The Innocents, Nathan Senthil [best life changing books .TXT] 📗

Joshua laughed. “I knew you’d try your damn best to find holes in my theories.”

Peter lifted an eyebrow. “Would you prefer it any other way?”

“No.”

“Then plug the hole.”

“So a Caddy drops a bloody guy in front of the ER on Christmas in 1981. The poor bastard drags his way inside and admits himself. He said a rowdy gang mistook him for someone else and shot him in the knee. A victim of a drive-by, he’d claimed. The doctors treated the poor bastard and bagged the bullet for the detectives.” Joshua gave Peter a knowing smile.

“Forty-four?” Peter asked. “From the broken Desert Eagle?”

“The one and only.”

“But that’s even earlier than 1982, before Lolly’s first recorded robbery.”

“Exactly. Could be Lolly’s very first shot.”

“First shot?”

“MacSharp truck was hijacked at midnight on December 24, 1981. And the Desert Eagle was used to shoot someone a few hours later.”

“So why was the bullet not in any records? If it were, we could have made this connection a long time ago.”

“National databases were used to log evidence only from most notorious cases, not drive-bys with no fatalities. How many cases did our own NYPD fail to record in the ViCAP? And computers weren’t that popular among cops in ‘81.” Joshua squeezed Peter’s shoulder. “Come on, man. You’re asking all the wrong questions.”

Peter thought for a whole minute. “Alright, who was the poor bastard that got shot?”

Joshua glanced at Peter and smirked. “A right-hand man to the Don of the Detroit Alliance. The snitch who was siphoning information from MacSharp was suspected of working for him. So I’m fairly sure that the hijacked truck contained the prototype.”

“Wow.” Peter shook his head. “That’s the final part in a very convoluted puzzle.”

“Wrong.” Joshua’s gaze intensified. “It’s just the beginning.”

They stopped at a fast-food van in Williamsport, and each downed a cup of chicken rice. When done with the late lunch, Peter got behind the wheel and drove. Joshua rolled the window up, then leaned on it and closed his eyes.

* * *

He felt a strange sense of sickness in his stomach. A black bile. He discerned he was stuck in a lucid dream, but he couldn’t get up. As he writhed and struggled in the timeless ether of his mind, he felt the car’s movement slow. As if the road suddenly turned into tar and the air into oil. So much resistance. And something soft touched his chest, pushing him back.

No, Joshua thought, it was not pushing him back. It was him who was moving forward and the hand was trying to stop him from going further.

As he tore the last shackle of sleep paralysis and pulled himself out, he gasped and sucked in air greedily.

Peter passed a bottle, and Joshua thankfully gulped the water. He hadn’t realized how parched he was until then.

Peter did not show any sign that he’d seen Joshua awaken in trepidation. He knew about Joshua’s perpetual bouts with night terrors.

Wait.

Was it already night? The dark sky said as much.

Then Joshua’s eyes lowered.

They were still on the highway, but he could see their destination. The city glowed on the horizon, the skyscrapers and factories protruding from the Earth. They looked to be floating on the sea of blackness.

No, not floating. More like the arthritic fingers of a desperate captain as he went down with his sinking ship.

“Where to now?” Peter asked.

“Calabria.” Joshua programmed the location in the dashboard GPS. “It’s a bar in Gratiot Avenue.”

“Who’s there?” Peter asked.

Joshua lay back and closed his eyes. “The poor bastard.”

Chapter 21

April 6, 2019. 08:17. P.M.

“I don’t know no Roman,” the barkeeper behind the table said as he wiped a beer glass with a cloth.

“Tell him it’s about Lolly,” Peter said.

The barkeeper paused cleaning but quickly resumed. “I don’t know no Lolly.”

Peter snapped, “It’s the asshole who shot your boss when you were just a slow-witted sperm in your dad’s nutsack.”

The barkeeper eyed Peter with a hint of mischief. Though he was too young to have been around in 1981, he might have heard stories from the criminal grapevines before but now he was a part of it.

Smirking, he placed the glass on the table and went over to the corner. He picked up a wireless from under the table and mumbled something in it.

Joshua looked around the bar. The lighting was dim, the music was tacky, and cigarette smoke coiled upward from almost all the tables. But the customers looked neither like the complaining type nor like they would go to the authorities for help. And there was not a single woman in the bar. Its clientele was purely men, purely suspicious, and lastly, purely quiet. However, the silence came only after Joshua and Peter had stepped into the establishment a minute ago.

The barkeeper returned the wireless to its place and tilted his head towards a door at the back.

“It’s not me,” Joshua said. “The smell’s coming from you.”

“What smell?”

“Smell of pork. Why else would the barkeeper be so wary of us?”

“Oh, screw you.”

As they skirted the table, Joshua inserted his hand into his jacket. The bartender’s eyes widened, and he reached behind his back.

“Whoa!” Joshua lifted his hands and showed him the Skoal tin. “It’s just tobacco, hoss. Slow down before you shoot your toe off.”

He opened the tin and tossed two pouches in his mouth. When he offered it to the barkeeper, he murmured something and led them through the door, closing it behind. The music abated suddenly, worrying Joshua. If the sound didn’t seep in through the reinforced door, then it didn’t seep out either.

The inside was entirely different. No smoke, no dark setting, and no blue-collar atmosphere. The left wall shelved costly wines and liquor. On the front was a medium sized desk carrying