Finding Gideon by Eric Jerome Dickey

Author:Eric Jerome Dickey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-17T12:54:18+00:00

Chapter 20

Chase a Crooked Shadow

In an accent decorated with agony, the bloodied capitalist asked, “Were you abused?”

That paused me. I adjusted the bloodied brass knuckles. “Why would you ask me that?”

“You’re acting like a radge.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“A maniac. This deplorable violence seems . . . personal.”

“Maybe it is. But this is what I have been paid to do by someone who didn’t have the guts to do it themselves. A rich man pays others to do his dirty work. Same for rich women.”

In the thick of the balmy night, as rain fell, I was in the financial district at 30 Saint Mary Axe, on the thirtieth floor of the pickle-shaped edifice people called the Gherkin. The landmark had been built on the site of the historic Baltic Exchange, destroyed by a Provisional IRA bomb back in the nineties. The new phallic-shaped structure resembled a strap-on made of glass and steel.

British people were too kind to call the skyscraper the Dildo. The phallus that cost 600 million British pounds had forty floors. Thirty-three were office floors. Five hundred and ninety feet from top to bottom. There were 1,037 steps in the building. London Zoo was to the north, Tower Bridge to the east, Tate Britain to the south. Fenchurch or Liverpool tubes were the closest, if I needed to exit in a hurry.

The target worked inside a large glass penis. That was as sick as he was.

I eased the bloodied brass knuckles off my hand, dropped them on top of a glass desk next to the box of Saran Wrap and the plastic bag for carrying a luxury suit from Charles Tyrwhitt. My jeans and hoodie had traces of his blood. The middle-aged man crawled across the floor, pulled himself up, struggled to get back in his chair. I guessed that chair was his symbol of power, where he was the king. The British man tugged at his two-button suit coat, tried to make himself proper. He reminded me of Scamz. What he had done took me to a bad place as well.

He repeated his question. “Were you abused?”

I paused long enough to glance out at London, the view as spectacular as his life.

I whispered, “Sure. I’ll tell you. It’s just us boys. It was my mother. Was my mum.”

“Ah. The Greek tragedy comes to life.”

I said, “Now we’re the best of friends.”

“That we are.”

“You have two nine-year-old kids. Fraternal twins. Boy and girl.”

“I’ve never harmed my kids. Wouldn’t dare. I am a great father. Great at my job, mediocre at marriage, but great with my children. I would never subject them to such a thing.”

“But you would harm the kids of others. Have done so for decades.”

He shook his head. “This resentment is because your mother abused you.”

I opened and closed my hands.

He laughed. “You put your todger in your mum’s fanny and wiggled it around?”

Hair stood up on my neck, goose bumps moved across my skin, but I didn’t say anything.

He snapped, “If not a shag, then what?”

Still nothing.

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