Ghost Cop

Ghost Cop

Mark A Davis

262

Smoke drifted through the dimly-lit room like fog over predawn water.  The place smelled of smoke, alcohol, and old grease.  Melancholy Jazz music played in the background as several men in suits and hats sat at tables or at the bar nursing drinks.

The  doors burst open.  Framed in the bright afternoon sunlight was a tall, muscular man in the uniform of a motorcycle officer.  There were leather boots, thick pants, a leather jacket, gloves, and a helmet  with a dark visor that covered the upper half of the face.  What could be seen below that visor, however, was nothing but the yellowed bone of a grinning skull.

Nobody in the bar reacted to this.

"I'm looking for Tony Gentilini!" the skull-faced cop exclaimed.  The voice was clear and strong, but the mouth never moved.  "I know he's been moving drugs through this neighborhood, I know some of you have seen things, and I'm certain that you want to help out the law and volunteer that information like the good citizens that you clearly are."

For a few moments the room was silent.  Then one man at the bar said, "Bite me, Copper."

The death's headed cop reached the bar in three strides and lifted the man off the ground by his lapels.  "Thank you for volunteering, Citizen!" the cop barked.  "Now tell me what I want to know:  where does Mr. Gentilini warehouse the goods?"

Behind the cop,  two more figures entered the bar.  One was a very old man in a rumpled gray suit with an anarchy symbol stitched over the left breast in silver thread.  The other was a young black woman with cornrow braids.  She wore a scoop-necked leotard with a surface so bright and shiny it was like a mirror.  There were thigh-high boots with a similar surface, and wraparound mirror shades.  This was Grandpa Anarchy and his current sidekick the Glass Cannon.

"Hey, put me down!" the man in the suit exclaimed.  "I don't know nuffin!"

"That, my Friend, is the wrong answer!" said the cop.  Moments later the man screamed.  The Glass Cannon winced.  The skull-headed cop said, "I just broke your pinkie.  You've got nine more fingers before I have to start breaking arms and legs."  He leaned in close so that the man could have smelled his breath, if a skull-headed man breathed at all.  "Where.  Is.  His.  Warehouse?  I know you know -- you guys see everything in this part of town."

"Screw you, you effin'.... Aaaaah!"

The man screamed again as another finger snapped.   The Glass Cannon looked very uncomfortable.  "Hey, is he supposed to be doing this?" she asked.  "This is police brutality!  Maybe you should step in -- you know,  the old bad cop, good cop routine?"

"I ain't a cop," Grandpa said.  "But Deathcop is.  He's an old friend; he knows what he's doing."

"But you can't just let him torture a man like this!" she said.  "Whatever happened to the concept of a carrot to go along with the stick?"

"Hate carrots," Grandpa said.  "Can't stand 'em.  What kind of a reward is a carrot anyway?"

"Well, the proverb refers to training a donkey, I think...."

The man screamed a third time as a third finger was snapped.

"Now carrot cake I could understand," said Grandpa.  "I mean, can't stand the stuff myself, but lots of people like it.  That's at least something everyone recognizes as a treat.  But just plain carrots?  Nope."

The cop with the skull said, "You're Billy Bunt, right?  I remember you."  He turned to face the rest of the bar.  "I know all of you chumps."  He pointed to a man watching everything from a corner table.  "You!  You're  the one they call Little Lucy -- Roberto Luciano.  I ran you in for car theft last year."

"No you didn't," the man said.  "That was Sargent Ouellette, and he's...."   The man's voice trailed off.

"That's right," the cop said.  "I died.  You know about that, don't you?  I was tracking down Mr. Tony Gentilini last year when his boys took me out.  Funny thing is, I got sent back to finish  the job.  I've been to Hell and back, Lucy -- literally.  And if one of you don't answer some questions for me real soon, I'm gonna take you all down to Hell with me.  Don't think I can't do it -- I'm like an Angel of Death now.  And I know you guys know what that means."

"You're the one they're calling Deathcop 2000," Luciano said.

"That's me," the cop replied.

"Kind of a dumb name, if you ask me," said Luciano.  A couple of others in the bar laughed nervously.

Deathcop 2000 sat the whimpering Billy Bunt down.  He walked slowly over to Luciano.  "Well," he said, "there are a lot of undead cop heroes out there.  There's Supernatural Justice.  There's Zombcop.   There's Officer Death, and Sgt. Specter.  There's the Gumshoe Ghoul, and the Wraith Mountie.  Good names are hard to come by."

"Why 2000?" asked Luciano.

"Because Deathcop 200 didn't seem powerful enough, and Deathcop 9000 just seemed silly," the cop replied.  He placed his gloved hands on the table and leaned in so that his nose -- if he'd had a nose -- would have been touching that of the seated man.  "Now.  Where can I find Mr. Gentilini's warehouse?  Or do you want me to break a few bones in your hands first?"

There was a long silence, and then Luciano said in a low voice, "Rumor is his people been seen at a building on Third and Mason, loading and unloading things late at night.  But you didn't hear it from me!"

The cop stood and walked out of the bar.  As he passed the first man, he said, "You ain't looking too good, Billy.  You should really get that hand looked at."



Outside of the bar, the cop paused.  He glanced at Grandpa and the Glass Cannon.  "Is the name Deathcop 2000 really that silly?" he asked.

Grandpa shrugged.  "No more silly than the Gumshoe Ghoul or the Wraith Mountie," he replied.

"What you did in there, that was just wrong," the Glass Cannon said.  "That poor man...."  She turned back to the bar, and blinked in surprise.  Behind them was nothing but an empty lot, filled with weeds and litter.

"Relax," said Grandpa.  "Pete's Corner Bar burned down in 1972.  That was just the ghost of a place long since gone, filled with the souls of wise guys and losers who can no longer even get drunk.  That man will be as right as rain in an hour -- if being a ghost qualifies.  In the meantime, we've got our information, and trust me, ghosts know the neighborhood better than anybody.  C'mon, let's go take down a drug ring."

FINI