A Soupçon of Psycho by Thomas Trang
from Escalating Chaos: a Pistol Jim Press series
A Soupçon of Psycho by Thomas Trang
A cold December night in Berlin, a city draped in the alpine-flushed whimsy of Christmas markets with their webs of twinkling lights and wooden arts and crafts stalls. Mulled wine. Baritone voices singing carols.
Ranglin jolts awake in an anonymous hotel room with rust-colored splotches all over his body. Someone’s dressed his cuts with iodine. Probably the guy sitting across from him.
“Quite a stunt you pulled at the Westin earlier,” he says. “Even made the news. Thankfully someone had the foresight to disable the security cameras.”
The Micro SD card appears in his hand like a magic trick. “Turns out you weren’t the only one after this. Those guys in the lobby, I don’t think they like you very much. But shit, they’d have to get in line behind the Israelis and the Yakuza.”
Ranglin sits upright—winces in pain.
Who is this guy? Tall and dark-suited with the air of a Caucasian salaryman. Middle management but his eyes flicker with a soupçon of psycho. A man who knows secrets. Where all the bodies are buried. A man who helped put them there.
“Don’t worry. You’re with friends.” He gives him a name.
Ranglin knows it. A mining corporation. Uranium, precious metals. Rumors of legal negligence and environmental catastrophe swept under the rug.
“I’m what you might call human resources. Recruitment and project management. I find people like you with certain aptitudes. Strictly off the books. All for a very handsome figure.”
Ranglin asks him how handsome.
“Sexy as it comes. Anything less, I’m wasting my time and yours. Option number two, I get on the phone with Interpol and tell them all about Seville in April. A lot of people would like to know where those necklaces are. Maybe I tell them how your wet work restructured Silicon Valley leadership and brought down three African governments over the last decade and change.”
Blackmail?
He shoots him a sharp grin. “Oh, it’s much better than that. Let me ask you something, Mr. Ranglin. Do you know the difference between an atheist and an agnostic? The atheist does not believe. He rejects the very idea of God. Impossible. The agnostic, well, it’s not quite the same thing. He also denies there is a God, but that’s only because he’s never seen anything to convince him otherwise. He only believes what he’s seen for himself. The distinction is very subtle but important.”
“Are you about to prove the existence of God?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Tis the season of miracles.” A pause—then laughter. “No, nothing as dramatic as that I’m afraid. But I can promise you untold financial security and a complete realignment of the way you see the universe. A peek behind the curtain.”
“I’ve seen behind the curtain.”
“Not this one.”
“That’s a bold claim.”
“I’m a bold man, Mr. Ranglin.”
“Okay. Let’s hear it then.”
That crazy glimmer in his eyes is back. “What do you know about time travel?”
Bio
Thomas Trang is an author currently based in the UK. He was born in London but has lived all over the map: Sydney, Paris, Singapore, New York, and Manchester. He is the author of the crime novel DARK NEON & DIRT, and his stories have appeared in FutureQuake, Rock & A Hard Place, Full House Literary, Punk Noir, and Shotgun Honey.
Twitter - heyThomasTrang
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Thanks. I … didn’t think about a lot of this stuff on a deliberate level. Except for “crazy glimmer” linking back to the title, and the title just popped up in my head because of the alliteration.
The language is just how I write. The unusual verbs etc just come from reading a lot. The way I describe it (and I’ve used a version of this metaphor in a story before) is that a burglar would probably be a great interior decorator by virtue of experience.
Nailed it! That ending....