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The Ninth Circle
The Ninth Circle
The Ninth Circle
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The Ninth Circle

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Every City has one. That place, neighborhood, or borough where the forgotten live, where the once great land when they fall, where the tarnished and corrupt shine and where Justice and Fairness caught the last train out of town.

Welcome to the Ninth Circle.

The 9th Precinct is known as ‘The Ninth Circle’ or “The Dante Precinct’. This part of town is where all the losers end up. If you work for a company or the city government and they want to get rid of you, they put you in their office over on Last Chance Lane. If you’re a criminal and you’re hiding from the law, other criminals, and yourself, you end up in the Ninth Circle. Imagine the city as a dumpster. The rank and fetid, the foul and odorous, the really discarded and misused trash all sinks to the bottom. They all end up in the Ninth Circle.

Join Tommy Hancock, R. P. Steeves, and C. William Russette as they introduce you to the people that populate the city’s last stop to nowhere. Dirty cops, mysterious priests, shadowy nurses, a man with no name, and more are the lifeblood of The Ninth Circle. From Pro Se Productions.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherPro Se Press
Release dateFeb 2, 2015
ISBN9781311062086
The Ninth Circle

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    Book preview

    The Ninth Circle - Tommy Hancock

    THE NINTH CIRCLE

    Published by Pro Se Press

    This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

    The Ninth Circle

    Copyright © 2015 Pro Se Productions

    Under licensed agreement with Tommy Hancock

    All rights reserved.

    Table of Contents

    ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND

    by Tommy Hancock

    HIT ON MISSY

    by RP Steeves

    THE ONLY COP IN TOWN

    by C. William Russette

    About the Authors

    ‘ROUND AND ‘ROUND

    by Tommy Hancock

    Busted nose. Black eye. Broken Teeth. Blood. All mine. All over asphalt covered in grime that crossed over on the Mayflower with all the heathens and crooks the Pilgrims didn’t want.

    Another typical night in the Ninth.

    I raise my head slowly, both out of the fact that every time I breathe much less move pain rifles through my body like spinster maids after the new mailman and because if I have any chance of walking out of this detour a little deeper into Hell, then I have to know where everyone stands. Literally.

    Still facing down into the refuse of my own injuries mixing with the oily muck of the alley I may die in, I let my eyes wander around. Even that makes my head scream at itself. All the players are still here, though, almost in the exact same positions they’d held when I left the world of the conscious however long ago. Or I assume they are, feeling two padded paws of low rent gorillas on each arm, accounting for my playmates that have left me with such great memories. That’s good, the show’s still playing and all the principals are still on stage. The Client. The Missing kid. The obligatory bad guy and mandatory goons, one at each of my shoulders. That means I just might crawl out of this mess alive, God willing.

    God. My eyes dart like poison tipped arrows to the man leaning into the brick wall of the strip joint that made up the right side of the alley. Less devout people, plenty of them living their days counting down to Hell in the Circle, would say God’s to blame for my current prone position at the back end of the Ninth. I don’t blame God, though, except for the fact that He really believes people can be trusted to do His work. To help people and not lead others to harm. Sometimes He gets it right, like with Pastor, the self appointed Shepherd to the Godless in the Ninth, which means his flock probably outnumbered St. Peter’s. Other times, though, God draws a busted flush when He picks from the fixed deck of humanity. Like Bob Dawlin.

    Now he’s huddled up against that wall, his gaunt face wide open all the way. His mouth hanging agape as if his jaw slipped a gear. His eyes like pie plates, a few crumbs of dark blueberry stuck on the bottom. Every pore of his sun deprived Baptist Preacher face screaming sweat and fear, as if his whole body was crying.

    *****

    Before now, though, when it was still then, in the garage that passes for my office. Out on Ferdinand, just off the exit leading all those who nowhere else can stand right into the Ninth Precinct. Sitting in the better of the two chairs I own, the one with no tears in the vinyl backrest and only one in the seat. His hands folded in his lap, the threadbare cuffs of his trademark powder blue suit coat heavy on his bony wrists.

    I saw the sign, he’d muttered, his murky blue eyes staring off into somewhere I didn’t care about. He was lying then, at least about this trip. Dawlin had been in the Ninth Circle, the appellation slapped on our corner of despair and decay that rivaled even Dante’s description of its counterpart, since I’d woken up here. He knew all about my fix-it shop, willing to work on everything from broken washing machines to missing people and more, as much as I knew about his ‘Baptist Mission for God’s Children’. A makeshift homeless shelter and soup kitchen clinging to life in the old Denalto Theater on the corner of drug infested Parker and whore riddled Fifth Streets. Dawlin had to walk or drive by my shop every day on his way to work. He’d seen the ‘For Hire for Anything’ sign, a fading billboard with a girl in pigtails touting her dad’s hamburger joint with my placard sprayed over it in the finest red paint cans can produce. So, the meeting started off with a lie. Just like every other conversation you have in the Ninth Circle.

    Joey, Dawlin had said, sliding a crumpled piece of paper across the poker table, its once emerald green felt dulled to a filthy hue of black, that doubled for my desk. Joey Garret. I unfolded the page, flattened it out enough to see it was a highly pixilated picture of a kid. Yeah, we have computers in the Circle, even if Internet service hasn’t quite invaded every address yet.

    Dawlin talked as I studied the picture. Fourteen years old, not a bad looking kid off the streets. Haunted the mission, helped out in the kitchen, sort of adopted Dawlin as a big brother. Had a mother who surfaced from a meth induced haze and whiskey fog about every three or four weeks only to turn enough tricks to dive back down inside what was left of herself again. Dawlin had known the fair-haired freckled face picture of American boy for about a year and the last two months of that he’d heard things. Bad things. Not the steal an apple from the street vendor or sneak a peek at the Peepshow girls bad. That’s choirboy material for most kids in the Circle. No, Dawlin had heard Joey had found a brand new family. The kind that breaks bones if you don’t make your bones. The Carloni Family.

    A runner, Dawlin had said, He’s running –I…I don’t know what-for Petey Carloni. That’s what Miss Magready said. Mouths Magready would know, spreading gossip between every prayerful word that raisin lipped scarlet painted pie hole of hers uttered. And I wanted him…to stop.

    I’d slid the picture and the job back at the storefront preacher. Sorry, lost my social work license back with the rest of what passed for a life years ago.

    His brown pipe cleaners of eyebrows raised as if I’d just asked him the capital of Belgium. No, no, he stammered. I’ll get him away from Carloni. When you find him.

    There it was. Missing for nearly three weeks. No sightings at the mission, at the sidewalk shows, or the condemned quickie marts and gas station stores that dotted the Ninth like pus filled blisters on a decaying corpse. That’d been as far as Dawlin had looked, unable to bring himself to descend even farther around the bends of the Circle, into the places the kid likely was, lying on some mattress with a needle in his arm or his body against the rancid gyrating skin of a prostitute, pick your flavor. Places people who pretended they still aspired to sainthood or some sort of respectability refused to allow to exist even though the air around them stank of such hovels and holes. Places someone like me didn’t care to go. Of course, that was anywhere. Or anything. Caring doesn’t much play into what I do.

    *****

    I sling my aching head around like a busted yoyo on a fraying string as unintelligible words and exclamations rumble in my ears, the rolling thunder of accusations in the ever-present storm around me. Unable to mount the agony the beating I’d just taken had left me with and ride it a full eight seconds, I drop my head, my chin smacking my chest, and bide my time. To my left I hear the snort and snuffle of Tony Carloni. My eyes key to the overly shined gleam of his imported ebony leather shoes, crowned with the rolled cuffs of his tailor made suit. ‘Three Color Tony’ had chosen chartreuse for my potential funeral. I have to say, I’m honored. Hate him in canary yellow or plain brown, his other two affectations of choice in everything he wears as he parades around as if he owned the Circle. Although he probably does, or at least controls enough of it.

    *****

    The dirty work Dawlin wouldn’t do I did in a matter of hours. Just me and a wrinkled badly printed photo. Dawlin looked at me strangely as I got up to follow him out, only the picture in my hand. You don’t carry a— I killed the question with a shake of my head. Guns usually only get people killed. I got no use for them.

    Joey Garrett was known to some of the flotsam and jetsam floating around in lifelike death at the innermost ring of the Circle, but that was mostly because of his mother’s legendary degradations, Joey apparently being the

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