Port of Sorrow Read online

  Port of Sorrow

  Grant McKenzie

  Other works by the author

  Writing as Grant McKenzie

  Port of Sorrow

  K.A.R.M.A.

  Switch

  No Cry For Help

  Writing as m.c. grant

  Angel With A Bullet

  Devil With A Gun

  Find Grant McKenzie at: http://grantmckenzie.net

  Facebook: facebook.com/grant.mckenzie

  Twitter: @AuthorGMcKenzie

  This is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Port of Sorrow

  Copyright © 2013 by Grant McKenzie

  http://grantmckenzie.net

  All rights reserved.

  A Famous Book

  Victoria, BC

  ISBN: 9780987796776

  First E-Edition: January 2013

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  For Karen and Kailey

  my inspiration, my heart

  Port of Sorrow

  By Grant McKenzie

  CHAPTER 0

  (Two nights earlier)

  The young man pressed his forehead against the wire cage while gripping the cold, biting steel with enough force to turn his knuckles white. He prayed for the world to stop spinning.

  American beer was meant to be for wimps, a low-alcoholic concoction to be drunk in quantity rather than enjoyed for quality. Eric grew up in Northern Alberta where just two bottles of Pilsner, Molson or Labatt’s could make any girl prettier and get the party off to a good start. He wondered, then, why his eyes rolled in his head and nausea churned his stomach as he gulped in mouthfuls of salty night air. He could hear the party going strong inside the hotel bar behind him, raucous laughter and solicitous cat calls as curvaceous women removed their clothing to the pounding beat of last year’s pop hits.

  Eric’s head lolled as he glanced up at the night stars and winking moon, the movement instantly regrettable as another wave of nausea hit. Gravity, which truthfully had never been a friend to the gangly youth, betrayed him again as it doubled in force and pulled him to his knees. He needed to vomit, to purge the undigested pool of swill from his stomach.

  Eric pressed his face deeper into the steel mesh as though trying to force the cool, soothing metal to penetrate his flesh and give him anchor.

  “You need a hand there, boy?” asked a voice in the darkness.

  Eric turned toward its source, but everything was so dark and his eyes refused to focus.

  “I drank too musch,” he slurred, his enthusiasm for the words fading even as they left his rubbery lips. “Gonna be sick.”

  The voice snorted with little humor.

  “Happens all the time,” the voice said in a slow, husky drawl. “Pretty boys come to ogle our women, and get too much flesh for their tiny little brains to process.”

  Eric groaned as his stomach lurched again.

  “Gonna be sick,” he repeated, wanting the stranger to leave him alone.

  “Good job I don’t care much for yer mouth then, ain’t it?”

  Before Eric could even comprehend the threat, a vice-like claw dug into his hair and yanked him to his feet. Eric’s world spun faster as he was dragged along, his scalp threatening to rip free of his skull. He tried to yell, but the pain, mixed with the sour mash in his stomach, lodged in his throat.

  When his chest smashed into the sharp edge of an industrial dumpster, he gasped in pain. Two snaps like internal gunshots, followed by searing fire, told him a pair of ribs had cracked in the impact. Instinctively, he reared back his head to scream, but a meaty palm slammed his skull forward instead. Before he could raise his hands in protection, his face crunched into the dumpster’s iron lid. Cartilage crumbled, releasing a torrent of blood as Eric’s nose was forced sideways to flatten against his cheek.

  He opened his bloody mouth to draw in a breath, but the assault ignited the volcano in his stomach and an eruption of chunky liquid bile exploded from his throat.

  A violent tugging at his waist made Eric bubble with self-despairing sobs that racked his chest and foamed incoherently from his raw throat. Tender flesh buckled and bruised, ripped and tore, and Eric Coleman suddenly knew this is where he would die.

  As if in agreement, a bright celestial light flooded the cage. It was followed by the voice of an angel.

  And the angel said, “Hey! What the fuck are you doing?”

  CHAPTER 1

  Finn sunk a finger into the puffy sack of skin that sagged beneath his left eye. With a sigh, he tugged the loose flesh down to expose the bottom half of a bloodshot orb. Too many nights sitting in front of a mirror were reflected in the curdled mass that surrounded the pale gray iris. Once upon a time that mass had been virgin white and full of daring. Now it glowered with contempt.

  Soothing it with a fat droplet of Visine, Finn allowed the sack to crawl back into place with all the elasticity of a fat man’s favorite boxers.

  He did the same to the right eye while simultaneously working his tongue into a gap between gum and cheek to dislodge a pulpy sunflower husk. With the husk positioned on his tongue, he coiled the muscle and puckered glistening pink lips. With practiced ease, the soggy carcass was propelled across the room. It skidded once on a chip of paint that clung precariously to the bare wood of the windowsill before falling four stories to the sidewalk below.

  “Where are you, Selene?” Finn grumbled as he ran rough hands down bare legs, the sandpaper texture deciding he couldn’t risk another evening without shaving.

  The face in the mirror seemed to roll its eyes.

  “Don’t you start,” he said to his reflection.

  Staring back at him was a still handsome man in his early forties with close-cropped black hair and dark eyebrows that gave his eyes a haunted Valentino look — so long as you didn’t get too close. The only things ruining his leading man status were the lipstick, glorious false eyelashes and a creamy foundation so thick it practically made his face bulletproof.

  Finn spat another sunflower husk out the window before peeling bare thighs from the sweat-stained vinyl of a bar stool designed for a butt smaller than his own, and heading into the adjoining bathroom. There, he rinsed a washcloth in the sink. The caramel trickle of water released a strong odor of rotting seaweed.

  When Selene and he had arrived three days earlier at Hotel Washington in desolate downtown Port Sorrow after a torturous ten-day gig in Seattle, Finn spent over an hour on his hands and knees cleaning and disinfecting. And that was just so he could take a piss without shuddering.

  Damn it, Selene. We go on in an hour. Where the hell are you?

  He never should have let her go wandering on her own again. She was drinking too much lately and her dance routines had lost some of their usual spunk. She had even started waking in the middle of the night, her face covered in a cold sweat and a muffled scream dying on her lips. When Finn reached across the narrow gully between their twin beds to comfort her and ask about the dream, Selene wouldn’t answer. She would only shake her head and go back to sleep, but with his hand clutched tight against her cheek.

  With practiced patience, Finn was still waiting for her to break the silence.

  After using the w
ashcloth to wet his legs, Finn poured a generous glob of shaving gel onto his palm and worked it into lather. He spread the foam along both limbs before picking up a disposable razor to scrape away the offending stubble.

  He had to admit, he had great legs. He enjoyed hiking in the mountains, away from everyone, with nothing but the jangle of a bear bell to let him know he didn’t belong. But even then he had to be careful not to overdo it, not get his muscles too bulky, too masculine. His legs and his voice were the only true instruments he had to keep the illusion of his stage persona alive.

  Finn’s attention shifted as a faint whiff of Selene’s perfume drifted through the thin walls and cardboard-thick door. It was followed by a stranger’s rough, throaty laugh.

  Christ, not again.

  Finn dropped the razor in the sink and retrieved a half-sized baseball bat from beneath his bed. He didn’t need to risk a splinter in the ear to know Selene’s guest wasn’t satisfied with a gentle peck on the cheek and a false promise to call later.

  Unlike a lot of the girls on the small-town stripper circuit, Selene didn’t make extra money with “tips”. She and Finn were strictly performers.

  Finn opened the door.

  Selene was pressed against the doorjamb, her face blocked by the bearded grin of the stranger. His squirming pelvis held her body firmly in place — leather miniskirt pulled high, white panties exposed — while his right hand crushed one of her ample breasts through the thin material of a plain black T-shirt. His other hand was already fumbling with the button-down fly of his blue jeans, while his tongue, blocked from entering her mouth by a lip-whitening grimace, attempted to lick the makeup off her face.

  Finn tapped the man’s shoulder with the bat.

  “I believe you should leave now,” he said.

  “Screw off, asshole.” The man added a fierce grin as his swollen cock was finally freed. “I’m busy.”

  The bat cracked against the side of the man’s head, just above and forward of his ear. It was a calculated, not overly rough blow that knocked him to the floor in order of knees, penis and face. He released Selene’s breast and a muffled groan as he went.

  “Friend of yours?” Finn asked as he tossed the bat into the room and bent to grab the man’s ankles.

  Selene smiled coyly before extruding her plump lower lip.

  “He seemed real nice in the lounge.” She scuffed the carpet with the toe of her bubble-gum pink runners. “He bought me a Sex On The Beach and a Blow Job.”

  Finn readjusted the man’s feet to get a solid grip before dragging the limp form to the elevator. “And didn’t his choice of drinks clue you in to his intentions?”

  “Give me a break, Finn, they’re only shooters. If someone bought a Test Tube Baby it don’t mean he’s a doctor does it?”

  Selene skipped in front of Finn to press the elevator button. The doors opened instantly and she leaned against the safety bar to keep them that way. Finn dumped the man’s groaning body inside, pressed the button for the lobby and stepped out.

  Finn saw himself reflected in the mirrored walls of the elevator. He stood with hands on hips, a tight tummy-tightening girdle peeking from a gap in his blue flannel bathrobe, shaving foam coating one leg, and a face that fell in the middle of the gender gap.

  The man’s eyes locked onto Finn before rolling up in his skull. He vomited just as the elevator doors closed to swallow him whole.

  “That looked like a nasty rug burn,” Selene said, her face scrunching up in sympathetic pain.

  Finn couldn’t hide his smile as they walked back to their shared room. He had learned long ago there was no talking sense to Selene. Every warning or piece of advice he tried to impart just became tangled in her thick mop of golden curls. Despite her occupation, Selene somehow managed to hold onto a frustratingly precious pool of naiveté. Finn just hoped he would always be around to make sure it didn’t leave her in tears.

  After finishing his legs, Finn returned to the bar stool, swept his bathrobe behind him like a cape, and looked deep into the mirror once more. To himself, he quietly intoned, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”

  When no answer came, he turned to his roommate and said, “Help me with my wig, will you, Sweetie?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Deputy Julia Rusk shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat of her Chevy half-ton and spat another sliver of well-chewed thumbnail out the window. It was a cool night, yet beads of sweat formed on the fading sunburn-blush of her freckled forehead.

  Cringing, she thought of everyone back at the station house laughing over coffee, their favorite subject being the flat-chested rookie who looked enough like a boy to be stuck with such a lowly assignment.

  Not for the first time, she wondered what her mother would say if she knew her daughter was going to be spending one of her first shifts for the Port Sorrow Sheriff’s Department sitting in a dock-side strip joint.

  Although, thinking about it, to hear her mom say anything might actually be a comfort. She had barely spoken a word since Julia left the family farm nine months earlier to start her training.

  The second-hand truck was a graduation gift from her father, so at least that relationship was still on solid ground.

  Idaho had been the family’s ancestral home for over 120 years, and Julia had been only the second Rusk to leave the state in all that time. The first was her older brother, Billy-J, killed on duty in Iraq. Billy-J came home in a beautifully lacquered box with a neatly folded flag, thus he was forgiven.

  Julia, on the other hand, was very much alive and suffering the silence only a mother can dish out. Now, she was adding more shame to the family name by preparing to enter what mom would surely call “a heathen’s brothel.”

  After wiping moist palms on the front of her jeans, Julia climbed out of the truck and made her way to the neon-lit doorway of Tequila Shooter’s. Standing just a few blocks from the ferry terminal and anchoring the historic six-story Hotel Washington, Shooter’s was the most popular club in town. Its hook was naked women, cheap beer and to accept Canadian money at par, which brought in ferry loads of adventure-seeking university kids from Victoria and Vancouver every weekend.

  According to the sheriff, most of the students were well behaved. They simply wanted to get drunk on American beer and see some American ass before their non-stop party tour continued on to Seattle before looping back across the border. The trouble was they were becoming easy prey for the transients who worked the docks, moving from ship to ship in search of backbreaking work and a quick exit out of state.

  Six boys had been beaten half to death after visiting the club over the last six months, while four of them had also been brutally raped. Without any leads, the sheriff wanted Julia to find some evidence that would close the club on obscenity charges.

  As he told Julia: “I don’t think my boys find anything involving naked women to be obscene. Hell, those girls could be doing doggie and donkey acts and those buffoons would clap and cheer instead of slapping on the cuffs. That’s why I thought you’d be perfect for the job. You might see something they’d ignore.”

  Targeting the club rather than hunting down the rapists didn’t make a lick of sense to her, but Julia was too new to question orders.

  With slim feet tucked inside cowboy boots, short copper-colored hair covered by a Seattle Mariners baseball cap, and the rest of her drowning inside a black-checkered shirt and leather jacket, Julia figured she could pass as a young man. The only real difference was an uncomfortable bandage binding her chest to make her even flatter than she already was, a silver shield in her left pocket, and a Glock 22 .40 caliber semi-automatic in a belt holster under her shirt.

  After taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Julia opened the saloon door and walked inside. The air was yellow with cigarette smoke and the noise level was deafening. All the patrons were men, most of them sitting in groups around circular tables with jugs of beer and half-full mugs taking up all the elbowroom.

&nbs
p; A few loners sat closest to the dark half-moon stage. Their eyes appeared more bloodshot than the rest, voices louder, hands greedily reaching out for any piece of flesh that happened to brush nearby. Scantily clad waitresses risked painful bruises as they squeezed between tables so tightly packed that the customers got a face-full of tits, ass or pussy with every delivery of beer.

  The university kids were easy to spot. Sitting in large groups of ten or more, they preferred their beer in cans or bottles. Few of them smoked. The smarter waitresses were joking along with them, brushing up real close and bending so low the hint of exposed nipple was making them hard. It was tough to keep track of one’s change when your mind was on your dick.

  Julia picked a stool along the bar at the back of the room. Not being close enough to the stage, most of the stools were either missing or unoccupied. A bald-headed bartender whose sour grin was shadowed beneath a tumbleweed beard approached her.

  “What’s your pleasure?” he rasped.

  “A glass of whatever’s on tap,” Julia replied, deepening her voice just a touch, feeling foolish as she did so.

  The bartender poured a glass of beer so thin it struggled to form a head.

  “That’ll be six fifty.”

  Julia’s eyes popped open in disbelief. “For a glass of that?” she protested, her voice rising uncontrollably.

  The bartender rolled his eyes. “It’s for the tits and beer, pal. Your wife doesn’t put out for free, so why should we?”

  Julia grudgingly handed over a ten, pondered whether or not to ask for a receipt, and then turned around to focus on the stage. One of the waitresses, a curvy young thing with honey-blonde hair and an enviable chest, smiled over at her. Julia automatically smiled back, appreciative of the friendly gesture.