Streets of Broken Glass: Kristen Black Series, #3

By Theodore Gide

At the time of his murder, Teddy Dorsey, a high ranking Military Security analyst, was investigating an international eco-terrorist organization called Interrupt! that has been bombing industrial chemical plants around the world. As Kristen Black, PI, retraces the case Dorsey was working on she uncovers evidence that her partner of many years may have been involved in Dorsey's murder and may not be who she says she is. When the bullets begin to fly, Kristen finds herself stranded in the crossfire between two very powerful and dangerous organizations and she's forced to flee the city to avoid ending up like so many others before her, dead on a street of broken glass and burning cars.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theodore Gide
• Release date: Apr 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223493013

Theodore Gide

My name is Theodore Gide and I live in Brooklyn, NY. I have been a sculptor, a stair builder, a 3D computer modeler and, now, a writer of stories about love, lust, power and murder.

Book preview

ELLIE

The big club out at the end of the pier in the Hook was packed. It was hot and the room was sweaty, bodies crammed against bodies. Ellie was shirtless, her skin shiny and damp. Kristen had on a light black silk jacket, glossy like her shoulder length black hair, but open at the front so their breasts grazed against one another in the tight turns. Drinking, vaping and dancing with Ellie was the pleasure Kristen depended on now, leaned on, to make her week tolerable. Ellie pressed her thigh against Kristen, let go of Kristen’s hand, and took a silver vape out of her pocket, but Kristen put her hand on the silver tube. You got a Pass Off? I want it from your lips.

Ellie laughed, Looking for an excuse to kiss me?

That too.

You don’t need an excuse, girl. Don’t ever think that.

Ellie pulled a lipstick out of her jeans and ran it across her lips, leaving a smear of bright, oily green. Kristen watched as Ellie’s eyes sparkled, the pupils enlarged and became deep black voids. Ellie pulled Kristen tight to her, chest to chest and placed her lips on Kristen’s lips. Kristen felt her lips explode into multicolored concentric rings, pulsating, radiating outward and suddenly Kristen was falling backwards through space and time, down into Ellie’s warm, wet lips. The multi colored neon lights outside began to rotate and spin. She felt Ellie’s hands slide under her armpits, pulling her arms up and wrapping them around Ellie’s neck, then Ellie’s hands went down, and she hooked her fingers into the belt loops of Kristen’s jeans, holding her up. They were laughing, sagging against each other, their bodies slick with sweat, the loudspeaker cones driving a rhythm across the floor boards and right up through their bodies.

Damn, that was a big hit.

Ellie put her cheek against Kristen’s, the heat of their flesh flowing back and forth into one another, the sparkling world of vibrant colors dissipating around them, second by second. Hard to measure dose with a lipstick tube — a little less and you’re disappointed, a little more and you’re in outer space.

Good it only lasts for a few seconds.

But what a few seconds it is, Ellie murmured in Kristen’s ear, resting her head on Kristen’s shoulder, her heart still racing from the drug.

Kristen put her face into Ellie’s hair, right behind her ear and breathed in Ellie’s sweat and her perfume, hugged her and kissed her. Got to go. Funeral tomorrow. Can’t be looking like death when I’m standing at the grave. Gravediggers might mistake who they’re putting in the ground.

And I have to get to work.

They stepped outside into the chill air of the stone plaza facing Upper Bay, the sweat turning cold on their chests, their nipples hardening in the cool breeze.

The cold is good. Clears the mind. Kristen hugged her jacket tight around her and Ellie slid her arms into a shirt and buttoned it up to her neck. You own the club now, but you still take the stage? Why? Kristen took Ellie by the upper arm and pulled her close.

I own the club now because of you ... the things you did for me.

Pay me back with more kisses. Didn’t answer my question.

Money. As long as I’ve got a bunch of guys throwing cash onto the boards to see me strip ... I’m out there, hot and sweaty under the lights. I’m the star at my club. My fan base is big and they’re loyal. For me, it’s all about money, Kris — make it and bank it.

As soon as Ellie turned and went into the club, a disembodied voice appeared in Kristen’s headset — her AI, Betsy, who existed only in Kristen’s neurons.

I like her so much and I like you when you’re with her, Kris. That kiss? The drug? Oh, my God, I’m oozing with sensuality. My loins are —

Stop it. You don’t have loins. I’m not even sure what loins are. You don’t have a body. You sort of forget that sometimes.

But in my imagination, I have a big, lush, sensuous body.

Kristen giggled. You are something else, Bets.

GREG KINDEN’S FUNERAL

Kristen, with Maureen on her arm, passed through the elaborate, formal cemetery and saw her group up ahead in an area of simpler, less expensive plots — identical plain stone markers, just a couple feet high, all cut to the same size from the same gray stone, the front surface polished but the top, sides and back left rough, most with just a name and two dates — birth and death.

Kristen felt sad but also peaceful in this section. The carved headstones and monuments, competing with one another for attention in the formal cemetery behind her felt like an act of desperation, an attempt to ward off the anonymity that comes with death. The simple stones in this area were laid out on a regular grid, each stone given the same size plot, acknowledging that, at base, we are all the same — insignificant and largely unknown in life and so also in death — ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Death, not politics, was the ultimate guarantor of equality.

This felt right to Kristen, this was where Greg Kinden belonged and, when her time came, where she belonged. Lives lived in the shadows needed to be honored quietly and with dignity, but without fanfare. She would be mourned only by those people up ahead of her, standing at Greg’s grave, and by no others. That was as it should be. And, when they were gone, her name could be erased from the stone, as it would then serve no further purpose.

Kristen stopped some distance away from the group mourning at Greg’s grave and said to Maureen, Go ahead. I’ll catch up. She reached her arm around Maureen’s waist and pulled her tight, her head on Maureen’s shoulder. Maureen reached back and, for just a minute, stroked Kristen’s hair.

Kristen watched Maureen’s back as she walked away, wondering if her father and mother were encased in one of the extravagant monuments in the formal cemetery. They probably were. Kristen was street but Maureen grew up in a world of manicured lawns and servants ... until it all came to an end for her. Maureen’s father, a significant figure on the back bench of city politics, had been accused of fraud and Maureen had come to her, years ago, hoping to prove him innocent. Kristen took the case but had to confront a crestfallen Maureen with the facts she’d uncovered — her father was guilty of all the crimes he’d been charged with and quite a few more the DA didn’t know about. Maureen stayed with her, and they became partners of a sort.

Kristen sat on a bench with her eyes closed and listened to the silence of the cemetery. The grass was clipped close, and a cool wind drifted through the trees and around her face. The pearl gray sky was overcast but bright and featureless. Death, violent death, was not uncommon in her life since her teenage years growing up on the street, turning tricks and committing small time crimes. She had friends of a sort back then — running a good grift required partners — but that often meant more people you needed to watch your back around. Life led on the street was a life led alone. Death was an inconvenience no more than life itself.

Betsy, Kristen’s AI said, I’ve never been in a cemetery before, Kris. It’s creepy ... like a dump filled with dead computers and nobody cannibalizing them. Tell me again why people don’t recycle their parts?

Don’t pester me with questions today, okay Bets? This is a funeral. It’s not a time to joke around.

Some cultures celebrate death. They have big parties and —

Enough.

Tommy Powers, one of the people standing at Greg’s grave, came into her life when she was a young teenager, and she learned the meaning of trust through him. At first it was like a foreign language of feelings and, just like learning a language, she was awkward and uncomfortable at the beginning. But Tommy was persistent, always there, right behind her when she needed him — a violent aggressive teenager, just what you want watching your back in the concrete jungle. They grew up together like a tag team, doing crime, running gangs of younger kids. She couldn’t count the number of times a street fight was turned in her favor by his strong hand, often with violence that was excessive to its purpose. Tommy lived by a simple code — you let an opponent walk away unharmed, you’re giving them another shot at you.  

Sheila Moreno, standing next to Tommy Powers, showed up at Kristen’s gym one day, war weary from her time as a drill sergeant and a weapons specialist in the service. She was strong and deadly in a fight. She sparred with Kristen for a month, called for a formal match and then beat Kristen fair and square in the ring and they’d been inseparable ever since.

Greg Kinden, now at rest under the ground, had only been with her for a few years, first as their accountant and then as their data specialist. He had no weapons training or combat experience, so it was painfully ironic that he was the first in the family to die a violent death during a case. It hurt, deeply, in ways Kristen was just beginning to grapple with. His death forced her to acknowledge they were a family. And she was grateful for that.

A trio of jets appeared overhead, their white trails straight lines heading East to the gray horizon. Kristen turned to look at the sky, hoping it was just a show of force and this wasn’t the day that it began. China and Russia both had warships in the Atlantic now. War was inevitable and everyone knew it. The only question was when.

Maureen, Sheila, and Tommy were all in black and standing awkwardly at the new stone next to a woman with two children. The ground cover around the grave was still fresh and the smell of cut grass and turned soil was heavy in the air. There was a low background murmur of insects and birds, and a breeze meandered around and through the graves like the sound of fingers gliding through silk, a sound that settled Kristen.

It was quiet here, in contrast to the city that was devolving into a continual state of siege, armed clashes breaking out between protesters of different factions every day. The media no longer bother to announce the body count. Jerry Booker, the local chief of police and a friend, said the violent street protests would come to an end when war began, and everyone started running for cover.

Kris ...

Yes, Betsy.

I’m sad. This is new to me. I’m mourning. But I only realize now why it’s different for bio beings, why it’s so sad.

Tell me.

Your data set disappears with you. If a computer dies, you move the data to a new rig. But Greg is gone and all that Greg was is gone with him.

Except our memories of him, Bets.

Oh ... this is so unpleasant.

Kristen knew the woman with the two children was Gwen, Greg Kinden’s sister, but they had never met. She was hipper than Kristen expected. Tight black pants, pegged at the ankle, a gray green canvas jacket over a black T shirt, her hair held tight to her head but with a tail down the back, secured with a worn gold clasp in the shape of a dragon. A snake tattoo spilled out of her left sleeve and spiraled around her fingers, one by one. Pretty. Her green eyes were sharp and quick. A light scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t with a partner, man or woman, and Kristen couldn’t remember if Greg had ever said his sister was married or not.

Kristen could see Greg’s face in Gwen’s, and it brought tears to her eyes. Both Gwen’s hands were busy managing the two children, a girl, maybe 3 and a boy a couple of years older. The kids were staying close to their mother’s legs, pulling at her, bored. Gwen was holding the boy’s hand on her left and the girl’s collar in a tight grip on her right. The girl was clutching a stuffed animal by the leg, a pig maybe, gray. Its head grazed the grass at her feet. Kristen wondered what death meant, if anything, to a child of that age. Did she know that her uncle’s body was beneath her feet, encased in a simple pine box, six feet deep in the dark earth? Probably not, Kristen thought or, if she did, she wouldn’t understand why Greg couldn’t just come up and say hello.

Kristen joined the group, nodded to Sheila and Tommy, gave Maureen a quick hug and held out her hand to the woman standing with them. Kristen Black, a close friend of your brother —

And, for the last few years, his employer. I’ve heard a lot about you, Kristen. The woman smiled kindly and took Kristen’s hand in both of hers — a warm, friendly embrace. Gwen ... Gwen Kinden. I’m so sorry it came to this end, but you should know — he loved you. He loved working with you. Really, it was the high point of his life. You were ... are ... kind of a legend in my family.

Kristen was startled by the woman’s comment, then she breathed a sigh of relief. Good to hear. Some people, their families, she tried not to look at Maureen, think I’m a bad influence. My way of life isn’t what most families hope for their relatives.

Not me. You sort of saved my brother’s life.

Kristen raised her eyes, surprised.

I know ... in this context it’s an odd thing to say but, before he met you, Greg was frustrated, unhappy. He wanted more than his life as an accountant could give him. The years were passing him by, but he didn’t see another way. He was lost. I love ... loved ... my brother. I was worried. He was becoming cynical and ... dark. People need a purpose, a reason to go on from day to day. Greg didn’t have that until he met you.

Dark? Not the Greg I knew. A joy to be with. To work with ... I can’t even say that without getting choked up. I’m drowning in memories of Greg. He was fun. I’ll find myself laughing in the middle of the day, thinking of something Greg said.

Tears formed in Gwen’s eyes. His mood changed when he started working with you. His whole outlook on life. The kids felt it right away. Before he joined your crew, he was a dutiful but reluctant uncle. The kids barely knew him. After meeting you, he was down on the living room floor on his hands and knees, playing with them every weekend. Taking them to museums, to the park. On weekdays they played games back and forth on the Stream. He got enthusiastic about life working with you.

Tommy leaned in. We know all about your kids. Rare a day that Greg didn’t have some anecdote to share about them. I’ll miss that. Terribly.

The woman noticed Kristen looking her up and down and she laughed. You were expecting someone prim and proper?

Kristen shrugged.

Gwen rolled back on her heels with a big smile. Yeah, prim and proper, that was my brother, Greg. Gray business suit, white shirt, blue tie, brown leather shoes and a purple handkerchief —

— corner up in the top pocket. Tommy Powers finished for her with a big smile. Tommy was lean and tight in a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. He could have been the undertaker. His face was scarred by acne from his teenage years.  

Same thing every day. Right up until the end, Kristen said and both women laughed through the tears coming down their cheeks.

Can I ask ...

Gwen smiled at Kristen. Of course. He’s buried in exactly those clothes.

Kristen regretted mentioning the end of Greg Kinden’s life, sprawled on his side, his gray suit spread out around him, shot dead on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a bullet right through his heart, his eyes open even after death, staring at the sky. Kristen hoped it was the last thing he’d seen before dying – the light of day. That was what she wanted when her time came — an open sky above, light pouring down on her last moments before the darkness took her into itself.

Unca Greg was cool, the little boy holding his mother’s hand blurted out. He was a detect ...

De ... tec ... tive, his mother finished for him, enunciating each syllable clearly so he’d remember it.

Kristen squatted down to the boy’s level and said, Coolest guy I ever met. I miss him so much. Every day. I think about him all the time. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cry. He was the best. Got a picture of Greg on my desk and I always will.

The boy looked at his shoes and then looked at Kristen with his lips pursed, as though he was about to say something he’d been told not to say. In almost a whisper he said, with a small voice, Are you going to get the bad guy who ...

Kristen leaned close, held the boy’s soft little chin in her hand, looked him straight in the eye and whispered, Keep a secret?

The boy nodded solemnly.

Just between you and me ... it’s been taken care of.

The little boy smiled, his eyes brimmed with tears, and his chest expanded, knowing that he’d been entrusted with an important secret that maybe nobody else knew.

***

Gwen Kinden said goodbye, retrieved the little girl who was now balancing on the edge of a gravestone, and the little boy who was very serious and quiet, and the three of them walked off down a path to the parking lot. The little girl was looking up at her mother, asking her questions about the cemetery. Kristen wondered how you explain a cemetery to a child without telling them it’s a landscape of dead bodies. A corpse under each stone.

Kristen bent down, took an old I Ching coin out of her pocket and pushed it into the ground next to Greg’s stone marker. She stood back up and took Maureen’s hand in her left and Tommy’s in her right and Sheila stood between Maureen and Tommy and the four of them held hands in a circle for a long time, saying nothing. Then Kristen said, A bottle of Widow Jane is sitting unopened on my kitchen counter. Brand new. Waiting for us. Let’s go to the apartment. Drink some whiskey and tell Greg Kinden stories.

Yup. That’s what we need to do now. Tommy said.

I’ll match you, drink for drink, Tommy and you too, Kris, Sheila said.

Kristen glanced sideways at Maureen. Maureen’s eyes were closed. She was silent.

JANE BALERU

The cloud cover parted and a harsh yellow light from the sun, as ugly and as unforgiving as the cloud cover itself, glared down on the grave. They turned to leave, but Kristen stopped in her tracks and said, Fuck me ... no ... no ... no. No way.

A long black car was parked in the center of the lane and a woman was standing next to it — tight black jacket buttoned up to the neck over black pants, a small black hat with a speckled feather pined to the left side, rail thin, barely five feet tall and a face as lined and weathered as a plank of old oak that had sat out in the sun for years. She had a cane in her right hand and an ivory cigarette holder in her left.

Kristen boiled over with rage, standing as still as the gravestones around her.

Have you no shame? No decency for god’s sake. You have no place here. Kristen knew she was sputtering but she couldn’t stop herself. She was so angry, she was trembling. Her hands were balled into fists. Maureen put her hand on Kristen’s arm, but Kristen shrugged it off, waved her away, stepped to the side and faced the woman squarely.

A man in a black uniform stepped out of the driver’s side of the car and another man emerged from the passenger side, also in uniform. Both men casually opened their coats to show weapons. A bird cawed above them, as though it was complaining. A feather floated slowly down, caught in the breeze. The driver said something on his headset. His hair was light brown and blew easily in the wind. The other man had black hair, clipped close, military style. He was wearing sunglasses with a silver frame.

Kristen waited for the woman to speak, her cheeks flaming, her eyes bright and threatening, her nerves taut. The matched bullet tattoos on her temples began to turn red and the rat’s teeth on her neck elongated.

Jane Baleru leaned on her cane, exhaled cigarette smoke