by Thomas Laird
It’s not like I figure on marrying her when she gets older. I don’t think she’ll make it to twenty-one. But the thought of slitting her throat just makes me churn inside. It’s like a tug of war. One minute I can see her bleeding out on a piece of plastic on the living room floor. I can see me lugging her corpse into my trunk and dumping her in the water. It won’t be the lake anymore because that would be asking for it. But there are sloughs out in the western suburbs that would do the job. No one scuba dives in those fucking sloughs, and the water’s deep enough that a fisherman’s hook wouldn’t latch onto the body bag.
And then I can see her beneath me in bed, groaning and moaning and making me believe she’s really into the fucking I’m giving her. If she’s faking all that shit, she ought to go to Hollywood and make some real money for all the theatrics.
No, I think she’s for real, most of the time.
I tell myself that it’ll wear out, this heat I have for her, but it just doesn’t seem to happen. Every time I have her, I haven’t got enough of her. And for a young cocksucker, she finds something new to do to me every single time. I asked her if she’d ever read the Kama Sutra, and she said she didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.
How many times have I stood over her sleeping body with my straight razor palmed in my right hand? But I’ve never flipped it open and grabbed her by the hair and slashed my way to bone in her neck, the mess be damned.
Always, always, something stops me. I know it’s not love. I know there’s no such thing just like I know there’s no God. And Jesus was just another Jew, another freak in a long dead freak show out in the desert. The sun fried all those fuckers’ brains, and that’s why they had visions and thought they were God or something holy, like God.
I need to find out who Mary really is if I’m going to let her keep on living here—or let her live at all. She won’t tell me about her family, where she really came from. Sometimes I wonder if Mary is really her name. She doesn’t carry ID. She says she’s not old enough for a permit or a driver’s license, and she never got a Social Security card, either.
How do you go through life nameless, or how do you keep living if you’re nobody for real? Mary troubles me. She always has. Sometimes I think she’s nothing but a place to store my dick, just flesh and bone and wet and heat. Then I’ll start to think that I’ve fallen for her. That all that talk about love not existing was a bunch of bullshit, what they call rationalization. Shit I made up to convince myself I couldn’t feel anything for anybody.
The only thing I’ve ever felt in this life is the sole of some fuck’s boot. Or the back of the old lady’s hands, knuckles and all.
Then Mary comes out of nowhere, off some Old Town side street, and now I have to battle it out almost every day and night, thinking about whether I should bleed her dry or not.
Someone else is going to bleed, this night. I take one last look down at Mary, my beloved non-virgin Mary, and I pocket the razor yet again, and then I walk out of the bedroom, out of the kitchen and out of the back door.
It’s 2:16 A.M., I see on the glowing dial of my wristwatch.
*
When I get to his apartment building, I have to use my burglar’s tools to open the entrance. Mick lives on the first floor. It’s a three flat, and it’s a vision of squalor in his southside ‘hood. His car is parked out front, and I know he never lets women stay over—he’s told me so. He considers them liabilities, and he never gets involved with any of them because Mick knows you might have to get up and disappear in minutes if the heat ever invades you.
I get to his first floor door, and I stand there listening. No sounds. Everybody in this building seems to be tucked away.
I could’ve waited to hear if he made the deal with the county attorneys, but I’m not about to. There’s no percentage in it. Mick’s got a good track record on staying silent, but they’re going to put him inside until his dick won’t ever get hard again. This’ll make him a three time loser, and even with Mr. Slick, his attorney who got him bail after almost killing the old man, they’ll put him in jail for decades on this one. He hasn’t given us up, the rest of us, but I can’t figure he can withstand the pressure of saving himself, when it comes down to facing all those iron bars and those tiny little cells he’ll share with some butt fucking roomie.
He’ll give it up, in the end. So I’ll have to screw up his best laid plans.
I creep through his living room and head to the bedroom. I’ve been in his hovel before, so I know the layout.
He leaves his bedroom door open. It’s convenient. I should thank him.
When I get inside his room, I see him lying on his left side. When I get within a foot of him, he sighs and his eyes flap open. It’s then that I wap him on the skull with my sap. He keeps groaning, so I whack him again on the same spot, and then he settles against the pillow.
I reach into my bag and pull out some duct tape. I strap his mouth, his hands, and his ankles. Then I go into the bathroom next to his boudoir and I take a piss in the john. His seater is down, so I piss all over it.
When I get back to Mick, he’s still out. I haven’t killed him. I can hear his hoarse breathing. I sit down at the foot of the bed and I wait.
It takes about twenty-five minutes, according to the glow of my watch, for him to rouse himself. When he begins struggling, I turn on his bedside lamp.
His black eyes are impressive. They’re the kind that’ll stop you cold. They’re the kind of eyes that say, “Don’t fuck with me.” He’s always been the Intimidator in our crew. But he had just one fatal flaw. He trusted me. At least he trusted me enough to think I wouldn’t come here to kill him. Maybe he thought he intimidated me, too, just like most everyone else. Everybody in our crew feared him. That’s just pride or some shit, thinking you’re unassailable.
Now he pays for his vanity. And I made certain no cops were watching him. They figured he was vain enough not to run. Or perhaps they ran out of overtime so they couldn’t watch him 24/7. Who knows? But I know a cop ride when I see one, and everyone parked on this block is a civilian.
“Hello, Mick. Did Parisi offer you a deal?”
His eyes try to burn into mine with their blackness.
“Your hoodoo don’t work on me, motherfucker. You were going to take the deal, down the line, weren’t you?”
I grab his head by the hair and I force him to nod in the affirmative.
“No use denying it, Mick. You know you would have given it up so you could come back to your shithole and keep doing what you always do. If I took off the duct tape, could you convince me you wouldn’t give me up?”
I shake his head in a yes, once more.
“Oh, I’ll bet you think you could.”
I take the straight razor out of my pocket, and I flip it open, and it gleams in the light of the lamp.
I have his hair tightly clamped in my left hand, and I draw his head toward me.
I can hear the muffled screams as I stab him in the left eye with the front edge of the blade. I can hear louder muffled screams as I tear the eye from his socket, and he keeps the silenced shrieks up as the eyeball plops out the mattress next to him, black pupil staring straight up at me.
Chapter 16
Jimmy Parisi, 1980
The black eyes are laid side by side on the bed next to Mick O’Brien’s body. His hands and feet are locked together with duct tape, and the tape on his mouth muffled his screams. This tough guy did howl, looking at the tensed up muscles in his neck and face.
The blood is copious, of course. The sheets are laden in gore. A couple of uniforms who are virgins to Homicide work had to be excused. That’s nothing extraordinary. No one gets used to this kind of scene. My gorge rose, but I kept it under control. You think of it as business, and you tell the human side of yourself that it’s just that—routine police work. Only it isn’t. It’s savagery, and we know going in that it’s Casey McCaslin’s craftsmanship. We’re guessing without the ME’s help that it was caused b
y a very sharp blade, like a straight razor, the same MO as the girls in the Lake. This time he just took his eyes. The throat and everything else is untouched. The shock probably killed O’Brien before the loss of blood did.
“Get every fucking fiber, every fucking molecule that you can lift from this apartment!” I hear myself yell out at the crime scene techs.
Then I look at Doc, and he’s got a gentle smile on his face. He knows McCaslin never leaves any remnants, any evidence.
“He has to make a mistake. He isn’t a fucking criminal genius,” I tell my partner.
“He’s under your skin, Jimmy. That’s a terrible place for him to be.”
I want to tell him bullshit, it’s not true, but I don’t lie to Doc Gibron. It’s pointless because he knows me better than my father or mother knew me. He has that gift: immediate intuition. There’s no escaping his appraisal. He looks at you with his big brown eyes and he sizes you up right away. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s got to be a form of some psychic ability, as damn foolish as it sounds in my head.
“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” I say loudly to the crime scene technicians. “My bad.”
They all give me a wave of understanding. They’re very aware how frustrated the two of us are with not being able to catch him. Some of them have worked the scenes with the girls, and all of them know as well as we do who we’re after for these killings. The whole goddam Homicide division knows who did these murders, and none of us likes this feeling of impotence.
Sometimes I think I’m wallowing in self-pity, and it’s a real possibility. But then a wave of anger washes over me, and I renew my rage toward McCaslin and what he’s gotten away with to date.
We look over the final stages of the crime scene evaluation, and then we head out to the place where we do all our heavy crime solving.
*
The White Castle on 95th and Cicero in Oak Lawn is the closest of the restaurants to Mick O’Brien’s apartment. His body, including the eyeballs, has been removed by now. McCaslin keeps the body bag makers in business all by himself.
We sit at the bar. It’s almost midnight. We’ve been on overtime for six hours, but we work by the case, not the clock.
There are maybe four or five patrons in here, but they’re all sitting far away from Doc and me, in booths at the far wall from us.
“Perhaps it’s time we changed strategies,” Doc suggests.
“Change to what?”
“Divide and conquer,” he grins.
“In what manner, Professor?”
“I say we haul Casey in for a little conversation, since he’s a known associate of O’Brien’s. I’ll talk to him downtown while you have a little confab with that young thing he’s supposedly seeing. I don’t believe he’s just seeing her on the outside, no matter what the Robbery guys are saying. I’m thinking he’s got her at his place.”
“Yeah? And the obvious question is why he hasn’t thrown this one in the Lake without her anti-freeze.”
“He has a history with whores, Jimmy, and we don’t know that he’s killed any of them. The hookers were all adults, according to Vice, who arrested him for soliciting once or twice, and he’s shown no interest in slicing and dicing adult females.”
“Which is why one wonders why he hasn’t done this kid. By all accounts she’s a minor, Partner.”
“You’re giving McCaslin too much credit. He’s human. Killing a bunch of people doesn’t put him in another category. People like to explain murderers by saying they’re all insane or that they’re monsters. Bullshit. Killing is a very commonplace thing for our race to do. History is full of evidence that says you don’t have to be a creature from another world to pop your fellow human beings.
“I’m saying McCaslin is one of us. Sure, he’s evil, but he’s like the rest of us in that he has weaknesses, flaws. I think he ran into a girl that he fancies for something other than slaughter. I think he likes to fuck this one, and if he whacks her he cannot continue to amuse himself sexually with this kid.”
“You think he’s fallen in love?”
“Shit, this cocksucker never uses that four-letter word. But he needs her for something or other. And if you can get inside her head, she might help us find the way to him.
*
I catch her going out the front door of his apartment building about forty minutes after Doc has brought McCaslin to our downtown office. I was down the street when he and two uniforms escorted him into the Ford and took him away.
Naturally we were guessing she might emerge after her boyfriend was apprehended, but there was a fine chance that she might have stayed hidden inside. The wager we made was that she’d come out because young sweethearts like this one don’t much like being cooped up inside, especially on a warm and fragrant July day such as this one.
We were going to interview him anyway, but nabbing this little sister on the way out the door was a sheer luxury, maybe the first bit of luck we’ve had with this bastard.
We couldn’t risk trying to get a search warrant to find her inside because our warrant days with McCaslin are on hold after the first blowup. So we had to chance waiting outside and seeing if his newest squeeze would come right to us, instead.
I wait for her at the sidewalk. Her eyes widen when she sees my ID and badge.
“You a friend of Casey McCaslin?” I ask her with a friendly smile.
“No. I don’t know—”
“What’s your name?”
I’m still smiling.
“Caitlyn.”
“Got any ID?”
“No.”
I’m still showing her my teeth in a non-hostile fashion.
“C’mon. I know you know him. Let’s take a walk and let’s talk.”
Her face descends into gloom.
“Are you gonna arrest me?”
“No, I just want to talk to you, like I said. Caitlyn.”
“Are you Vice?”
“No. Homicide.”
“Jesus.”
“Take it easy. You haven’t killed anyone this morning, have you?”
She knows I’m teasing her, but she doesn’t bite. She still appears very frightened. And for a street kid to show fear is a rare event. She can’t show that to anyone because it’s a sign of weakness.
She walks by my side down the sidewalk. Most people are at work or they’re at the beach or in a park, with a day like today. There’s a public park only two blocks from here, so we head toward it.
She looks fifteen, maybe fourteen.
When we arrive at Killdare Park, we sit on the first bench I see. It’s warm enough that I’ve broken a sweat. But Caitlyn—which I know is not her real name—is dry and cool looking. She wouldn’t give me an authentic ID. Her first reaction would be to lie. That’s why she hesitated slightly when I asked her name.
“What’s your real name?” I grin.
“Mary.”
This time she never hesitated.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not coming after you, Mary.”
“Why do you want Casey?”
“He’s as cold blooded a murderer as you’re ever going to meet up with in your life, Mary.”
Her face flushes red, and now I see a glistening on her forehead.
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I’m not. He’s killed six girls about your age, and he’s dumped their bodies in the Lake in body bags. He slit their throats, all of them.”
Now she’s turning whiter than her natural pale hue of flesh. Her face has gone to the color of a harmless fluffed cloud in the sky.
“I think I want to go home.”
“You are underage. I could take you into child services.”
“Go ahead. I’ll just run away again.”
“You have a family, Mary?”
“If you call two coke freaks parents, sure.”
“Were you working the streets?”
“You gotta eat.”
“You know what syphilis does to you?” I ask.
“I’ve heard the talk at health services. I make them use the rubbers I score at the services.”
“You sound very bright. But your brain isn’t serving you well with Casey McCaslin. Look, I’m not going to turn you in to Youth Services. All I want you to do is help me.”
“Help you how? By hurting Casey? Forget that shit. He hasn’t killed anyone. He couldn’t. I know him.”
“Where do you think he was last night?”
“With me, that’s where.”
Her face is puffed with rage and indignation.
“You certain? You couldn’t have z-ed out and then he might have been gone for a couple of hours?”
“It’s not possible. He was with me all night. I would’ve known if he got up in the night.”
“Well that’s statutory rape, Mary. You’re just fifteen.”
“I’m eighteen. I look a lot younger than I am. If guys knew I was legal, they wouldn’t pay for underage pussy. They like their stuff rare.”
“Can you show me an ID that proves you’re legal?”
“No.”
“Does McCaslin know how old you really are?”
“We never talked about it.”
“You think if you told him you’re eighteen, he’d throw you to the curb?”
She doesn’t answer. Her face is gray, now, gray with anger.
“Eighteen is still young. You ever go to high school?”
She glares at me.
“Pity. You being as smart as you are. But you’re being downright ignorant about McCaslin. He’s everything I said he is.”
“He is not! Stop lying to me! You just want to pin all this shit on him and ruin what we both have.”
“He murdered six young girls and a couple of other harmless human beings. He’ll get tired of screwing you, and then he’ll either kick you out into the street, or he’ll remember what he does best, with you. You ever seen his straight razor?”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Last night he visited a member of his crew. McCaslin’s a small time booster. This other guy might have turned Casey for time off his own sentence, but your loving man went to his apartment late last night and cut both of his eyes out and this guy died with his mouth wrapped with duct tape, as well as his hands and feet. Experienced cops threw up when they saw what he did. You still want to go back there?”
