Chapter Nine

Nevertheless, you came back for more.
Did you take the alternative storyline? Nowadays, so they say, liberty is so precious that it has to be rationed. But true liberty? Dear reader, you are being given the choice between life and death for our three hapless actors. Choose wisely, whilst you can. For even now, as we follow Keyes back into the police station with the battered files, your options are closing around you.

Please also remember that reality is a relative and worrying experience. Human logic is usually infallible, but the way we see the world, the way we read our surroundings, and the way we interpret other people - that can often be our downfall. Follow Keyes carefully. His path is not secure.

She stood with her arms folded and a mark of irritation on her clothes.
"Keyes, where have you been? We've been trying to get you on your cell for an hour."
He looked up from the door of the sedan, and saw Maria standing in the station doorway. Photocopies of files were clutched in his hand, some already so dog-eared they looked ancient. He felt tired physically, so the sight of her and the prospect of more work seemed irritating. Mentally, however, he felt alert and awake. Things needed to be done.
"I was working. You wanted these files."
"All we needed was photocopies. Anyway, bigger problems. There was a shooting in an alleyway about five blocks from here. They've cordoned the area, but forensics thinks it might be our man again."
Keyes pushed past her and moved through the mess of receptionists and computers on desks until he found an area to work in. He put all of the photocopies down. The answers had to be in there somewhere.
Maria had followed him closely.
"There's a lot of blood in the area, but not much of a trail. That might mean a minor wound, or it might mean he's taken the body - we're still searching."
Keyes did not hear her. The picture of the mysterious woman had surfaced to the front of the pile almost of its own volition. She was central to it. But what did they have? He'd come here to invesitgate the Russian's links with South American drugs cartels, but he couldn't see... or did he?
"Maria," he said, spinning round on the chair and discovering he had actually cut her off mid-sentence. He paused.
"Are you even listening, Matthew?"
He didn't remember telling her his first name.
"Just quiet and listen - that guy we found in the café this morning... what did you drag up on him in the end?"
Maria sat down at a PC and began typing. Various windows flashed up.
"Just another washout. Three failed marriages, brief stints with the criminal underworld. A washout."
She stopped and looked at him. He had glazed over slightly, not really taking anything in.
"Keyes, are you listening?"
He wasn't sure of the answer, but he nodded anyway.
"Look, I need to investigate the shooting," her eyes trailed off towards the photo of the woman on the table. She stopped.
"Who's that?"
Keyes noticed the photo, and took it away.
"It's... nothing. Just an old photo I found on the guy. Dead end."
The world seemed to be swirling ever so slightly, like out of sync parallax scrolling. As he moved his head slightly to and fro, the police station veered violently, but Maria's head remained more or less unchanged. The photo in his hand began to prickle slightly.
"Just get back on those files, Keyes. I need to make some phone calls." she got up and walked away towards the reception. Keyes turned back to the files, and unclenched his fist around the photo. His nails had dug into the palm of his hand, and there was an intense reddening. A pinprick of blood appeared by his thumb.
What the fuck was going on?
Time seemed to slow as he looked at the files he'd taken. Washout. The wives had all been suburban nobodies. Criminal connections were low-scale thugs and pimps. Nothing big like a cocaine ring. He was just another John Doe, a washout... the links weren't there... but they were. He could see them. As he put the black-and-white glossy image next to each report, each scrap, each note, he saw them all in a new light. They were all linked. He knew it. No proof, just instinct. That was what all cops worked on, those ones that didn't play by the rules but got the fucking results.
He got up and walked towards the phones. As he approached, he heard Maria's voice speaking. It wasn't as he remembered it.
"He's seen her." she said, "The cop I'm partnered with. I'll have to meet you to discuss it, he's not going to be easy to erase."
What was she saying? But Keyes knew exactly what she was saying, and who she was talking to. And he knew what he had to do, as he approached her.
"Yes, yes, of course. I'll meet you there." she took the receiver from the side of her head and placed it on the phone. Keyes moved perfectly silently, the Glock pistol sliding out of the holster and arriving underneath Maria's chin as his left hand pulled her right arm behind her.
"You bitch." he hissed. She whimpered something, but he didn't hear.
"Where the fuck are you meeting him?"
"The morgue." she said, her lips barely moving.
"We're going there now. Out the door."
The gun stabbed sharply up into her neck, and she had no choice but to move. She struggled, her mouth opened as if she was speaking. A woman - a receptionist, perhaps - ran out, but Keyes whipped the pistol butt into the side of her head and she crashed to the floor. Perhaps people shouted. Perhaps people ran. Perhaps he was shot. He wasn't really sure, and his is the only testimony you'll ever have. But he did get into the sedan. He did handcuff Maria to the door. And he did drive to the morgue he had left an hour previously, a white mist settling on the periphery of his vision, and the photo of a beautiful woman burning a hole in his shirt pocket.

Be aware that reality is always relative except in the realms of fiction. Here, this is my reality, and it cannot be relative. What you see, happened. All that matters is how you read it. The answers await you, just like they await Keyes. Make sure you read things carefully.