Mystery/Supernatural

Date Published: 11/10/2020

Publisher: Darkstroke

Kelly Jenks knows the dead boy is going to show him something awful. Jonathan is seven. He never wears shoes, and his feet are always clean. He cruises between this world and the next in a 1967 Cougar XR7. Jonathan has a message for Kelly: There is a faceless man preying on the city’s homeless.

Jackie Carmichael hires Kelly to find an employee who has vanished. The case appears simple at first, but Kelly soon discovers that the missing girl is not who she seems. As Kelly attempts to separate the facts from the lies, Jonathan brings him another message: Jackie Carmichael is hiding something.

With the beaches, mansions, and dive bars of Orange County, CA as the backdrop, Caffeine & Nicotine is a dark and brutal look at what happens when the dead pass sentence.

Chapter One

Oliver Trunk: the proverbial rock in my shoe.

I had spent the last week looking under every overpass and dumpster I could think of. I talked to a bunch of people who said, “Yeah, I saw Oliver last night down at . . .” Insert the name of some bar, or strip club, or parking lot. I was a step behind from the word go. It was making me cranky.

Oliver thought of himself as an entrepreneur, which meant he dealt a little meth and coke, and beat the shit out of his girlfriend if she held back any of her tips. Oliver’s girlfriend was a stripper at a low-level club. In the beginning, Tina Mullins had thought he was charming and kind of cute in a white-trash, Joe Dirt, kind of way. Those days passed quickly, however. Oliver’s newest business plan was to pimp her out on her nights off from the club.

Which is where I came in. Find Mr. Trunk and serve him a restraining order.

***

I had put out a number of feelers with my fellow down and outs. A hundred bucks for the guy or gal who got me a current line on Trunk. Not where he was yesterday or last week, but where he was that very minute.

The winner was Judy, an old gal who sang the blues at some of the seedier joints in the city. Judy was in her sixties. She only wore blue jeans, green T-shirts, jean jackets, and cowboy boots. I’m not sure about her choice of underwear or bras, but I’d bet she doesn’t wear either of them. She sounded like Janis Joplin when she sang. I’d caught her show a few times. They were generally free, and there was plenty of booze in the places she played, so it was a win-win.

Judy called around midnight and said, “Kelly, you owe me a hundred.” She sounded like Bob Hoskins.

I was kind of inebriated when she called. I had been experimenting with perfecting a Pink Vodka Lemonade all night. It had taken a few rounds before I had an epiphany about adding a little Malibu to the cocktail. Damn, I nailed it after that.

My ability to walk and talk might have been affected.

“Why tonight?” I felt like my enunciation was spot on.

“What? Totally mumbling, Kelly.”

I enunciated harder with a softer word. “Where?”

“Down at Spinnakers. I gotta go. We’re starting our next set.”

“Keep him there.” It came out as “ee im air,” or something close to that.

“Dude, I can’t understand you.”

I tried again. She hung up.

I weighed the pros and cons.

In true drunken fashion, the pros won out. I was over this rock in my shoe.

I made a pot of coffee with double the coffee. I hopped in the shower with water that was too hot. I was hoping the steam would do something. I’m not exactly sure what, but I was determined to erase the effects of the six Pink Vodka Lemonades I had ingested over the last three hours. I toweled off without falling over and counted it as a clear sign that I was no longer falling down drunk. I put on some cargo shorts and a T-shirt, then pulled on some ankle socks and a pair of Nikes. I filled two thermoses with coffee that was slightly thinner than tar. I added them to my trusty backpack, which contained all the tools of my trade: pack of cigarettes, lighter, .45 Beretta px4 Storm, couple Snickers bars, and a bottle of water.

Forty-five minutes after Judy hung up on me, I stepped out of my Airstream trailer and stumbled down the two steps. They’re tricky in the dark, even when I’m sober, so I didn’t count it against myself. My trailer is parked underneath a thirty-foot oak tree. Its trunk has a seven-foot radius. The tree is massive. I don’t know how old it is, or how it is still standing in the middle of the city, but it’s proof that the world isn’t completely screwed up. The leaves whispered in the late-night breeze blowing in from the Pacific: You can do this, Kelly.

My yard was surrounded by an eight-foot corrugated metal wall. I managed to get the latch open, and a five-foot section swung out and away from me. I stepped through the opening, promptly tripped on the bottom lip and went down face-first into the alley.

“Fuck.” I laid there for a few moments with my face pressed against the cool asphalt. I weighed the pros and cons again. The pros still won, although the cons had more of a say this time. I took it as further evidence that I was sobering up rapidly. I regained my feet.

My Cougar was waiting for me in its parking spot. I popped the lock, climbed in, and started her up.

“You got this, my magic car,” I whispered to her. She had never let me down in those types of moments. And there have been plenty. “OK, let’s go.” I dropped her into reverse, hit the gas, and ten minutes later, I was parked in the lot behind Spinnakers. I rubbed the steering wheel and told her I loved her. I fished out a thermos and took a long drink. The coffee bordered on undrinkable, but I choked it down. I lit a cigarette and put my right earbud in, started up the shuffle on my phone and waited.

***

The moon had taken the night off. I couldn’t see any stars because of the sodium-vapor lights in the parking lot. The handful of cars around me all looked black or white. A dirty white cinder block building squatted at the edge of the lot. The air was washed-out yellow. All in all, a very ugly place.

I was parked next to a ‘95 Mustang. It could have been brown, purple, green, or blue, but it just looked black. That production model of Mustang is probably one of the worst cars ever manufactured, along with its distant cousin, the Pinto. This particular automotive tragedy belonged to Mr. Trunk.

Trunk was the last one out of the bar. He had some assistance from a none too happy bouncer who went by the handle of Axe. The man was a monster. He was six nine, and easily three hundred pounds. He had a spiderweb tattooed on his shaved head. He only worked the Spinnaker on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday he worked up in LA. He lived local. We’ve had a few friendly conversations over the years. He’s a nice enough guy if you can look past his numerous assault charges and the one attempted murder. I can, so we’re good. I gave myself a mental head slap for not reaching out to him about Trunk.

I checked my phone. 2:13 A.M. Sarah McLachlan was singing in my ear about monsters.

Axe shoved him into the parking lot, and said, “Don’t come back.”

“Fuck off, you overgrown piece of shit.”

Axe laughed, then went back into the bar. I imagine Zeus laughed the same way when mere mortals got snippy with him for bedding their wives.

“Fucking dick,” Trunk yelled, as he weaved over to his Mustang. I was parked next to him. Driver side to driver side. I watched him dig his keys out of his jeans. He dropped them. He bent to pick them up. He fell over. Things were looking up. Trunk was more intoxicated than I was.

He staggered back up, swore, and laughed to himself. Then he crossed the remaining space to our cars. He was an average idiot in an average idiot’s body. Beating up women didn’t require much of a workout. His drug clientele were mostly strung out junkies or high school rich kids. Trunk was trying to restart the white leather high-top fashion craze. I didn’t see it catching on too soon, but stranger things have happened.

He ignored me as I sat in my car smoking a cigarette. As he struggled to get the key into the car door, I said, “What’s up, Oliver?”

He turned around, and said, “I don’t know you, longhair.” He turned back around and began fighting with the keyhole again.

I popped my door open and climbed out. “Longhair? You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

He turned back around. I hit him with a straight right to the nose. It wasn’t my best punch, but he was drunk, and it did the job. He dropped his keys. He fell back against his car. As he started to right himself, I kicked him in the balls. I connected a lot better that time. Might have popped one of them. He was on the ground, moaning. I gave him a nice solid kick to the face.

Done.

I threw my hands up in the air and spun a circle. And the crowd goes wild! I felt so much better. The rock was out of my shoe.

I dragged him over to the back of the Cougar. I popped the trunk, then piled him in. I might have hit his head on the bumper a couple of times in the process. These things happen. I pulled his arms behind him and wrapped duct tape around them. I taped his ankles together. I slapped a piece of duct tape across his nose and mouth. He wouldn’t be able to scream or breathe, so it was a classic two-for-one.

I shut the trunk, found his keys on the ground, and took a moment to unlock his car and put the key into the ignition. I shut the door. The car wouldn’t have lasted the night in this neighborhood, but I didn’t want the thieves to break anything when they stole the car. I climbed back into the Cougar and sat there for a minute. I lit a cigarette and drank some coffee. I replayed it in my head. The people that had come out between my arrival and Trunk coming out hadn’t paid any attention to me. They were all your standard Tuesday night drinkers. I thought I was clean. I never saw Judy. I finished the cigarette, pulled two pieces of gum out of my backpack and popped them in my mouth.

I felt fairly sober. I was probably walking the legal line as far as blood alcohol content was concerned, but I’d have much bigger problems if I got pulled over for something. I started the Cougar up, then pulled out of the lot, and headed out to the desert.

***

I got to my disposal site a couple minutes before four A.M.

I took my time. Speed limit all the way. Windows down. Wind throwing my hair all over the place. I sipped my second thermos of sludge, smoked, and listened to music that bounced all over the musical genre map. I like the drive out the 15 in the middle of the night. It’s peaceful. I like the way the sodium-vapor lights look from the freeway. Everything is still that washed-out yellow, but you can see the stars and the mountains looming up in front of you.

I jumped on the 395 for thirty minutes. The lights of passing cars filled the interior of the Cougar for brief moments. A glance in the rear view during these moments revealed what might have been a beautiful young woman. Her blond hair did not move in the wind. She was smiling. Then the interior would go dark, and she would be no more. The sound of happy laughter drifted beneath the road noise. And a smell like a field of wildflowers in full bloom lingered all around me.

I left the last high desert city behind. I turned onto a dirt road with no marker. I cruised slowly. I knew the spots that would give the Cougar and her low-slung body trouble. It took about five minutes to cover the mile from the highway to the gate.

My headlights lit up the iron bars. It was a fancy gate out in the middle of the desert. The designer probably envisioned it blocking the end of a Beverly Hills driveway. There were ornate spikes all along the curved top. Two silhouettes of horses rearing up on their hind legs. It might work in the Texas wastelands, but there weren’t any horses around these parts. Scorpions, tarantulas, and rattlesnakes, but no wild stallions running free.

The gate was mostly decorative. Three lines of barbed wire ran to the north and south. The property was five hundred acres of useless scrub brush and the aforementioned poisonous things. If somebody wanted to get to the house beyond the gate, they wouldn’t have to try very hard.

I came to a stop, leaned out the window and punched in the code. The gate rolled away to my left. I drove through and the gate closed behind me.

Fifty yards in was a one-story log cabin. It was one of those kits you can buy online. They ship the materials to the building site along with all the nuts and bolts. An enthusiastic person could probably put one together in a couple weeks. The owner of the property had paid ten guys from the Home Depot parking lot to throw this one up in a day.

I liked it. There was a cozy bed inside. I wanted nothing more than to go climb into that bed and sleep. I had one more thing to do before I could call it a day.

I drove past the cabin another hundred yards. The road ended in a wide spot where I could flip the Cougar around. I turned the car off and climbed out. Big stretch. My body ached from the drive. My brain felt mushy because of the alcohol still in my system and a lack of sleep.

I popped the trunk. I don’t know if he ever regained consciousness. Don’t know if he struggled as his lungs ran out of oxygen. Didn’t much matter either way. He was dead.

I pulled the body out of the trunk. It hit the ground hard. I grabbed the feet and dragged the body into the desert for a few feet. There was a lid somewhere. I just had to find it. I felt like I was in the right spot, but I didn’t see it.

I relented and pulled my phone out, used the flashlight and searched the ground. I was about ten feet too far north. I pulled the bone bag over to a brown plastic lid set into the ground. I took a moment to light a cigarette in preparation. I filled my lungs with smoke and held it in as I pulled the lid upward. The smell that drifted up out of the hole was still godawful. I worked as quickly as I could. I got the feet into the hole, then lifted the body by the shoulders until it just kind of slid in. A second later, I was rewarded with a thick splash.

Restraining order served.

Chapter Two

The phone began playing ‘We Got the Beat’ at 5:15. Belinda Carlisle belted it out for twenty seconds, then fell silent. She started singing again five minutes later. Again, for twenty seconds, then silence. Jackie Carmichael was the owner of the phone. She had been asleep for just over four hours. The four hours weren’t restful, or peaceful. She had climbed into bed around ten, stared at the ceiling for twenty minutes, then started to toss and turn, before finally falling asleep around one to some documentary she found on Netflix.

There wasn’t anything particularly stressful going on in her life. There was nothing hanging over her head, and no overdue projects that she had been procrastinating. The bills were paid. The dog was fed and curled up at the foot of her bed. Booger never had trouble sleeping. Big, dumb, lovable golden retriever who was useless after eight. The cat was doing the cat thing somewhere. Jackie was currently single and happy about it. Life, in other words, was good.

Restless: yes. Bored: eh, somewhat.

Which left the text she had received a little after nine. Three words from a number that wasn’t in her contacts: Thinking of you. She stared at the message. She told herself that it was a mistake. Somebody texting an old flame from memory and they just got the number wrong. She repeated this thought several times before deleting the message.

***

Belinda and The Go-Go’s started up again. It was 5:22.

Jackie rolled over. She raised the lid of her right eye. Glared at the phone. There were no good reasons for Quinn to be calling her before eight. There were twenty annoying reasons, none of which inspired a cry of joy. She lowered her eyelid. Rolled back over. Belinda fell silent.

Booger began pacing around the room. Yawning. Stretching his canine form. His nails clicked on the tile of her bedroom floor. He made his way over to the door. Whined.

She grabbed a pillow and jammed it on her face.

Belinda started singing again. Booger whined.

Jackie gave up, grabbed the phone.

“Fuck off,” she said.

“Morning!” Quinn. Her best friend. Her business partner. They had known each other since kindergarten. Twenty years this September. Quinn always sounded like she had just had the best sex of her life, or she had just stepped off a really good roller coaster. Always. Happy. Satisfied. Enjoying every second on this planet. Fucking Quinn.

“Morning,” Jackie grumbled. “Fuck off, in case you didn’t hear me the first time.”

“Yes, yes. I know. Listen, the alarm company called to let me know that the alarm hasn’t been deactivated. Kelci didn’t show up this morning.”

“What time is it?”

“Time for you to get out of bed and come make coffee and smile.”

“Maybe she is just late,” Jackie said.

“I know that would be the best-case scenario, but I am here. She is not. I just hope she’s all right.”

“Did you try Christina? Maybe she can come in early.”

“She’s not answering. I left a message. Sooo . . .”

“Sooo . . . What?”

“Sooo, throw on some shorts and one of those cool Bolsa Coffee & Tea tank tops, give Booger some food, and come on down and hang out with me during the morning rush.”

“Fuck,” she said, and disconnected the call.

She resisted the urge to throw the phone. It was new. It cost a small fortune. And sometimes owning your own business meant you got stuck covering the morning shift.

Booger whined. I have to pee.

“In a second.”

Booger whined. I’m hungry.

“Can I please wake up?”

Booger barked. I’m starving!

“You should go live with Quinn.”

Booger whined. Don’t you love me?

“Fine.”

Jackie rolled out of bed. She let Booger into the backyard to do his business, then took care of hers. Ten minutes later, she was stretching in the driveway. She had too much hair. It was too long. Too thick. She had pulled it back, wrapped a thick hair tie around it and plopped a baseball hat on top of her head. Instead of shorts, she had donned a pair of turquoise leggings, her yellow Nikes, and a white Bolsa Coffee tank top. She slipped her phone into the side pocket of the leggings after dialing up a playlist. Earbuds in. She was off.

The sun was still below the horizon. She could see a handful of stars, but the day was beginning whether she wanted it to or not. She left her neighborhood behind a few minutes later. It usually took her twenty minutes to run to the store. She had chosen a playlist heavy on early Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, so she’d make it in eighteen if she lucked into ‘Master of Puppets’ or ‘Rocket Queen.’

As the ocean came into view, ‘Trapped Under Ice’ came on, and that did the trick. She covered the last mile in just under six minutes. She slowed as she cut through the gas station. Walked when she reached the parking lot on the other side. She glimpsed Quinn moving around inside the horse trailer that was the home of Bolsa Coffee and Tea. The sixteen-foot trailer was parked across two spots. Pictures of dolphins, waves, surfers, and various other ocean dwellers covered the outside. Jackie and Quinn had pooled their money and bought the trailer two years ago. Jackie painted it. Quinn retrofitted the inside. When they were done, they had a fully functional coffee shack, complete with dual drive-up windows.

Jackie checked her phone. 5:58. She smiled and thought, I am such a badass.

She knocked on the door. “Let me in.”

She heard the lock disengage. It was barely audible because of the Pet Shop Boys singing about boys and girls from different sides of town. The music was garbage from Jackie’s perspective. Quinn loved, loved, loved the shit. The door swung open. A mass of blond curls, bright blue eyes, and the purest smile she had ever seen greeted her. “You ran?”

“I did.”

“God, you are amazing.”

“I am. You gonna let me in?”

“Entrez,” Quinn said in a horrible French accent as she moved back into the trailer.

Jackie shut the door behind her. Engaged the lock. Inhaled the smell of coffee, tea, and pastries.

Quinn put a large vanilla latte into her hand. “I threw in two extra shots for you. You sounded a little groggy on the phone.”

“Little. Thank you.”

She took a sip. Then a more substantial drink. Good. Strong. The espresso hit her system a minute later. Quinn slid her window open and greeted the first customer. “What’s the haps, Jim?”

Jackie washed her hands, slipped on an apron with the logo of a surfing coffee cup, pocketed the ear buds and embraced the sounds of eighties pop that Quinn insisted on playing. She opened her window as a car pulled up. She put on her best smile and said, “Morning, Rachel. The usual?”

She knew many of the people who pulled up over the next few hours. They had built a solid local coffee stop. There were folks who pulled up to the trailer five days a week on their way to work. Their prime location right across from the beach meant their weekend traffic consisted of more inlanders and tourists. The summer season was when they really made their money. Starbucks was safe, but Jackie and Quinn’s business was doing better than OK.

Christina showed up at seven thirty. Jackie let her in.

“Morning, bosses.”

“God, you look gorgeous!” Quinn said, as she steamed milk and showered the newcomer with affection.

“Thanks, boss. I can always count on you to pump me up.”

Quinn’s smile temporarily blinded anyone that happened to be within a mile of her.

In addition to the drive-up windows, there was a small walk up window at the front of the trailer. Christina set up cream, sugar, and other coffee and tea necessities on the outside ledge. She wiped down the picnic table that was chained to the front of the trailer, then came back inside.

“All right, bitches, who’s moving?”

Jackie said, “I am.”

“Nice. I like that machine better.”

Christina posted up and started making drinks. Jackie took orders, answered the phone, and stocked. The three of them had worked together for over a year. They knew how to move in the tiny space without tripping over each other. Quinn sang loudly as she poured drinks. Christina bopped along to the beat while making twice as many drinks as Quinn.

I’m glad Kelci didn’t show up, Jackie thought. I needed this.

About The Author

Eric Weule is the author of several novels. He lives in Southern California. Caffeine & Nicotine is a stand-alone novel, which features Kelly Jenks from The Interview.

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