Rip

When Kyle returned home from school that summer—that second year after—the old fuck had practically moved in. Mom tried to talk to him about it, but each time, Kyle managed to weasel out of the conversation the moment he realized where it was headed. He was already self-aware enough at the time to know that he was being a colossal dick about it, and wasn’t making life any easier for his mom—but why would he. His dad and his sister had barely been gone two years.

It wasn’t so much that his mom was seeing someone, Kyle told himself. This particular dickwad, though?

Granted, he wasn’t that old. His mom had just turned forty-five, and dickwad was probably still somewhere in his fifties. But where his mom was fit and healthy, dickwad looked like a walking PSA for colonoscopies, which at least matched nicely with the chain of cigarettes he kept in his mouth every time fresh air threatened to touch his lungs. Despite the smoking, he sported an impressive pot belly that didn’t receive any favors from the loose jeans and sports jackets he liked to wear, which themselves stood completely at odds with the low-key fashionable way his mom dressed. He also said and did corny shit, like “How’s it hanging” and blasting Journey from his Mazda convertible—which, of course, came in bright, midlife-crisis red.

And to cap it all off, dickwad used to be a freaking cop. It was the first thing his mom had told Kyle about the guy when she’d dropped the news on him while talking over the phone a couple of months before. As if that was a quality to brag about.

It didn’t make sense to Kyle. It was almost as if dickwad had his mom under some kind of spell. Like a reverse siren call, the old fat man luring her with the promise of nothing.

One week into that summer break, sitting on the beach with the sunset at his back, blood still dripping onto his Bring Me The Horizon tee and a whole new brand of fury beating in his chest like war drums, Kyle reckoned it was about time to break that spell. He took out his phone and one of dickwad’s crumpled business cards his mom kept slipping him for no good reason.

He looked at the card.

Cameron Cahill.

Private Investigations.

Kyle dialed the number printed below.

#

Earlier that day, he’d lain in bed until the chorus of Toto’s “Africa” faded in from somewhere down the street, announcing Cahill’s imminent arrival. Staying true to his intention of spending as little time as possible at home whenever Cahill was around, Kyle jumped out of bed, hit the upstairs bathroom and was dressed and ready to leave when Cahill pulled up to the house what must have been twenty minutes and about a hundred decibels later.

When Kyle emerged downstairs, his mom barely got in a “Could you please today—” from the kitchen before he breezed out the front door. Outside, the good news was that quiet had been restored to the neighborhood, with Cahill’s convertible now sitting at the curb in merciful silence. The bad news was that Cahill himself was leaning against the garage next to its open door, the same garage that housed Kyle’s bike.

“Shit,” he muttered as he walked over, then said, by way of greeting, “How’s the cancer doing?”

Cahill removed a cigarette from his mouth, ejecting a double stream of smoke from his nostrils. “Good, thank you, Kyle, I’ll let it know you asked,” he rasped as Kyle swaggered past him.

“Awesome,” Kyle said.

Then his swagger was stopped in its tracks when Cahill’s hand shot out and clamped itself onto Kyles upper arm. For a second, Kyle was shocked by the physical strength and violating nature of Cahill’s touch. Even though he was already a couple inches taller than Cahill, in that brief moment, he felt small and powerless—as if Cahill’s hand had laid bare the hidden fabric of Kyle’s adolescence for the world to see. And here he’d been thinking he’d experience enough trauma in his short life to be forever immune to such feelings, even at his age.

“You know, your mother would really love to spend some more time with you,” Cahill said, unblinking eyes boring into Kyle’s. “You should show her some respect.”

Regaining bits and pieces of his confidence—fueled entirely by self-righteousness—Kyle tore his arm free.

“What, you’re her enforcer now?” he said.

Something in Cahill’s eyes, and that sudden smile that bared a couple too many teeth, made Kyle’s body temperature drop below ninety.

“That’s right,” Cahill said.

“Cam.” Kyle’s mother stood in the front door of their house, arms crossed in front of her breasts, some attempt at an expressionless mask on her face that couldn’t fool Kyle.

“You have a good day, partner,” Cahill said and walked up to the house.

Kyle shot a last glance at his mother, allowing himself a brief moment to examine the way he felt like dried shit on a stick, before he stomped into the garage and jumped on his bike.

#

Working off most of his rage by riding downtown as if being chased by rabid dogs, he decided to kick off the day with a matinée at the Del Mar Theatre to cool off. Afterwards, he hung around the boardwalk, listing to music on his phone, before hitting a couple of bookshops he practically used to live in before his mom sent him away to boarding school down south.

That had been one and a half years ago. Being the cruel teenager that he was—only exacerbated now with Detective Dickwad around—he still pretended from time to time that he was angry with his mom for sending him away. He wasn’t ready yet to admit, to her or anyone, that, even though he missed home, she’d been absolutely right in sending him away, giving him the best possible chance to start any kind of healing by getting him out of the one place in the world where he couldn’t be a kid anymore.

As if to prove himself as much, he rode back to the river that cut through the city like a wound and followed it down to the corner of Front and Laurel.

Leaving his bike lying on the sidewalk, he stood on the corner of the intersection holding a tiny bouquet of daisies he’d freshly picked at that spot he knew, same spot as always. Holding the flowers—Katy’s favorites—with both hands, he stood as if in prayer. Which might have been one word to describe what he was doing. Not one he’d have used, though. As far as he was concerned, he was simply waiting; waiting for someone, something, to swoop in and help him make sense of it. Any of it.

As always, there was nothing; just him and the city and, inexplicably, life going on.

He placed the daisies at the foot of the nearest traffic light. Same traffic light his father’s car had been waiting at when he was shot to death by a person or persons unknown, riddled with enough bullets to kill him twice. One of those bullets, seemingly unsatisfied with taking just one life, had moved on to ricochet off the headrest and also take nine-year-old Katy, who’d been sitting behind her father, with it. A black hole had opened in the world that day, and if that world had been any kind of right and fair, Kyle should have been standing in the middle of a city-sized crater instead of a city still brimming with life, unchanged and unaffected.

It took almost half an hour before Earth’s atmosphere felt less crushing and the summer air almost breathable again. He was cruising down Portola—sun on his face, earbuds out to let the sounds of insects and seagulls and traffic wash over him—when a girl, wearing the kind of shorts that were also overalls, jumped out of a pickup truck that had just passed Kyle and was now waiting at a red light. She exchanged words with the driver, then turned and waved at Kyle. The pickup drove on without her when the light turned green.

Her name was Maria, and not too long ago, in a different life, they’d gone to the same school, even some of the same classes. She said it was good to see him. She was meeting some friends at the beach, and he should come, too. Kyle didn’t want to, but then Maria smiled, and he said, sure.

They walked together the rest of the way, which wasn’t far, Kyle pushing his bike.

The people they met at the beach weren’t just her friends. A good portion of them used to be his friends, too. Before his family ceased to be real, becoming instead another of those “My god, did you hear?” stories. Kids he used to goof around with were now too scared to talk to him, opting instead to gawk at him when they thought he wasn’t looking.

Maria seemed to be wired differently, though. Which shouldn’t have surprised him like it did. That was on him. She sat with him by a small fire, drinking beer out of a can. She asked him what the new school in San Diego was like. If it was full of snobby rich kids like they said. While he gave his answer, she doodled a sea otter character from a comic strip she’d been working on onto the back of his hand with a violet sharpie. She asked how his mom was doing.

“Word is she’s already poking someone new,” came a voice that, in that different life, used to deliver “what she said” jokes to Kyle with laser-guided precision.

Kyle turned to see Brandon standing behind him with two other boys he only had a vague recollection of, all three with beer bottles in hands.

When Maria told him to shut the fuck up, Brandon felt obligated to add: “There’s even talk that the guy was the one who did it—you know, killed your father, maybe planned it with your mom, to get him out of the picture.”

Kyle fixed his eyes on Brandon’s as his anger flared like a match struck against a brick wall. He smiled without humor. “Didn’t take you for a sucker who believes every single piece of bullshit he reads on Facebook.”

Brandon broke eye contact, giving the bottle of beer in his hand a thorough inspection instead. “That’s not where this is coming from,” he said without looking up. “You remember Danny Ricardo? His uncle’s a journalist, and he did an article a little while back about local unsolved crimes. Even came to school one day to ask about your family. Guy really did a deep dive into the whole thing. What he didn’t put in his article, but later told Danny, was some off-the-record info he got from some cop contact that there’s an open investigation into the same guy that turned out to be your mom’s new boyfriend. So…” Punctuating his account with a shrug, Brandon took a swig from his bottle.

Kyle felt lightheaded. He turned away to stare into the fire. Listened to the cracks from the burning wood; didn’t even twitch when a spark flew from the fire and extinguished itself on his arm.

Smelling weakness, Brandon recovered some of his confidence.

“And, well…” he said. “I guess your mom then found a way to get rid of you, too, huh?”

It was obvious that, for whatever reason, Brandon wanted to get a rise out of Kyle. With Maria’s hand on his knee, Kyle almost kept his cool. And he might have kept it all the way—if one of the other dipshits hadn’t smirked and said, “Damn, now I remember his mom! Total milf, bro. I’d kill for her too, hundred percent!”

Which prompted Brandon to do a spit take.

Half a minute later, Kyle was reminded by the blood gushing from his nose that Brandon wasn’t just the resident goofball; he should have remembered that, even after a couple of beers, dude was still quick on his feet. That all those years of tennis could also turn a short right jab into such a mean motherfucker, though—who knew?

#

Kyle was all alone on the beach when he watched Cahill’s dickwad mobile park at the curb above. A branch broken off a piece of driftwood had the size and heft of a baseball bat in his hands. He waited crouched in the shadows of a patch of shrubs growing between the beach and the street. When Cahill had passed his position and walked further down toward the surf, Kyle came up behind him.

“Did you have anything to do with it?” He almost winced at the fragility of his own voice.

Cahill turned. “Kyle, you alright? You said—”

“Did you?” Stronger now.

“Did I what?”

Kyle stepped closer, raising his driftwood bat to chest level. Gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. “The shooting. My dad, my sister?”

In response, Cahill’s face darkened like the world did with the sun plunging out of sight behind him. He put his hands on his hips, dropped his eyes to the sand between them.

Kyle felt the wind pick up. Licked salt from his lips.

“Drop the stick,” Cahill said without looking up, his smoker’s voice even more gravelly than usual.

“Fucking answer—”

Cahill opened his jacket to expose a gun in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

“I hate to sound like your Boy Scout leader—but don’t make me take it out and point it at you, kid. I don’t want you to piss yourself. I just had those seats cleaned and conditioned. And you and me, we’re going to take a drive.”

#

Kyle didn’t piss himself. Shitting himself, though, was definitely on the table as Cahill drove them east out of town while the shoreline to their right rose from sandy beaches to rocky cliffs. Along the way, Kyle’s head was flooded with fantasies of overpowering Cahill and taking his gun, but nothing stood out as particularly helpful in the real world.

The car finally came to a stop off-road on a small, deserted peninsula roughly twenty minutes outside city limits. For a final time, Kyle thought about making a break for it, but while he was contemplating if he could get out of the car in time with the seatbelt still on, Cahill had already gotten out, walked around the car, and was waiting at the passenger door for Kyle to get out, too.

Once he had, Cahill steered him up a narrow path winding through low-growing shrubs toward the cliff’s edge, staying several feet behind him.

“You know,” Cahill half-yelled over the crashing of the waves below, “when I was still with the department, we had this old-timer hanging around who didn’t know what else to do with his retirement. Must have told us hundreds of stories about his time on the job in the seventies and eighties. One of the stories that stuck with me was about him and his partner busting a couple of local gangbangers who later confessed to helping some of the early MS-13 guys from LA dumping bodies at this exact spot. Apparently, the currents here suck them straight out into the deep blue sea, never to be seen again. Like flushing a dead goldfish down a toilet. Don’t ask me how they knew that. I always thought there must be some kind of gangster’s almanac that’s being passed around or something.”

They stopped. Another moment came that had Kyle’s sphincter about ready to take a vacation. Virgin tears bloomed in his eyes, blurring his vision.

“You can quit being scared now, kid.” Cahill put a cigarette in his mouth and, sigh-grunting, sat on a piece of rock cropping out of the ground near the cliff’s edge. He brushed a hand through the thinning patch of short, graying hair on his head. “The men responsible for the deaths of your father and sister—there were two of them. If you ask me, I’ll give you their names, but I don’t believe they matter. They were a couple of low-life smack heads that had been staring into the abyss for too long. They robbed your father in his car, and they chose that particular moment in their lives—in all of your lives—to become killers. There was no reason behind it, no sense. Nothing your father did wrong.

“A couple months after, the police had gotten nowhere, so your mother hired me. The thing about me…Well, let’s just say, since I’ve handed in my badge, I can do things now, go places, that I couldn’t before. And the short of it is…I asked the right people the right questions in the right manner, and I found them.”

The expression on his face changed, then, features draining of personality, eyes growing dull and staring at nothing. “There’d been something in your mother’s eyes, back then, before I found them. I can’t explain it, but I knew what it was because, for whatever reason, I felt the same. I only really knew it when I first laid eyes on these two men, in that rat-infested shithole of a place up in Oakland. I knew that I couldn’t turn them in. They had to go. So I punched their tickets. Cruise for two, transfer included, bon voyage.” As if to elaborate, Cahill took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and flicked it over the edge of the cliff.

Kyle’s knees had grown weak. He dropped to the ground, propped his arms on his knees and his face on his arms.

“What I hadn’t anticipated,” Cahill went on, “these guys were persons of interest in a different case here in this city, and after those two fucks had disappeared, my, uh, actions in my own investigation put me on the radar of some SCPD detective. He doesn’t really know anything or have anything on me—but unfortunately, he’s one of those cops that are tragically afflicted with diarrhea of the mouth, so that’s how some ugly rumors started floating around. I guess you heard one of those today. And I’m truly sorry about that. For you, but especially for your mother. She doesn’t deserve to be talked about like that.

“And, listen, about your mother…” Although Kyle didn’t see his face, he could hear in Cahill’s voice the oddly juvenile, slightly embarrassed expression that must have settled onto his face right then. “After all that shit went down, after some time had passed, something happened between your mother and I. A shrink would probably have a field day with this, but what I believe it comes down to is…Your mum’s been keeping me around because, in a world that’s become hell, I somehow make her feel safe. And right now, being able to do that for her makes me happy. I also know that it won’t last. One day soon, your mother will wake up and realize that this won’t go anywhere, that I’m not the right guy for her—for you both, really—and that she doesn’t need me anymore. I’ll be out of your hair then. Until that time comes, though…Sue me, but I’ll do anything that woman pleases.

Speaking of which—” With another grunt, Cahill rose to his feet again. “—we have to get back. I promised your mother I’d take her out for pizza tonight, and I’m already late. You can come, too, if you want. But I understand if you won’t. I know, it’s…a lot. So, I’ll just drop you off where we left your bike, if that’s what you want.”

Face still buried in his arms, Kyle listened to the receding crunch and rustle of Cahill’s shoes on the dirt while images of two semi-decomposed corpses floating in the blue-green depths of the ocean invaded his mind, eternal death screams distorting their skeletal faces.

He looked up. “Wait!”

Cahill stopped, turned.

Kyle blinked as if seeing him for the first time. Cahill might have been a couple inches shorter than Kyle—but in that moment, by some optical illusion or weird perspective or whatever, the old man looked six foot five easy.

Kyle wiped his wind-swept hair out of his eyes and looked out over the ocean, at the dead light on the fading horizon. Then his gaze dropped to his forearm, the one that had a phone number on it, written with a violet sharpie.

“Can I maybe bring someone?” he asked.

Cahill shrugged. “As long as it’s not a contract killer…”

Kyle gave him a look. Then he stood, brushing dirt off his pants. “Alright. I’m telling you, though…If you try anything on my mom while I’m around, you’ll have to haul my ass all the way back here.”

Cahill winked, then made a finger pistol and shot him.

Guy might have been an actual honest-to-god killer.

But he was still corny as fuck.

#

BIO: Michael Wegener is a trained chemist and works a day job as a medical writer. His short crime and horror fiction has appeared in Mickey Finn Vol. 3: 21st Century Noir (edited by Michael Bracken), Unnerving Magazine, the Starlite Pulp Review, The Yard, Shotgun Honey, the SNAFU: Contagion anthology and Schlock! Webzine. He lives in Brunswick, Germany. You may stalk him on IG (_michael_wegener_) or Bluesky (michaelwegener.bsky.social).