The Last Sunset

Trigger warning: Violence, drugs and suicide

Morris looked into the distance and saw the city skyline as it rose from the bay, built on the very dirt and grime that plagued its entrails.

He puffed on his smelly cigar and watched as the bin men cleaned out the streets, hauling those meaty trash bags full of vice and knew that as hard as they tried they couldn't clean the guilty conscience out of this sinful city.

He bent down to tie his shoelace, covered in mud. The glaring moonlight reflected his bruised knuckles that were smeared with blood, the kind that was so fresh it might as well have been his.

Morris had gone through great lengths to extract information from the scumbag, whose lifeless corpse was sinking away in the bay. Let the rotten water bless away his sins as a rite of confession, thought Morris.

But his efforts had no tangible outcome, except the final ghostly words whispered by the tortured man, words spoken so low, so devoid of hope, that it may have simply been a goodbye to this world.

Morris did find one useful thing to take back to his client. A faded Polaroid that was tucked away in the man’s pockets.

It bothered him. Why? Nothing bothered him. Years of mud-slinging in this carcass of a city had taught him that a conscience was expensive. People like him couldn't afford to have one. Which is why he never hesitated to bash a skull in, or pull some fingernails or tie a rock to a body and sink it in the bay.

As far as he was concerned, the equation was balanced. He was giving up one scum for another. One got powerful while one got killed. Who was he to decide the fate of humanity when morality had long lost its way. Everyone had a part to play in the sinking of this vermin of a city.

He stowed away the Polaroid. It would be tomorrow's problem. Another in a stack of problems that were equally important and equally useless to his survival.

He got into his Dodge Charger and rode away into the neon city that never let him sleep, not an ounce, seducing him night after night, exposing secrets for him from its drug infested dirty corners; secrets he would often sell to the highest bidder.

He thoughtlessly drove for a while with something weighing heavily on his mind. He stopped abruptly at a kebab shop and bought himself a greasy sandwich. He opened the sandwich, mindlessly tossed the veggies away and hungrily swallowed the cheap, tasteless meat.

He took out the Polaroid. In the foreground were two boys posing with their beers. Several numbered golden balloons in the background confirmed that it was taken during New year celebrations.

Why did this photo bother him so much? What had his subconscious mind seen that his conscious mind had not?

The itchy thought plagued him when he woke up later that afternoon, then stayed in the back of his mind while he pumped iron in the gym and later refused to leave his brain during his rationed two-minute shower (the city's drought left them with only eight gallons of water per head).

The Polaroid was pulling at something deep inside him. Was it guilt? He was and had always been morally indifferent to the nature of his work. Heck, he was proud of it, like an athlete is proud of his mettle.

At half past six, he drove to the outskirts of the city and waited for his client outside the city junkyard.

He breathed in the putrid smell of the destroyed cars and pulled out a cigarette, helping his lungs to die even faster. He caught his reflection in his car's window, irreverently puffing clouds of smoke. He wasn't getting any younger. Barely forty, his body was as broken as the cars getting pulled apart for scraps in the junkyard.

He fiddled with the Polaroid in his pocket, knowing it was time to hand over the evidence. He thought back to the image. The boys didn't mean anything to him; they might as well have been faceless. A few eyes peered out from the background, but none piqued his interest nor jogged his memory.

A Cadillac Escalade was rushing towards him, dispersing dust into every corner. His lungs couldn't have thanked him more.

A mule-like servant opened the door for the client, who pushed his heavy, porky frame out of the car.

Mr. Goldstein slicked back his hair with his porcine fingers, each one of them housing a distinct golden ring. And just to make sure no one had any doubts about his frugality, he had various Figaro chains and diamond accents that hung casually around his stout neck. He tried but failed to close the buttons of his white Armani that were so wide apart they might have been on different continents. He couldn't have looked more like a pig if he wanted to.

Morris put out his cigarette on the ground and stamped on it with his worn out shoes. He took out a file from his car and thrust it towards Goldstein.

"He didn't squeak. Said something funny at the end, but I think it was like one of 'em prayers they say before you die. This is all I found in his office,"

Goldstein grabbed the files with his stubby fingers and handed it to his mule.

"Anything else?" he asked in his grainy voice.

Morris paused for a second. He gave himself one last chance to recall what the picture was trying to tell him.

"No... nothing else."

Goldstein's hooded eyes seemed to X-ray Morris inside and out.

"Good. The rest of your payment will be sent over tonight."

Morris nodded and walked back to his car while Goldstein studied him carefully.

"Oh Mr Sandman?" he called from behind.

Morris turned around.

"What is it that he said at the end? I'm curious. I'm a pious fellow you see." he said with a smirk, his diamond grills gleaming in the rusty sunset.

 "Not sure but something like "morgaua suno levigos en la okcidento"

Goldstein laughed out into the hot dusty air, his spit splattering on his mule, who pitifully wiped it off his face.

"You don't speak Esperanto, son?"

"I don't speak nothing except money." he said and walked away, now properly annoyed at the snorty bull-necked man laughing at him.

He turned the keys and heard the engine roar. He then whipped his car swiftly, drifting ever so slightly before changing gear and speeding away.

It happened just as the image of a cackling Goldstein disappeared in his rear view mirror; when the remaining functioning neurons in his brain decided to fortuitously play music in rhythm with his memories. Everything that his subconscious had kept hidden from him came out and was now openly playing theatre in his mind.

He braked violently in the middle of the road and snatched the Polaroid from the inside of his vest.

There they were, those sets of deep blue eyes leering from the background, face half-hidden by a heavyset curtain. The shadowy, blur of a face that he could barely make out but one he could never forget.

It was the face that he had put to sleep every night for many years. A face whose cherished smile gave him reason to live. The face he hadn't seen since she went missing ten years ago.

It had aged. Gone were the twinkle in her eyes. That dimpled sunshine of a smile she radiated was now obliterated by despair, the puffy cheeks now as hollow as the dreadful eyes that reached out from behind the photo.

He had spent years searching for that face. And now, there it was, on a half-burnt Polaroid he had found in the pocket of a dirtbag he had beaten to death and drowned in the river.

The face of his little sister.

-----

The nights that followed showed Morris no mercy.

He scoured every inch of the city, pulling as hard and long as he could on that little thread he recovered from the photo.

He wasn't useful to the city for nothing. He reached out to every one of his contacts. Some were in the police department, some in hospitals and some even in the government; "friends" he had collected over the years to make his job a little easier.

He went deep, searching for those boys through every muddled street corner, hotel, bar and club. He hadn't delved that far since digging dirt on one of those mob-friendly politicians.

Eventually he found one of them lying face down at the edge of a river, shot with a .40 caliber. Clean and effortless. It looked like the job of Mehmoud, the only real competition Morris had in the city.

He knew the moment he saw those boys in the Polaroid that they were done for. What he didn't expect was the expediency with which the job was accomplished.

Why wasn't he asked to do the job? His bet was that they wanted to diversify their risk by using two contract killers instead of one.

And yet his instincts were burning up. Something didn't quite feel right.

He didn't have to wait too long to find the second boy. He was holed up in one of those underground clubs which doubled as a sort of witness protection during the day.

When Morris found the boy, he had the look of a sunken ghost. He was clad in a soiled, white t-shirt that barely covered his heavily tattooed arms, his beach blonde hair uncut and growing wild like vines and his inner forearms showing the painful remnants of needle pricks.

He wouldn't speak to anyone but his lawyer, who presumably had gone missing by now. Morris plugged the kid with a special concoction of drugs that he had devised for those who refused to speak, before asking his pressing question.

"Do you remember this photo?" asked Morris.

At first, the boy refused to look at the picture. Then he glanced over the Polaroid, gazing into the distance and seemingly recollecting some terrible memory that brought him unspeakable anguish. He screamed and clenched his hair in his hands.

It dawned on Morris then that the two boys were captured together before one of them was killed. How the second one escaped, he didn't know yet.

"He was your brother wasn't he?"

The boy didn't answer but continued wailing like a wild dog.

"I need you to tell me where this girl is." His voice was now frantic with desperation.

The boy refused to speak or look at the picture again. Morris had planned to stick a gun to the boy's head. But he knew that it would serve no purpose. The boy was nearly catatonic with grief. Any more and it would merely push him into a state of shock.

To help clear his mind, Morris carried the pitiful boy up the stairs and out of the club.

The concept of fresh air didn't exist in this city anymore, and Morris knew that the noxious air outside was probably worse than the air in the underground club. The sun had abandoned them as well. Now they simply got used to living under a grey dome of pollution.

The boy slumped against a wall and stared at the floor, his mind emptied out by pain.

Somewhere in this boy was the key to finding his sister, thought Morris.

And then a fleeting refraction of sunlight managed to pierce through the polluted clouds, enough to briefly shine light on one of his tattoos, which would have been impossible to find had Morris not been looking. It was buried underneath the mountain of ink that covered every inch of the boy's arms.

Morris swanked the boy's arm, pulling his tee up, and discovered the same words spoken by his previous victim tattooed on his skin.

Morgaua suno levigos en la okcidento

"What does this tattoo mean?"

"What tattoo? I don't know man. Let go!"

"It's Esperanto isn't it? Tomorrow the sun rises in the west?"

"Yeah. Everyone who goes there gets one."

"Goes where?"

"The club."

"Which one?"

"The club up on the west side."

"What's it called?"

"I don't remember man."

From that point on, Morris had but one mission. He switched off his phone, packed enough food and ammunition to last a week, and scoured the west side of the city for every known club.

When he found the Sunrise club, perched atop a hill overlooking the sprawling west coast, the sun was on its way down.

Morris arrived at the front desk where a heavily inked girl with a pony tail and glittery glasses sat, answering an old-fashioned phone. When she finished her call, she turned to Morris.

"Hello. I would like to become a member."

"Memberships are by invitation only. I can check if you have an invitation pending. May I have your name, sir?"

"Its Sandman. Morris Sandman."

"Well it says here that you are already a member of our club. Welcome back Mr Sandman."

Morris tried to hide his shock.

"Can you refresh my memory? How long have I been a member?"

"It says here you've been a member for the past sixteen years. However, I will need to scan your chip before I let you in."

The girl took out a chunky scanner and passed it around his body. When it reached his arms, it beeped loudly. She looked at her scanner and confirmed that he was in fact chipped.

An unsettled Morris walked in through a green door into a dark corridor bathed in neon purple light and crowded with people wearing strange masks engaged in clandestine conversations.

At the end of a dazzling labyrinth of sleazy rooms, Morris found none other than Goldstein. He was seated on a dark blue couch in the middle of a vast room with tiled windows, facing a deep red wall plastered with a diamond cross. He lecherously flashed his diamond grills at Morris, looking every bit the desecrated kingpin that he was.

"Mr Sandman! What a surprise!" he said, his arms and legs sprawled over the couch.

Morris knew what to ask instinctively. He pulled out his gun and pointed it straight at Goldstein's head.

"Where is my sister?"

Goldstein shook his head in disappointment.

"Come on, Morris. Have a drink with me first."

"My sister first."

"You are a valuable soldier, Morris."

"I'm not a soldier. I work for no one."

"That's what you think. The truth is… you are a Sunrise boy. You have belonged to this elite club of mercenaries your whole life."

"That's not true!"

"Try and remember. How much of your life do you even recall?"

Morris found himself scrambling like a cat on a hot stove.

"I thought so. Truth is, we let you go about thinking you were working for yourself. Hey, as long as you were doing the job, why should we intervene right? Lasered off your membership tattoo under some chloroform and put you right back on the street."

Goldstein walked over to one of the tiled windows and stared out into the sunset with Morris's gun still pointing at him.

"We thought the city would swallow you. The city swallows everyone, Morris. Even me. Its foul, incessant, contaminated tendrils gets us all in the end."

"I will only ask once more. Where is my sister?"

"She is dead. Has been for a decade."

"Bullshit!" shouted Morris. "Here!" He thrust the Polaroid in Goldstein's face. "This is recent. It proves that she's alive!"

Goldstein frowned and let out a deep sigh.

"Morris, you are one of my strongest men. Someone wanted to mess with your head and turn you against me. This photo..."

Morris had now cocked his gun.

"I'll give you one last chance."

Goldstein raised his hand in an appeasing way and called out to his lackeys, one of whom came running back with a file. Goldstein handed the file to Morris, wearing the expression of an anxious parent.

"Here you go. The truth. Don't say I didn't warn you."

Morris grabbed the file and began to read. It was full of newspaper clippings and police reports. He pulled out one dated ten years ago.

CITY SHOOK BY GANG MURDERS

Suspected mercenary Morris Sandman on the run after a mass murder, that killed four gang members and three civilians.

Beneath the headline was the photo of the three civilian victims, one of whom was a cheerful, dimpled girl with a set of deep blue eyes.

"She was, as they say, caught in the line of fire. When you found out, unable to bear the guilt, you put one in your own head. But you being the indestructible son of a bitch that you are, survived. But not without damaging your brain and your memories. Beyond that, you may have simply invented some story about her going missing, just to cope with the pain."

Morris stared Goldstein in the face. He didn't need to fight the urge. By the time his brain accepted the truth, his fingers had already found the trigger.

A shot was later heard throughout the club with screams echoing its debauched corners.

Goldstein walked over to the lifeless body lying on the floor, blood trickling out of its severed temple and picked up the blood-soaked Polaroid. He looked at the photo that had dealt the death knell to the broken man lying at his feet.

He handed the photo to one of his soldiers and said "Find out who sent this photo and bring them to me. They cost me a good man."

"Such a shame, boss." replied the minion.

"Poor bastard. You know what's sad? That girl don't even look like his sister."