Excerpt from "The Devil Named Grey"

This is Chapter One of my recently penned manuscript, entitled "The Devil Named Grey." Should you like it, feel free to contact me for more information.

Chapter One: Soloman Grey

“Soloman Grey is the most important person in my life; nobody means more to me, regrettably. Soloman Grey is the most evil man I have ever met. He is cruel, malicious, and unwilling to apologize for it. Soloman Grey is the devil,” I said, attempting to answer the detective’s question of whether or not I knew Soloman Grey as honestly as possible.
His subtle movements gave it away, my outward honesty shocked him, but he wasn’t surprised with my answer. The early morning rain storm was pouring down, echoing on my tin roof porch. It was just after eight in the morning, I awoke to the pleasant gift of a morning rain; it seemed my present was short lived. Tension gripped my shoulders, neck, and back, and also paralyzed my brain; all efforts of the soothing storm be damned. Fear of why a Reno police detective was at my door asking about my best friend and worst enemy Soloman Grey coursed through my veins at the same pulse of the ever more-present precipitation. I beckoned the man into my house on a quiet, yet infamous street in Reno, Nevada, in desperate attempt to comprehend the situation. He spoke as he walked in, “Sounds like you had a great motive for killing him then.”
Detective Mitchell (so the badge said) followed me inside. Only when the door closed, dampening the frenetic energy of the rain and with it my heart, did everything finally settle in. “Wait,” I implored, “Soloman Grey is dead?” I wasn’t asking, I was more pleading with the man; though I wasn’t sure if I wanted the news to be true or not.
“As a matter of fact, yes he is,” he said as he gave an almost regret-filled pause; a pause which I knew wasn’t genuine. “We need you to come in and identify the body. And along the way, we can have a little discussion about your friend, Soloman Grey.” Detective Mitchell said this as hard and domineering as he could, I feared him instantly, as was his intention. I saw the flicker in his movements, directed towards his gun holstered to his hip, though he made no specific attempt to draw it; he wanted me to know it existed, that he was in charge. His looks were the likes of those on the silver screen somewhere, the ladies swooned wherever he went, I knew. To me, and most every other man, it just made me think less of him. The moment I saw him, I knew he was a pretty-boy, gym rat; douchebag type who’s only reason for getting up in the morning was to pat himself on the back while lifting weights naked in the mirror. All that being said, I gave this man the proper amount of fear he deserved; he already, at some level, suspected me of murdering Soloman Grey. If I wasn’t careful, I would be in serious trouble.
Agreeing to his request, I quickly dressed in the first clothes I could find, grabbed my coat and followed the man towards the unmarked police cruiser in front of my modest house casually, not altogether in a hurry to go into the back of a police car. I was savoring walking in the rain as I made the arduous, but willing, journey to Detective Mitchell’s car. Though I hated Soloman Grey, I would miss him on days like this the most, though I couldn’t place why. A thousand memories drizzled with the rain, seeping into my mind during the walk; I was missing Soloman Grey already. He had been the best friend I ever had in my life, though I couldn’t help but feel he got his comeuppance by lying in the morgue somewhere.
I slid into the backseat; thankful I wasn’t shackled to anything as Mitchell got in the driver’s seat and started the car. It was the most awkward drive of my entire life already, and Mitchell did me no favors as he started the conversation as we drove out of my West University neighborhood, past the Mormon Church, “You didn’t live here when that Merlino girl went missing, right?” He wasn’t asking, and I knew it, because I instantly I recognized him. “I was the lead detective on that case and I interviewed everyone on that street a million times. Most moved away pretty quickly after that happened.”
Everyone in Reno, and many around the nation followed that case with great interest, and I was no exception. I knew the house I lived in, which I had only moved into months ago, was next door to the house that poor girl was kidnapped from, but I gave it no real attention, other than as an interesting piece of local trivia. I wasn’t sure where Mitchell was going with this conversation, besides in attempt to pat himself on the back some and to put me on edge, both of which were extraordinarily unnecessary. Mitchell was attempting to build a fake rapport with me; I resented it immediately. Soloman Grey had done the same thing to me, and I was aware of the tricks, and I wasn’t going to fall for them again.
“No, I just moved here. I like it here, I plan on staying here for a while” I said, not attempting to give this man any ammunition against me.
“That’s quite interesting, you see,” Mitchell said, “because in attempt to find you, finding your physical address was quite difficult. You have your mail forwarded to your sister Jules’ apartment in Sun Valley; you have a monthly rental in the Heart O’ Town Motel registered in your name and paid until June of this year; and you also have a house on E Street in Sparks, leased in your name. But it is here in the West University neighborhood, where I found that you, upon digging, were registered to vote,” Mitchell recited these facts without looking at notes, without taking his eyes off the road, without even looking at me in the rearview mirror. I never once lost eye contact with him through that mirror though; I was transfixed at this man who knew more about me than my mother.
I had lived with my sister before moving to Buena Vista Avenue; I had forgotten to forward the mail. The motel downtown shocked me; I didn’t understand it at all. The house took me a moment, but eventually I understood, “Do you mean Soloman Grey’s house? Did he put his house in my name?” I asked. I wasn’t overly shocked, though I did my best to pretend I was.
“Yes. You were not aware of this? What a good friend!” Mitchell mocked, finally looking at me through the mirror as he parked the car at St. Mary’s Hospital downtown.
Soloman Grey had manipulated and used me yet again without my knowledge.
We walked in silence into the hospital, Mitchell leading me by a step and a half the entire way. His walk was strong and with purpose, I was jealous I didn’t walk with such a strong gait. Mitchell led me through St. Mary’s Hospital, which got smaller, darker, and more miserable through each passing door. The wards of sick, crying and dying people were all moaning and wailing for someone, anyone, to take them out of their misery and heal them with a magic touch. They were wailing towards me, or rather, towards Detective Mitchell, who merely nodded and smiled to all he passed by. All begged him to stop and come directly to them; I thought he was going to multiple times. The anguished despair coursing through all the patients also became apparent on his face.
After uncounted stairwells and too many hallways, we had arrived at a cold room in the basement which was incessantly bright, the morgue. An orderly was already awaiting our arrival next to a body, presumably that of Soloman Grey.
I stepped slowly to the body in the middle of the room, the one covered in a sheet. It was the longest walk from door to center of a room ever, or perhaps it was merely three steps. Finally tableside, Mitchell nodded to the meek orderly who was unable to look either of us in the eye; I got the impression he was uncomfortable with what was about to happen as much as I. With the nod to the orderly to proceed, Mitchell gave a subtle grin, reminiscent of Soloman Grey himself, and I understood the game that was being played on me.
“How did you meet Soloman Grey?” Mitchell asked. I wasn’t sure if he was attempting to build tension or relieve it off my shoulders. I gagged at the smell I had been consciously concealing since my arrival in the hospital, and it suppressed my answer. After the gag, I took a full breath and brought in every ounce of redolence available; the stench was remarkable. I had supposed Soloman Grey had just been killed, the pungency told me he had been deceased for some time. As I finally recovered, the orderly began to lift the sheet; the first body part I saw was a stub where the right pinky finger should have been.
“Mitchell, what the hell are you doing?!” The tall and muscular (and psychopathic) Mitchell shrank instantly to the hard baritone which had engulfed the room out of nowhere. All attention turned from the grotesque to the even more grotesque as we focused on the squat troll of a man who entered the morgue.
“Captain Davis, I was attempting to get an identification of the body,” Mitchell became squirmy and feathery; he was in trouble and playing ignorant. I suppressed my chuckle at Mitchell’s reaction at being caught in the act of his simple game.
“Get him out of here now and interview him properly!” Captain Davis yelled, Mitchell didn’t sulk this time, but simply nodded his head in agreement. Davis approached me with an awkward gait, as if his right ankle was constantly sprained and his left knee didn’t work, “My apologies sir,” he said as he reached out his hand, “he shouldn’t have brought you down here, that’s not the way we do things here.”
I grinned and thought ‘all evidence to the contrary,’ though I held my tongue.
He continued, “If you don’t mind too much, Detective Mitchell here has some questions for you, and as soon as you are done answering them at headquarters, he will bring you home.” I shook Davis’ hand, as cold and sweaty as any I had ever felt, and I recoiled. I hated Davis, even though he had just saved me.
Captain Davis had successfully manipulated me, something I would not let Detective Mitchell do; I agreed to go to headquarters and answer the questions posed to me. I never would have fallen for the old ‘show the perpetrator the disgusting, decomposing dead body in order to make them crack trick,’ though I applauded Mitchell’s effort at the attempt. I was not going to give this dumb arrogant prick anything.
We drove in silence from the Hospital down Arlington Avenue to 2nd Street fourteen blocks to the police station. Mitchell looked straight ahead, never attempting to engage me in any way, though my gaze never left him. My nerves were rattling me; I did my best to keep under control. My legs desperately wanted to dance and jump out of anticipation and fear, my eyes were yearning to twitch, but I controlled them. I wasn’t going to let my guard down again, and I wasn’t going to show Mitchell how spooked he had made me moments earlier, how uneasy I was about everything thus far. With Soloman Grey, I had done terrible things, all of which I regretted. However, the last thing I would allow to happen was incriminate myself and face the penalty of my actions; I was contrite, not stupid.
We arrived at headquarters and I followed him as his shadow again as we weaved not through hospital wards, but through the cramped desks and cubicles of Reno’s Finest. For a man as vain as he, and for how he wore the Merlino case as a badge of honor, I was quite excited to see his office. I was stunned, then appalled at the derelict conditions of the small corner of the bullpen he led me to. I was in the Grand Canyon of Junk; his desk was pushed against the far wall which bore nothing but cracked blue paint, no pictures of a family or even a dog, no awards, no notes. The desk was surrounded on the other three sides by file cabinets with the only way in or out through a cramped “entrance” no wider than four feet between the cabinets. Many cabinets were open though no one was going through them, with files and papers sticking out in every direction. Mitchell’s desk was a mess of papers as well with no discernable organization even attempted, unless if you count “trash heap” as a style.
The stale smell of cigarettes was unmistakable, though I didn’t see a pack or even an ashtray. Upon smelling the smoke, I looked towards and found Mitchell’s hand shaking in the same fashion mine might have been had I not been consciously controlling them. This wasn’t the man I had met and instantly feared. He lit a cigarette; I never saw a lighter nor heard a match; I was concentrating on why anyone would work in such a decrepit, depressing space. There were no windows in the bullpen, the only lights were from the halogen bulbs hanging from the ceiling, casting an antiseptic glow upon the dirt and grime that is police work with the exception of one small corner of the room: the one in which I found myself.
Mitchell had pulled the halogen bulb, which was situated above his desk out of its spot, instead using a small incandescent bulb in a small, non-descript office lamp as lighting. From where the lamp was situated, at the far corner of the desk, closest to the single opening in the wall of file cabinets hastily put up in pattern. Whether Cabinet-Henge was done by Mitchell to provide privacy or Captain Davis to hide Mitchell’s monstrosity was unknown. The result was that the light blocked my vision out of the office from where Mitchell motioned me to sit; I was alone with this man.
“Please, take a seat,” he said as I sat in the hard wooden chair, cherry I think, on the other side of his desk as he sat down in a cherry chair of his own, clasping his cigarette in his mouth. Never once did he mention the mess, he didn’t even see it anymore. With the dexterity of a surgeon, Mitchell pulled out a legal pad from the middle of the pile on his desk and began to write on it with a beautiful red ball-point pen. “Before we begin, I want to notify you that I will be recording this conversation; is that understood?”
“I understand,” I said. I wasn’t listening to him, I was sure that they would be recording it anyway. I was certain Captain Davis would be monitoring this conversation the entire time, even from this dirty, poorly lit corner of the police station.
“When’s the last time you saw Soloman Grey?” he asked first.
“January second of this year” I responded. I learned from Soloman Grey, to not give too much information, only give them the information they officially asked for; do not volunteer anything (unless you do it for a purpose). Give them too much, and they become suspicious; give them too little, they become suspicious.
“And what happened?”
“Soloman Grey invited me over to his house that day, and so I went over and we talked for about an hour or so.”
“And what time was that, do you remember?”
I remembered that day as if it was yesterday. It was yesterday to me, it also seemed like a past life long ago and far away. “He called me in the morning; I arrived during the middle of the day. I am not sure about the time.”
“What did you two talk about?”
Tension gripped me yet again; I knew when Mitchell arrived this morning I would have to tell him something of that day, but I wasn’t entirely sure of whether or not to tell him everything. I couldn’t be sure of what this man knew, whom he had spoken with previously. I had to assume he knew everything, so I had to tell Mitchell the truth, even though it went against all of my training at the hands of Soloman Grey, because if he caught me in a lie about what had transpired that day, I’d be in serious trouble. I began, “Soloman Grey was looking disappear for good, and he wanted my help to pull a job to make some big getaway money.”
Mitchell was shocked by this revelation; I couldn’t read his reaction as to why. Whether he believed me or not, I knew the theory enthralled him. I had Detective Peter Mitchell on the edge of his seat, leaning forward into the mountain of papers on his desk, his chiseled face close to the lamp casting a yellow glow, giving the appearance of a tan. “When you say, ‘pull a job,’ what job do you mean?” He knew which job I meant; he just wanted to see how far I would go, what I would tell him.
“You know,” I said as I gave him cock-eyed smile, a subtle grin that Soloman Grey always used to give me. If he was good at his job at any level, he would be able to put two and two together. I
“January second? You don’t mean the armored truck downtown, do you?” he asked. Mitchell, just like everybody else, knew of the robbery and the miraculous getaway, it had captured the attention of the nation, but like everyone else, he had no idea who pulled off the caper. I had told Soloman Grey that day there was no chance in hell, with the amount of cameras downtown, with the Nevada Gaming Commission, and the sheer amount of police manpower which would come his way that there would be no way on Earth he would escape undetected. But Soloman Grey had a perfect escape plan, and while I knew it worked, I was surprised it worked well enough for the police to know next to nothing about it.
“Yes, that’s the one I mean.” At that moment, my thoughts meandered to the small detached garage in Soloman Grey’s backyard on E Street, which contained a hidden room. Unconsciously, I reached for the key hidden under my shirt around my neck on a gold chain, the brother of which was hidden in my backyard; two of the three keys to that room, and to everything in said room (Soloman Grey had the other). The room officially being in my name, I thought it best to leave out that part of the story.
As my mind focused on the room and the possibility of hitting the lottery after all this had blown over, I couldn’t escape the feeling Mitchell already knew about the room somehow, his eyes now looked directly into mine without blinking. The little room under the garage that I helped build burned like fire on the backside of my head, as if every synapse in my brain stem were firing all at once. However it was happening I had felt it before, like someone was reading my thoughts.
“Are there any other jobs I should know about, concerning Soloman Grey?” Mitchell asked. He was beating around the bush; he was smart enough to not ask about my direct involvement in anything, for now.
He was attempting to backdoor information out of me; I called him out on it, “Look, you asked what we talked about that night, and that was the subject. I am not a narc, and I am not going to incriminate myself or anybody else any more than I already have.” I feigned impatience, but I didn’t want to burst even accidentally, I would do far more damage that way.
Getting the point after first watching me become a bit unglued, he changed the subject. “Do you know of anybody who’d want to kill Soloman Grey?” Mitchell asked me.
I couldn’t control it, I laughed harder than I had laughed my entire life. The sheer inanity of the question shocked me, “Why sir, of course I do. He was in fear for his life, or so he said, that last day I saw him. That’s why he wanted to get away. Moreover, I should think that everybody who ever met Soloman Grey wanted to kill him; he was the world’s biggest manipulator. He controls your life in such a way that you don’t even recognize yourself after leaving his presence. He was on a mission to dominate the entire world and control whomever he could to make that mission a reality. Though I have become the man I am now because of Soloman Grey and I mourn his passing, sadly I feel the world is better for not having him on it, and I don’t blame the person who killed him, because he surely had it coming.”
Mitchell was agreeing with my assessment was he puffed away like a chimney. Relaxing after a long relaxing drag, Mitchell peered towards me, “Okay,” he said, “give me some names of who would want to kill Soloman Grey.”
I rattled names off in the order they came to me and said, “Matthew, Julie, Lenny, Debbie, Veronica, Meghan, Drake, and Alex are the ones that come to my mind right now, but if you give me some time I am sure I can think of more.” I had mentioned more than one deceased person; I wasn’t sure if Mitchell knew.
Mitchell smiled as I said those names; I knew he knew most of them already. None had shocked them, and what’s more he never bothered to ask their last names. “It sounds like a veritable Roman Senate to me; Soloman Grey must be Julius Caesar. Beware the Ides of March,” Mitchell waxed poetically towards me as he took another drag and I shared a knowing chuckle. I had forgotten the date and stared toward the calendar. Today’s date was March 15, 2010.