Jim Cogan - The Dirty City

Special thanks must go to my three readers who helped me find spelling mistakes and missing words, and most importantly, told me which bits of my books sucked!

So, thank you Shreyonti Chakraborty, William Fletcher, Angie Weber and Rashad Freeman.

This book was inspired by my very sudden obsession with all things Film Noir and Hard-Boiled Detective that I developed in early 2014. Initially it was going to be a screenplay for a short film in the Film Noir style, which it became apparent I’d never get to make. Then it mutated into a short story idea. Then I discovered (rather belatedly) the wonder that is self publishing and thought I might be able flesh this out into a book. Then, while planning said book, I succumbed to my love of horror and decided to turn the whole thing on it’s head by sticking some vampires in there. And here we are.

One thing note that one of my wonderful beta readers, Angie Weber, pointed out to me that I should make clear - I’m a British author, and I write using my native British spelling, and this seems to cause a bit of confusion as my book is set in the US and the characters are American. I did consider replacing all the British spellings to Americanised spellings, but then I figured that would probably be a step too far. I think it’s best if I just forewarn you that despite it’s setting, this is a British book, and so on behalf of Great Britain, I apologise in advance about the freaky way we spell works like ‘colour’ and ‘centre’ - and for the way we seem to discriminate against the letter ‘z’ - almost always, and probably very unfairly, favouring the letter ‘s’ in it’s place! But I’m afraid I don’t think we’re going to stop doing these odd things at point soon.

Jim Cogan

The events I’m about to describe to you took place many years ago. I was a young man, but I thought myself wise for my age. I thought I knew a thing or two about life and the world. It would transpire that I was actually very naive.

Very few people would witness the strange and terrible things that I was about to, fewer still would live to tell the tale. But only I would know the real truth.

Time and time again these events occurred, and I would come to learn that they were not mere coincidences, for I was a marked man. Higher powers beyond my comprehension had singled me out for some greater purpose. I could never figure out if I were the hero or a victim. Over the years I’ve concluded that I may be both.

This story tells of how my life first changed. The initial events detailed show how I became aware of the dark forces that lie hidden all around us, out of sight, but not out of reach. I was about to discover that within the city I lived, during the daylight hours - ordinary people went about their business and led their ordinary lives, but after dark - in the amongst the shadows, another, very different breed of people were instigating their terrible agenda. Alongside the thieves, gamblers, drug dealers, murderers and gangsters, the city was also home to vampires…

As far as drug dens go, this one was a bit classier than usual. This was the mid 1950’s after all – true drug den squalor wouldn’t become a style of interior design for another decade, but for now, we had this.

The front door had been left slightly ajar, which suited me just fine – it might be an occupational hazard in my line of work but I simply wasn’t built for kicking in doors. I observed the soft glow of a dim light on the other side of the door, and a slightly brighter glow behind the curtains of the ground floor exterior windows – the lights were on, was anyone home?

I gently eased the door open just enough to give me a glimpse inside – I was looking onto a short central hallway, empty – good.

The walls were covered in peeling, aging patterned wallpaper, and below my feet, just inside the doorstep threshold, someone had placed a doormat with the word, ‘Welcome,’ emblazoned on it. I recall thinking it was more than a little ironic. The rest of the hallway was covered in wretched looking brown carpet, frayed, stained and littered with the odd cigarette butt and a few discarded liqueur bottles. I tried my best to ignore it but couldn’t help but notice the God-awful stench in the place – a horrible combination of stale tobacco smoke, marijuana fumes, urine and vomit. It was a nasty place, but I was searching for a missing person and missing persons almost always eventually showed up in nasty places.

At the end of the hallway and to the right lay a flight of stairs heading upward – but no light showing from above. At the far end of the hall was a half open door leading into a kitchen. I took a quick peek inside and saw mounds of unwashed dishes and plates on all the surfaces. Flies buzzed here and there, no doubt drawn by the smell of festering food waste. Things definitely weren’t cooking in this kitchen. The figure of a young man in his late teens lay prone on the tiles. He was a mess, vomit caked to his face and clothing, his cheeks bruised and eyes blackened – I remember thinking what a hell of a state for a person to get into. But I clocked his clothes – torn, stained and ruined as they were, those weren’t the threads of a down and out. I noted the well made, neatly tailored seams, this boy was from a rich family. But he wasn’t the person I was looking for, so after the briefest of checks to see if he was actually breathing – and as far as I could tell he was, I left him in his stupor.

To the left of the kitchen was a closed door, with muffled sounds of activity emanating from the other side. I could hear multiple voices and music playing from a wireless radio. I eased the door handle down, and with my free hand reassuringly nestled over my holstered revolver, entered the next room.

I found myself in a sizable sitting room, in a similar state of squalor to the hallway. The people I’d heard all seemed to be in another adjacent room – I could hear them clearer now, at least two female voices and one male, but all with the unmistakable slur of heavy intoxication.

At the far end of the sitting room was the radio I’d heard, and directly in front of the radio there slouched the skinny figure of a man in a wicker chair smoking an elaborate marijuana reefer. I couldn’t make out his features as he had his back to me, but I estimated he must be around mid-twenties. Just to his left was a filthy looking coffee table on which sat an overflowing ashtray, a set of scales, a large marijuana bud, smoking paraphernalia, and most notably – a tray with small items wrapped tightly in aluminium foil. Heroin had finally made it to town.

“Hey,” he said in a languid monotone, not even bothering to look around, “you ain’t a cop, though you sure dress like one, don’t you?”

I clocked the mirror hanging on the far wall – strategically angled to give him a clear view of the area behind him.

“The name’s Jerome - Johnny Jerome. You gotta’ name, son?”

“I sure do, Mr Jerome, but knowing it ain’t no business of yours,” he sniggered, “but the folks here call me Newt, so that’ll have to do for you. You a customer, Mr Jerome? Are you here to sample my wares?”

“No, Newt. I’m a private detective, and I’m looking for this girl.”

I produced the photo the family had given me and held it out in front of me. I could see Newt’s face clearly in the mirror now. He was a scrawny looking runt, untidy, and from the look of him I figured a bath wouldn’t go amiss.

“Her name is -.”

“Michelle, Mr Jerome. And she’s out the back there. Question is, though, what d’you want with her?”

“I’ll keep this brief – the girl’s family have hired me to locate her and bring her home, and I intend to do just that.”