A new dawn is breaking.

As the sun shines onto our city, the darkness creeps into alleyways and backrooms where it will hide until it can once again roam the streets. In the meanwhile, the men and women who can still fool themselves into believing that they are safe go about their business, shutting themselves out from the truth. Perhaps in due time, they too will come to realize the fate of their beloved city.

This is not a fate unfamiliar to us, for it is shared with a man we used to know as Greg Keeler. Undoubtedly, a search made for anyone living under that name presently would be time wasted. He is only another man who has lost his way.

If Greg Keeler is the embodiment of all that has doomed this once prosperous city, then there can be no doubt that our beloved Detective is the opposite. He, and the few men of his nature who still remain, are the only bit of hope that can be glimpsed.

There may be some speculation as to the ultimate fate of Boss Dragon and the Underground Crime Alliance. The reader would do well to consider if there ever has been but one end that their sad lives could come to.

As much as we may wish to remain in this city-to perhaps see (in our very morbid curiosity) what will, in fact, become of its inhabitants-it has grown far too dangerous. There may come a day when we will be able to return, but for now, we must bid farewell.

To brave another midnight here would surely be the end of us.

After I finished throwing up, I decided to go home.

I felt like I was walking through a dream. The rain had continued, but I was only dimly aware of it. All the sounds of the city were muffled beneath the downpour. Even when it soaked me through to the skin, I didn't notice. My feet were carrying me home. I just stared at the ground and didn't look back.

When I opened the door to our apartment, the smell of cigarette smoke hit me immediately. The first thing I wondered was why the smoke detector hadn't gone off. On almost any other day, I would've laughed at the thought. The smoke detector hasn't worked since we moved in.

But, due partially to the sobering effects of the morning's activities, (I tried to check the time, but the digital clock on top of the refrigerator was blinking. The power must have gone out.) I immediately realized that there was someone else in the apartment. Julie doesn't smoke. Her mother died at age fifty-seven after a long battle with lung cancer. That's the only reason I don't smoke, either. A few times, I tried to do it at the bar, but she always caught me when I leaned in to kiss her. Most of the losers at Ronnie's place smoked, so I usually brought at least a hint of the odor home on my jacket, but since I was never smart enough to buy a pack of gum, my breath always gave me away when I actually lit up.

I closed the door as quietly as I could, not realizing at the time that whoever was there had probably heard me coming down the hall.

I tried to relax and give myself an overview of the situation.

Fact 1: The door was unlocked. Whoever was there, they weren't scared of being found.

Fact 2: They weren't in the living room. Our furniture was very sparsely arranged, and the most convenient hiding spot-behind the couch-disappeared when we pushed the green-colored offense to the eyes back against the wall.

Fact 3: The bathroom door was wide open, and there was nobody inside.

Fact 4: The bedroom door was opened just wide enough for smoke to escape.

Fact 5: They were in the bedroom.

Julie.

This time, I was fully aware of my strength as I threw the door open.

The room was perfectly clean. All the books were sitting very neatly on their shelves. The lamp sitting on the bedside table still stood where it always had. And some magazines that I was sure had been at the end of the bed when I left were stacked neatly on the dresser. The only thing that seemed out of place was the tall, thin man sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette.

"I know. I shouldn't." I must have looked confused, because he motioned at the hand that was holding the cigarette, as if that was the only facet of the scene I found surprising. "But I just can't help it. This job is so stressful."

His flat, uninterested voice jostled something in my memory, but I couldn't quite place it to a name.

"Not that it really matters if I poison myself." He stood up. “In the end, the result will be the same."

Slowly, he walked over to me, but he kept his head lowered. When he got within about three feet of me, he raised it and met my startled gaze with a look that in no way betrayed his thoughts.

I noticed that his eyes were a dark shade of blue.

Last night. The bar.

The realization jostled me out of my dazed state. I threw his hand off of me and ran over to where Julie was sleeping.

There was no blood. No gunshot wounds, no stabbings.. I checked for a pulse. First on her neck. Nothing. I threw the sheet off and checked for a pulse on her wrist. Nothing.

At first, I didn’t even notice the mark. It was on the inside of her arm, where her forearm began. A small, clean wound that was just wide enough to come from a hypodermic needle.

"I can't stand messes." His voice is still flat, and unsympathetic. He's done this before, I thought. Probably a hundred times. "So they let met do it in a much more civilized fashion."

That's when I realized that he had to die.

He straightened his suit jacket and turned around to leave. I yanked open the drawer of the bedside table and rummaged around, trying to get at something beneath all the catalogues and folders.

He was almost at the door. For a second, I almost panicked. Then I felt something cold.

I pulled my hand out and brought a pair of sharp, steel scissors with me.

The man in the suit didn't hear me come up behind him, or even bother to take his hand off the doorknob when I lunged at him. When I drove the sharp instrument into his neck, it seemed that he would simply reach around and pluck them right out, and they would be perfectly clean. But he didn't even try to grab them. He simply dropped to his knees, and hit his head against the door as he slumped over.

I stared down at him for a long time. The wound was just above his collar, so the blood ran down his back, beneath his shirt. It was almost as if he wasn't bleeding at all, as if he wasn't human.

Then, a knock at the door.

I couldn't move my arm to shut the lock, or open my mouth to ask who it was. They waited about ten seconds, knocked again, and the waited maybe five seconds before opening the door.

The body was knocked over, and it landed on it’s side, still blocking keeping the door from being fully opened. The visitors had to carefully step over him to get in.

I immediately recognized the first man. The fat man from the bar, who told me my first test would be to kill the man who had watched over me since I was born.

But following him was a man I did not recognize. He was tall and middle aged. He had dark green eyes and was wearing a pinstriped suit. These two details reminded me of the fat man's other companion at the bar, but this was not him. This man had a much more elegant sense about him, while the fat man's partners had both just seemed empty and devoid of any real purpose. He stepped carefully over the body, which he surveyed with mild interest, mostly focusing on the weapon itself.

"Do you mind if I have a seat?" He spoke with a tone that let me know he was going to sit down whether I answered or not. I chose to stay silent.

The fat Asian man looked at the body and snorted. He looked at me with a slight smirk, and patted me on the back. Snickering lightly, he made his way over to the couch and joined the older visitor.

I stood, frozen, still staring at the floor.

The taller man spoke. "You may be wondering why that man killed your wife." I couldn't tell, but I was willing to bet he didn't even bother pointing at the corpse. "He was a traitor."

"Traitor? He was a fucking rat, boss. He didn't even deserve a death as glorious as THIS." The Asian man was still speaking in his usual loud, boisterous voice. I couldn't decide if he was also drunk now, or whether the booze had no effect on his mannerisms last night.

"He had to be eliminated. And because of your very unique position at the moment when we made this decision, you were selected to carry out this task." His voice never changed in pitch, but it was mocking all the same, because of the uncaring way that he spoke. "You were very lucky."

He went on. "Your wife is dead, Mr. Keeler. Nothing will change that. Now, you have two options at this point. You may decide to reject the job offer that has recently been placed before you, and we can walk out of this room right now. Of course, you must remember, if you choose this option, we will make sure that the body lying above the bar on the corner of 8th and Johnston is tied to you. And make no mistake, Mr. Keeler, you will go to jail for the rest of your life.

"Or, you can come work for me. Ronnie's body, along with Julie's and her murderer's will be properly disposed of, and you won't get so much as a phone call from the police. You'll be taken care of. You'll be able to survive, and your standard of living will increase, at that.

"While the final decision is ultimately yours, I would strongly recommend you choose the latter."

I clenched my eyes shut, to stop the tears that wouldn't come.

Ronnie. My best friend. Julie. My wife. Yesterday, they were all I had to live for. One of them was dead because a fat man in an expensive suit wanted me to prove my devotion to keeping Julie and myself alive. The other one was dead because that was the way the tall man sitting behind me wanted it.

I thought about the dead man in front of me. We had both been used as pawns. He was meant to push me over the edge, and I was meant to eliminate him. But I felt no remorse. He had to die, that was simply the way things were.

Some lives have to be sacrificed for the greater good.

I turned and smiled at the men sitting behind me.

"When do I start?"

When I got to the bar, it was still dark. At some point during the day, the rain had stopped. But during the ten minutes that I spent walking to the bar, it started up again. The streets were empty.

I thought about knocking on the door, but I knew Julie would give me hell if I caught a cold while I was waiting for Ronnie to come down and answer. So I let myself in. It was easy enough. In forty years, Ronnie never took the time to get new a new lock installed.

I took care to close the door behind me. If someone did happen by and see it hanging wide open, they might want to see what was up. And I didn't need anybody interrupting me.

I tried to keep my eyes straight ahead, focused on the stairs across the room. But I couldn't help myself. I looked around. Hours ago, I walked into the bar to see the oldest friend I have. I thought that he was the only person who could help me.

I was right.

On the way up the stairs, I missed one of the steps and nearly fell. I caught myself just in time, but I was sure he heard the noise. Then again, maybe the rain drowned it out. I never asked.

When I came into the hallway, I realized how small it was. There was bathroom on one side, a closet on the other, and Ronnie's bedroom at the very end. If he isn't awake by now, I thought, there's no chance I'll wake him up opening the door. I should've known better. I've never been the lucky sort.

Either Ronnie doesn't lock his door, or he just never got bothered getting one put in. But it opened right up. Faster than I had meant to open it, really. I must have been so nervous that I didn't realize how hard I shoved it. But before I could come to terms with all that, I saw Ronnie standing at the other end of the room, aiming a shotgun at my forehead.

For what felt like the longest time, neither of us moved.

"Greg?" He lowered the gun. There was a look of surprise in his face that I didn't see very often.

"..Yeah." It was all I could manage.

"What are you doing here?" The corner of his mouth twitched. The beginnings of a smirk that he couldn't quite finish.

I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the gun. After the first shot, I closed my eyes.

It was worse. The sounds of his flesh being torn away. The feeling of the gun jumping in my hand, while I tried to keep it steady. The smell of smoke that came after the round was empty.

When I thought that it was over, I opened my eyes. He was still standing. I squinted to count the shots that had actually hit him. Three. Three, right in the chest. Looking back, I did alright for a first-time murderer.

He stumbled backwards and hit the window behind him. For a second, I thought it would shatter, and he would tumble through. But he just slid down to the floor, slowly. He kept his eyes locked on mine the whole time.

Even when his head slumped to the side and he stopped breathing, his eyes were still on me. Staring at me. Like the only revenge he could get was to mock me. Insult my way of life. Try to make me feel like shit, for feeding my family.

"Why are you doing this?" I dropped the gun and walked over to him. He kept staring at me. "Who do you think you are?"

I fell to my knees. I grabbed his shoulders and started shaking him.

"I didn't do anything, you bastard! I don't deserve this!"

I threw him to the ground. But he was still staring up at me. I reached over to his bed and yanked the sheets off. I used them to cover his eyes.

I turned to walk out the door, but I couldn't get onto my feet. I started crying. But I tried not to make any noise.

I didn't cover his ears, I thought. The bastard can probably still hear me.

Forty years ago, Greg Keeler walked out of Ronnie's bar. It was a clear night, with a light breeze, so he decided to enjoy the rare weather and walk home.

In those days, the city was a different place. The sounds of the night were much calmer. If you walked close enough to a first-story window where a man and his family lived, you could hear one thing: absolute silence. A sound like that was music to a family man like Greg Keeler. He knew what it meant: the children had been put to bed, and the mother and father were sound asleep in their own beds.

Greg lived with his wife and two children in a small house near the outskirts of town. He worked long days at a pawn shop about ten miles away. It wasn't the first job you thought of when you heard the phrase "honest living", but it was enough to support his family, and that's all he cared about.

One day, a man came in to pawn a ring that obviously did not belong to him. The man had long, brown hair, and his clothing was soiled and faded. When he wasn't looking, Greg leaned forward and saw that one of his boots had a rather large hole in the front. He didn't feel sorry for him, though. Greg was no idiot. This man wasn't a victim of bad luck. He was a junkie.

That's not why Greg gave him so little money for the very nice-looking ring, though. The ring may have looked golden, but it was a fake. Someone (and Greg was very sure it wasn't the man trying to sell it to him) had painted an extremely dull ring with a very expensive paint.

Probably a cheap husband with a stupid wife, Greg thought, and frowned at the idea.

When the man finally stopped yelling long enough for Greg to explain to him why the ring was worth so little, he took a long look into his eyes. After that, he took the meager amount he was offered and muttered something as he walked out of the door.

Greg didn't give him another thought until he was about a block from his house on that clear, breezy night and he realized someone was following him.

Whoever it was didn't care too much about being seen. Just enough to duck into an alley when Greg paused to light a cigarette and get a quick look at his long-haired stalker. No doubt about it. It was the man with the cheap ring. And from the quick glimpse of the street lamp's reflection, Greg could tell that he was carrying a big knife.

"Shit on a brick," Greg said, as he took a puff from his cigarette and let the seriousness of the situation settle in on him. He couldn't go into his house. It was completely out of the question. The man following him was desperate. For what? Money, probably. No telling what he might do to get to Fiona's jewelry. Fiona. And the kids. He had to think of the kids.

Calmly, Greg threw his cigarette to the ground, stepped on it, and calmly walked past his own house, thanking God that they didn't have a porch, that his son wasn't standing at the window to greet him when he got home.

Greg had figured it all out while he smoked the cigarette. After he passed his house, he stuck his hands in his pocket as he crossed the street, then pretended to trip on the curb. His driver's license, complete with his full name and address, slipped out of his hand and down the sewer grate.

The man behind him was getting closer. Greg could smell his breath. It was a familiar smell. Something from years ago. The kitchen, where Randal would come in, tracking mud onto the linoleum with his paws.

Dog food? Greg thought, and he snickered. He was smiling when the man threw him against a brick building and then spun him around.

That's what I like to think, anyway. I like to believe his last thoughts were of his childhood. His dog. The one who lived five years longer than any dog should. By the time they buried him, grandpa was on his way to college. And I know for a fact the assailant didn't take his driver's liscense. They found Greg's wallet in his left pocket. No money was missing.

The police never did find out what happened. There was no sign of a visible struggle. They told grandma that his wounds were such that he died without much suffering. Grandma was a strong woman. She didn't cry when they pulled back the sheet and she identified him. The only question she asked was, where did they find the body?

When they told her, she just shook her head. "That son of a bitch". Ask Lt. Francis today (he's retired) and he'll still swear that she was smiling.

Greg Keeler the first gave his life to protect his family. He walked into the dark for the sake of what he loved, and he died alone.

Forty years later, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, with my hand behind Julie's head. I stared at her for hours, her perfect chest rising and falling. Finally, I got up, put on my clothes, grabbed the gun, and walked down to Ronnie's bar on the corner of 8th and Johnston.

For a long time, neither me or him spoke. I nursed my second beer and tried to think of some other way to support Julie and myself. The only things I could think of made me sick to my stomach.

Ronnie, meanwhile, read the paper. He read it slow and deliberately, taking time to look over sections I know he had no interest in. Like the weather. The only times Ronnie went outside were to buy groceries and stop by the library. I could tell he was keeping an eye on me, though. When I finished my drink, I'd no sooner set it down on the table than he swiped the empty mug away for a refill.

The whole process played itself out for a few more beers, and then it was time for Ronnie to open up.

I'd never sat in Ronnie's bar when he opened it. It's an interesting sight. I'd never taken the time to notice that there aren't many people walking out of the door. For the most part, people wander in and don't leave until Ronnie throws them out, for one reason or another. The first customer walked in not twenty minutes after the bar opened up. He sat down a few stools away from me, and him and Ronnie chatted about something I payed no attention to.

After a while, the place was full. As full as it ever gets, anyway. You couldn't say Ronnie's place ever got 'lively'; there was just a point when as many people that were going to come in did.

It must have been about half past seven when I noticed someone was staring at me.

I didn't turn around to face him, but I could see all I wanted to out of the corner of my eye. He was fat. And wearing an expensive suit. The kind you see in the window and shake your head, thinking about the one kind of person who can afford to buy something like that. Ronnie doesn't get many criminals in his bar-at least not by the classic definition. But when he does, they like to try and blend in. This fat guy and his two friends had settled into a booth near the back, where the light could just barely reach them.

"They've never been here before." Ronnie nearly made me fall out of my stool. When I looked at him, he was staring over my shoulder, and polishing a glass in a way that reminded me of crusty old television bartenders that I smiled a little bit. "Otherwise they'd have known that no one with friends ever sits back there. It's always the real loners. The kind that aren't gonna be comin' her for long, if you know what I mean."

Neither Ronnie or I were foolish enough to think that the two men sitting next to him were his friends. They both wore sunglasses when they walked in, and only took them off when they found that the fat man had decided to sit in the darkest part of the building. One of them was tall, thin, and had a long face. The other one was a little shorter, with dark skin. Both of them had drinks in front of them which they had barely touched, and they were dressed almost the same as the fat man. Except the shorter one was wearing a pinstriped suit.

Whenever the fat man wasn't staring at me, he was telling either a story or a joke to his friends, stopping just long enough to take another swig. It seemed to be a story by the way he waved his hands around in exaggerated gestures, but every once in a while, he would burst out into a fit of laughter. It wasn't just the laugh itself that was annoying, it was the obvious fact that he was laughing at his own jokes.

I tried to ignore him, asking Ronnie to get me another drink. He looked hesitant for a minute, and I can't say I blame him. I don't remember how many I'd had, but if he hadn't known what my situation was, he probably would've cut me off right then.

"Alright," He said, still giving me a concerned look as he poured the drink. "But after this, the only thing you're gettin' is coffee."

After I thanked him, I turned back around to check if the fat man was still there, only to find that the taller of the two men that had come in with him was sitting on the stool next to me.

"Mr. Keeler." He said, in a voice that expressed, if anything, mild annoyance.

"Yes?" I replied. A few hours before, I probably would've told him to fuck off, but the booze had loosened me up a little.

"My boss would like to speak with you." His eyes were a cold, dark shade of blue. "Privately", he added.

"Really? Who's your boss?" I tried to mask my curiosity by taking a drink as I finished the question, but it only served to muffle my voice slightly.

"He is a very successful businessman. He would like to offer you a job."

Job. The word rang in my ears.

"What kind of job, exactly?" Again, I attempted to hide my excitement by feigning disinterest. I did a little better that time, but I could tell the man next to me was not buying it.

"Mr. Keeler, my boss is a very impatient man." I recognized this immediately. Sometimes, during an interview, my guest would become increasingly uncomfortable with the questions I asked him. They would then attempt to weasel their way out of a number of questions by claiming that their boss had instructed them not to answer anything of that sort, when in reality, I knew that they had never even seen their boss's face.

"Alright, I suppose I could sit down with him for a few minutes." I picked up my drunk and stood up, shoving the stool back into place with my foot.

"Very good." The tension is his voice seemed slightly lessened, but his face showed no sign of relief. He stood up and slowly lead me to the back of the room. As I followed him, I turned back at Ronnie. He was staring at me, not sure what I was doing. I gave him a wink, trying to say that I was in complete control.

"Mr. Keeler!" The voice shook me into facing front and center. I saw that the shorter man had taken his place on the right side of the fat man, who was motioning for me to have a seat in the chair he had pulled up.

This particular booth, along with three other from a failed renovation attempt, was built in a half-circle design, so that if I meant to look directly at the fat man, I would not be able to sit on the cushion.

Pausing only a second to set my drink on the table on between us, I sat down. Now that I was close up, I could see the fat man clearly, even in the dim light. He was asian, and every bit as fat as he looked from afar. Something I hadn't noticed were his large ears. Not so large that they drew attention away from his fat, squinting face, but big enough to stick out.

The dark-skinned man had completely shaved his head, but it was doing it's best to come back. He had green eyes, and didn't seemed any more interested in me than his companion.

The fat man coughed.

It took me a second to register that he had stuck out his hand, and that he wanted me to shake it. After I did, he smiled. He had tiny little round teeth.

"Now, what exactly did my associates tell you?" He leaned back into the cushion, placing his hands on his stomach.

"They told me you had a job for me." In order to keep up the rhythm I was used to, I took a sip from my drink, but I had to lean over slightly to do so.

"Mr. Keeler-or, rather, Greg.." I winced at the way he said my name. It was so sudden and rushed, and it came out with a distinctive 'i' sound. "Are you in the habit of investigating jobs offered to you by strange men wearing suits?"

I started to reply, then stopped. In my haze of despair and alcohol, the oddity of the situation hadn't occurred to me.

"More importantly, did you not wonder for a second how someone you had never seen in your life knew your last name?" He leaned forward at this, placing his hands back on the table, staring at me with his tiny dark brown eyes.

I was on the defensive. From the bar, the fat man had seemed to give off the air of a guest a party that no one likes. Up close, his size was no longer humorous, but intimidating. And the men sitting at his side were no longer bored, they were focused. I couldn't run, they would be on me before I got fifteen feet out of the door. All I could think about was grandpa.

Then the fat man burst into laughter again. His eyes clenched shut and his hands fell off the table. When he calmed down, he sat upright again. He picked a handkerchief off the table and, still giggling, wiped the sweat off his brow.

"I am sorry, Greg." He was still smiling. "It's not every day I get to do something that allows me so much room for fun."

I wanted to ask him what kind of dumb fuck would find that sort of trick funny. But I knew better.

He set the handkerchief down again. "But I was very serious about the job offer. I know that you've recently been dropped into the ever-growing unemployment portion of the statistics."

"You know that I lost my job?"

"Of course, Greg." His smile curled up at the edges, revealing his small, white teeth. "There are no coincidences."

I was drunk, so the full impact of this statement didn't hit me until later. Even if I had been dead sober, I don't think anything could've changed my mind after what he said next.

"I want you to work for me. You will be completely taken care of. You’ll be given a new apartment in a much safer area of town. And with-" He paused to take a breath, still short on them because of his recent outburst. "And with the salary we'll be paying you, you'll never go hungry again."

"How much?" I said, from behind the glass mug.

"I'm sorry?" He leaned closer.

I set the mug down faster than I meant to. "How much will you be paying me?"

"Ah." He leaned back again. "It varies. Depending on certain factors, like.. how dangerous the particular job is, how much importance it holds for us.. there may even be certain jobs where you'll simply keep the money as it is divided up for you."

"What's the catch?"

"What do you mean?"

"I worked for eight years, always aiming to get an interview with an elusive man, or a tour of a private building. There is always a catch."

He smiled again, even wider this time. Whatever comes next, I though, is the part he really enjoys.

"You simply have to perform a simple errand that will prove your complete willingness to follow orders." He said simply, and took a long drink. the first he had taken since I sat down.

The table was silent. I stared across the table at the fat Asian man guzzling down liquor that had been paid for by the pain, the greed, and the misery of others. In the bottom of his glass, I saw reflected my apartment three floors above the street, where me and my Julie slept. Where I covered her ears because I wanted to pretend she couldn't hear the screams coming from down the street, and inside the building.

When he set the gun on the table in front of me, I was not surprised.

This is the kind of motel where people come to die.

I don't even know what its name is. Half the sign fell off a long time ago. The other half is covered with graffiti. When the poor woman who saw her fiancé beaten to death in front of her eyes finally pulled herself together, she was able to give us a description. A great description, too, all things considered.

As soon as we posted it on the five-o-clock news, we got a call from the man at the desk. Said he rented a room to a man with the same facial features.. hell, even the same clothes. Me and a few of the boys came over as fast as we could.

Most people think that if you shoot yourself in the mouth like this poor shit did, your brains go flying out the back of your head. Not true. With the caliber pistol he was using, they didn't get very far at all.

He didn't even get blood on the picture of the ocean hanging over his bed.

I pull his driver's license out of his pocket. I was right. This is the same man that murdered Charlie Reynolds. They were roommates for a few months. Then, one day, he choked him to death. Didn't even wear gloves. Nobody even knew Charlie was dead for a good three days. Then someone heard a lot of crashing around in the middle of the night.

It's an old cliché, but it still rings true for me once in a while. Sometimes, the criminal does return to the scene of the crime. Usually, they do it because they want to have a conversation with somebody who won't rat them out. Who knows what this sick fuck was looking for when he went back to Charlie's place. But he got out right before the boys showed up. Window was still open, and so were a couple of doors.

We matched up the fingerprints right away. This man was convicted of stealing a car a few years back. He shot the driver. We caught him at a roadblock near the edge of the city. But he was declared insane. Part of his sentence involved sessions with a psychiatrist. Dr. Anthony Shelton.

Dr. Anthony Shelton was murdered over a week ago. When his secretary came into his office in the morning, she found that the picture window the doctor had in his office had been shattered. He fell twenty stories.

He didn't have any appointments until 1:30 that afternoon, so we had no leads. I took the liberty of searching through his notes on my own time, but I couldn't understand a sentence of his psychobabble bullshit.

The last piece fell into place when a local bartender turned up dead in his home yesterday. One of the patrons remembered he got into an argument with a man that matched our description perfectly. Then, we went public.

Looking down at this dead man on the bed, now, it's easy to believe he could have killed four people without a weapon. He isn't especially muscled, but he has a large frame, and strong hands. But he had a weapon. He didn't buy this gun on the way here. Maybe it belonged to Charlie. Why would he kill all those people with his bare hands?

For kicks, probably. Just another twisted freak wandering this city. This one looking to have his fun by ruining people's lives.

Did it make you feel strong? I wonder, as I stare down at him. Did it make you feel like a man?

Then, I see the letter.

He's holding it in the hand that's not wrapped around the trigger. It's in an unmarked envelope. And it's not sealed.

Before the guys from forensics get here, I take the letter out of his hand. Standing with my back to them, the other officers can't see me turn around and take the sheet of paper out of the envelope. The handwriting is very clean.

To whom it may concern,

Let it be known that of all the causes worth fighting for, I find love to be the most valuable.

Love.

I turn around and look at his body, again. His eyes are closed. For the first time, I notice something about his expression. It almost looks like he's smiling. Then I blink, and it's gone.

I shove the note back into the envelope and lay it down on the bed. Then I walk over to the window and open the curtains. I can't see very far, but I can see almost everything this city has to offer. My mind is still on the corpse behind me.

Love. He was fighting for love. At least that's what he thought. He was crazy. A psycho killer.

But he was fighting for something.

I close my eyes and the world around me disappears. I don't see darkness. I see the face my first partner, who was shot through the head while he was riding next to me. The face of the first mother I had tell her that her daughter wasn't coming home. The crying, bruised face of a maniac who sang the blues while he died. And I see the dead, smiling face of that murderer behind me.

Why?

I see the face of the woman I loved. And how she looked when she left me. It was a week later that I joined the force. The long hours made it easier to not think of her. And in a city like this, there was always the possibility that I wouldn’t make it home. But that only matters if you’ve got somebody waiting for you.

The dead man laying on the bed. He thought he was fighting for love. How far am I from ending up like him?

I take a deep breath, and all the images vanish from my head. All I have left is darkness.

Darkness.

It's not so bad.

They didn't tell me why I got fired.

There was no pink slip. No meeting. One day, I just couldn't get past security. When I told the guard who I was, his eyes didn't move once. He just pointed at a box sitting near the front desk and told me all of my belongings were already packed.

It was raining outside. I wanted to go home and set the box down somewhere dry. But I couldn't face Julie. I haven't lied to her once in five years, and I'm smart enough to know she's never lied to me. If I started with this, there's no telling where it might lead. Plus, she would never believe me. I couldn't face her like this.

I needed a drink.

Ronnie's bar doesn't open until five. He never saw the point. All his business was people just gettin' off of work. But I knew he would do me this favor, if he knew the circumstances. I rushed to the nearest payphone and used the only quarter I had to call him. The phone rang five times, then he picked up.

"Yeah?" He said. Suddenly I felt even shittier. I had probably woken him up. He sounded groggy, and I could still hear him cough when he covered the mouthpiece and turned away from the phone.

"Anybody there?" He repeated. It hadn't taken long for him to go from disoriented to irritated.

"Ronnie, it's me."

"Who is this?"

"It's Greg. Greg Keeler."

"Oh. Greg." His voice settled back into the slow, grandfatherly pace he used to tell his stories. The ones he told at the bar, at least. Not many people know what Ronnie sounds like when he's telling private stories. Family stories.

"Listen, Ronnie, I need to come down there and get a drink. I just got sacked."

"Ah, what are those fuckers thinking? You're the only reason anyone buys their goddamn paper. Some of the things they got in there, I've read better shit on a square of used toilet paper." I heard a rusty, squeaking noise over the phone that was probably Ronnie getting out of bed. "Give me five minutes."

"Thanks." I couldn't help but smile as I hung up. Except for Julie, Ronnie was the only person who knew that Matthew Fisk was a pseudonym, and that the picture next to all my articles was taken from the book jacket of Marcus Young’s only book, Black Sheep. Mark was a friend of mine, and no one in this city had ever heard of him or his novel. It's almost a shame that he never saw how famous I made his smug little grimace.

It didn't take me long to get to Ronnie's place. It couldn't have been ten minutes, and already the whole place was lit up. Not just the green-tinted windows at the front of the bar, but the room upstairs that Ronnie slept in.

I knocked on the door. I heard the lock turn and then he let me in. I set the box down on the old pool table in the corner and shook myself off. I turned around just in time to see Ronnie stop shaking his head and turn the lock back into place. Without saying a word, we both took our places on opposite sides of the bar.

"So, you gonna tell me what happened?" He asked as he poured a beer. Normally, he would have poured another for himself, but it was only ten in the morning. And Ronnie had seen enough losers to know that if you're drinking that early, you have a serious problem. Usually, it's alchoholism, but sudden unemployment is right up there, he says.

"I would if I knew, myself." I couldn't tell if he was looking me in the eyes, I was staring at myself in the mirror at the end of the bar. It had the brand name of some cheap beer printed along the top, but it had been chipped away. I wondered how long it had been there. I entertained the romantic notion that hundreds of other men had looked into this mirror when they were in the same position as I was. They looked at themselves at the lowest point in their lives, and vowed that from that moment on, they would do whatever it took to get back on top.

Then I thought about Ronnie's usual clientele, and dismissed the idea. Not entirely, just the second half.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do, Ronnie." I turned back on the stool and stared down at my drink. "I've got some money saved, but it won't even pay for a month's rent. There's no way Julie can support us. I majored in journalism. It's all I can do, Ronnie." I raised the mug to my mouth, and didn't notice my hand was shaking until I saw the stain on my pants later. "The Spiel ran all the other papers out of business years ago."

I wanted to say more, but I just didn't have the energy to think about it anymore. I looked up at Ronnie. He was staring right into my eyes. After a second, his sight drifted towards the ceiling and he started rolling his tongue around his cheek, like he usually does when he's thinking.

I knew ever since I was kid that Ronnie was a great guy, but I don't think I appreciated how little he had changed over the years until that moment. I knew he'd heard this same sob story a thousand times since he opened this bar, but he sure as shit had been listening to every word I'd said. Not only that, he wasn't going to say another thing until he had thought up some way to help me out.

Finally, he sighed and shook his head again. "Greg, I'd hire you here if I could, but money's tight enough as it is. And the only real friends I have besides you are the regulars in this shithole." He gave the bar a courtesy glance, just to confirm how he had described it. "They all got white-collar jobs. That's no place for you. Besides, from most of what I hear, there's layoffs pretty much everywhere these days."

He walked out from behind the bar and passed me, staring out the porthole-shaped window on the door onto the streets. The rain was still pouring down.

"This city's going to shit, Greg." He didn't sound depressed. He said it the same way a doctor tells you you're never going to walk again. It was as if he had discovered the city's fate long ago, and had been analyzing and coming to terms with it for years. "There's no two ways about. And i'm not the only one who knows it. They're still trying to hide it, though. But anyone can see through it. Anyone can see who really owns this city."

He turned back to me, but didn't move from the door. "You're an honest man, Greg. And you had a job that put you in a position to be bought. But you didn't let yourself go down that path. You told people the truth. As much as you could get by."

As he walked over to where I was sitting on that bar stool, I realized that I could still hear the echo of his footsteps over the rain falling on the roof. He put his hand on my shoulder and stared down at me.

"The reason you don't have your job any more is because they decided that the little bit of reality you managed to give to these poor people was too much."

He walked back behind the bar, leaving me still staring up at where he had been. I finished my drink and told him I was going to need another.

I guess the whole thing got started at Ronnie's place.

Ronnie's been running that bar for as long as anyone can remember. No one bothers to ask him how old he is. Whenever it comes up, he reminds us that the last guy who asked him about his age left half his teeth behind when he walked out the door. No one believes a word of it, but we all know when to let something like that go.

Ronnie'll be the first to tell you what a shithole his bar is. Not because of the bar itself, but because of the people who drink there. Murderers, drug dealers, pimps.. no one like that sets foot in Ronnie's place. No, the kind of costumers Ronnie gets are middle-aged men with male pattern baldness and cheap suits who stop here after work to kill a couple of hours before they have to go home.

"I don't know why they call it home," Ronnie always says, and gives us that smartassed grin that he's managed to keep for all these years. "The only time those losers live there is when I throw them out for drinkin' too much. Or even worse, too little."

Just listen to a few of these guys, Ronnie says, the story's always the same. These are the guys who marry their high school sweethearts when they got them pregnant. The guys who are working the same mid-level office job that they'll be working all their life. The guys who are too scared to sell drugs themselves, they just launder the money and lie to themselves about what they do so that they can sleep at night.

"And they call that an honest living," Ronnie shakes his head. Never like your dissapointed father, more like an amused man with too many dogs and cats watching two of them go at it.

Those are the kinds of customers Ronnie gets. Except for me.

The only reason I'm here every day is because Ronnie has been a family friend for years. He still won't say how he really met grandpa, but whenever anyone asks him why he founded the bar, he throws his arms up and tells them "That son of a bitch Keeler was always sayin' that he could really use a drink, but the cheap bastard didn't want to pay full price, so he told me to open up my own pub." If anyone laughed, which they usually did, he would go on to say "So, I did, and I charge him full-fuckin-price." Then, regardless of whether he got a laugh or not, he would add "He walked right out the door and never bothered me for a drink again."

Of course, Ronnie doesn't bother to tell them why.

No one in the bar even knows that the Keeler of that story is related to me. If they knew his first name (George) was the same as mine, it probably wouldn't phase them, even though that's the only name Ronnie calls me by.

I don't know many of them very well, to be honest. Of course, I know a few things. Paul's in the middle of a divorce he's been waiting on for years; Harold's kids call him a "nazi"; Andy's wife still thinks her pet birds are dying from natural causes. Listening to their conversations, I pick up on the little things. But I don't have time for much. I never have more than two drinks. And after that, I go home.

Home to Julie. God bless her. She should be biting my head off like the wives of all the losers that go to Ronnie's and try to drown their troubles. But she doesn't. We've been married five years, and living in the same apartment for all of them. Plenty of women would've left me. But she hasn't. Five years, the same shit job, no promotions, no raises. And she still cuts out all my articles and saves them.

She deserves better.

Some nights, I open the door and tells me that dinner's almost ready. She's got a hell of an ear on her. I've tried to sneak up behind her before, so I could lean in close and ask how her how she stays so damn beautiful. Most of the time, she just spins around and that little smile creeps in at one corner of her mouth, and she asks me to set the table. Then she turns back around. Other times, I manage to get the jump on her. I know she lets me. Sometimes, she just wants to hear how much I still love her. And she deserves it.

But other nights, I open the door and everything is dark, except for one lamp sitting on the couch. I find a note on the fridge that tells me that she made meatloaf, but was too tired to wait for me. This has been happening more often since Mr. Norris raised the rent. Since she had to take a job working as a bank teller, standing behind that glass all day with one foot hovering over the silent alarm.

Those nights, I sit at the table and eat alone. After I finish, I crawl into bed. I wrap my arm around her waist and whisper to her while she's sleeping. I tell her that someday, any day soon, things are going to get better.

Well, I was able to hitch a ride on the back of one of those eighteen wheeler trucks. It was nice for a while, until I saw something much better. A brand new japanese built motorcycle, being driven by some low-life thug of a guy.

That's when two things popped into my mind:
I can get a better, faster ride with that.
and
I can do my part at cleaning up this country of ours.

So I did like they do in the movies. I jumped off the back of the truck onto the guy's motorcycle as soon as I had the chance. Sure took that fellow by suprize. He immediately turned to the side of the road, off into the woods. He started fighting me a bit, using his dinky little brass knuckles and this chain that he kept on the back of his motorcycle.

Pity he wasn't wearing kevlar.

Hah, and a greater pity that I use hollow point.

Anyway, I digress.

After lifting his bike, I went riding off into the city limits. For a while, nothing happened.

Now I'm just sitting here in a shut down gas station, staring through the windows at the stars.
It's such a beautiful night in this crappy city.