Great Kills

by Kevin Fox

  “What if I don’t let it go?” I asked Demetrius, purposefully letting the Fed hear me.

  “Detective. You’re Collins, right?” the Fed interrupted, taking the bait.

  “Last I checked. Who are you?”

  “Special Agent in Charge. I wanted to—”

  “Special Agent in Charge who? Is this like a knock-knock joke?” I asked, cutting off that bullshit. That’s one of my rules. If you can’t tell me your name, you’re automatically full of shit.

  “Stevenson,” he answered reluctantly. “I wanted to thank you for your help. I understand you tried to assist last night but were unable to get on board, so you reported the boat stranded. Too bad a looter attacked you.”

  “I was on board last night. She wasn’t a looter,” I clarified. Stevenson forced a grin, speaking more slowly, as if he thought I really didn’t get it.

  “I don’t think you understand. You never made it onto the Chistota. You don’t want to be a witness to this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Witnesses to Russian mob business have statistically shorter lives. You never made it onto the ship.”

  “That’s the official story?” I asked, wondering if Special Agent in Charge Stevenson realized I had ODD and that because he told me I couldn’t investigate he only insured that I now had to investigate this whole sham.

  “Already filed. I read your preliminary report.”

  “The one I haven’t made yet?”

  “Yeah. That one. By the time we got here locals had looted the ship. According to your report, it must have been one of them that you ran into…”

  “She wasn’t a looter. Neither were the two girls who came off that ship. I saw them. Two girls, half-naked, scared to death—”

  “Sounds like most of the girls from this neighborhood,” Stevenson said with a smirk. I should’ve hit him then, defending my hometown, but I’d been working on being a grown-up and using my words instead. I didn’t want to ruin my ‘haven’t-hit-a-fucking-moron-in-a-month’ streak.

  “They barely spoke English.”

  “Again, sounds like the locals. What do you call them now? Is it still guidettes? Cugettes? Glitta-chicks?”

  I said nothing, but took half a step forward, ready to break my streak. Demetrius stopped me with a firm hand on my shoulder. It was probably for the best. Getting stabbed and arrested within twenty-four hours might’ve been a black mark on my permanent record.

  “Are any of your people out looking for these ‘looters’?” I finally asked, setting him up.

  “What looters?”

  “That’s what I thought. What about the missing heroin?”

  “What heroin?”

  “Got it. So, if I find either one, I get to take credit for breaking the case?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Glad we have an understanding,” I told him, and turned away, starting back toward my car. I hadn’t gotten three steps when one of the young muscle-bound volunteers called out from a pile of shingles that had once been the roof of The Annex.

  “Lieutenant! We got something here—”

  Demetrius heard the tension in the guy’s voice, the same way that I did. We both knew what he’d found even before we saw what it was and raced to the top of the debris pile to confirm it.

  I saw the pale patch of flesh that poked out from beneath a dresser, puckered and bloated from the salt water as I reached the top. Then the dark hair came into focus and I could see the distended and hirsute stomach of the Fat Man I’d met last night. A heavy gelatinous leg was draped over his stomach – a leg that was not his own and still wore the heels she’d been wearing when I saw her last. Medusa.

  I strode toward the Fat Man before Stevenson could stop me and knelt down, looking behind the dead man’s ear. The hole that was there was dried and crusty and so dark red that it looked black. I was sure Medusa had a matching one. This shooter was a professional. I’m sure if he were still with us, the Fat Man would have appreciated his killer’s work.

  “Son of a bitch…” I muttered. “They’re getting rid of the witnesses.”

  “What are you talking about?” Asked Stevenson, just catching up.

  “The Fat Man and Medusa here. They made the second call. The one that brought me here. They saw something they shouldn’t have.”

  “Maybe they drowned,” Stevenson shrugged, still not getting it.

  “Flip him and show the boy genius, would you?” I asked an officer who had already started to lift the dresser off the bodies. He nodded unhappily, but squatted down and pushed the fat man over onto his side to reveal the hole just behind his left ear.

  It was precisely placed, the kind of hole a twenty-two caliber leaves. At close range, a twenty-two breaks through the skull but isn’t powerful enough to come back out. It just bounces around inside, tearing up brain matter, making it a perfect executioner’s weapon.

  “…You think Markov did this?” asked Demetrius, putting it all together.

  “Could be. It’s professional. Clean shots.” I told him, turning to look at Stevenson, who had gone pale and looked confused. “I’m going to ask you once, Stevenson, and I want no bullshit. Lives depend on your answer, got me?”

  “Screw you,” he said, trying to recover his composure. I asked anyway, knowing his face would give me his answer.

  “Was Markov, the owner, alerted to what you found on that yacht? Did you tell him how many bodies were on board?”

  “It’s his yacht,” Stevenson answered, trying to avoid the question but answering it anyway.

  “You fucking moron. You told him there were witnesses still alive.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “If he can count how many dead bodies there are, he’s already got people looking for the survivors.” I told the idiot as I turned to Demetrius. “What’s the nearest storm shelter?”

  “Tottenville High School, why?”

  “Because I didn’t come out in the rain and save two girls only to have this numbnuts get them killed.”

  “Why do you suddenly care so much?” Demetrius asked.

  I didn’t have any good answer. Dariya had stabbed me. Her sister left me bleeding in the street, and it was still raining. I had no reason to care. I could be home and warm…

  But I did care. And I was curious – I’d been called to this boat for a reason and I wanted to know what it was. Or maybe I cared because I understood what it was like to be wandering and alone in the rain, and that after what they went through, those girls’ dreams would wake them up to the sound of their own screams for the rest of their lives.

  If they lived long enough to dream.

  “Kill, stay away from this one. The Feds have ordered us off and I’m ordering you off. You’re on sick leave, as of right now,” Demetrius told me as I started back toward my car.

  “Got it. Call it PTSD – that way anything I do can be connected to my mental health later. Thanks, for the excuse,” I told him and turned away just as he flipped me off.

  “I warned you,” he added, knowing that I would ignore him. It was just my personality. Couldn’t be helped. Maybe that’s why I felt a connection with those girls, especially the one that stabbed me. I liked the way she dug in and fought against it all, saying screw the world with every fiber of her being...

  …Or maybe the connection went further. The reflection in the stainless-steel refrigerator and of the man behind the wires – the one who’d somehow stepped out of my night terrors and into the storm – came back to me, as did the familiar hazel eyes of Rigan. They made me wonder what connections my brain was making that my memory was keeping from me. I was called here last night. Requested. Fuck me… maybe Burke was right, maybe there are no coincidences.

  It didn’t matter. There were questions that needed answers and those answers might help find two girls who were lost in a storm, half-naked and wandering around in a foreign country. Statistics said if I didn’t find them in the next twenty-four hours
they’d be dead or sold off into the sex trade.

  Have I mentioned that I hate fucking statistics almost as much as the rain?

  Chapter Eight

  I followed Hylan Boulevard past Wolfe’s Pond Park, headed for Tottenville High School. I was in the middle of a six-lane boulevard without a building in sight, looking at downed trees and storm damage as steroid junkies and their usually well-coiffed counterparts cleaned up the mess, looking like the Walking Dead version of themselves. They were dirty, unshowered, with day-old make up streaking their faces and day-old hair product congealed in their hair. Still, they attacked the detritus of the storm with manicured-but-damaged nails and bulging biceps streaked with dirt. Only in Stankin’ Island. It was clear that the balance of base brutality and civilization hadn’t really been changed by Sandy – the storm had just washed away the trappings and camouflage to show that the essence of both would remain no matter what.

  I had once left Staten Island to go to college, but even there the island never left me, since everyone could hear the forgotten borough in my accent and attitude. I didn’t mind that most people dumped on the island – everyone did. The granite that made up Todt Hill was a barrier between the East and Hudson rivers and the ocean, so we caught all the garbage and debris flowing out. So I guess it was no coincidence that the island was also once home to the world’s largest garbage dump, collecting trash from points all over the city. But it all just made the island stronger. As my grandfather used to say, excrement and adversity make the best fertilizer.

  I think that was part of the reason I hated Agent Stevenson. He had no right to talk shit about Staten Islanders. Its people were like weeds: impossible to get rid of, resilient, and adaptable and when you tried to kill them, they just came back stronger. In spite of its notoriously blue-collar reputation, Staten Island’s produced world class lawyers, brain surgeons, NASA scientists, film producers, musicians with platinum records – and of course people who ended up on death row or as porn stars, but that’s my point. Screw Stevenson.

  I made the left onto Luten Avenue, seeing the chaos outside Tottenville High School almost as soon as I did. Thankfully the school was not actually in Tottenville, which had been hit hard by the storm, but was in Huguenot – obeying a logic that only a native Staten Islander could explain.

  I abandoned my car halfway up Luten and walked up to the gate in the fence that was closest to the gyms, snaking past volunteers bringing in pizzas from Goodfella’s for the newly displaced and homeless that were now living in the school. We were all tracking in water and mud, but the mess wasn’t the real issue. The real issue was the palpable anger that the people were venting at the Federal government and the Red Cross, imagining them to be these all-powerful organizations that failed to swoop in and save them. I’m not sure they realized that both were groups whose primary function was to write checks to empower local organizations, and that they were only as good as the locals they supported.

  The second big problem also emanated from the people. They smelled.

  It wasn’t their fault, but the humidity and the humanity packed into the gym combined to create an odor that should’ve been arrested and charged with assault. The Axe Body Spray, Aussie hair products and other scents used to hide their natural fragrance were apparently left behind in flooded houses. I needed to get what I came for and get out quickly, so I looked for somebody with a clipboard who was yelling about something besides FEMA or the Red Cross. I found him in the middle of the hardwood in a wife-beater t-shirt and veins popping – a side effect of steroid addiction.

  “One slice apiece until I say so, you mooks.” He told his audience, who pushed toward folding tables that were stacked with fresh pizza.

  “Anthony,” I called out. He turned, along with about fifteen other guys. I had gotten lucky, but I’d taken the odds. The name ‘Anthony’ had about five to one odds of being right in this neighborhood, followed in some order by Jimmy, Vito, Sal, Frank, Nicholas, Michael, John, Victor, and Carmine. The derivatives of Tony, Ant, Tone, Nick, Nicky, Mikey, John-John, Vic, Sally-boy and the rest made it easy since all of them answered to their full name in case it was somebody’s father calling them.

  “Who’s askin’?” This particular Anthony asked, one foot planted, ready for fight or flight.

  “Detective Collins,” I told him, flashing my shield. I saw him relax once he knew I wasn’t out to kill him or settle a score, but his eyes narrowed as I got closer and he had to make an attempt to use the one atrophied muscle between his ears. You could almost see it flexing at the temples.

  “Wait. You’re Kill Collins, right? I heard a you. You used to go here.”

  “So did most of the people here right now,” I said, nodding to the people in the gym. A decent majority of Staten Islanders never leave the neighborhoods they grew up in and a lot of the faces in here looked familiar – or at least bore a family resemblance to people that I knew.

  “I think you was my brother’s year – Vic DiBenedetto,” he said. This was kind of a Staten Island ‘bona fides’ test. We’d ask each other who we knew until we could find out our degree of separation. The closer we were to the same people, the greater level of trust there would be, even if we were on opposite sides of the law. Fortunately, I knew Anthony’s brother Vic, although he was one of the biggest pricks you’d ever want to meet.

  “Yeah. I knew Vic. Changed the game ‘kill the man with the ball’ to ‘Kill Collins’. Thought he was a comedian.”

  “Yeah. That’s him,” Anthony said with a smile, proud of his asshole brother.

  “Hope he said nice things about me.”

  “He said you always fought dirty.”

  “I guess that’s nice, coming from the guy who was on top of the pile on. Where is he now? Elmira Correctional?”

  “You’re a funny guy,” Anthony snapped, his face clouding over. “He’s on parole with one a them ankle bracelets. Can’t even go to Jersey to the strip clubs, and my cousins Dom and Vin are upstate ‘cause a you people.”

  “My apologies. Sorry you’re related to guys stupid enough to get caught.”

  Luckily, Anthony laughed. Most guys appreciate the truth when it’s delivered without spite or judgment. Anthony was definitely brighter than his brother.

  “You got a point. Morons, all of ‘em. But I’m tryin’ to get these people fed. Fuckin’ government ain’t doin’ it, so what the fuck you want with me?”

  “I’m looking for a couple of girls.”

  “Who isn’t? But I ain’t in that line a work,” he said, turning back to the pizza dismissively. “Talk to my cousin Jo-Jo. The one in Stapleton, not the one in New Dorp.” Damn. Jo-Jo. I’d forgotten Joseph, Joey, Joe, Jo-Jo, Seph and the rest of the Joe nicknames. The anesthesia must have still been in my system.

  “Not that kind of girl. I’m looking for two lost girls. Maybe Russian or Ukrainian or something. Redheads.”

  “Redheads is a specialty market. You might want to go to Jersey. There’s a guy out there, Mickey, Mikey, Nicky – Mack. Somethin’. He’s got them porcelain-skinned types. You want a slice? Best pizza on the island,” he volunteered, slapping a slice in my hand before I could refuse.

  “You’re not listening. I’m not looking for a ‘happy ending’. I’m looking for two girls that came off a boat that washed up in the storm.” Anthony suddenly turned back, a gleam of interest in his eye. He knew something.

  “Is this that the Federal case?”

  “What Federal case?” I asked, not wanting to ask leading questions.

  “The one that generic looking guy from Ohio came in talking about. He said there was body bags everywhere, dead strippers – and that them two girls knew somethin’. He had real a bug up his ass about ‘em. Never mentioned that they were redheads though.”

  “Did you tell him anything?”

  “Fuck no. I lie to Feds on principle.”

  “You see ID?”

  “Didn’t need to. He was in a bad suit, a cut-by-numbers haircut a
nd thought his shit didn’t stink. His face might as well been branded F-B-I – fuckin’ big idiot. Moron – like anyone here’d help a Fed find witnesses without findin’ out who they was witnesses against? You could get yourself in a jam that way,” he told me, although we both already knew that. This was the part where I needed to ask questions carefully, since Anthony already told me he intended on lying if it didn’t suit his interest.

  “If I told you I thought those girls were in trouble, would you lie to me too?”

  “Not on principle. Depends on why you want ‘em and who they’re in trouble with. What’d they do?”

  “Stabbed me. But I don’t hold it against ‘em,” I answered honestly. Anthony was trying to hold back laughter, assuming the worst as he projected his own degrading imagination on me.

  “You dog… Two of ‘em and you got ‘em so hot they stabbed you?”

  “It wasn’t like that. They were locked up in the engine room of a yacht with a bunch of other kids who were all probably fifteen or under. They’re the only two that survived. Four Russians were upstairs – all dead. The younger sister took ‘em out.”

  “Damn… I knew it. She looked bad-ass,” Anthony blurted out, and then grinned as he saw my reaction, knowing he’d screwed up. “All right, Kill – they was here. But not for long. The young one, like you said, she looked scary, but the older one was sorta hot. Not that I’d be inappropriate with her or nothin’. It’s just a fact. They took some food. Loaded up and split.”

  “They were fifteen at best, Anthony,” I warned him, just in case he was hiding them and had any illicit intentions.

  “Yeah, right. Fifteen is the new twenty-five. Grass on the infield and 180 games a year with half these girls. Look at ‘em, even in here. They want to score as much as the guys – not that the Lolitas are my thing.”

  “They’re in trouble, with nowhere to go.”

  “There’s a lot of that goin’ around.”

  “I only want to help them. I don’t want to find them with Jo-Jo from Stapleton.”

  “Jo-Jo’s not really a bad guy, you know. He doesn’t do that white slave shit. He’s got a volunteer army. Figures a girl wants to make a living, she can fuck a donkey for all he cares as long as she cuts him in as her promoter. Still, he’d sure as shit never sell her to nobody.”