Ain't No Sunshine

A story about two organized crime detectives who's lives go horribly awry... **For full reading experience, play the song "Ain't no Sunshine" by Bill Withers on repeat while reading**

Ain’t No Sunshine

            I sat there drinking my coffee, black, sitting in the same old bar stool I have been since I started coming to this diner. This was the first time I’ve had a black coffee in seven years. I met my wife in this diner, and she broke the ice by suggesting I wouldn’t always look so menacing if I didn’t always drink my coffee black, and maybe then more girls would come up and talk to me. I felt ordering it again it fulfilled a sort of dark irony that my heart longed for before I did what I was about to do. Next to me was a tiny little jukebox. I never paid much mind to it, not in all seven years I’ve been coming to this diner. I looked at it and just took in the minute details of the tiny jukebox. It was painted a dark blue. I put my sleeve next to it; it was the same color as my uniform, except the paint started chipping. Funny, I can kind of feel my uniform chipping away too.

            ‘Need a refill James?’ asked the waitress as she glided to my left with a fresh pot of coffee.

            ‘No thanks Sherry’ I replied. I was almost done my coffee and I knew that if I didn’t leave after this cup I wouldn’t ever. But it’s not like I have anything else to lose. I suppose I could enjoy one last cup. ‘Actually, maybe I’ll have one more. Just one.’

            ‘Anything for my favorite boy in blue, and this one’s on me. Hey, where’s your partner?’ She asked as the coffee poured into my stained white cup.

            ‘I’m going to get him soon.’ As she finished and walked away I pulled my cup closer and stared in my cup and looked at my dark reflection. ‘I’m coming soon buddy. I’m coming.’ I turned back to the jukebox and inserted a quarter and started flipping through the pages of songs it had to offer.

             I felt my face contorting into a wry smile as I pressed the letter ‘F’ and the number ‘8.’ I finished my coffee, stood up and put on my coat and started to walk out as ‘Ain’t no Sunshine’ came on in the diner. I placed a hundred next to my empty cup. I wasn’t going to need it, and Sherry has always been nice to me.

            I looked through the glass double doors. It was raining out. How cliché. I left and walked out to my car, and opened the door. ‘She’s not coming back’ I told myself as I sat down in the car, which even after two years of quitting, still smelled of cigarettes. ‘She’s gone.’ I looked at the passenger seat where she sat so many times before and I saw my badge. Oh how the times change.

            My partner and I, we were the best at what we did. We were New York City detectives, organized crime division. When we started off, they had us making coffee runs for the ‘real’ and ‘more experienced’ detectives. We kept that up for three years my partner uncovered a little fact about a powerful mob family that allowed us to take down their second in command. I got married to my wife later that year.

            A few years later we took down the head of that same family on charges of attempted murder, murder, racketeering, and the buying and selling of illegal narcotics. Our evidence was able to put him away with four consecutive life sentences, and even his top of the line lawyer couldn’t save him from it. Counting him, that had made our total arrests in that particular family at 38.

            We didn’t know that it had been too long a time since we took down the second in command and the head of the family, and they had replaced him in the month previous to when we took down their boss. We were caught unaware of the storm we brought upon ourselves.

            My second child, Annie, was celebrating her third birthday. This was a week ago today. My other daughter Harper turned five a month before. My partner brought his wife and son. His son was turning seven in a few more months. I had just gotten a call that the cake was ready and my partner and I went to go get it. We had only been gone half an hour. They must have been waiting and watching. They saw us leave.  When we returned, we saw smoke in the air. We saw thick smoke behind the tree line where my house was located. I prayed it wasn’t my house. We came around the tree line. It was. My house was engulfed in flame, my partner called 9-1-1. I jumped out of the car and ran to the house. I went to the backyard. No one was there. I busted down a door, my arm over my mouth. I looked in the kitchen, living room, dining room, up the stairs, bedrooms, no where. My partner came in shortly after me helping me look. We found no one. We ran out. The smoke was getting to us. The firefighters arrived, and we were pulled away. Our family wasn’t in there.

            My partner got a call the next day. The mob took our families. I told him to meet me at the station and we would get packed, more men and we would go in. My partner never met me there. He went early, they said they were going to kill our families. As soon as I heard I jumped in a cruiser and ran down there. I was too late. When I walked in I saw them. My family. My wife. Annie. Harper. My partners’ wife. His son. They were all blindfolded. Hands tied. Flat on their faces, killed execution style. There was a note left, from the family. It was for me, and said my partner was in a warehouse some ways out. I had to come alone if I wanted any chance of saving him. I knew there was no saving him then. He was as good as dead, and they wanted me dead too. I wanted to be dead. I crumpled to me knees and the other cops had just arrived. They ran in clearing the area, picking me up and getting me out of there. I told them about the note. Of course I was put on watch so I didn’t go. It wasn’t hard to slip out. I had to do this. I knew there was no getting out of it.

            I had just arrived at the last red light before the warehouse. I put on my blinker and turned right and pulled all the way down the rows of buildings to the final warehouse, right on the edge of the water. I pulled out my wallet and took out the picture of my family. It was just my wife and daughters. I was supposed to be there for the family photo, but I was stuck at work. This was four months ago and we were taking down member 37. I would give up anything to be in this photo; to have just one more memory of being them. Just one more. I tucked the photo into my shirt. I went to the trunk and pulled out an old Chicago typewriter. I was always a sucker for the classics and the cheesy. I popped a cigarette in my mouth and lit it. ‘These things will kill you’ my wife always used to say. I quit for her. I started my walk to the door. Harper had just told me less then a month ago that she wants to be a teacher when she grew up. Annie still wanted to be a princess. I opened the side door and started down the hallway to the main warehouse area. My wife was starting her own animal hospital. She was a vet. I reached the door, and pulled out my half smoked cigarette. I flicked it to my feet and stamped it out. ‘I’m here buddy’ I whispered.

            I kicked open the door. My partner’s at the other end of the room in a chair. His head is hanging. His hands are tied behind the chair. He’s drenched in blood. His knees were clearly broken. I pulled up my weapon and shouted. I can’t think of what I shouted. It could have been the name of my wife, my daughters, maybe my partner. I could have just been making primal screams of anguish and rage, although that was never really my style. I just shot. I took out two before they even knew I was there. They got wise quick and turned around with their guns pointed at me. They took a few shots; one hit me in the thigh. Another went into my stomach, and another my left shoulder. I fell down to one knee but never stopped firing. I think my count was five now.

I saw a man put a pistol to the back of my partners and execute him. I turned to him, and kept firing. I hit the man six times; I counted each one separately. I found it horribly ironic that there were six bullets, and six lay dead: My partner, his wife, his son, my wife and my two daughters. The man fell back with a thump. I had been shot twice more in the stomach now and all was starting to go black. I held my self up with everything I had and clamped down on that trigger. I reached seven when I had been shot another time in the shoulder, although this one I hardly noticed. I started tottering forward, tried to force myself to lean backward and was shot twice more in the chest and another in my same thigh. I released the trigger and fell back. I stared at the window. I think I was shot a few more times but I couldn’t tell you. I looked up to through the windows of the warehouse. The rain was battering the windows, but through the top of the clouds I saw one tiny crack, and one tiny beam of light coming through the window. That was where I was going. I think I may have even cracked a smile. Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.

Reviews

[char]

This is interesting. I love these kind of stories. You spelled "where" on the third to last sentence wrong, though. And you use "I" too much. I do the same, so I do not really know how to fix it. Are the rest of your stories going to be in a similar genre?

[Vincent Iannaco]

Using "I" has always been a personal struggle of mine to overcome. I'll have to work harder on remembering not too. I am actually a fantasy writer but I do have a few more ideas for stories in this genre.

[char]

It's hard to find a replacement for "I". So just make sure you do not use it excessively. Find alternatives. Or open the sentence using a different word. Words are like puzzles in this case. And it's hard to find interesting stories written in this genre. I love reading and writing thrillers. So I hope you continue.

[Vincent Iannaco]

I probably will, especially if people seem to like it.

[Redzywitch]

It's a good story. I thought some of the sentences were a little wordy. Try trimming some of the unneeded or repeated words out. You switched tense a little and I got confused. Your imagery is good and it flowed well. I'd work on the dialogue a bit. I look forward to more stories like this.

[zach h.]

I don't normally read detective or crime novels, but I liked this story. I thought you did a good job of hooking the reader right from the beginning. There was plenty of detail to see what was going on, but not overly a lot to slow down the pace of the writing. Great use of bringing a song into the mix. The song has a nice bluesy feel to it and the story kind of mimics that. Were you listening to the song as you wrote this? I noticed that another reviewer mentioned the use of 'I'. It is a bit of a struggle to not use 'I' alot when writing in first person. The only way that I know of how to remedy it is by switching up the sentance structure. Instead of starting off with the subject, start with a preposition, a clause, or words that end with '-ly' and -'ing'. Those are just some things I picked up from a composition class. It can really make a difference sometimes. All in all though, I really enjoyed this piece and would love to read more writing with this style. Thanks for posting!

[Vincent Iannaco]

I was listening to the song as I wrote it yes haha thanks for the review! I'll probably write more of this genre since people seem to like it.