Enter the Viper Pit

Well, as promised I'm starting to post my NaNoWriMo 2k5 novel. I'm going to post a chapter a day so it'll take close to a month to put the whole thing up on the interweb. So without any furter ado I present to you...Chapter 1

Chapter 1. Anonymous Posting
The veteran detective couldn’t believe what was shown on the monitor in front of him. Detective Leonard Skinner had a blank, shocked look upon his dark face as the EBay listing in front of him had been something that he hadn’t expected when he opened the envelop that had been sitting on his desk when he came in to turn in some paperwork from a recent homicide case he had been working.

The screen in front of him showed exactly this: One pair of collectors Desert Eagle .50’s with intricate scroll work across the barrels of both. Due to the graininess of the photo you couldn’t make out exactly the work that was done, but to Detective Skinner he knew those guns all too well. He continued to read the description of the well modified firearms. “Not your off the shelf hand cannons, these guns have been modified with gas vents on both pistols, gel cushion grip and have been rebuilt nearly from scratch to reduce weight, yet still balanced enough to reduce kick back. One owner.” The name of the seller was HKBOluvah, whatever that was supposed to mean.

The 38 year old policeman rubbed his eyes tiredly. It had been one hell of a week and now there seemed to be one more thing wrong. “You’ll know when I retire.” The young man had said to him over 3 years ago. “I’ll put down my guns when I’m either dead or out of the game. But until then I’ll do what I do, and you do what you do, and neither of us will have to suffer.” That’s what the Viper had said at their first “meeting”. It wasn’t that it was so much a meeting, but that Skinner had finally caught up to him after many, many attempts.

The Viper was obviously an alias, and it had taken quite a bit of work on the detective’s part, but he had finally managed to find a record of the man’s existence that hadn’t been wiped out. What else had he to do than to hound perps now? After Ellie had left him 12 years ago, he had nothing else to go home to besides an empty house and a growing caseload.

He opened the drawer just to the left of him and takes out a bottle of fine Irish whiskey. The half empty bottle reminded him that he had said he was gonna quit this stuff years ago. But with cases like the ones he ran, it was most likely the only thing keeping him sane. He poured a glass and sipped at it while he stared in disbelief at the computer screen again. “So the bastard’s giving it up eh. At least my caseload will go down after this.” He had been trailing the Viper for years. After he had left a trail of dead gangsters and pimps and the like, the cases started to pile up on Skinner’s desk. Forensics had proven long ago that the same man had killed all of them, and not by the unique rounds that they had found lodged in the victims, but by the casings that lay littered around the crime scenes. All of the casings had the same etchings on them, of a coiled snake baring its fangs.

He’d seen the type before. They were marked bullets, often used by local Yakuza lords to give to their assassins so that the victim’s organization knew who was responsible for the death. But this particular one had been unique. The case had originally been steered towards a new crime syndicate in his beloved New York City, but his own perseverance had proved otherwise, at least to himself. There was something charismatic about the guy, and even though Skinner was a seasoned cop, he just couldn’t help by sympathize with the hitman.

Skinner had often had thoughts of doing what the Viper did after his daughter was kidnapped and never found. He had become frustrated by the inability of the police force to find his daughter or who was responsible for her disappearance. No body had ever been found and it had been considered a closed case. But he was a man of the law and couldn’t perform such vigilante actions, and so here he sat in his old swivel chair, sipping Bushmill’s, staring at a computer screen that told him that there was a hitman that was either dead or retired.

It was after 20 minutes of this line of thoughts that the knock on the door came. He hadn’t expected anyone, most of the people who would require his attention had left hours ago. He checked the silhouette against the frosted glass and lettering of the door and noted a tall slender figure on the other side. “Come in!” he shouted, not really concerned with getting up. He turned off his monitor before he noted the face of the young woman that walked through the door. “You know that you’re in a police station, right?” He asked her. She was almost as ballsy as the Viper had been. “Yeah, once you’ve seen one PD you’ve seen em all.” She retorted, the saddened expression on her face almost changing to a small grin, but not quite. “So, is he….dead?” Skinner asked hesitantly. These two were close, partners in a sense. “Yes, he’s dead.” She managed to whisper out before the sobs racked her lithe body.