Not an Exit

By William J. Seymour

A death on the streets of New York City. A man falls thirty floors to the pavement below. Now it is up to Detective Watts to find out why the man took the permanent nose dive, and who he was.

 

The obstacle? There isn't a building around the scene that stands thirty floors high, and no one seems to have seen anything.

 

A story that brings Detective Watts to the edge of a long career, and into a world where no one seems to care beyond what is going on within their own little world.

 

Not an Exit will leave you asking do you really want to know what awaits you when you finally reach the door with all the answers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Furnace Publications
• Release date: Mar 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201729912

Book preview

1

Reporters are trained to develop a sixth sense, a nose for when a story smells fishy. And something about this one wasn’t right. First of all, no one seemed sad, or discouraged.

It was like a man falling to his death outside was an every day occurrence. Splattering face first into a taxicab, on sixth street. Just another day at the office.

Lights flash, yellow tape cordoning off the area and journalists taking a million photos. Rush hour in New York City. The place where no one sleeps.

Apparently, no one stops to see a man reduced to paste on top of one of its millions of yellow cabs either. Detective Watts wipes his brow with the handkerchief he always carries. Back left pocket. Folded three times, half the thickness of his wallet and far more comfortable.

The heat of the city is appalling at this time of year. Everything melts. Your shoes, the ice in your drinks. Even the shirt on your back liquifies and sticks to you like a second skin. The air shimmers with the heat and the smell of food rotting in overflowing garbage cans lingers as the city hasn’t felt a breeze touch it in what feels like months.

Watts wipes his brow again, more out of habit than sweat. Every part of him is wet and those that rub too close together are chaffing.

Anything you can tell me? he asks the coroner.

A thin wiry fellow. He’d be young if his hair wasn’t as thin as frayed rope. Still dark though, especially since he’s one of those fellas that slick it back with that expensive gel stuff. In today’s heat Watts doesn’t see why. Sweat would do the trick for you, and it’s free.

Want the cause of death? the coroner asks.

Kubo, that’s his name. Looking up, the man has dark circles under his eyes, and it appears he hasn’t slept in a week. His skin almost whiter than his jacket says he hasn’t seen the sun in ages.

Lucky bastard.

Watts wipes his forehead again. Tell me what you can, smartass.

Judging by what is left, Kubo starts, lifting a few fingers that are no longer attached to the hand that is more paste than human. My preliminary estimate is he fell from at least thirty stories.

Both look up. Hotckins Business Plaza. Lucky to be twenty stories tall at the most.

You thinking the roof then? Watts says more than asks.

Kubo gets up from squatting next to the cab, his gloves coming off with a snap.

"You’re the detective, I’m just the