Perfect Killer

by Robb T White

  ‘Do you know if he’s been back to the gym since he and Steve had, this, you called it “a cage match”?’

  ‘Way I saw it, John was on his neck like a deer tick before Steve could get up. It only got worse. He’s got a great body but it don’t look like much. I ain’t never seen a dude with strength like that. It’s like, supernatural, man. One time, he was lifting—’

  ‘Rissa, you said this John Mahoney just showed up in the gym one day. What do you know of him? Why did you call him Silver Spoon?’

  ‘He comes from money,’ Rissa said.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Jade asked her.

  ‘I know I ain’t got it, for one thing, and it’s easy to tell when somebody does. It’s like he was … too good for me, you know? But he never acted it, like. But it wasn’t hard to tell. He was no snob but, like, he’d say things, you know, that ordinary guys don’t say.’

  ‘What kind of things, Rissa?’

  ‘Smart things,’ she said. ‘Booky stuff.’

  Jade felt a frisson, like a current, run up her spine.

  Ludwig Wittgenstein was about as close to ‘booky stuff’ as you could get. It wasn’t easy to put the philosopher and Clarissa Evans together in the same room, much less the same sentence. Yet—

  ‘You have a roommate you said. Is your roommate home now?’

  ‘She’s asleep. She works nights,’ Rissa said.

  ‘Who’s asking about me?’

  Denise stood in the doorway. Just behind her Jade could see Huff flashing a look that said: She wants to talk.

  ‘Denise, this has nothing to do with you,’ Rissa said. ‘Go back to bed.’

  ‘Like hell,’ Denise said. ‘He could have broken your neck! I’m not taking any chances he’ll come back here.’ To Jade, Denise said, ‘You know what psychos some guys turn into when they get dumped?’

  Rissa said, ‘Denise, please mind your own fuckin’ business, hon.’

  ‘You are my business, stupid bitch,’ Denise said.

  Jade caught Huff’s head wag: Get Denise out—

  Rissa relented. Jade smiled at Denise while Rissa stormed off to the bedroom to get dressed.

  ‘Denise, do you know where John is right now?’

  ‘No, but I know Misrach—Steve, her ex—asked Nicky and Corey to find out about him. Them two lugheads couldn’t find their asses with both hands and a mirror. Nicky tried to follow him home one night from the gym Rissa and him got together. Steve’s crazy jealous like she said.’

  ‘You don’t know where he lives or where he goes when he’s not here?’

  ‘No, no idea. I asked Rissa the same things, but she said she was only interested in screwing him. She said he’s got a roto-rooter for a dick—’

  Denise told her about the day of the fight.

  ‘How did he feel about her?’ Jade asked. ‘You said he came here unannounced and found you two together. Was his jealousy the reason Rissa broke up with him?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. The little I knew him, he wasn’t that type. I mean, Rissa wanted to do a threesome. We go both ways. We’re not in a relationship, but I have deep feelings for her—even if she can be a cunt sometimes.’

  ‘I’m trying to get an idea of what John Mahoney is like as a person,’ Jade said.

  ‘He’s a strange ranger, for sure. I mean, Rissa doesn’t care what goes on in a guy’s head so long as what’s between his legs is working. But he creeped me out. He was way out of his league with her. I’d say he could have plenty of other girlfriends but he don’t act sociable, you know? Like he wasn’t interested in people. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the bitch in that room, but she is not the type you want to bring home to meet your family.’

  ‘Did you see what happened out there?’

  ‘No, I was working. Rissa said she never heard anything. She walks around with those ear buds in all the time so I believe her. How’s Corey? I heard Nicky is doing OK.’

  ‘We’re on our way to the hospital now.’

  ‘Them guys are no fuckin’ candyasses, excuse my French. I don’t see how a small guy like him didn’t get his ass kicked and handed to him on a plate when they jumped him.’

  Jade told her they’d send a sketch artist over for a composite drawing. The sandwich man could have changed his appearance after Buffalo. On the way to the hospital, Huff asked her if she thought Mahoney was her guy.

  ‘I can’t rule him in and I can’t rule him out yet,’ she said. ‘But I’d really like to know where he is to see for myself.’

  ‘They’re a pair, those two,’ Huff said.

  ‘Collateral damage,’ Jade said. She was thinking of Burchess’s friends floating in the river and realized that must sound cold.

  ‘No, not the two in the hospital,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Those two back there.’

  ‘Something tells me he doesn’t kill here. He lives here. I think he’s home. I think Denise narrowed down an affluent section of town for us. He comes from money, she said. Boarding school money, the top colleges. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth.’

  ‘I don’t see a rich guy—even a psycho rich guy—wanting to go slumming with a nobody like Clarissa Evans.’

  ‘There’s always an answer to that one, Lieutenant, and it’s always the same,’ she said. ‘Love.’

  Chapter 50

  WÖISSELL THOUGHT IT WAS a trick of light at first—glare from the windshield. A chiaroscuro effect of leaves and late-morning sunshine. It couldn’t be her.

  She was the same height but the shades disguised the facial features enough that he wasn’t absolutely convinced it was the little agent herself. He didn’t know the cop walking beside her down Clarissa’s driveway, but he knew a cop when he saw one.

  He had missed bumping into them by half a minute. He was going to say goodbye and to check up on her. He didn’t mean to hurt her. The idea that he wanted her to run off with him made him wince. How stupid and humiliated he felt thinking about that. He blamed it on the lack of sex. Still, it burned. What she said, how she said it.

  Fool, he told himself, never again. He would be better from now on. He would be smarter, sharper, more ruthless, shorten the time between selecting and stalking.

  Do more … He’d make that business on the riverbank so commonplace editors would scoff when they came over the wire services. Ho-hum, three more dead, eyeballs missing …

  But he had her to contend with. It galled to realize he could put down two big men and yet be out-flanked by a woman who knew a few judo moves from her training. Her one good kick landed on his thigh, just missing his groin, which would have dropped him like a falling manhole cover. Charley told himself the confined quarters of the darkened cabin space made it impossible for him to finish her.

  He abandoned plans to blow town right away. He had to know if she had his real name. Only that Buffalo lawyer could have connected Ted Wassermann to Charles Wöissell. He doubted it could be over Chad Burroughs. The FBI doesn’t get involved in nobody homicides.

  He followed them from Clarissa’s to the precinct station. He had been there once years ago when his father began to show signs of dementia and wandered off the property. He remembered the look of disgust on his stepmother’s face when the desk sergeant informed them where his father was located and the woebegone look on his father’s face; his fear and recognition he was already slipping away. That was like a knife twist in the heart.

  It was crucial to make Fred pay tribute. Demand the money: Pay me and I’ll leave you alone. Don’t pay and I’ll kill you. Simple enough.

  He’d scraped together $15,000 so far, but he needed another thirty grand for the payment on a Sprinter van. This would do. Even if all he could do was drive around the country and sleep in it, he’d still manage to make it work. Fred would co-sign the note and pay off the remainder—or he’d come back and do what he said. Min might not want to tell him where Fred was hiding out, but he knew her husband would know.

  He’d planned to wait for the coward to drag himself home afte
r some bender, but with the FBI agent on his heels, he had to move fast.

  He drove to Minerva’s husband’s law office and pulled into the underground parking lot. He saw his Lexus and parked a few cars from it.

  Around noon, he stepped out of the elevator with a couple of colleagues. They chatted about some case or other, named some people and shared a couple of laughs that reverberated around the cement walls.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, you. You’re not supposed to be here, Charles.’

  ‘I think the restraining order was intended for Min and your house, right? Nothing to say I can’t have a friendly chat with my brother-in-law. We’re family, after all.’

  ‘Look, Charles, I had to file that lawsuit. Your brother insisted.’

  ‘But you’re the attorney of record. You’ll get a cut. You, Min, Freddie. Even that fuck-up kid of Susan’s will benefit. I’ll be left out in the cold to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow.’

  ‘I just did what your own brother and my wife forced me do. You don’t know Franny when she’s crossed, Charles. You really don’t. She has a vile temper. I don’t have anything against you, Charles. I even admire you. Taking off, traveling the country, avoiding the rat race. You know, I loved that Jack Kerouac book, what is it, Go on the Road, something like that, right?’

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ Wöissell said. ‘One more word except to answer my question, I’ll break both your arms and Min will have to wipe your ass for the next six months.’

  ‘Franny said you practiced kung-fu as a kid or something. She always said you were crazy—’

  Wöissell glided and kicked him in the chest. He bounced off the pillar behind him and landed face down at Wöissell’s feet.

  As he lay there moaning, Wöissell squatted down beside his head and grabbed him by the hair. It came off in his hand.

  ‘Damn, I never knew that,’ he said. ‘It looks natural.’

  The man continued to groan. His $1,000 Armani suit streaked with dust.

  ‘Look at me, Gerald. Look at me now.’

  ‘C-can’t breathe …’

  ‘If you don’t look at me, I’m going to really hurt you and I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘Oh God, please don’t—don’t hurt me anymore, Charles.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Wöissell said. ‘I want to know where Fred is.’

  ‘Downtown … motel … Bide-a-While. Bide-a-Wee, something … like that.’

  ‘What room?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Gerald gasped out.

  ‘Is he using a different name?’ Wöissell asked him.

  ‘Felix. I don’t know. Just Felix.’

  Wöissell slapped cement dust off the arms of Gerald’s suit. ‘Sorry about the suit.’

  Gerald, able to breathe easier now, sat upright against the pillar. Charles placed the toupee on Gerald’s head and patted it down but it sat there cockeyed.

  ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea to call Fred and tell him about this conversation,’ he said.

  The Bide-a-Wee was a lime green motel popular with hookers. It used to be a trysting motel for adulterous couples before it slid down the social scale to its present status. It was known around Providence as a place for tranny hookers especially.

  Fred’s Audi was parked near the last two rooms.

  Wöissell drove past the lobby but saw no one at the desk. He drove to the back and parked at the end. He knocked on the door closest to the Audi.

  A fat man in his undershirt opened it.

  ‘My apologies, sir,’ Wöissell said. ‘Wrong room.’

  The man shut the door without a word.

  He knocked on the next door. He could hear a television set playing inside. Movement inside. It sounded like the creak of a bedsprings. The TV was shut off.

  He pounded harder. ‘Fred, it’s me. Open the door, please.’

  No sound. He waited a full minute. The motel parking lot looked empty in the daytime.

  ‘Fred, it will be much worse if you don’t open.’

  The door flung open and a nervous, smiling Fred stood there.

  ‘Charles, how did you find me?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now, Fred. I’m leaving town. I need some money,’ he said.

  Fred’s face lit with relief. ‘Certainly,’ Fred said. ‘Let me get my wallet. It’s in my suit pocket. You can have it all, Charles.’

  ‘No, thanks. I have cash on me. Here’s what I need you to do. Buy this vehicle for me.’

  Wöissell handed him a clipping from the classifieds of the Journal.

  Charles watched Fred scan the ad’s details.

  ‘It’s $43,500,’ Wöissell said. ‘Gerald and Minerva can kick in. I want this in the driveway in forty-eight hours. It’ll be your going away present to me.’

  ‘It’s—it’s a lot of money, Charles,’ Fred said. His voice cracked.

  ‘Little enough, considering,’ Charles said.

  ‘Considering?’

  ‘Considering how much you will have deprived me of from the trust.’

  ‘Now, wait a minute, Charles, you have to ask yourself why we would do that in the first place. It’s your own fault—’

  Wöissell shoved him with enough force to make Fred tumble backward onto the bed.

  He was in the room fast, the door shut behind him with a touch. He looked at Fred. He was calm but his hands twitched.

  So tempting. Kill him. He has it coming.

  Wöissell leaned into his face. ‘Will you oblige me, Fred?’

  ‘Charles, listen to me! We’re brothers. I know you’re in trouble—maybe with the cops? Let me help you.’

  That made Wöissell hesitate. Had she gotten to Fred?

  ‘Were they looking for me? Did they come to the house?’

  ‘No—that is, I don’t know. I’ve been holed up here for four days.’

  He allowed his brother to dress. ‘You’ll need to make the arrangements. I’ll be around but you won’t hear from me again. Just leave the truck in the driveway with the key in the ignition. When it’s gone, I promise you will never see me again.’

  ‘Every … blackmailer says that,’ Fred mumbled.

  ‘Forty-eight hours, no more. You make trouble for me, you’ll never sleep easily again.’

  Wöissell drove around town, cruising past Westminster Street’s upper-middle class houses until he formulated his escape plan. He was agitated, fearful of capture. The stress of standing still when he needed to be moving provoked the facial tics. But it was hurry up and wait. It all depended on Fred. That thought alone was enough to bring on the Tourette’s.

  Chapter 51

  THE SURGEON SAID, ‘WE’VE notified the family. They’re from Warwick. They haven’t seen him in several months, though. The father said not since he was released.’

  Corey ‘All Good’ De Hofnar’s body was prone, unmoving. He’d recently used one of those spray-on tans for a competition and he glowed orange against the white sheets. A respirator tube was taped to his mouth and the suction pump on a metal stand made a rhythmic hiss. His eyes had been greased and a strip of tape applied to keep them shut. LED numbers flashed from different machines overhead and the monotonous tick-whirr of the PAP and RT monitors were fixed to lines measuring heart and blood pressure taped to De Hofnar’s chest and fingertips.

  Jade asked the doctor, ‘Any chance of recovery?’

  The surgeon replied, ‘No, none. By the time we intubated him, he was without oxygen for too long. No brainwave activity. That’s how he came in when we hooked him up.’

  ‘Big guy,’ Lieutenant Huff said.

  ‘But not big enough,’ the surgeon replied. ‘Someone knew how to hurt him. Look at the pressure marks on his neck.’

  They went two floors down into Nick de Pasqualone’s room. He was removed from ICU after surgery to wire his jaw and attach a head appliance that made him look like an old-fashioned TV with rabbit ears. His eyes were alert, however, watching them enter. Several stained gauze pads were lying ne
xt to his pillow. He applied a clean one to his mouth to catch some of the drool that seeped from his mouth wounds. He fixed on them a weird Hallowe’en smile until Jade realized he was grimacing from a broken mouth. A few bottom and top teeth were intact but most of the top front teeth were cracked off or missing as well as some bottom teeth, fast turning black from the deadened nerves. The morphine drip gave his eyes a mad glitter in the room’s semi-dark.

  He made a gargling sound at them as they approached.

  Jade showed him a mug shot of Ted Wassermann with the name crossed out and John Mahoney written beneath it. She handed him a notepad and pencil.

  He scratched out: C at Ch FU ck R?

  She shook her head. He grunted something that sounded like ‘Funf.’

  The blow to his jaw had clipped off the tip of his tongue as well as embedded teeth into his upper gums.

  ‘We’re looking for him now,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Can you help us locate him?’

  De Pasqualone’s look would have been amusing if it weren’t for the grotesque expression on his face.

  Huff prompted him. ‘Can you give us any idea where he might be now?

  He started to write and then looked at them and shrugged his shoulders.

  Jade said, ‘Providence PD found your prints on the tire iron.’

  Nick looked at her, hesitating.

  Huff said, ‘It’s being tested for DNA. We know he used it on you.’

  Nick didn’t respond or make a move. His eyes showed a glassy kind of fatigue; the morphine drip was taking effect. ‘No one will be pressing charges against you,’ Huff said. ‘The man who did this killed an FBI agent in Ohio. Tell us something, Mr. de Pasqualone.’

  He wrote: Stve know reel name.

  ‘Steven Misrach, Clarissa Evans’s boyfriend?’

  Nick took the pencil from his chest and underscored Steve’s name twice.

  ‘That’s good,’ Jade said.

  Huff said, ‘We’ll have a police officer take a statement from you soon if you’re up to it.’

  Nick shrugged his big shoulders again, and then grabbed his pad and wrote a C with a question mark after it.