100 Theme Challenge #50

S

50. Alone

"Gin and tonic, please," Jack ordered to the bartender. He went off after a nod, and Jack watched him make his drink with blurred eyes.

"No new crime to solve, Jack?" James, the bartender, asked.

"How did you know?"

"Your look of utter boredom." James placed his drink in front of him, and Jack didn't wait and gulped half of it down. From his other hand, he fetched a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up.

"Can't say there's much to do these days. No crime to solve, no murder in town, my life is nothing but this bottom of gin and tonic."

"Could be worse, then, I guess," said James, and Jack grunted as he emptied his drink. It could be worse, indeed, but in a gruesome city like Chicago, no murder was unexpected and worrisome. Jack couldn't remember the last time it had been this calm.

"Maybe you worry too much and you should take this as an occasion to relax."

Relax? Jack's eye twitched. Killers never relaxed, so why should he?

"Relaxing is not in my qualifications," he grumbled.

James remade his drink before serving some other patrons, leaving Jack alone with his broodiness. The man next to him was reading the newspapers, which the title was "No title in Chicago: The calm before the storm?" Jack couldn't agree more.

.

The telephone woke him up from his light slumber, and his wife, used to these phone calls in the middle of the night, didn't even stir.

"Yeah?" He growled, his deep voice more husky with sleep.

"I have good news for you, Jack," said his partner, Gary.

A new case. Someone had been murdered.

"I'll be right up," he said after he got the address. It wasn't far from here. The perimeter was already up when he arrived on the scene, blue and red lights blaring in the night.  It was a narrow alley smelling of piss and wet dogs, a smell Jack had come to associate with this part of the city. The body was laying between the dumpster and the back entrance of the bar he left mere hours ago. Perhaps even the killer had been present during his evening brooding.

James' insides were out, spilled on his lap. His neck was also slit, his face held in a surprise expression forever. A card had been placed between his fingers, from a black baseball's player. It was quite odd, and from memory Jack couldn't remember any crime scene involving sport cards before.

"Who found the body?" He asked Gary who was smoking beside him.

"A regular patron who lives close from here, Kenneth Lewinski. He's right over there." Jack nodded and walked to the bench the witness was sitting on, a blanket around him and seemingly lost in thought.

"Hello, Mister Lewinski. I'm FBI officer Jack Byrnes. How are you holding up?"

Kenneth looked at Jack, a little shaky but still with snarl. "Fantastic. I see mangled corpses every day, officer." He retrieved his cigarette pack from his pocket and took one between two slim digits, and Jack lit it for him. "Thanks."

"Could you tell me how you discovered the corpse, please," Byrnes asked.

"Let's find some place that still serves coffee, and I'll tell you everything."

Note: This story is part of a much bigger story I started a few months ago. I never did film noir inspired crime fiction before, but I wanted to try it out because one of my friends is a big fan of that type of movies. I still didn't finish the whole plot and it's being a bitch to me at the moment. Hopefully it turns out well and it's not some shit which ending makes no sense.

(What is 100TC?)