Chapter (1) THE BEGINNING

BEING MADE A DETECTIVE IN THE NYPD HAD GIVEN TRENT A PURPOSE IN LIFE. NOW IT WAS ALL GONE. THE BODIES WERE MOUNTING UP, TRENT HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS IN STORE. THE FUTURE WAS COMING TO GET HIM.

The Beginning

The Beginning

The young man stood trembling as Trent pressed the barrel of the gun hard into his forehead forcing his head hard against the wall.

“Tell me.” Trent screamed as he moved his face close to the youth and bellowed into his ear.

“Tell me or I'll kill you right now. Give...me...the names.”Trent spewed saliver, like a snake hissing at it's soon to be victim. The hatred and anger engulfed him. Saliva puddled in his mouth and began its venom-like spew through snarling teeth against the young man’s cheek.

“Please Mr Trent I got family..”

“You tell me now or I’ll kill you first then I’ll be looking for your family.” Trent’s eyes were just inches from the youth’s tear filled eyes.

“You wouldn’t do that Mr Trent.”

“Give me the names if you ever want to see your family again.”

“It was three fingers Wilson.” Trent allowed himself a wry smile.

“That wasn’t so difficult was it Ronnie? What else?” He snarled.

“They was talking about it. I was in the bar.”

“What did they say.”

“They was sayin how they were gonna shoot up a load of coppers.” Trent moved his mouth close to the young man’s ear. He spoke in a calmer voice.

“You keep saying ‘they’, who is ‘they’?”

“ It was three fingers and that Polish kid.. blond hair, err Peter..Peta something or other. He used to hang around the pool hall on fifty third.

“You mean O’Malley’s place ?”

“Yeah that’s it, O’Malleys place.” Trent thought hard for a second.

“Petrush?  Petrush Zachowich?” Trent stared at the youth. “You saying it was Petrush Zachowich?”

“Yeah, Yeah that’s it, Petrush, that’s the kid.” Trent had known Petrush, he’d lived a block away from Trent in the Hook, they’d kicked a ball around the streets together when they were kids. This was news Trent hadn’t expected to hear.

“What else did they say? Who else was there? Did you kill any of my squad?” Trent pushed the gun even harder into the young man’s skin.

“I only met those two Mr Trent, I didn’t meet any of the others ‘till I picked them up. I didn’t even have a gun I stayed in the alley with the car. I was just the driver Mr Trent. I swear, please Mr Trent I told you all I got, I swear to God.” The youth's voice was filled with terror, his eyes were watery. Blood and snot dribbled from his broken nose where Trent had smashed the gun into it earlier. Trent moved back, his arm still held out in front of him still pressing the snub nose in to the forehead. Trent hadn't noticed the wet patch on the front of the guy's pants where he'd pissed himself.

“They had my little brother Mr Trent, what was I supposed to do? They were going to kill him.” The young man was pleading for his life.

“Well if all you got is two names I got no further use for you.” Trent took a step backwards and the barrel of the snub nose released the skin on the man's forehead leaving a small circular impression. Without the pressure of the gun forcing his head back into the wall, the youth's head moved forward. His eyes were focused on the end of the gun barrel,they blinked from the bright flash but never reopened and while the explosion from the chamber rattled around the alley it never reached the ears of the dead man. The bullet had made a small black hole almost dead centre of the circular impression on his forehead. As the bullet passed through the skull, the back of the youth’s head smashed open. His knees buckled and his body slumped down onto the floor. His brains had redecorated the wall behind him and were dribbling down the rough bricks.

Trent pulled back the side of his jacket and slid the 38 back into its holster beneath his arm. A casual glance back towards the main street was the only sign that Trent showed he was at all concerned about what he'd done. He looked down at the dead man as he fastened the middle button on the front of his jacket. Turning to walk away Trent snarled.

“See you in hell.”

As he made his way out of the alley and back to civilisation Trent hadn’t seen the dark figure step out of the shadows at the far end of the alley. The stranger moved silently towards the blooded body on the floor.

“That may very well be true Mr Trent.” Trent had not heard the comment.

“This one is young, pity the brain’s gone but I can’t let the rest go to waste.” The shadow took a long, razor sharp, knife from beneath his cloak and stooped over the body.

Trent hadn't noticed or heard anything, his only thought was to get across the street to the bar. He had a box full of bullets, two more names and a raging thirst. As the first of the many glasses of Bourbon Trent would consume that night, flowed down his throat, he sat quietly in the corner booth and let his mind started to wander.

 

New York had been his father's dream but Brooklyn was Trents' reality. A prostitute on every corner, a hoodlum in every shadow and a murder on every street, but for Carlton Trent this was his home. As a child he'd played in the crowded streets with dozens of other raggedy children. He'd grown up near the Hook a notoriously run down region by the docks but he loved it. He had lived with his parents and his sister in an old three-room apartment in a tattered tenement building but his mother had made it a safe home for the family. While they were growing up his mother had stayed at home to look after them. She had been a hard working woman who knew how to cook and clean. From time to time she was able to earn a little extra money doing laundry and cleaning for a rundown hotel on the same block. Trent's father had been a third generation German migrant labourer from the west, lured to the city by the promise of a better life. He had little education and no permanent job but he wasn't afraid of hard work. Whenever he could he worked for the local market traders as a carrier and sometimes on the docks porting fish. At the outbreak of World War 1 Trents’ father had joined the army. Trent remembered the day his father came home and announced to his mother that he had joined up, and he watched his mother's tears rolling down her pale cheeks as she stood silent by the kitchen table. This scenario would play out each time his father came home on leave, and then the day came when his father left for the war. Trents' mother had pleaded with his father not to go and she'd cried for more than an hour when he left. Carlton decided he had to quit school and get some work to help his mother. He was twelve years old, he never saw his father again.

While Carlton could barely read or write he was a willing, honest and able young lad. Most of the traders in the area knew him and so he managed to find frequent work, carrying boxes of vegetables around the markets or fish from the docks. He helped to move furniture in and out of the tenements and often earned two or three dollars a week. This was enough to help his mother and keep the family together.

His father was killed somewhere in Europe in 1916. The telegram simply said killed in action. Carltons' mother received a small war pension, but with rents increasing it was barely enough to provide food for the three of them. The money Carlton earned was vital to the family.

Brooklyn was by now overflowing with immigrants. Thousands of African Americans and Portuguese from the south flooded into the dockland region known as Red Hook to escape poverty and prejudice. A dozen languages were being spoken and many ethnic communities became isolated and fearful. Italian and Sicilian immigrants started to dominate large areas of New York, Chicago and many other growing cities across America. Despite it all Carlton and his sister had grown up strong, managing to let the world pass by around them.

Nobody knew Carlton Trent, but everyone in the neighbourhood knew CT. Somehow Carlton had managed to stay out of trouble, more importantly he'd learned to read, and he'd acquired an assorted collection of books, mostly  salvaged from homes left behind as people moved in and out of the blocks. Trent had also managed to stay away from the street gangs that were now present in all the districts. Crime had become organised and one of the most notorious of these gangs would also become the most infamous.

The Brooklyn 42 gang, a bunch of crime hardened and vicious teenagers, both boys and girls. This gang terrorised the lower end of Brooklyn and the Red Hook. Almost all of the gang members would be dead before they reached the age of twenty. A few of those who survived would go on to become well known New York and Chicago crime bosses, and a few even survived into the late 80's and early 90's. In 1920 the eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited the sale, manufacture and distribution of alcohol. This act provided vast opportunities for the lawless, right across America. Localised gangs would soon become rich and powerful producing and supplying illicit liquor across the states.

His world was changing and Carlton joined the Brooklyn police department, he was just18 years old. For a time things seemed to be getting better for Carlton and his family. Unfortunately his mother was taken ill and died from consumption just two years later. After the funeral Carltons' younger sister left their home and went to live in Illinois with their Aunt. He was now alone. The home he'd known all his life was emptied and re let to another family. There weren't many items worth keeping from their home so Carlton found a small one room flat and moved in with his books. As the years progressed so did Trents' career in the police force, but that was all going to change. 1933 was to become a year of pain and disillusionment for the 31-year-old Trent. He was by now, a police detective sergeant with a reasonable salary and he was living in a nice two-room apartment several blocks away from Red Hook.

His decline to his present state had started when an informant gave him information about a new bootleg whiskey store in the Hook. This wasn't unusual and Trent had organised many similar raids, it was a never-ending fight and as the police destroyed one liquor-store the criminals would open two more. Illegal alcohol was pouring across the border from Canada into New York State faster than the authorities could find and destroy it. To Trent this raid appeared to be no different from a dozen other raids he'd organised on similar warehouses in the Hook. He hadn't known it, but he was walking into an elaborate trap. His actions had been biting deep into the profits of one of the crime bosses Trent had been pursuing for several months, and he was getting too close for comfort. The gun battle had been brief and violent. At the end six hoodlums lay dead, but so did four police officers with a half dozen others wounded. Amongst those officers killed had been his two best friends, he was devastated. There had been the usual brief, inept investigation that found nothing, and, although he had been cleared of any blame, Trent wasn't the same man that he'd been before that fateful night.

 Unable to accept the futility of his job and the corruption that was spreading like a virus throughout the force, just two months later he resigned. Trent had his own ideas about what justice was supposed to mean and so he'd become a private investigator with his own agenda and commenced his new career along a path that had brought him to his present situation.

A month earlier in December 1933 the Alcohol prohibition law had been repealed. To Trent it made the last thirteen years of his life a terrible waste of time, so many deaths, so many fine police officers, his own colleagues included, lying in cemeteries. Leaving the force hadn't been an easy decision for him but Trent had some scores to settle and he was going to settle them, his way.

It took him less than a week to vacate his apartment and set up his little office. He knew he had to become inconspicuous, just another lost soul in mayhem of Brooklyn. The office was set up and to anyone from the outside world it appeared as legitimate as it could be, but Trent needed this 'front' so that his real work could begin. He had no intention of starting a new legitimate career straight away. No, Trent had other plans.

He'd seen the corruption in the police force and judiciary system. He knew the law would do nothing to find those responsible for killing his friends, too much money had exchanged hands across the legal system. Trent had changed, he had become isolated and bitter with a burning vengeance in his heart. This time Trent was going to make amends in his own style.

It didn't take Trent long to find the original informant who'd helped to arrange the trap which led to the deaths of his friends. Ronny the runner hadn't expected to see Trent standing in the hallway when he'd opened the door that cold February night. Less than an hour later Ronny had found himself pressed against a cold brick wall in a dark alleyway staring down the barrel of Trent's Snub nose Colt .38.

After a little physical persuasion Ronny had given Trent two more names, and without a sign of emotion Trent had sanctioned him right there in the alley, no trial, no jury, just a final judgement.

The owners of the two names Ronny had given Trent fared no better. Three fingers was a well know villain and it wasn’t hard for Trent to find him. Three Fingers had apparently fallen off a ten-story building. Trent had found Petrush and after getting nothing from him he shackled him to the cables inside an elevator shaft. Bound and gagged the villain was left awaiting a certain and horrifying death. As Trent had walked out of the foyer he'd glanced back to watch the shapely blond as she pressed the button on the elevator. Trent gave a slightly satisfied smile as he walked out into the street. The body would be discovered a week later when the proprietor called in the lift engineers to investigate the stench coming from the elevator shaft.

 Over the next year Trent became more reclusive and had discovered a serious liking for Bourbon. He continued to search out villains and one by one he had dispatch his own permanent form of justice. He'd found, interrogated, judged and sentenced six more thugs before the trail had gone cold. Despite all his efforts Trent never found the name of the gang leader who'd organised the trap that killed his friends. During his vendetta his police training had given him an edge but even so he'd been lucky not to be caught.

The truth was that many of his colleagues in the police force hadn't really wanted to stop the murders, as far they were concerned the vigilante was doing them a service.

During this time Trent had taken to drinking more and more in ssearch of solace. His reputation as a good cop was now gone and he'd become somewhat of a drunken joke amongst many of his former colleagues on the force. Oh he'd worked on a few divorce cases and found several stray dogs but he had very little income and even less self-esteem. He drank far too much and ate far too little. He washed when Maggie, his cleaning lady, told him to wash, and ate when she brought him food, yet somehow he'd managed to survive on his savings, a small medical discharge pension, and the few bits of work that came his way. He was 35 years old, he was still a good-looking guy when he washed and shaved, tall and strong with a rugged face and a good crop of dark hair. When Trent wasn't working, which was often, he would be either drinking or sleeping one off. He’d never had much of a social life but now it was almost nonexistent. Apart from seeing Maggie a couple of times a week and the sales assistant at the liquor store, he was alone. He'd long since lost touch with his sister who'd married and disappeared into the vastness of the central states. Trent was living alone in a grubby little two-room office in a rundown tenement in the Hook. His possessions consisted of an old worn couch, a few bits of old furniture and a small table he used as a desk. A small washroom came off one end of the room.

Maggie was 26 years old. She was slim with a cheap perm and even cheaper clothes. She was pretty, not a stunner, but pretty none the less. Maggie also had hidden talents, she'd been born with a quick mind and a rare intelligence which had made her astute and wise. Despite the poverty of her family Maggie had been able to stay at school until she was fourteen years old and had learned to read and write very well. She'd hated her home life, it had been turbulent and often violent, to escape she'd spent many hours in small bookshops fulfilling her curious mind. She'd worked from time to time as a cleaner but the life wasn't what she'd wanted and to escape she’d married young to the first half-decent man who asked her.

 Their married life had been uneventful thus far and Maggie was finding it disappointing and dull. Although she found herself working a few hours a week for a drunken P.I. she relished the days she came to clean for Trent. Her husband was a conscientious young man who worked hard to provide a home for his young wife. He worked for an uptown store in the men's haberdashery department selling hats. Although he didn't earn much, at least his job was safe because, as he often told her, everyone wears a hat. The young couple rented a small, three-room apartment just a couple of blocks down from Trents' office, it wasn't much but Maggie had done her best to make it into a home for them both. Although she didn't often show it, Maggie was a bright, intelligent young woman with a naturally inquisitive nature. She liked Trent, that's why she came in three times a week to clean and tidy his office a little, and to make sure Trent was still alive. Sometimes she'd bring him a plated meal, nothing fancy, mostly pasta, or a chunk of cake. Trent had a thing about cake, he wasn't one for fancy Italian cream pastries, Trent liked the solid variety from his favourite German bakery. He liked Maggie's cooking too, and always accepted gratefully the offerings she brought for him. He didn't usually wait and attacked the plates of delicious food as soon as Maggie set them in front of him. He paid her very little, and only then when he remembered, but Maggie wasn't just a loyal cleaner. She'd realised long ago that she had a soft spot in her heart for Trent, even though she often had to ask for her money and she hadn't been paid in the last month.

Reviews

[Kathy Van Kurin]

"Chapter (1) THE BEGINNING"
MAD ENGLISHMAN"
This was an exciting story. I was impressed by the process of your main character Trent's life. He overcame difficulties of youth and watched as his father was removed from his life as well as his mother.Trent appears to be a hard working fellow. You have provided a good supporting group of characters; I like the dynamics of his relationship with his cleaning lady, "young 26 year old Maggie. She sounds like a good person.I found this to be a fast paced and good story.
Blessings,
Kathy

[MAD ENGLISHMAN]

Thank you once again for reading my work. I've been working on this story for about 3 years. I still have a way to go. I hope you enjoy more of it.

[Kathy Van Kurin]

I am looking forward to it. You write well!