Midnight

The city of Chicago, USA , time 11-00 PM It is the month of June and extremely hot. A poor man named Antonio is all alone. His wife had died of serious illness. Antonio worked as a janitor at Clark Road Chicago. It is 11 O’clock night. All shops are closed. Antonio is busy in his work. Clark Road is dark and deserted. Dogs are barking. Just then a car came and stopped and he was observing everything from a distance.

Two persons come out of the car, talk about something and then sit inside the car and drive away. Antonio could not make out anything. At 11-30 the same car comes and stops but this time three persons come out of the car, two persons were fighting with the third person. One person closed the mouth of the second person and the third person stabbed him and he died instantaneously. Two persons left the place in their car. Antonio got scared and could not shout due to fear. He hid himself in one corner. He sat there for about half an hour. After half an hour he ran and he stopped only after reaching his house. His whole body was wet with sweat. He has a friend named Anthony.

He is a private detective. There was a booth near Antonio’s house from where he contacted Anthony and narrated the full story over phone. Anthony told him that he would reach there in an hour. Antonio returned back to his house. Anthony reached that place in an hour along with police and investigation started. The dead man’s pocket was searched but nothing was found. The fingerprints were taken and body was sent for post mortem. His photo was taken. The next day at 8 O’clock morning, his picture appeared in The Chicago News so that he could be identified but it did not happen. Anthony was waiting for the post mortem report. It came at 5 O’clock in the evening but there was no clue or evidence.

Anthony then reached the scene of the incident and investigated, but nothing was found. He met Antonio and asked some questions, Anthony got the clue that the car had come back in half an hour, so he was staying somewhere nearby. He inquired the nearby people and knew that he was staying there. He was alone, his name was Ibrahim, but nobody knew what he used to do. Two years ago his wife had died in a train accident Anthony went to Ibrahim's house and investigated there. He found enough drug and money. Was he a drug dealer or belonged to a mafia gang? He was confronted with many questions which came to his mind. In order to get an answer for his questions, he found a telephone diary during investigation inside the room which he kept with him,

He goes to the telephone exchange and checks all the names in the telephone directory, in which the name of the drug mafia was found and his name was Jojo, After that he makes a plan with the police to reach the mafia. He makes contact with the mafia and talks about buying some drugs. The next day, the mafia calls them to a certain place. Anthony went to meet him the next day and the police also reached there after some time when both Anthony and Jojo were talking, the police caught him and took him for interrogation to the police station, Jojo told, "Ibrahim took our materials and demanded money. So we killed him". After knowing everything, Jojo was sent to jail, Anthony was happy that another case of murder was resolved and the drug mafia gang was in the prison, Anthony thanked Antonio because it was not possible to resolve this matter without his help.

Original Story:- A Short Story In Hindi By Ankurpaliwal30