Father's Day

Here's a piece of hardboiled flash fiction for you guys out there.  It's called "Father's Day," and was inspired by a fanfic written by my good friend, Mindy Owen. 

I jerked the chain on the forty-watt bulb above my head.  Pale yellow light blasted across the mossy stone of the brewery's basement, illuminating kegs of beer, bottles of wine, and a man, a pitiful-looking thing, bound to a wooden chair by chains.  He was in his mid-forties, owned a less-than-average build, and wore horn-rimmed glasses.  His hair was a raven black, and as his blue eyes opened and fought for focus in the damp surroundings, I stepped forward and hit him with everything I had. 

His head jerked to the right and blood spewed from his gums.  My left hand found a handful of that hair, ripped his head upright, and socked the poor sap again.  Some of those black locks came away in my hand as his head snapped backward and his nose answered my fist with a delicious crack. 

"What...?" he mumbled as he regained consciousness.  "Who...are you...?"

"You'll want to save that for the end," I told him.  "But first things first.  I need your name."

"Why...?" he blubbered.

"Checks and balances," I answered.  "Give me your last name followed by your first."

"Dunwin...Miles," the man in the chair croaked.  "Are these...chains?"

"Thank you, Miles," I said, removing my phone from my coat pocket.  "And yes, they are."  I dialed a number and waited until the third ring before I hung up.

A moment later my phone buzzed.  I answered it on the first ring.  "Who is this?" I asked.

"Do you have him?" the male voice on the other end responded.

"He's here," I replied.

"I need his pin number."

I snapped Miles's head upright.  His blues were fighting to focus on my blues, and he was losing the battle.

"Pin number, Miles," I said.  "And be quick about it."

"Why...?" Miles muttered.

"Because I'll bury you in one of these kegs and kick your corpse into the Thames if you don't."  Miles hesitated.  "My time is valuable, Miles, and I can't spend all of it dealing with you."  I brought myself nose-to-nose with the man in the chair.  "Do you understand, Miles?"  He nodded like a disappointed child.  "Then the pin number, please."

"Two, five, eight, nine."  Miles hacked up blood and spat some on the concrete floor.  I observed the sorry state he was in and almost wanted to apologize for not treating him better.

I turned my attention back to the man on my phone and passed Miles's pin number along.  The sound of fingertips stroking computer keys flowed to my ear shortly thereafter.

"Mister Dunwin has half a million quid in checking," the man on the other end said.  "He's also got three hundred thousand in savings."

"Take it all," I told him.  "Leave him penniless."  Miles's head turned toward me, his eyes wide as realization set in. 

"You're the boss, doll face," my man inside the phone replied, and with a few more keystrokes, transferred Miles Dunwin's funds into my account.  "It's done."

I disconnected and returned the phone to my coat pocket.  When I pulled that hand out again, it had a .38 Special inside of it.  Miles recoiled in horror at the sight of the neat little revolver, but the chains kept him from squirming around too much.

"Miles," I said, "I want you to think back to 1989."  I leaned forward and matched his stare with one of my own.  "Do you remember a woman named Deidre Langford?"

The man in the chair was silent for a few moments.  His head rocked back as his cerebellum recalled events from over twenty years ago.  Then he spoke.

"Deidre," he rasped.  "She was...my fiancé."

"A lovely fiancé, too." I leaned in closer.  "Would you care to know how she died?"

"Deidre's...dead?"

"I'm afraid so, Miles."  A scowl took form on my face and blasted into Miles's eyes.  "She died a junkie, strung out on heroin, trying to support her only daughter by selling her body on the back streets of London."

"No...not Deidre..."

"Yes, Miles."  I leaned in much closer.  "And would you like to know why Deidre's life turned so sour?"  Miles nodded.  "Because you abandoned her.  You used her for sex and for money, but never for love!  You went back to America, to your wife and child, and left Deidre penniless and alone!"

"Deidre's...daughter..."

"That's right, Deidre had a daughter.  She was your daughter too, Miles."  I cocked the hammer on the .38 and held the steel death machine in both of my hands.  "And would you like to know where she is?"  Miles nodded.  "She's standing before you."

The blue in Miles's eyes faded somewhat and became darker, duskier.  He appeared disappointed that things had come to this.

"Annabelle...?" Miles questioned softly, and damn if I didn't hesitate.  Nobody had called me by my full name for over a decade, but I had to do this, for Mum and for every woman Miles Dunwin had deceived, robbed, and left to die in cities all over the world.

"Yes, Miles," I said.  "You're my father."

"Annabelle," he whispered, gathering his strength, "you don't--"

"And do you know what today is?" I interrupted.

Miles froze in place for a brief moment.  He stared straight ahead, concentrating, until he closed his eyes and bitter tears streamed down his face.

"Father's Day," he sobbed.  "It's Father's Day...!"

There was a sharp clap of thunder against the stone walls.  My father's head lay crooked on his shoulders, a bloody hole in his forehead, as smoke twirled from the barrel of the revolver and into the ceiling.  I bit back the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes as I tucked the .38 inside my coat, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked up the basement steps and into the drizzle of a chilly London night.