by JJ Lamb
“I can’t move, Bob.”
“Marketing’s all set up to key this event into a national promo.” Merz laughed harshly. “Fuck! And here I am, wasting my time yakking at an ex-employee who talks about never letting me down?”
“Bob–“
“Shove it, St. George! I’m sending a courier for the Pneucanex. You’d better be there!”
Chapter 35
Before St. George could fully digest what had just happened, the phone rang again. He grabbed up the receiver, hoping against hope that Merz had merely lost his temper, thought it through, and changed his mind.
“WHERE IS SHE?”
“I …”
“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING HER BACK YESTERDAY.”
“Father!” He dug a nail into a scar under his arm, making it burn like a cigarette ground against his naked skin. “I’ve been sick.”
“BRING HER!”
“I’m too sick.”
“SICK?”
Father’s voice exploded in his head, reverberated through his brain. “I’m the one who’s sick. You’re the puny little nothing who can’t stand the sight of blood.”
“Yes, Father.”
“My head’s on fire. Do you hear me? I need the woman; Milty wants his packages.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I’ll do it.”
* * *
Jacob St. George slammed down the telephone, cutting off his pathetic son’s voice.
“Whiner!” he screamed at the sides of beef awaiting his attention. “Always making excuses.”
Goddam it, why couldn’t I have gotten a real son, one with backbone?
He smacked one of the slabs of beef with the flat of his hand.
Yeah, but what else could I expect from that bitch? She never did anything right.
He hated his son, had hated the kid right from the day he was born – a redheaded, sickly, sniveling, mama’s boy.
He’d found it disgusting that Lola made excuses for the boy’s sissy ways, for his nightmares. She would even take the punches that were meant for the kid. Then he discovered that he enjoyed beating her much more than he did smacking around his pantywaist son. Her lily-white skin would turn bright scarlet, then flip into multi-colored bruises. And each time he worked her over, it became more difficult to stop himself from doing it again.
The effects became so exciting, one day he covered her with cow blood and finger-painted fiery patterns across her nude, shivering body, all the time whispering gutter talk about his contempt for her.
She became his personal punching bag. Spunky Lola? She stopped fighting back – changed from defensive to submissive.
And her thick, flaming hair? Every time it grew out four or five inches, he would hack it all off, making the ritual a part of whatever new fantasy jumped into his brain.
Humiliating her became the only way to make him feel anything.
After the last time he beat her, he awoke in the middle of the night to find her standing over him, her eyes wild and fierce. She was ready to stab him with a large chef’s knife.
“You think you’re going to kill me?” he sneered.
“You’re through being cruel to Eddie! You’re never going to yell at my son again! I’m going to stop you from making him cower. From beating him. You’re an evil man, Jacob St. George.”
She thrust downward with the knife; he rolled out of the way, leaped from the bed, and squeezed her tight against his body with one arm.
Her eyes widened into pools of hatred; he grabbed her wrist and twisted until she dropped the knife. He scooped up the weapon and slit her nightgown from neck to hem, leaving a thin line of seeping blood down her chest and stomach.
“I’m not the adulterer,” he shouted.
St. George threw her onto the bed, positioned himself over her, and lowered his body until her stiffened nipples rubbed against his chest. He entered her and thrust in and out of her limp body until he climaxed with a guttural, wall-shaking roar.
After a moment, he rolled off the bed; he picked up the knife again, and jammed the blade up between her ribs and into her heart.
There was only a slight gasp as her breath caught and ceased. He watched her life ebb, come to an end.
Jacob St. George leaned over his wife’s face, licked her cheek, and swallowed her last tear. She was dead. He was alive. Alive with … with joy!
He had the power.
He stood, hovered over her – a beast with a new kill.
His skin was taut, every pore tingling. He admired her attack, her defiance; he wondered if there was even a hint of that hidden strength in his son. But to what end? He would always prevail.
Standing at the bedside, looking down on his wife’s wilted body, the joy ebbed. He already missed that feeling of exaltation and power.
In the wee hours of the morning, he snuck his wife’s body out of the apartment and took it to the butcher shop. He wrapped the body in butcher paper and stored it in the back corner of the walk-in freezer, piling boxes of steaks and chops in front of it.
By the following noon, Jacob St. George and Milton Hiller had found each other. They’d come to an agreement on what was supposedly a one-time deal.
* * *
Jacob tugged at the collar of his turtleneck, loosened it from around his Adam’s apple. He was burning up, even in the refrigerated air of the cutting room. He looked at his knives, all honed razor-sharp, lined up, and ready to use. Next to them were the cleavers and handsaws.
His cell vibrated inside his pants pocket. He slipped a hand under his blood-smeared apron, pulled out the phone, and read the caller ID.
Fucking Milty Hiller again.
He kicked viciously at the padlocked cooler where he stored the packages. For the first time in years it was almost empty on a day Hiller was scheduled to make a pickup.
Damn Eddie!
His right foot felt numb, or was it his imagination? No, his toes felt icy, hard; the fingers of his right hand were tingling; and his tongue seemed large and floppy. The radiation wasn’t working.
“Yeah, yeah!” he said into the phone.
“It’s time,” Hiller said, his voice firm, threatening.
“I don’t have the whole order, yet. How many times a day do I have to tell you?”
“Listen, I promised those packages for tomorrow,” Milty Hiller said. “One of my best accounts. You let these universities down and the money disappears forever. It’s not like I’m the only show in town.”
“Don’t keep singing that sad song to me, Milty. I told you, I don’t have it all put together. Maybe later on today, or tonight.”
St. George’s tongue was suddenly so swollen he couldn’t speak.
“That’s not good enough. Do you understand?”
St. George tried to respond, managed only a soft, unintelligible sound.
“Jacob? Are you there?”
St. George folded the cell, returned it to his pocket. His heart thumped in his ears, pounded like a locomotive gone wild. He pulled a vial of tablets from a pocket, tapped out four into his palm, wondered if he could even swallow them.
May have waited too long.
He placed the pills one by one on the back of his engorged tongue, uncapped a bottle of water, and tried to swallow. After three attempts, the pills finally washed down.
He sat on the stool, laid his head on the wooden table, and stared at the array of cutting tools. It was hypnotic the way they shone back at him. St. George’s eyes drooped shut.
As he drifted off, he thought about his father, who long ago had given him the matched set of knives, said they were the best in the business. He then unexpectedly demonstrated their quality and efficiency by slicing open Jacob’s forearm. Cruel, but instructive.
Oh, yes, my knives are sharp; they hold their edge. I can fillet any piece of meat without tearing or damaging the flesh, or anything else.
He awoke with a start, checked his watch. He had conked out for almost an hour. His tongu
e was almost normal again. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and punched Eddie’s number. It rang and rang.
“Pick up, damn you!”
When he heard the phone at the other end click on, he said, “Don’t give me a bunch of bullshit excuses, Eddie. I need a woman tonight. Hear me? Tonight!”
“Yes, Father.”
Jacob St. George hung up, shivered. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t stay warm. He watched his right arm jerk uncontrollably as though it didn’t belong to him; he was starting to have trouble talking again.
He’d complained loudly about the symptoms the last time he’d gone to his doctor, but it was the same old spiel – pills to make him comfortable, retreat to some kind of home where feed him, tuck him in, and watch him in to die.
What did they call it? Not a hospital. Not a hostel. Hospice! That was it. Well, no matter what they called it, he wasn’t ready to go there.
The phone rang. He read the display and saw Milty’s name again. “Shit!” But he lifted the receiver to his ear.
“Jacob, what’s with you? Don’t ever hang up on me like that again.”
St. George said something garbled that didn’t even make sense to him.
“What’s with the mumbling? I need answers.”
St. George cleared his throat, swallowed more water, and croaked out, “Haven’t been feeling too great lately.”
“None of us are as young as we used to be. Hell, you’re just getting old, Jacob.”
“Can the stupid jabber. I’m doing what I can.”
“You promised, Jacob. No time for excuses. Is this gonna affect our deal, or what? Gotta know. Ain’t got no time to fool around. Need those packages. You got ‘til midnight!”
Jacob kept shivering, but could feel the sweat dripping from under his arms. For the first time in years he was scared, scared of dying, scared of Milty.
“I … I’m working … on it.”
“You’re not shitting me, are you Jacob?”
“No. You’ll have the packages. Tonight.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“What’re you going to do Milty, kill me?”
There was a long moment of silence.
“You know, Jacob, I’ve always thought you were a sick fuck, and I never asked you any questions that might mess up our little deal. But you if don’t come through, I’ll stuff your prick in your mouth and turn you into a package I can sell. A deal’s a deal.”
Before Jacob could stutter a reply, the line went dead.
Chapter 36
It was almost noon before Pepper Yee found the time to request a plainclothes team to go find Eddie St. George and have a talk with him. In the meantime, she telephone-chased CHEMwest’s HR director to find out the extent of the drug rep’s sales territory. She wanted as much background on St. George as she could get, as quickly as possible.
Yee caught the pharmaceutical company’s HR department head just as she was sitting down for some kind of professional luncheon meeting at the Fairmont Hotel.
“Sorry to inconvenience you, ma’am, but I need the information right now,” Yee said. “Later this afternoon might be too late.” Not exactly the truth, but…
“Everything’s in the computer,” the woman said impatiently.
“And you can’t access that data with your iPod or Blackberry, or whatever is in your purse, or perhaps the hotel’s computer?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“How long could it take?”
“I hope this is as important as you say it is. Hold on. I can’t do it here at the table.”
In less than ten minutes Yee had the information she wanted. If Megan Ann Hendricks was alive and well and shacked up with the drug rep, that would take care of that. But if the nurse wasn’t there, then she wanted to be prepared – St. George was the first real lead in what she’d come to call the “Mazzio Muddle.”
Yee called the SFPD’s IT computer geeks to find out if she could get data on all local female medical personnel who had been reported as missing persons over the past five years, women who had never been accounted for.
“No problem, lieutenant,” said the on-duty nerd. “But we’ll need the request in writing.”
“Yeah, yeah! Soon as we hang up. And while you’re at it, could you limit the printout to redheads, age 20 to 40, trim, no more than 150 pounds? It would speed things along.”
“If the info’s available, we can get it for you.”
“How long?”
“You set the priority.”
“ASAP.”
“You got it.”
“Good,” Yee said. “Now, what about other metro and county jurisdictions throughout the Bay Area, say as far south as San Jose?”
“We have pretty good synergy with most of the police and sheriffs in the area. That’ll take a little longer, though.”
“Just get me what I need. I’ll bring the written request right down.”
Once she had the data from IT, she’d coordinate it with the info she’d been given by the CHEMwest HR director. She doubted it would take very long to catch any kind of a pattern that might make Eddie St. George a prime murder suspect.
When Yee returned after taking her written request to IT, the switchboard had a message from Walter Cooke – he’d been tapped to do another dismemberment job at Auston’s Funeral Home. Tonight.
Mazzio, Hendricks, and St. George would have to wait. She called her lieutenant.
“This could be the night we catch Milty Hiller ass-deep in illegal human body parts,” she said. “Could you give us the leverage we need to shut down the entire operation.”
“Go for it,” said the lieutenant. “How many people do you need?”
“Soon as I locate Hiller, I’ll put a tail on him. He usually hangs out during the day at his discount camera shop on Market Street. I’d like to take Daniels with me, and I could use a couple of uniforms for backup.”
“Sounds like a plan. Good work, Yee!”
* * *
After work, Gina Mazzio drove to Solomon’s, a local deli – it was almost as good as the ones in New York. She bought a turkey sandwich with onions and mayo on pumpernickel, and a cream soda to wash it down. Then she continued on her way to St. George’s apartment building.
She was somewhat surprised to find that the drug rep lived in very posh Pacific Heights. She’d always assumed that people in that profession made a very good living, but this was beyond her expectations. She found a parking spot across the street from the building, nibbled on her turkey sandwich, and waited for some kind of plan to pop into her head. It was already dark so she didn’t feel quite so conspicuous sitting in her ancient Fiat in what was probably a very security-conscious neighborhood.
While she was chewing on the last bite of her sandwich, a tan four-door sedan pulled up in front of the apartment building and double-parked. Two guys got out who looked and acted like cops. When they reached the lobby door, they pounded on the glass and flashed badges at the doorman.
Yee had certainly taken her time.
* * *
“Mr. St. George, Edward St. George?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Detective Sorenson and this is Detective Delgado. We’re trying to locate a Megan Ann Hendricks. She’s been reported as a missing person.”
“I don’t understand,” St. George said. “She’s only been staying here a couple of days. Isn’t there some kind of waiting period before the police act on a missing person report?”
“Not when we have probable cause, sir. Now tell me, do you know where I might find Ms. Hendricks?
“Well, she’s–” St. George looked back over his shoulder in the direction of the hallway leading to the master bedroom. “–she’s in the bedroom.”
“Do you mind if we come in, Mr. St. George?” Sorenson said. He eased one foot inside the doorway without waiting for an answer.
St. George opened the door wider and allowed both officers to step into the penthouse foyer. “Who fi
led the missing person report?”
“I have no idea, sir. We just need to see Ms. Hendricks and determine if she’s unharmed and not being held against her will.”
“Okay. I’ll go see if she’s, uh, presentable.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, one of us needs to go with you.”
“Just give me a moment, please. She was taking a shower when I came to answer the door.”
“I’ll go,” said Delgado. She gave her partner a wry smile.
Just then Megan Ann stepped out from the hallway, wearing a man’s t-shirt that covered everything, but hid nothing. She had an empty old-fashion glass in one hand. “Oh, goody! We have company.”
Sorenson stared, mouth open, Delgado glared at her partner, and St. George felt himself flush.
“Megan Ann,” St. George said softly, “don’t you think it would be a good idea for you to go back and put on some clothes?”
“Are you Megan Ann Hendricks?” Sorenson asked before she could say anything.
“Yep!”
“Are you here of your own free will, Ms. Hendricks?”
“You damn betcha!”
“What do you think?” Sorenson said to Delgado.
Delgado looked at her clipboard. “She certainly matches the description … and then some.”
“Okay,” Sorenson said. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. St. George. Everything seems to be in order here. Is that correct Ms. Hendricks?”
Megan Ann raised her empty glass in a toast. “Would be if I had a little vodka and ice in this glass.” She turned and giggled her way back down the hallway toward the bedroom.
Delgado spun her partner around and St. George escorted the two of them back to the elevator. He waited until the indicator showed the car had reached the lobby level. Before he could begin to think about what their visit meant, the phone rang.
Again!
And again.
St. George paced back and forth, covered his ears. Father had been calling consistently every fifteen minutes since yesterday. It seemed like the ringing would never stop.
He tore at his hair, gouged the scars under his arms until blood trickled down his sides.
“Stop it!”
The incessant ringing was like nails being hammered into his skull.
