Jim Grant Short Stories #2 Read online

  Grant remembered the late-night bed check and his reaction to it. The first true step on his journey from boy to man. Not everyone had been so lucky. Number One wasn’t giving up on a rich vein. “You probably weren’t young enough for him.”

  Grant found his voice. “He probably likes chubby arse cheeks like yours.”

  This time it was Number One whose cheeks flushed. With anger. “If you’re after a stomping, you’ve chosen the right place.”

  He took a step forward and his accomplice backed him up, standing shoulder to shoulder with the overweight bully, forming an impenetrable barrier across the tiled floor. A sly look crossed Number One’s face, and he tilted his head. “Oh, I forgot. You didn’t choose to come here, did you? Your dad sent you when you killed your mother.”

  This time the heat running up Grant’s neck wasn’t a blush. It was barely restrained anger. He tried to bite his tongue but couldn’t help responding. “She died in childbirth. It was nothing to do with me.”

  “Dying in childbirth is everything to do with you.”

  That shut Grant up. Because it was true. If his mother hadn’t given birth to him, she wouldn’t have died. If she hadn’t died, then his father wouldn’t have resented him so much—a vicious circle that he was unable to escape. Being a naval commander, his father could have had Grant brought up on the bases where he served, but instead he packed his son off to boarding school at the earliest opportunity. Whatever else Grant would do with his life, he vowed never to join the navy.

  Number One threw a final barb before he lost his teeth. “No wonder your old man wants nothing to do with you.”

  The heat became a rush of blood. Red mist descended and removed all restraint from Grant’s psyche. He reached for the towel hanging behind the door and dangled the end in the water that was puddling the floor. The bullies saw it but weren’t afraid. A wet towel wasn’t going to protect this young upstart. They took a step towards Grant. Grant planted his feet and turned sideways. He flicked the towel in a vicious whip that cracked like a gunshot as it stung Number One’s cheek.

  “You little fucker.”

  The bullies lunged forward in unison—just what Grant had hoped for. Their feet slipped from under them, and they went down heavy. Number Two cracked his skull on the tiled floor, blood leaking from his ears, and didn’t move again. Number One slithered like a beached whale. Grant stung him with three more whip cracks that brought red wheals across his face and neck. He tried to control the anger, but it was off the leash. He wrapped the towel around the fallen bully’s neck and grabbed the other end. Tightening the noose, he pulled backwards, and the bully was forced to get up. Before the big lug could regain his balance, Grant jerked his knee up into the unprotected groin, doubling him over. The forward momentum was all he required. Grant grabbed the sixth-former’s head and smashed it against the porcelain sink, breaking his nose.

  The boy in the corner screamed for Grant to stop, but Grant was out of control. Any restraint or calming techniques he might learn later were nowhere in evidence in the toilets of Moor Grange School for Boys. He slammed the head against the sink again and again. Blood and teeth splashed the tiled floor. Grant was still pulping the fat bully’s face when his own feet slipped and he fell backwards, out of the dream.

  He jerked awake three hours later. It was mid-afternoon. Lace curtains diffused the January sunshine, but it was still bright enough to hurt his eyes. The rectangle of light had crawled across the floor and confirmed the passage of time. He rolled onto his back and stretched. Bones in his back and neck cracked. He flexed his muscles until the travel aches diminished, then turned to his left.

  Terri Avellone had gone.

  The used condom and its matchbook packaging were in the bin.

  So be it. He hated goodbyes and false promises. A clean break was a good break. He swung his legs out of bed and went into the bathroom.

  Twenty minutes later he was fresh and clean and ready for action. Faded jeans and a crumpled T-shirt. Black K-Swiss tennis shoes. He shrugged into the faded orange windcheater and took out the map. Time to get back to work. Time to find out where he was going. Grant squinted at the topography in a shaft of sunlight, unaware that his latest “road to Damascus” moment would come in a much darker place: Jamaica Plain.

  three

  “Yeah?”

  The desk sergeant was chiseled out of stone. The one-word response came after three minutes of silence as he ignored the man standing with a battered leather holdall in one hand.

  The Jamaica Plain police station was at 3345 Washington Street. Intersection of Green and Washington. The District E-13 station house was a modern red brick building and, like most police stations, it was plain and functional. Nothing fancy. All business. Apart from the clock tower that housed the staircase to the second floor. Grant had taken the T from the airport, and the subway journey on top of the long flight made the desk sergeant’s attitude even more annoying.

  Keep out of trouble.

  Grant waited patiently, not one of his strengths, and took his inspector’s words to heart. Over the years he’d arrived at new posts many times, both in the army and in the police. There was always a macho pissing contest that went on during the opening salvos. He was prepared to weather the storm. This is a holiday assignment. He kept telling himself that. It almost worked.

  “DC Grant.”

  “He doesn’t work here.”

  So it was going to be like that. He pointed a finger at his own chest. “DC Grant. From England.”

  The sergeant stopped writing in the ledger on the counter and looked over the glasses on his nose. Grant detected a hint of the old country in the tilt of his head—a touch of Irish brogue in the voice. “You expect that’s going to open any doors?”

  There was no winning this guy over. So be it. “I’ve got a piece of shamrock up my arse if that’ll help.”

  “It won’t. And that kind of attitude will get your pretty little ass kicked all sides up—shamrock or not.”

  Radio traffic crackled in the background. A door slammed upstairs. Muted voices and the scrape of chairs came from offices beyond the reception desk. There was a smell of coffee and cracked leather that was at odds with the newness of the building. This was a frontline police station. Real cops needed to create an atmosphere of mutual support. They also needed to protect themselves from outsiders until they proved they weren’t out to hang the police or free the criminals. Grant respected that, but he wasn’t going to roll over and beg. “At least you’ve got one less face than the clocks outside.”

  “Your meaning?”

  “I mean one clock says half four. The other says quarter past five. All you say is ‘fuck you,’ whichever face you show.”

  “That’d be ‘fuck you, Englishman.’”

  “Fuck you, English copper.”

  “Cop.”

  “Don’t like the English, huh?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “Me neither. I’m a Yorkshireman, born and bred. Fuck the English.”

  The sergeant put his pen down and stood back from the desk. He considered the visitor for a few seconds, and then the chiseled features softened. Didn’t exactly break into a smile, but Grant would take whatever he could get. The pissing contest was over. A leathery thumb jerked towards a door beside the counter. “You here for Sullivan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Second floor, rear. Detectives. You want Kincaid.”

  The thumb disappeared under the counter, and an electronic buzz unlocked the door. Grant picked up his bag and yanked the door open. “Much obliged.”

  “Have a nice day.”

  There was only a hint of sarcasm in the voice.

  The staircase circled the clock tower and came out on a split corridor with signs on the wall. A short corridor went straight ahead with only one door at the end. A longer corridor to the rig
ht had several doors on either side and two at the end. The sign said the detectives’ office was straight ahead—at the rear of the station.

  The corridor was carpeted but not deep-piled. Back in Bradford the police stations had linoleum floors until a few years ago. Some interior designer had decided it was better for morale to have soft furnishings and carpets. All that meant was the mess cops made was harder to clean up. It looked like the Boston Police Department had gone down the carpet route.

  He didn’t knock, but he didn’t barge in either. He simply opened the door and stood on the threshold for a moment while he got his bearings. The office was big and square, with two windows facing Green Street and two overlooking the parking lane behind the station. There were no blast curtains, just vertical blinds drawn back to let the light in.

  Detective bureaus were the same the world over. The CID office at Ecclesfield Police Station back home was the same as the MP Investigation Unit in the army and the BPD detectives’ office at E-13. Open-plan office. Desks grouped into blocks of three or four facing each other, depending on the size of the office. Grey metal filing cabinets (green in the army) and a stationary cupboard. Some had their own radio storage and battery chargers, unlike West Yorkshire where the radios were signed out from the help desk downstairs.

  Most detective squads had an excess of takeaway food cartons and disposable coffee cups, but Grant had never seen one with this many pizza boxes. There must have been seven or eight on the middle set of desks, some open and empty, some with partly eaten pizza, some closed. None of the three detectives working at separate desks was eating. Grant looked at the pizzas and, since he didn’t know which detective was Kincaid, he addressed the room. “If I’d known there was a party, I’d have brought some beers.”

  The detectives stopped working. Three heads turned towards the intruder. Nobody spoke. A heavyset detective with dark hair dusted with grey pushed his chair back from the desk. That was the only sound. Grant half expected a tumbleweed to come rolling across the office on a breath of wind. “Diet sodas then?”

  The heavyset detective stood up, leaving his jacket hanging over the back of the chair. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, the sign of paperwork getting on his nerves. The forearms were solid, indicating that the spreading waistline didn’t mean a lack of strength. He was tall, just a couple of inches shorter than Grant but broader. His face was set in a frown of interrupted concentration. “With that accent, you must be the guy from England.”

  “You don’t like the English either?”

  “I don’t give a fuck. Criminals is what I don’t like.” He focused on Grant. “Idiots just take up time.”

  Grant let the words sink in, then looked at the pizza boxes again. The pizzas were cold. No steam or wavering heat lines. The cheese toppings looked congealed. Each box had an evidence label beside it waiting to be attached once the box was packaged or bagged. Grant smiled. This was just like being back in Bradford. “Pizza robbery?”

  The big guy came around his desk and stood in front of Grant. He jerked a thumb at the evidence labels.

  “Last night. Two kids over in Roxbury ordered eight pizzas on the phone for apartment thirty-five. Delivery guy turns up and is robbed at knifepoint. Pizzas. Money. Wallet. Cops arrive at the apartment block; no apartment thirty-five. Find the insulated delivery boxes on the top floor. K-9 unit tracks the smell of pizza to an apartment on the second floor. Pizza sauce smeared on the door. Whaddaya know? Buncha kids eating pizza.”

  Grant consulted the district map in his head. “Thought Roxbury was B-2.”

  “Across the border. Pizza was from E-13. Just my luck.”

  “Want my shamrock?”

  “That’s four-leafed clover, not shamrock.” He waved a finger at Grant. “And don’t let O’Rourke hear you say anything like that.”

  “The desk sergeant?”

  The big guy nodded.

  “What’s all this ‘Fuck the English, I’m a Yorkshireman’ shit?”

  “He mentioned that, huh?”

  “In a rare moment of cooperation.”

  “God’s own county, Yorkshire. A breed apart.”

  “Just like Texas, then?”

  Grant smiled. “Only without the Alamo.”

  “O’Rourke give you a hard time?”

  “Moderate to hard.”

  “He’s the station’s shit deflector.”

  Kincaid indicated a battered cash register on a separate desk. “Us? We’re a fast-food deflector squad. Last night again—McDonald’s just up the road from here. Local guy tries to steal the cash register through the take-out window while the staff are watching. Drops it outside and gets chased off. Runs the wrong way. Straight towards the station house.”

  Grant put his bag on a spare seat. “Local boys rule. Thought you had serious criminals in Boston.”

  The big guy fixed Grant with a serious glare. “Oh, we got a few. Most of our low-rent crooks are imported. Even got one from Yorkshire.”

  Grant smiled. “Freddy Sullivan?”

  “Dickweed of the lowest order.”

  Grant nodded. “That he is. Got a dick like a weedy shallot, I heard.” He held out a hand. “Jim Grant.”

  The big guy shook it in a firm, dry fist. “Sam Kincaid.”

  The room was suddenly a friendlier place. Grant thought this holiday task should be quick and easy, and then he could enjoy the sights. He was about to ask about interview facilities when Kincaid threw a spanner in the works.

  “You won’t be talking to Sullivan today, though.”

  Grant felt a shadow enter the room despite the sunshine through the windows. “How come?”

  “He’s with the doctor. Started foaming at the mouth half an hour ago.”

  Check these other titles by Colin Campbell,

  available from midnightinkbooks.com.

  Jamaica Plain

  Montecito Heights

  Adobe Flats

  Snake Pass (Coming April 2015)

  “Campbell hits a high note with his gritty novel that catches the atmosphere of Jamaica Plain, Boston, and turns it into a compelling account of murder, sex, and violence.” – RT Book Reviews

  “Grim and gritty and packed with action and crackling dialogue.”- Kirkus Reviews

  Jamaica Plain

  A Resurrection Man Novel #1

  colin campbell

  978-0-7387-3583-2 53⁄16 x 8 • 384 pages

  English cop Jim Grant is in Boston on a temporary assignment, and his instructions are simple: keep out of trouble. But for Jim Grant, keeping out of trouble is not an option, even if he doesn’t carry a gun.

  First thing Jim Grant does when he lands in Boston is buy a map. Second thing is get laid. Third? He almost gets himself blown up interviewing Freddy Sullivan, the prisoner he came from Yorkshire to question.

  With an uncanny inner calm and the fists of a bare-knuckle fighter, Grant leaves a trail of broken bad guys and burned-out buildings behind him. And thanks to a public standoff with a frantic gunman, Grant finds himself splashed across the evening news, tagged with a new nickname—Resurrection Man. Down-and-out marine John Cornejo and the sensuous Terri Avellone offer Grant refuge in a hostile city, but as the clues add up, it’s clear the political intrigue brewing in Jamaica Plain could become bigger—and bloodier—than anyone ever imagined.

  Order online 24/7 at

  midnightinkbooks.com

  Montecito Heights

  A Resurrection Man Novel #2

  colin campbell

  978-0-7387-3632-7 53⁄16 x 8 • 384 pages

  Saving a senator’s daughter from LA’s porn industry is one gig that needs serious discretion…but discretion is not Jim Grant’s specialty. Before long, Grant finds himself busting a robbery on live television, spreading his arms wide to show he’s unarmed—the same pose tha
t earned him the nickname Resurrection Man in Boston.

  The spotlight may be good for Grant’s ego, but it’s bad for his health. The Dominguez drug cartel is looking for him, and his work for the senator has uncovered a ring of dirty cops who want him out of the way. Helped by an ex-cop working on CSI: NY and hindered by a film crew that wants to make him a reality television star, Grant must tread carefully. In the city of angels, corruption runs deep, loyalty is fragile, and justice is hard to find.

  Order online 24/7 at

  midnightinkbooks.com

  Adobe Flats

  A Resurrection Man Novel #3

  colin campbell

  978-0-7387-3633-4 53⁄16 x 8 • 360 pages

  On a personal mission to return an heirloom to the father of his former colleague and lover, Jim Grant isn’t sure what to expect in the dusty flatlands of Texas. He isn’t expecting trouble from the local cowboys, but trouble is what he gets.

  It was supposed to be a mission of mercy—a visit to honor a fallen comrade. Instead, it turns into a mission to bring justice to a small town where the residents have been under the thumb of a violent tyrant for far too long. Using only his razor-sharp instincts, Grant has to outsmart and outfight an army of Texans led by a kingpin who has everything to lose.

  Order online 24/7 at

  midnightinkbooks.com