A Dish Served Cold - B R Stateham

by Near To The Knuckle

  Maranaja stood motionless just in front of the open door, gloved hands in his heavy overcoat, his face etched cold granite. Motionless. As if frozen in time. Eyes unblinking. Face drained of what little color he had originally. Yet within his chest—deep within his soul—the tormented souls of the underworld twisted and twitched violently. Screamed in anger. Howled for revenge. Demanded Justice. Justice long overdue.

  An eye for an eye.

  Blood for blood.

  Biblical retribution. Violent revenge as ancient as man himself. The dead . . . the dead were restless tonight. But the screams of the lost souls were not uncommon to hear for him. He was born with this gift. Communed with the dead often. Hearing their wails and torments was nothing surprising.

  But this was . . . this was a new feeling. This new intrusion. A life force. Someone living intruding his will into the underworld. A powerful, thriving, life force. Neither angry nor happy. Neither evil nor good. But . . . .powerful. Determined. Unflinching. A life force bent on exacting Justice. A justice of his own definition. And close to where he stood. Very close to the morgue somewhere in the night.

  Turning, the forensic pathologist retraced his steps. Stepped out from underneath the covering safety of the loading dock and into the rain. Eyes unblinking he turned his head to the right and stared into the night. Slowly, as if his eyes could see into the inky, wet night, his eyes swept the dark images in front of him. From right to left. Forgetting the rain. Forgetting the cold. His soul transported to some other place. Some other time.

  He was out there. Somewhere out there in the night formulating his plan for extracting Justice. Out there in the night planning . . . . what?

  Turning, the good doctor strode with a purpose into the morgue and as he slipped each glove off fingers one at a time walked directly toward his office. Shrugging off his soaked coat he tossed wet leather gloves onto a chair beside his desk and reached for the phone which sat on the right hand corner of a paper, file cluttered desk.

  “Records? Ah. This is Doctor Amar Maranaja at the morgue. I need all the records you have of a deceased police officer named John Urban. Especially any of his early records when he first became a detective. Can you send that over to me as fast as possible? Ah . . . I see. Two days wait is unacceptable. I tell you what. I’ll send one of my lab techs over to Records. He’ll sign for it and bring to me. Is that acceptable? Good. Good. Expect him about a half hour. Thank you.”

  Life forces. Either dead of living. They always left a stamp on your soul. A marker. An identification impossible to erase or hide. As this life force possessed. There . . . but confusing. Unclear. Not a marker. But markers . . . as if dozens of other souls lived within the living and blurred the one true marker.

  Strange. Most strange.

  Chapter Seven

  In the darkness of the hotel room the phone began ringing. Barely two rings complete and a hand reached out and lifted the receiver off the cradle and brought to his ear.

  “Taggert? This is Gibbons. You know that taxi driver you pointed out to me last night? The one that kept eyeing you? I’ve done some checking. He ain’t a taxi driver. Nobody knows who he is. What does that tell you?”

  “Tells me he might be our man. Got someone watching him?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking. Yeah, I got a set of eyes on him. Just heard from him. This kid is sitting in a bar over on 56th street called Hooch’s. Been there for a couple of hours knocking back four or five beers.”

  “Okay. I’ll check him out.”

  The phone clicked dead just as a light in the hotel room clicked on. Rolling out of bed, Taggert reached for his shirt he had neatly draped over the back of a chair. After that he threw over his shoulder the holster and webbing of his 9 mm Smith & Wesson 925CP with the five inch barrel and took his time strapping the weapon’s webbing across his chest. To finish up his attire he pulled off a hangar the long trench coat he had worn from the airport to the hotel. Slipping it over the chromed steel of the Smith & Wesson he buttoned three buttons and then turned.

  Business. Just business.

  If the kid was the kid that’d been messing with Kirtland Barrows’ business . . . well . . . too bad, kid. Barrows wanted your head. Literately. And Barrows was paying the bills. With that in mind, the small man turned and walked to the package wrapped in plain brown wrapping paper setting on the table beside the room’s television. Unwrapping it he opened the box and pulled out the long, heavy serrated chrome blade of a hunting knife. Brand new. The satin chrome of the blade’s steel unmarked and waiting. Waiting for the first taste of blood. Examining the blade for a few seconds he nodded, pulled out of the box a leather holster for it, slipped it in the leather, then dropped the weapon into an inside pocket of the trench coat.

  Too bad, kid. Too bad. Nothing personal. It’s just business. Just business.

  ***

  Across the street from the hotel a lone White cab sat against the curb in the pouring rain. Lights out. Dark tinted windows hiding the car’s interior from any curious passing pedestrians—as if there might have been any lunatic enough to walk in this driving monsoon.

  Inside the cab, the man Joe Abram knew as Smitty pulled a small microphone off his cell phone and then reached over and clicked the OFF button of the small digital recorder setting on the car seat beside him. A cruel, thin smirk played across Smitty’s lips. Reaching a gloved hand out to the small recorder he lifted it up and thumbed down the settings to a new recording.

  Taggert’s phone call. It had been Mario’s Gibbons’ voice talking. Genuine Gibbons. Hours and hours of editing to get the perfect recording. It had to sound convincing. Had to be flawless. Glancing to his left he watched a yellow cab roll up in front of the hotel. The compact frame of a man wearing a hat and a trench coat stepped out of the revolving glass doors of the hotel and quickly opened a rear door of the taxi and disappeared inside.

  Taggert was on the move.

  The sneer on his lips widened slightly as he returned his attention to the small microphone and the digital recorder. Dialing a second number he waited until he heard the line connect and then he pressed the ON button of the recorder.

  “Grundy, this is Garcia. Listen, I think we got a line on our man . . . “

  Jesus Garcia’s voice. Genuine. Sounding flawless. Convincing.

  He tossed the cell phone and digital recorder on the seat behind him when the phone call ended. Starting up the cab’s engine he pulled the gearshift down in the drive and slowly moved away from the curb.

  Too bad, boys. Too bad. But it’s just business. Very, very, very personal business.

  Chapter Eight

  Hooch’s was doing well tonight. Paying customers filled the smoke–filled bar in a tight mass of relaxed inebriation. From the six flat–panel TV screens various sporting events were being televised. But no one was listening. The cacophony of conversations was a muted but constant background noise. As he walked into the bar, Smitty turned his head to the right to check the bar and then turned left to see where his prey were perching themselves.

  The kid, a small–time hood who worked for Kirkland Barrows as a basic grunt, was sitting on a barstool popping handfuls of peanuts into his mouth and working on the fourth or fifth bottle of beer. A thin smirk played across his lips. The kid had no idea he was being used a decoy. Just a dumb kid who thought he was a tough hood. The perfect patsy.

  Looking to his left as he moved past the kid and headed for an empty bar stool, he saw both Taggert and Grundy sitting at a table with bottles of beer sitting on the tables in front of them. They were sitting alone at their respective tables. Sitting alone and keeping their eye on the kid. Didn’t even flicker an interest when he entered the bar, walked across their respective lines of vision, and sat down on the far corner barstool. Ordering a beer Smitty kept his eyes away from both the kid and the two hit men. There was no need to watch them. He knew what was going to happen. Knew precisely. Thirty minutes went by before he looked down at his Rolex strappe
d to his wrist. At 11:45 pm the kid reaches back, pulls out his billfold, and throws two twenties on the counter and tells the bartender to keep the change.

  Standing up the kid turned and headed for the front door of the bar. Lifting a beer bottle to his lips Smitty waited. Two minutes walk by and then Taggert gets up from his table and leaves. A minute later Grundy rises. When the door closes behind Grundy he waits for a minute more and finishes his beer. Nodding to the bartender he stands up and walks back to the pub’s restrooms. Bypassing the men’s room door Smitty lets himself out of the pub’s rear door and blends into the blackness of a back alley.

  All players were in place. The plan functioning smoothly. The hunt was on.

  ***

  Taggert kept a block back separating him from the kid. His prey was half stumbling, bouncing off the cold stone exterior walls of buildings like a drunk. The kid was blitzed. Barely sober enough to walk in the driving rain. Taggert grinned. Plucking him into a dark alley and killing the kid would be easy. Child’s play. The rain almost guaranteed no one would bother him when he went to work. The only real work he would have to do was using the knife to cut the kid’s head off. Bloody work. But the payday coming when he delivered the kid’s head to Barrows would more than make up for it.

  He followed the kid for three blocks. Three blocks through the rain and cold. Waiting. Waiting for the right moment to strike. It came soon enough. Stepping down into the mouth of an alley that bisected a city block the kid stops and bends over. And throws up violently everything he had drunk and ate for the last four hours. Again and again, throwing a hand up to brace himself on a stone wall in the process.

  Taggert began walking faster. He thought the alley would be the perfect spot to ice the kid. No prying eyes. No witnesses to worry about. Reaching inside his trench coat he decides to forget about the 9 mm. Pulling the hunting knife free from its sheath he grips it firmly as he steps off the sidewalk just behind the kid. Starting to lift the blade up to make the killing blow . . .

  From out of the side of an eye he sees a black form moving. Moving out of the alley. Moving fast and toward him. Taggert turns to confront the new menace. But it’s too late. A tire iron slams across the front of Taggert’s face. The force of the blow instantly breaking the man’s nose. He bends over in blinding pain. As he does another blow with the tire iron across the back of his neck drops him to his knees. Dazed, more unconscious than conscious, vaguely he feels a hand grab the back of his trench coat and pull him violently into the darkness of the alley. And then . . . blackness. Total blackness.

  The kid, retching one more time violently, stands up and turns around. His stomach is rolling the dry heaves. He feels as if he’s about to die. He can barely stand. Blinking the unfocused eyes of a drunk in the darkness he frowns. For the life of him he thought he heard noises behind him. Something hard smacking into something—what? Bone? Flesh? But there’s no one around. The alley opening is as dark as the pit of a black hole. The rain is falling out of the sky so hard the streets are beginning to flood. There’s not a soul to seen.

  Jesus. He’s sick. As sick as he had ever been. He needs to go to bed. To sleep this off. He’s so drunk he’s starting to hear things that aren’t there. Turning, he moves on down the sidewalk. One more block and he’d be home. Home and in bed. Jesus. Was he drunk.

  Grundy frowned. Two blocks in front of him was the long, lanky frame of the kid staggering down the sidewalk. But a block behind the kid was a lone figure. A lone figure wearing a hat and a trench coat. A guy obviously trailing the kid. A form that moved in a way that made him think he might know the guy. Maybe.

  Who was this guy? Why was the guy as interested in the kid as he was? And then it hit him. Another hitter. A second hitter Kirkland Barrows hired as insurance. The bastard. Barrows always played this trick. Always brought a second hitter in to do a job. Just in case. Just in case the first hitter screwed up.

  But not tonight, buddy. Not tonight. What Barrows was paying out to get this kid’s head was more than enough to absorb the addition of taking out someone else in the process. Be damned if he was going to allow another hitter to step up and take his payday away from him. The way he saw it was a two–for–one deal. He’d take out the competition first. And then the kid. One less competitor to worry about in the future. One insanely obscene paycheck in the end.

  Grundy smiled and started walking. Keeping a half block behind his first victim. The rain was vicious. Cold and vicious. It seemed like with each step it increased in intensity. By the time two blocks go by, he could barely see the kid in the darkness. Hands in his pockets his right hand was curled around the butt of a Heckler & Koch 9mm. His left hand gripped a surgeon’s scalpel. Barrows wanted a head. He’d get one. Maybe two.

  Four blocks up from the bar Grundy saw the kid stop and bend over and start throwing up in the opening of an alley. He grinned suddenly and started running. That’s where the first hitter was going to strike. In front of the alley. He was going to take the kid out, drag him into the alley, and then do the grisly work. If he moved fast enough he’d find the first hitter bent over working on the kid’s neck. Wouldn’t even hear him step up behind him and pop him one with his silenced 9mm. Both would be dead before they even knew it.

  Sheets of rain momentarily hide the kid and the first hitter in front of him. By time he got up to the alley there’s no one in sight. Everyone must be in the alley. Pulling his 9mm from his coat pocket he stepped up to the opening of the alley and cautiously peeks around to take a look. Dimly in the darkest recesses he sees a figure kneeling over a body, back turned to him. Grinning . . . thinking this was going to be so easy . . . he steps into the alley and moves through the rain up to just behind the kneeling figure.

  Lifting his weapon up to take a shot—his eyes adjusting to the deeper darkness—he suddenly realizes something’s wrong. Very wrong. What he thought was a body lying on the alley’s grime infested street was not a body. It was a long box. A box with a coat hanging off it. From the mouth of the alley in the rain and darkness it looked like a body—the kid’s body. And the first hitter—something was wrong there was well. The guy wasn’t moving. He really wasn’t actually kneeling. Someone had propped a shoulder up against a trash bin in just the right position to make it look as if a person was kneeling.

  Grundy panicked. Knew he had walked into a trap. Knew he had to leave, and leave fast, before the cops. He knew the cops were coming. Knew this was some crazy trap. Knew he had to turn and run. So he turned. Turned and bent over to start running. And died instantly.

  A black form was standing immediately behind him. A black form with a large serrated knife in his right hand. The moment Grundy turned, the knife came up and buried itself to the hilt into Grundy’s chest just below the sternum. He staggered. His legs failed him. For about a half second he felt something warm and salty tasting in his mouth. Surprise—complete and eternal—filled his mind. He blinked once. Tried to focus his eyes onto the image of the dark figure in front of him. But it was too dark. Too dark. A darkness that would last for eternity.

  Smitty held onto Grundy’s body and lowered it gently to the alley. Leaving the knife sticking out of the dead man’s chest he stepped over the body and moved two steps toward the unconscious, badly battered figure of Taggert, and bent down. Picking up the crow bar he turned and walked back to Grundy. Kneeling, Smitty placed the crow bar into Grundy’s dead hand and then curled the dead man’s fingers around the cold steel. There had to be fingerprints. Clear fingerprints that it was Grundy who handled the crow bar in this alley fight. Satisfied, Smitty stood up and started walking briskly to the alley’s opening. From inside his coat he pulled out a cell phone, flipped it open, and speed dialed a number.

  “Police? Good. I need to talk to Detective Joe Abrams . . .”

  Chapter Nine

  Gently . . . so gently . . .Joe Abrams put the phone receiver back on its base and stepped away from the desk. His face was as pale as the fresh wrappings of a mummy. L
ooking to his right his eyes fall on the form of Noel Sergeant standing beside the desk. A look of intense interest in the man’s brown eyes.

  “That was the commissioner?”

  Joe Abrams swallowed, ran a hand down the front of his face, and nodded.

  “He’s chewing your ass out for these series of murders? What the frack! We’re in Burglary. Not Homicide.”

  “He thinks . . . he thinks I . . .we . . . need to take over the investigation. Somehow he heard about me asking questions about John . . John Urban. About me possibly tying the murders together with a ghost. He told me to assemble a task force. Detectives . . . patrol officers . . . the works. He wants this madman found and brought to justice. No excuses.”

  “But Joe, hell, you haven’t been in Homicide for more than fifteen years. How the hell do they expect you to come up with anything? Homicide’s been working on it for almost a week and they’ve found nothing. Nothing but dead bodies.”

  “But this guy calls me, Noel. Calls me whenever he does something. Like last night. Called me to let me know one bad guy was dead. Killed by another bad guy. Rival hit men. How did he know all that? How did he know that one was hunting the other? Where we could find them? Jesus. He sounds so . . .so . . . familiar. He almost sounds like my old partner. But that can’t be. It just can’t be. I know John is dead. I know it. I had to identify his body and his wife’s body.”

  “So who is this guy?”

  “Somebody. Somebody who knew John. Somebody who knows me. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a connection. An intersection that has me, John, and this killer all coming together somewhere from out of our past. It has to be. There’s no other explanation.”

  “Unless you really do believe in ghosts.”

  Abrams looked at his younger partner and frowned.