Silence and Stilettoes, Pt. 11 (Voting) - A Walk in the Dark

(Here it is, Silence and Stilettoes Part 11! Check it out now, vote below, and Daring+ fans pick up the accompanying Wallpaper here too! Be sure to check out the full story so far here at the Master Post!)

(Heads Up! The Silence and Stilettoes series is being places into indefinite hiatus starting in September 2019 due to low turnout/popularity. The full details can be found here.)

“Stepping out into the street of the Italian Quarter, I can’t help but shiver. It’s not cold, I just feel so damn filthy… I can’t believe I took her case. By now the sun is about ready to set, I spent longer in that back room with the mistress Ms. Bellocchio and her smirking husband that I imagined… but even so she didn’t give up a damn thing… not one clue. It’s almost as if she doesn’t care what conclusion I come to in this case as long as I don’t implicate her… it feels more like she’s only interested in the power play… that’s this town for you at the end of it all.

I drop my cigar butt on the concrete sidewalk in front of ‘La Bella Donna’ and instantly light up another. I don’t know how many of these I’ve smoked already today, and I don’t particularly care either… They help me think, that’s all that matters. So… Marco’s little girl is all mixed up in this… and she’s not so little anymore either… what a pair of tits they were… I have not idea how that dress contained them or even why…

She claims to be the victim of a frame up, but I’m not so sure… Doesn’t that sound just a little too convenient? If could put this all behind me and get her off the streets in one go if it was… Maybe it’s even worth it if not? No… I’ll catch the real culprit, I have to… and I’ll find a way to drop her into the same slammer if at all possible too, but for now I’ve to play the part of her own personal gumshoe.

I guess my only real lead right now is Councilman Miller… that’s a thought I never expected to have. Not that he couldn’t be a crook, but that I’d ever be so stupid as to think about sticking my neck that far out in a city when everyone already has a knife to your throat. Miller is Mark’s mysterious business partner, according to Mystique, but I need to be certain of that link before I even attempt to take a run at him…

… It’s not that I don’t think it’s true…. It’s that if she’s telling the truth about that, what’s to say she not telling the truth about Asana too? She’s hiding something from me? She’s not who she says she is? I don’t want to believe that… I don’t.

My mind races with the various possibilities, placing the facts into positions like a jigsaw in my head, one with a few too many pieces missing for my liking. Even as my thoughts are direct, my feet lazily being to carry me down the street before I even notice I’m walking away. I don’t know where I’m going yet, but it better have answers.

I continue to plan out some way of investing the city’s upper echelon of leaders while in the back of my mind that question about Asana looms large. I’ll have to confront her about it some time, but for now I’m not ready, I wouldn’t know where to start. Miller on the other hand, I might have a way to get some eyes on him. It means another night in the morgue, but there are worse ways to spend an evening around here… I wonder if Kelly is ready to talk to me?

By now, my cigar is about to become another butt… I’ve been walking for about 15 minutes or so, enjoying the darkening streets, the night air and my smoke as I continue to think over my next moves. I seem to be heading towards downtown, perhaps towards the morgue, perhaps not... I haven’t really decided yet… The Rat’s Nest isn’t too far from here either.

I’ve been thinking… That Stiletto blade is still missing, and even though Mark was poisoned, it doesn’t mean that was the ultimate cause of death, or even the only one… nor does it mean he was only attacked by one person. I’ve already learned Mark had enemies on all sides after all… Maybe I don’t need to run down the Councilman so soon after all… I highly doubt he himself met with Mark in that alleyway, and I know sure as Hell he didn’t tell Cat to be there, she’d never have heard him out or even let him leave the Rats Nest alive… there’s got to be some nexus there that I can dig up and draw out.

If Mark and Miller planned to spark a gang civil war in the Rat’s Nest, with an eye to wiping everyone out, they’ve got to have somebody on the inside who could light that flashpoint. Cat’s presence in at the crime scene might well be a part of that plan for all I know… If only she was still around, I’d be able to get my hands on that knife and clear up a lot of things, then wring her neck for sucker punching me with that wrench…

… I would imagine a certain somebody would be a loose enough cannon to start something if Cat were to be mixed up with the outsiders of Downtown, especially if a deal were to go awry and she were to disappear. Sounds exactly what the impulse ‘Teen Queen’ Kriemhild would do… only I doubt Mark actually planned to die for his part in it. It’s a scary thought to think that a gang war might just be on the other side of the sunup now that this theory has come to me… it certainly rings true.

I smirk as I hold my smoke between my teeth… every time I make a new move I find the stakes are ever more higher than I thought before… That’s my special skill it seems. Well… I guess I have a choice to make now that I’m the only one that sees the big picture, besides my murderer anyway… I can go after the man at the top and take on the corruption, gift and intrigue right at the source. Or I can get down in the trenches, put my balls on the line and try put a lid on this before it spills into even more violence. I wonder where my feet will take me…

No sooner do I calm that whirlwind of thoughts in my head do I come to the corner of an open alleyway. A decision is but a moment away, if not for the sudden interruption that crosses my path. That’s the nice way of saying I find my life in my hands once again…

My cigar is but a stub now, it’s got nothing left to offer me, so I take my fingers and flick it towards the trash bags in the adjacent alleyway. It bounces off the hard floor, skipping further into the narrow passage. I watch it with a bemused eye until it comes to a rest… right next to something much more interesting, so much so it stops me in my tracks. A scrap of women’s clothing to be specific…

Before I realise it, I’m already heading down the alleyway, right towards to loose article of torn cloth… another quick look at the dishevelled garbage and it’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s familiar with it that there’s been an assault here not to long ago… the sexual kind. Damn my sense of Justice… I just can’t let it lie…

A groan escapes me as I stoop down to one knee to investigate the piece of interest close up. Damn this body, it’s getting too old too fast… I reach out. My fingers are but an inch away from the scrap of cloth when I realise, I’m already in a trap that is sprung. I hear a gun being cocked; it’s barrel already presses to my temple… Fuck… this was set up just for me wasn’t it? Who else would care so much to even give a women’s hard luck a second thought in this city?

‘Hello Roy, I hear you’ve been looking into my business again… what did I tell you last time?’

That voice… even now it still gives me an erection. I swear it’s nothing to do with the gun to my head. My eyes slide to my side to confirm what I already know… yeah, it’s her alright. Now I really am in a mess.”

Who do I see?

Be hard boiled and beWilder!