Feature: Vigilant, Part 2

By Maxwell Dudeck

Last time, in Vigilant:

“… Leaning against the rotting wallpaper I wondered if the girl had hit me somehow, it had been dark and I’d only seen her face. Maybe she was double jointed. I wanted to blame her; she was the only face that I had to blame. That fucking cunt had hit me with a golf club and then she took my lady from me, my Hecate. I almost had myself believing it by the time the Marlboro had burned down to my knuckles. I tossed it into the blood and listened to it hiss. I imagined that it was the blood hissing, and not the cigarette, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
Right now, I’ve got to get out of here. That’s the first move. Then, we’ll see. I can tell you it won’t be pretty. Blood will have blood – Willie Shakespeare wrote that, and he never even met me.”

Click here to read Part I

Part II

My name is Lazlow, and there are a lot of names for what I do. My business card says Private Investigator, and I do a little of that, too. My office is a cubicle in the headquarters of the Vigilant Industries Security Team, or V.I.S.T. for short. Seriously, it’s on my business card; it’s on all of our business cards. After all, we are professionals, industry leaders in parking garage and liquor store security. V-I-S-T spells professional. Never mind that I got my License from the digital equivalent of a box of crackerjacks. Never mind that V.I.S.T. “HQ” is 2000 square feet of third-rate office space in a lousy part of the strip, never mind that we share a smoking room with the Kentucky Bell; the godforsaken offspring of some fast food comedian’s tragicomedy. O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!1

I hate my fucking job, and I hate my fucking life. But right now I don’t have that many other options, so I’m a V.I.S.T. Private Eye. I work on commission, but underneath the V.I.S.T. umbrella, and I give them a percentage. A steep percentage. Mainly, I take twenty-five dollars an hour from late-stage alcoholic pensioners to follow their cows of wives from Pizza Hut to Wal-Mart and keep an eye out for any fornication in their rented Geo Trackers. It’s the opposite of glamorous but my cut is twenty-five goddamned dollars an hour for little to no actual work, in the biblical sense.

Three days before tee-off at the Lazlow Cup (that’s what I’m calling the incident with the golf club now) I’d been sitting at my tiny desk washing down my balanced breakfast of a custom-made fried chicken burrito and Canadian Club whiskey with a second serving from the “whiskey” section of the food pyramid.

“You’re Lazlow?” A girls voice, behind me. It sounded genuinely surprised. I finished my swig and set the bottle down with a hard swallow.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” I said, without turning around, “but you’re looking at him.” There wasn’t a response so I asked her who she was and what she wanted.
“I brought you a burrito, with chicken in it.” She said, and I heard the plastic bag she brought it in rustle.

Let me explain something to you. I like to have a good time, and I have a gun. Hell, my gun has a NAME. I’m not a dangerous man, unless you cross me, but as I said earlier, I have a gun, and you can get quite the rise out of people if you surprise them with it. Also, there are a lot of people who would like to kill me. So, when I swiveled the chair around I had my darling Lady Hecate level and cocked.

She jumped a little but didn’t scream. It was funny, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bad. She was young, and clearly scared.

The girl was what my twelve-year-old daughter would have told me they called gothic, if I still talked to my daughter. Unfortunately for me, my ex wife had decided Jimmy the Coke Dealer wasn’t a better paternal figure and left for Tijuana.

Anyhow she was the sort of pale that’s either vampire or make-up induced, and she was trying hard for the vampire side of it. Her hair was straight black and she has smeared, dark eyeliner that looked a little too much like a pair fresh shiners. The best part was the blazing yellow and spanking clean Kentucky Bell jumpsuit. She had two nametags, one with the colonel smiling like an idiot in his Sunday best, the other with the crooked mission bell. They both said Liza. I’d seen her often at Kentucky Bell, I spent a lot of time there, but I’d never looked at her before.

“Why are you pointing a gun at me?” I put her at 17. She sounded scared, as might be reasonably expected.

“It’s just a toy, kid. I didn’t mean to scare you.” I lied. Twice, actually. I pointed at the center of her chest and squeezed the trigger. She flinched hard and yelped a little bit, but kept it pretty quiet, which I appreciated. Hecate’s hammer came down with an evil click, but that was all. You weren’t allowed to have loaded guns on V.I.S.T. property.

“You’re a real asshole.” And she threw the burrito bag in the trash can. No harm done, I’d fish it out later. I gave her my best deadman’s stare. Liza had to try hard not to blink.

“I was hungry. I’ll take a raincheck on that.”

“Whatever.”

There was an awkward pause before I reminded her that she had come to see me. She kept looking out over the low walls like she was watching for something. I realized that she had been scared before I pulled that stunt with Hecate.2

“Aren’t you a private eye? Isn’t there somewhere more private we could talk?” And clever, too.

“I am a Private Eye, and this is my office.” I pointed towards the little stool where I received my clients. “If you sit down, the walls get taller.” I thought maybe she’d smile at that one but she just looked at me blankly and sat down without thanking me. Fucking peasant. I watched her poke through my cubicle with her eyes.

“You know, for a private eye you’re pretty damn corporate.” She smiled at her own jibe, a smile that would have been pretty if it hadn’t have been so haunted. I liked her a little bit so far but I wasn’t gonna put up with a punk ass teenager in my own cubicle. Not this cubicle, sister.

“Show me the money, now.” I said. It confused her a little.

“What?”

“I said, show me the money.” She cocked her head to the side and knitted her brows in a very grownup expression of I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-you’re-talking-about. “Listen. I’m a business man, and my time is my money. So before I listen to a goddamn other word I want to see that you’re here to do business too. Hail Caesar.”

Liza thought that one over and decided it made sense. She reached into her purse and picked up a fat little stack of bills wrapped neatly in brown sandwich bags. She practically stoned me with it, but I managed to catch it. I did my best to weigh it in my hands. It was heavy.

“$2000 in twenties.” Yeah, the weight was right for it. “You want to open it and check?” I should have, just to put her in her place, but a man forgets that sort of thing when he’s confronted with large stacks of paper money. I just sat there and turned the weight in my hand.

“I won’t kill anyone. No exceptions.” Not for only $2000, not anymore.

She laughed a little bit at that. “I don’t want you to kill anyone, but I’d bet there are exceptions. I want you to follow someone for a couple days.”

Cake. Easy money. The usual gig for a lot more than the usual bill. I’d keep this under the table, too. V.I.S.T. can suck it.

“I think I can do that.” I said solemnly. “Who?”

“Me.”

“What do you mean? You want protection?” That would be a little more work; it’s harder to fake.

“No. I mean I want you to follow me. If I wanted protection I would have asked for it, I’ve seen the movies. I want you to follow me, and only if you can promise me I won’t be able to see you. I have to know that you’re there but not be able to see you, even if I look.”

“Uh huh, and why’s that?” It came out sourer than I’d meant, like I thought she was pulling my leg. She looked straight at me with cold, settled eyes that seemed much older. But I didn’t let her answer: “It’s not easy to tail someone when they know they’re being tailed. It may cost a little more.” But the $2000 would cover that and a lot more, if that’s what she wanted. She shot me with a .38 caliber hollowpoint of a stare, and I let up.

“But a couple grand should cover it, for a few days.” I said. She nodded tensely; if she was relieved you wouldn’t say she was visibly. “I still have to know why, or I’m not doing it.” And if you lie to me, I’ll find out, and I’ll quit. And you’ll be out a cool two G’s.” I said.

She hesitated, but only for an instant: “Because if I can see you, he’ll see you. And if he sees you he’ll kill us both.”

Just the sentence and the deadly-serious way she said it pushed thick syringes of adrenaline into my veins. I felt like my dick might get hard. It didn’t, thank God, but she must have seen right through me. Such as we are made up, such we be.3

1. Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2, Line 132.
2. Probably after H., the queen of witches in Macbeth; also a Titan in Classical Greek myth. –Ed.
3. Twelfth Night, misquoted as “up” instead of “of” –Ed.