“I don’t. Not really. Do you?”
The younger detective opened his mouth and started to say something smarmy—something flippant. But the look on the face of his older partner stopped him. Grinning, he shrugged and began shaking his head.
“I dunno, Joe. I dunno. Who the hell is this guy?”
Joe Abrams frowned, glanced down at the office desk filled with files, names, reports—all they could find about his old partner—and shook his head. For a moment he stared at the paperwork. And then, as if making a decision, reached inside his sport coat and pulled out an ink pen. Bending over the desk to scribble some names he stood up a moment later and handed the paper to his partner.
“Here. Here’s who we want on our task force. Give’em a call and tell’em we're having our first session as a unit at 0950 hours tomorrow. Tell’em this comes straight from the commissioner. And don’t be late.”
Noel Sergeant took the paper, nodded, and said he’d get on it just as soon as he came back from the men’s room. Joe watched his partner walk out of the empty squad room. With Noel’s departure he was the only one left in the wide, long squad room. Only a couple of fans and some ambient city noise assaulted his senses. Outside the rain rattled against the windows. The goddamn rain. Was it ever going to quit? Making a face he reached across his desk and slapped the empty coffee cup in one hand and turned to walk over to the small squad room coffee pot.
The room quiet. The rain falling outside. The soft hum of small electric fans sitting on one or two detective desks. Pouring something black and hot and more or less labeled as coffee Joe curled fingers around the steaming cup and turned . . .
Dr. Maranaja.
Standing directly behind him.
Standing not more than a foot away. Long, slightly bent over—a cadaverous looking creature.
“Jesus!”
Involuntarily Joe jerked and stepped backwards. Completely startled—coffee flying in a high arc over his right shoulder and splashing against the dirty plaster walls of the squad room.
“Christ, doctor! Are you trying to kill me? That’s twice you’ve scared the shit out of me. Another jolt like that and I’ll have a heart attack. Swear to god!”
“My apologies, detective. But I thought I had to come and see you. I feel a disturbance. A disturbance in the afterlife. Dark forces are stirring up the slumbering souls. Things are about to happen. Terrible things.”
The detective took another step back from the strange looking man in front of him and forced himself to regain his composure. And then—deliberately—turned and reached for the coffee pot one more time.
“I thought you were a physician. A man of science. But here you are talking to me like some character out of Star Wars. A disturbance in the afterlife? What the hell does that mean?”
A patient, sad . . . almost mocking smile of tolerance spread across the colorless lips of the doctor. Watching the detective pour his coffee and sit the coffee pot back on the small burner before turning around to face him again, the doctor watched the detective with tolerant interest.
“You are right, detective. I embrace Western science completely. But nothing in science compels me to abandon what my ancestors have known and accepted for centuries. I may add that science is beginning to explore the possibilities my ancestors have accepted for all this time.”
“That there are ghosts? That our soul never dies?”
Abrams stepped past the doctor and walked to his desk. Anger and frustration clearly written on his face. Doctor Maranaja followed and then slowly eased himself down into a chair beside the detective’s desk.
“What the hell? You want me to believe John Urban has come back from the dead and is killing everyone who was involved in his murder? In his wife’s murder? Is that what you are telling me?”
“As I said earlier detective,” Maranaja responded with a soft, tolerant voice. The voice of a parent speaking to a child. “Your friend is dead. Physically dead. His soul resides in the afterlife. His physical presence cannot return to the living.”
“But his ghost can,” Abrams said, finishing the doctor’s unsaid sentence.
“Yes. In a way, detective. In a way. But not in the way you think.”
Abrams, pulling back his office chair, sat down and sat the coffee cup down and started to say something. A caustic remark that he didn’t have time for this kind of hocus–pocus blabbering. But a hand, with long, boney fingers and a narrow palm came up and silenced him.
“Give me a few moments to explain, detective. I think you will find, in the end, something of worth in it.”
Eyes blazing Joe Abrams held back a hot retort, glared at the strange physician for a moment and then nodded. Reluctantly.
“Thank you,” the doctor smiled and laid a small file onto Abram’s desk. A file that Abrams never saw the doctor carrying earlier. “For a moment, detective, let the Western scientist in me ramble on a sentence or two. Accept, if you will, the idea that our souls—our consciousness—our thoughts are electro–magnetically charged particles that are formed and maintained in a compact magnetic field. That compact magnetic field being our bodies. Our souls are our consciousness. Our thoughts are only a tiny part of the total package which makes up our unique magnetic signatures.
“While we reside in physical form, this magnetic field maintains itself in one specific, concise magnetic frequency—much like a radio wave’s frequency is different from, say, a television broadcast frequency. But when we die, detective—when we die, this frequency changes. Higher or lower in frequency I cannot tell. But it changes. It becomes, for the majority of us, unreachable and undetectable to our senses. We don’t die, my friend. Not in the way Western science defines as death. We change. We ascend—or descend—into a different magnetic frequency.”
Joe Abrams stared at the cadaverous looking man sitting in the chair beside his desk and said nothing. Said nothing. But the anger in him—the fear—the uncertainly which had for almost a week now filled his consciousness with a pounding intensity was gone. Completely gone. And relief . . .waves of relief . . . filled his mind with an odd form of sensual pleasure.
“Ah, I see I have struck a certain chord detective,” the doctor whispered softly and nodding. “You begin to glean what I am trying to convey. Shall I continue?”
Joe Abrams nodded. His full attention centered directly on the good doctor.
“Those of us who see, or feel, ghosts are not seeing or feeling the supernatural. We are seeing or feeling something tangible. Something real. I mentioned magnetic fields and radio waves and frequencies. Indeed, that is what we are. But for us—for the living—some of us are receptors. We are radio receivers who can, for some unexplainable reason, become aware of these frequencies our departed friends have ascended to. We make contact with them either directly or indirectly.
I have noticed those who become closely attached to others . . . parents to children, husbands to wives, close friends—and sometimes, sometimes—even fierce enemies . . .unconsciously develop the mental antennas which locks in on the frequencies of the dead. Can feel their presence . . . their emotions . . . their thoughts . . . from beyond the grave. Much like you have, detective. You—and the person who is exacting his revenge on those who killed your partner and his wife.”
Joe Abrams stared at Doctor Maranaja for a few moments, his mind filled with impossible thoughts. A part of him wanted to reject everything this strange man was saying. A far larger part of him was telling him the odd looking doctor was absolutely correct. He could feel John Urban’s anger. His anger at being so brutally gunned down. His burning desire to exact revenge. Yet . . .
“I know, detective. I know,” the doctor smiled, nodded sagely as he rose slowly from his chair. Yet as he did, one boney finger from his left hand folded open like a switch–blade and tapped the folder he had sat down on the desk beside him. “You want to know who this other soul is on this side of the afterlife exacting his vengeance. Perhaps this file from Personnel will help you. G
ood bye, detective. I must return to my work. But let me say that you must be careful. This man who is in contact with John Urban’s emotions is a very powerful entity himself. And very talented. Very talented indeed.”
The long, slightly bent over doctor turned and started walking to the door leading out of the squad room. As he turned his eyes fell on the white, color drained face of Noel Sergeant. Maranaja smiled, nodded, and slipped past the speechless—perplexed—startled younger man without saying a word.
Noel Sergeant heard everything. Heard everything the doctor said to his partner. The doctor, smiling and slipping past him, knew it. Knew he had heard everything. Knew he had been standing in the doorway like some muted dimwit taking it all in and not making a squeak. Blinking eyes, trying to get his thoughts in line, the younger detective stared in the direction the strange doctor disappeared into for a moment or two and then, numbly, turned back and looked at Joe Abrams.
“Jesus. What was that all about?”
But Joe Abrams didn’t hear his partner. Wasn’t even aware of his return. He was deep in reading the Personnel folder Maranaja had left behind.
Chapter Ten
In the night he watched.
Black eyes—black eyes of a bottomless pit—as cold as a Black Mamba’s.
Watching.
Watching everything.
Behind the wheel of the cab he was driving. Driving through the rain in heavy traffic. Seeing the constant flash of bright tail lights flaring and being magnified a thousand fold by the falling rain all around him. Sensing the movement of the hundreds of souls surrounding him in their steel vessel of solitude. The sharp edge of low beams knifing through the darkness and rain.
He saw it all.
He felt it all.And drove. Drove three car lengths behind the big Mercedes sedan filled with bodies. Bodies of the dead yet still living. Knowing. Knowing that soon they too would be buried and forgotten. And he would be the source of their demise.
They called him Smitty. Just Smitty. Few knew what he had been called in his past life. A life he only was dimly aware of. Few knew him at all. In his line of work it was best that way. The fewer who knew him the safer they would be. The safer he would be. Safer the world would be.
It was the best way. The safest way. For everyone. Killing for a living forced one to live a certain lifestyle. Forced him into a cocoon of loneliness. Of solitude. Of distance. Rightly or wrongly it was the life he took on after . . . after . . .
No. Not anymore. Not ever.
Don’t look back, pilgrim. Never look back. In this profession it was a mortal error to look back. To second–guess. To hesitate. To remember good times. Or bad times. It would get you killed thinking about the past. About what had been. About what should have been.
About . . . old friends.
Old friends cruelly murdered by ruthless, uncaring moguls of the underworld. Killed by crime bosses like Kirkland Barrows. Being a cop . . . or a killer . . .had oddly enough, the same set of potential issues to face on a daily basis. Track down the foe. Eliminate it. Be wary of traps. Of lies. Of deceit. Of treachery. Especially of treachery. Trust no one. No one except . . . maybe, maybe . . . your closet friends.
But not now. Not now. Not in this profession. There were no friends. No partners. No one to trust. On the lies . . . the deceits . . . the treacheries. The next victim. Always the next victim.
Like the car load of victims riding in the expensive Mercedes three car lengths in front of him. Riding through the wet streets and falling rain heading for the secured, heavily guarded compound of Kirkland Barrows. The dead walking among the living and not knowing they were dead. That described Mario Gibbons and his men in the car with him. Dead men walking.
Gibbons was Kirkland Barrows’ most trusted lieutenant. The smartest. The smooth criminal who got things done. Quickly and efficiently. The reliable one. Barrows’ right hand man. Take him out—take out everyone immediately around Gibbons—and do it violently—would severely rattled Barrows. Rattle him and infuriate him at the same time. Make him do stupid mistakes. Rattle his confidence level. Begin to distrust everyone.
Set him up, in the end, for his fall.
Yes.
Take out the lieutenants. The two most trusted, most reliable, soldiers in Kirkland Barrows’ pay. Take one out in one fashion. Violently. Bloodily. Viciously. Take the other out by persuasion. By conviction. By dire necessity. In a way that would convince the other lieutenant—Jose Garcia—would have to do something unthinkable if he wanted to live. That would be running to the cops and confessing . . . confessing all the sins of Kirkland Barrows and he had committed together . . . was the only way. The only way to live. To grow old. To survive.
Kill one. Make the other confess. Do both and destroy Kirkland Barrows.
Extract revenge. Calm the souls crying out in the night for justice. Souls long dead. The souls of old friends. Old friends from a different life. A previous time frame.
So in the night he drove. Drove slowly, carefully, through the driving rain and darkness in heavy evening traffic. Swam in a sea of steel and exhaust fumes in a dark ocean. Prowled like a shark waiting for his prey to dangle his feet in waters close enough for him to strike.
Chapter Eleven
“We think we are looking for an ex–cop. John Urban’s first partner while John was still in the patrol division,” Noel Sergeant began standing at the head of a long conference table with a thick folder lying on the table in front of him. “Open your folders and take a look at what our suspect looked like sixteen years ago.”
Twelve men—four detectives pulled from the three different divisions within the detective branch and eight patrolmen—opened their folders at the same time and looked intently at the large 5x7 photo of a grinning man dressed in a blue patrolman’s uniform. A man with sandy blond hair, a good set of shoulders, powerful arms, and dark eyes. Very dark eyes.
“Sixteen years ago the department knew him as Johnny Kilpatrick. For a little over a year Johnny Kilpatrick and John Urban worked the lower docks. Kilpatrick was decorated four times for acts of bravery. His personnel file says he was a crack shot with a pistol and just as deadly with a rifle. There’s also evidence suggesting our man may have been a black belt in a hand–to–hand combat technique call KravMaga.”
One of the men sitting at the table whistled softly to himself and shook his head in quiet admiration.
“Paul—you got something to say?” Noel Sergeant said, looking at the patrolman.
“It’s just that, the other night at the drugstore where the Hellion gang was iced, I was one of the first to arrive on the scene. If this guy took out that many toughs with just his hands he’s going to be one mean son of a bitch.”
“You know what,” one of the detectives said frowning and looking up from the folder in front of him. “I knew this guy. A good man. Tough as nails. I remember those eyes. Those eyes could look straight through you. Nail your ass to a wall if they decided to get mad. He had a wife didn’t he? Seems I remember some trouble he had with his wife.”
Joe Abrams, who so far had been leaning against the conference room wall, arms folded across his chest and keeping silent, decided it was time to say something.
“We think that’s the trigger device that made Johnny Kilpatrick go off the reservation. His wife left him. Apparently she and Johnny Kilpatrick’s twin brother ran off together. Leaving Johnny behind with a mountain of debt and an empty bank account. The day after his wife and brother dumped him he handed in his badge and gun and disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” a different patrol growled, frowning. “What do you mean disappeared?”
“Gone. Evaporated into thin air,” the younger detective standing beside Abrams answered. “Like a ghost. Left town, changed his name, was never seen or heard from again. Until the other day when he contacted Joe.”
“He contacted you, Joe?” the older detective sitting at the table, the one who said he remembered Johnny Kilpatrick, said and lifting an eyebr
ow in surprise. “Why? What did he have to say?”
Abrams eyed the twelve men sitting at the table and wondered if he should tell them. Tell them that Johnny had returned and was hunting. Hunting for the man who killed John Urban. Should he tell them? Tell them this specter—this spirit—told him he knew who gave the order to kill John. Why not? Each of these men was handpicked. Handpicked by him. He trusted them. Trusted each one with his life.
“Our man is going after Kirkland Barrows. He says he’s going to give us evidence to take Barrows and his entire organization down. Said we’d have the evidence by Sunday night.”
“Sunday night? Hell, that’s day after tomorrow,” the first patrol said out loud, eyes showing surprise. “How’s he going to take down someone as powerful as Barrows? The guy must be nuts.”
“Nuts or not he’s already kicked Barrows in the balls,” a second detective growled from the far end of the table. “Twice. Taking out the Hellions and shutting down their drug ring was the first kick. Burning down that warehouse filled with stolen Army weaponry was the other. The guy may be nuts. But he acts like he knows what he’s doing.”
“What about the murder of the Detroit gunman who flew into town the other night. One dead and another hit man accused of murder. Did our man have anything to do with that?”
“Probably,” Joe Abrams said, frowning and nodding. “He called me last night and told me where I could find them. When we got down oneof' em had a knife sticking out of his chest and the other one was lying in the alley unconscious. Looked like someone worked him over pretty good with a crowbar.”
“Crowbar? Wasn’t that in the dead man’s hand?”
“Yeah,” Noel Sergeant nodded, grinning impishly. “A nice touch, if you ask me. Kills one guy with a pig sticker as big as friggin sword and works the other over with a crowbar. The knife has a set of finger prints of the guy living. The crowbar has the finger prints of the dead man.”
A Dish Served Cold - B R Stateham Page 5
