The Poe Consequence

by Keith Steinbaum

  “Looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it.”

  Ghoul cried out and spun around with his weapon ready to fire, but nobody appeared. He struggled to control his shaking gun hand as he stood motionless, wanting to see something.

  “Show your face, motherfucker!” he shouted, fighting to overcome his fear.

  “I refrained and stood still.”

  Ghoul gasped, his eyes darting in multiple directions but was met with dark, empty space. He started to run. Beads of sweat grew heavy on his forehead and the back of his neck, rolling down like a heavy nosebleed. Scrambling toward the street, he stopped and ran back the other way when he heard the voice again.

  “All in vain; because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him.”

  “I’ll kill you!” Ghoul screamed. To his dismay, he now realized that the vision from his right eye had somehow blurred to the point of near blindness. Ghoul placed his hand near the affected area and reeled from unexpected pain. The inside region felt inflated and heavy, and when he attempted to close his lid, a gummy, liquid-like thickness prevented him.

  “And the old man sprang up in bed, crying out, ‘Who’s there’?”

  Whirling around, yet still seeing no one, a surging tide of panic overwhelmed him, his sanity unraveling like worn adhesive tape. He looked around again, desperate to regain command of his senses. “It must be the Diablos!” he whispered to himself. Ghoul ran deeper into the shadows, keeping his ears and one good eye alert for any signs of danger. He reached a fence and grabbed the chain link to pull himself over to safety, but a crushing pain in his chest toppled him to the ground. Unable to move, Ghoul surrendered to the power of the voice.

  “I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes.”

  Ghoul’s breathing grew raspy and labored. The pain swam through his body like swarming piranha, but he forced himself to speak. “Help me…the pain…so…so cold. Cold! Ple-Please.”

  The unmistakable squeal of rats drew closer, reverberating through his skull, yet he remained anchored by the paralyzing pain in his heart. He felt the hostile clawed frenzy of rodents sliding up his body, enveloping his legs, his groin, his stomach, arms and chest, marching northward toward his neck and face.

  “They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my heart.”

  The rats pressed against his face, barricading Ghoul’s nose and mouth. His consciousness faded in and out. He tried to lift his arms and legs, but his powerless limbs didn’t respond. Ghoul’s head rolled to the side as the rats scurried away, leaving him cold and sedentary as a railroad track.

  The voice spoke again.

  “The valiant soldier’s blood will spill

  On red stained lands of sacrifice…”

  The following morning, not long after sunrise, a cleanup crew beginning their rounds in the same yard where “little Frankie” used to play, discovered the pale, stringy-haired corpse of Francisco “Ghoul” Martinez. Based on the look of his face, it seemed apparent that several hungry rodents found him first. Under a dreary sky, his body lay sprawled near the remains of the train station that once upon a time had given him the best years of his life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Captain Sherman Dean of the LAPD toiled in the business of getting a front row look at man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Hatred and death made quite a formidable and unrelenting tag team opponent, and over the course of his career, perhaps the greatest example of this two-headed adversary was the insidious proliferation of the gang culture, which had spread like a horrible disease throughout the bloodstream of society. And, during the last couple of months, no other gangs commanded his attention as much as two vicious rivals: The North Rampart Lobos, and the Alvarado Street Diablos.

  The street gangs he dealt with in Chicago during his thirty-six years as first a street cop and then a department head were no less ruthless than the ones he’d experienced in L.A., but at least when you froze your ass off in The Windy City you knew the icy temperature had a constraining effect on gang activity as well. He’d sought a change when he took that job offer in sunny Southern California four years ago, but as winter came and the sun kept shining, he discovered the deadly gang games in this town weren’t forced to take a time-out due to harsh weather.

  Dean had long ago accepted the general populace’s ignorance concerning most of the depressing bullshit that cops see every day. Dean just wanted to do whatever he could to keep the lid on the ever-simmering cauldron of violence, but he hadn’t been doing a good job of it in recent weeks. There had been a total of seventeen reported deaths between the Lobos and Diablos over the last two and a half months, and eight of them were diagnosed as heart failure. Eight massive heart attacks striking young men with no previous history of heart problems. His ongoing attempt to find additional heart attack victims from other gangs throughout the city had thus far produced a big, fat zero. The city of Los Angeles had an estimated four hundred and fifty active gangs comprising approximately forty-five thousand members. So why is it only happening to these two? he kept asking himself. Several members of both gangs had been brought in for questioning, but their code of silence seemed as impenetrable as a castle fortress.

  Dean’s years of investigative work taught him to suspect the unobvious, to notice dirt in areas that others saw as unblemished, to read clues where others remained blind. After the autopsy from the first victim had been released he felt a genuine bewilderment, as nothing he’d ever experienced compared to it. When the report detailing the second victim’s death revealed the same unusual cause, the uncomfortable pangs of suspicion started gnawing at his gut. Stories of young, healthy athletes collapsing dead on a basketball court or a football field happened on occasion, but eight gang deaths, all from only two gangs, seemed too odd, too unexplainable, to be a coincidence. Now, two months beyond that second death, the proverbial shit had hit the fan, exploding into a modern day version of the Bubonic Plague, with gangbangers dropping like flies.

  Logic dictated the culpability of these two murderous gangs, but Dean didn’t believe they possessed the necessary degree of sophistication to perpetrate these particular lethal acts. No amount of DNA analysis, including lab tests and autopsies, had produced any clues or evidence showing markings of a usual gang killing. No blood, fingerprints, or hair samples had been found, other than those of the victim. No clothing had been left behind, no tire tracks or shoe marks had been detected, and no use of any weapon could be identified.

  Another finding that Dean found perplexing, considering the subject pertained to gang-related deaths, centered on the apparent lack of a normal struggle. There existed a numerous amount of tiny, bloody scratches all over the bodies, but each of the coroner’s reports concluded, “rodent inflicted.” Rodent inflicted? Maybe that made some sense for the victims found outside, but how do you explain the same scratches on the ones inside their bedrooms?

  Another unsolved issue concerned the bluish-hued swelling in one of the eyes of the victim. The lab results continued to report the same damn thing; no abnormalities found in the chemical structure of the eye fluid. As if nothing was wrong at all.

  Devoid of any conclusive answers on the “how” of these killings, Captain Dean’s focus turned to the “when.” He recognized a consistent pattern of the time the murders occurred, and solving a puzzle starts with seeing the patterns. He needed to confer with a man who could help. Over the loudspeaker, Dean spoke. “Lieutenant Atkinson, come into my office.”

  When Atkinson’s large, bald, black head leaned in through the doorway, Dean never looked up. “Hello, Carl,” he said, scanning his report. “Please close the door and sit down.” Atkinson sat in the chair across from Dean’s desk, waiting to be addressed. “Another Diablo, found and identified an hour ago,” he told him. Turning away from his paperwork,
Dean continued. “Wilkerson and McBride are there now, combing everything in sight, but the kid looks like he died, stop me if you’ve heard this one, of natural causes. No bullets, no knives, no blood.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the Lieutenant mumbled, shaking his head. “Where this time?”

  “In some bushes near the Silver Lake off ramp.”

  “You said he was identified?”

  “Yeah. Name’s Jaime Vasquez. They call him ‘Player’. We knew him from the past. Illegal possession of a firearm, breaking and entering, couple of DUI’s.” Dean shook his head, furrowing his eyebrows in a manner that didn’t quite show sincerity. “Just another misunderstood kid.”

  “Dammit!” Atkinson shouted. “What the hell is going on?”

  “My question, too, Carl,” Dean said, offering a tired smile. “I keep telling myself we just need more time.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain, but I just don’t get what’s happening. All these damn heart attacks make absolutely no sense.”

  “Are you more concerned with these heart attacks than the marked increase in drive-by shootings?” Dean asked.

  “The drive-bys that really get to me are when innocent people get killed,” Atkinson said. “For my own sanity I’ve learned to accept certain…realities. It’s obvious that these guys want to keep massacring each other. It’s just that…”

  “It’s just that we can accept the reality of gun violence,” Dean exclaimed, “but we can’t tolerate the unexplained deaths. Right?”

  Atkinson nodded.

  “Let me share something with you that is known, Carl. We’ve verified that five out of eight of these deaths occurred somewhere in the vicinity of four a.m. The others are harder to get a bead on. They died alone and their abnormal body temperatures make it difficult to be exact. But within a four-hour range, we know they were dead before sunrise. Around four a.m. also? Maybe.”

  “Hmmmm, that’s interesting,” the Lieutenant replied.

  Dean continued. “We’re beyond coincidence, don’t you think? In my mind, we got us an early bird catching the worms.”

  Atkinson stared at Dean. “So you think one killer’s behind all eight deaths?”

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t think, Carl. Neither of those two gangs are causing the heart attacks.”

  Atkinson pursed his lips and nodded. “I guess eight identical deaths at around the same time tells us something, doesn’t it?”

  “Let me ask you a question,” Dean said. “In all your years working the streets, dealing with major players like the Bloods and Crips, or smaller ones like the Diablos and Lobos, you’ve witnessed a lot of deaths, am I right?”

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “Far too many.”

  “And in all of them, Carl, from guns to knives to drug o.d.’s, have you ever come across one whose cause of death couldn’t be figured out?”

  “Not until this latest round of bizarre bullshit, Captain.”

  Dean rose from his chair and came around to the front, sitting on the edge of the desk. Adjusting his shirt collar from the increasing tightness of his recent, cigarette-free weight gain, he lowered his frame to Atkinson’s eye level and peered at him in silence for several moments. “There’s no question they died of heart failure,” he exclaimed. “Just look at the autopsies. But somebody has to explain to me the shit the coroner keeps reporting about those hearts. It just doesn’t happen!”

  “That’s for damn sure,” Atkinson muttered.

  “I’ve been involved with gangs for a long time, Carl, just like you. Most of these young men are tough, yes, but to know how to cause a heart to do that? No, I don’t buy it.”

  “Which strengthens your argument about a third party.”

  Dean offered a sarcastic laugh. “Well, as far as the Lobos and Diablos are concerned, it’s one hell of a party. Somebody’s crashing it and causing lots of trouble.” Dean chewed on his lip for a moment and narrowed his eyes, the dark brown hue highlighted by the matching horn-rimmed glasses. “That’s another thing that’s weird about all this. We got hundreds of gangs in this city, but somebody out there has chosen these two as their own personal poster boys of evil.” Dean refocused his gaze on Atkinson as he stroked a hand across his grey speckled mustache that matched the transformative coloring of his Marine style clipped head of hair

  “This is why I called you in here, Carl,” he said. “I need you to do something.”

  Atkinson sat up in his chair. “Go ahead, Captain.”

  “You helped that Times reporter who’s written those gang articles, right?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. “I got him some interviews at Men’s Central.” Atkinson paused before adding, “Those meetings took place before his brother was killed in that drive-by a couple of months ago.”

  “What a fucking shame that was,” Dean said. “That poor kid seeing his father killed like that. And the goddamn killer’s still out there, unless he’s one of the dead gang members.”

  “I’ve read every one of those articles,” Atkinson said. “Reporters are supposed to be objective but his disgust was evident. No doubt it’s at a whole new level, now.”

  “Enough to be considered a suspect?” Dean asked.

  “Kevin?” Atkinson replied, his eyes opening wide. “No way, Captain. The man I know has a right to be enraged, hateful, any word you can think of, but he’s no murderer. Not unless he’s come up with a way to leave his nephew alone in the middle of the night to stalk and kill these guys twenty-five miles from home.”

  Dean smiled. “Unless his nephew acts as Robin to his Batman, I guess you’re right,” he acknowledged.

  Atkinson offered a slight nod of his head and remained silent.

  “The man interests me for another reason,” Dean said. “I’m throwing caution to the wind here, but we need a goddamn lead and I’m thinking he might have heard something during those interviews. Do you think we can trust him to keep things confidential? Reporters are paid to report, you know what I mean?”

  “I know what you’re saying, but I believe he can be trusted under the circumstances,” Atkinson answered. “Because of what happened to his brother, he’s got a rooting interest in this case. I think he’ll play it smart.”

  “Go see him,” Dean said. “I trust your instincts, and logic, that we shouldn’t consider him a suspect. So if we’re dealing with an outside killer here, maybe those interviews from Central can help us. Maybe someone said something, or dropped a name. Maybe there’s a dealer with a medical background and a reason for a grudge.”

  Atkinson stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and walked over to a corner window. “How much can I tell him, Captain? He’s going to be curious about my sudden interest in his interviews.”

  “I’m pretty sure his opinion of gangs will blind him to the possibility of an outsider,” Dean said. “I’m giving you the go-ahead to let him know, off the record, that there could be another reason for these deaths. Put it off as some bad shit selling on the street. That’s nothing newsworthy, right?”

  Atkinson turned toward Dean. “It’s a good idea,” he said, “considering we don’t have anything else to go on.”

  Dean smiled at his trusted Lieutenant, whose wide-eyed, round-cheeked expression belied a tough, no-nonsense cop possessing a mountain range for shoulders and a neck the width of an ancient Oak. More importantly, his street smarts matched his brawn.

  “I know it’s just a shot in the dark,” he said. “And the coroner would tell me nothing’s been found to substantiate what I’m asking you to do. But somebody’s out there doing something crazy, and he needs to be stopped.” Dean removed his glasses and wiped the lenses one at a time against his shirtsleeve. “This is more than just heart attacks, Carl. It appears we got us a major league serial killer.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “…Happy birthday, dear Margie

  Happy birthday to you.”

  Margaret Palmer celebrated her sixty-fourth birthday in the recreation room of Bromont Hills Senior Villas
. Several gifts had already been opened, including the Barbara Streisand CD that played in the background. Margaret closed her eyes and started making a wish. “I don’t know what you’re wishing for, Margie,” her friend, Lizzy, remarked, “but I think I know what Mack wants!” Everyone howled at Lizzy’s not-so-subtle remark, including Mack Harris, who made no secret of his amorous feelings for Margie and his desire to follow Bromont Hills’ slogan of “Active Living for Seniors.”

  Kevin’s spirits received a boost from his mother’s joy in the midst of the party. In the two and half months since Warren’s murder, she seemed to be managing all right, a testament to the healing power of friends in times of need. Kevin got support from co-workers and received several calls from friends in the first few weeks after his brother’s death, but his life had become a topsy-turvy ride of fractured emotions and altered considerations. He knew he had to appear strong for Seth’s sake, but he couldn’t evade his complete responsibility for the tragedy. The guilt suffocated him, making each day a struggle to endure.

  After an earlier period of his life battling alcoholism and successfully overcoming the problem, he had started drinking again, trying to suppress thoughts such as his final conversation with Warren and his current situation with Seth. He’d initiate the day with a hidden shot or two in the morning, some more at lunch time, another glass from a local bar before going home, some more before dinner, another one afterwards, and a final nightcap before bedtime to further dull his mind so he could sleep.

  Kevin’s father had died, and now Warren, so the added burden of responsibility for his mother fell on his shoulders. She seemed happy where she lived, however, and today he enjoyed a rare moment of contentment attending her party. As she started unwrapping another gift, Kevin’s cell phone rang. When he looked at his screen and read Clearpoint Elementary School, his mood plummeted like a bird shot in flight. Something bad must have happened with Seth, again. Kevin threw open the doors of the recreation room to step outside.