1: Loud Betty is Silent Tonight2: In Search of Sal’s Redemption (this story prompted by The Beast)3: Wringing Out The Truth (next story prompted by The Beauty)4: An Old Fox Chasing Hawks (prompted by The Betrayal)5: Loud Betty Screams One Last Time (An outline prompted by The End)
