The Definitive Albert J. Sterne

by Julie Bozza

  “But you would expect to feel a soupçon of fear while playing the game, wouldn’t you? Just so much, and no more, because you trust the person you’re playing it with.”

  “Leave it alone, Albert. Forget it.”

  “If you trust him -”

  Fletch pushed away from the man, put some distance between them. “Leave it alone, damn you.”

  Albert stood as well. “Perhaps I’ll phone for a taxi to take me to the airport.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Fletcher snapped.

  They were silent throughout the drive and didn’t even speak at the airport. Albert did, however, allow Fletch to shake his hand in farewell.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  NEW ORLEANS

  DECEMBER 1984

  John Garrett strolled down the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his Saints jacket, newspapers under one arm. He knew the walk by instinct now, knew where to step to avoid the haphazard gutters and the bags of garbage, the abrupt bumps and depressions caused by tree roots and the high water table. While the summer weather lasted, he’d learned where to dodge the drips from air conditioning units, too, but the oppressive humidity had finally broken three weeks ago. There had been no fall: this city had only two seasons. Though today was officially the third day of winter, the bitterly cold weather had immediately followed the end of the heat. And Garrett, for one, welcomed it.

  This city he found himself in was not only hot, it was flatter than a pancake and five feet below sea level - all of which seemed bizarre to a man used to cool climates and mountains. Who on earth had the idea to build a city in this swampland, fed by the omnipotent river and encroached on by the hungry ocean? There must have been desperate need for a trading port or defense of the river mouth, or some such thing.

  Strolling, Garrett took it slow and easy, which tended to be the New Orleans pace at this time of day. No one had hurried in the heat and no one sped up now winter had arrived. The walk to buy the newspapers, with the humidity a physical presence bearing down on him even this early, had been all the exercise a man of Garrett’s build had needed. In fact, he wondered if he’d even survive the height of summer in this place.

  He reached the cafe where he regularly took breakfast and sat in his usual seat. They brought him coffee and a pastry, and he opened up the first paper. He had to order it in from Oregon, which was irritatingly obvious, so he used the name Smith and walked a half mile out of his way to a newsstand that specialized in papers and magazines from across the States and from Canada and overseas. He could buy the Weekend Australian off the rack, for God’s sake, but he had to have a special standing order for the Oregon paper.

  But he was prepared to do all that, and take the risk, in order to follow his case. Annoying, that three murders were barely enough to make the national papers and the television news. Murder was just background noise these days. What would he have to do, hit double digits within one state to get decent press coverage? But that was part of the whole idea - keep it within limits, keep it local, don’t give the feds an excuse to sniff around. Acceptable risks, minimal danger, just slide past the trouble with an irresistible smile. One day, too far in the future for him to picture clearly, Garrett would let everyone know what he’d achieved, and how many deaths, how many unsolved murders could be attributed to his charm and wits. Perhaps a posthumous confession of some sort, or he’d write a best seller once he was too old for them to send him to jail.

  There was nothing in the paper today, so no progress had been made. Not that the police didn’t lie to reporters, either directly or by omission, in misguided attempts to manipulate the case. But Oregon had been quiet for over ten days now, and there was no sign of the FBI renewing its early, low key interest - though there had been mention of Bureau help from interstate. Garrett hoped that had simply been forensics or some other technical assistance, but whatever it was, nothing seemed to have come of it.

  He was beginning to breathe easier at last. For too long a while, Garrett had feared he’d blundered, and badly. Finding a fresh body and old blood stains in the cellar, neither of which he could explain. Giving in to the temptation of taking Tony from the construction site. None of that had been sensible. But he’d disposed of the stranger’s body out in the forest, in such a way that the police suspected there was a second murderer; he’d bricked over the entrance to the cellar, laminating the end of the cupboard so smoothly no one would guess it had ever been a door; and he’d left Tony until last, once the construction job was over, ambushing the boy on his way out for the evening, seducing the unseducable. Sure, Garrett had been clever - but after the fact rather than before. It worried him, that there might be something else, some forgotten detail, that he hadn’t dealt with.

  Nothing in the paper, nothing for his scrapbook. He would toss the thing into one of the trash cans on the walk to work - a different one each day, which was as anonymous a method of disposal as he bothered with.

  He reached for the local Times-Picayune, mouth already quirking into a smile. They took crime seriously in New Orleans and with good reason - the city gave Washington DC competition in the race for the highest murder rate each year. It had amused Garrett to find the local paper kept a running tally. There it was: a box on the front page headed MORE VIOLENT DEATHS, and 327 underneath in large black numerals, which meant another five deaths since yesterday. So melodramatic! Garrett scanned the surrounding article. The latest murders had been shootings, three deaths in one incident, with a mugging that had gone too far providing the only variety. Garrett thought happily of the day when the paper’s murder toll would increase, with far more macabre details than this commonplace violence, and Garrett alone would know who had been responsible. Fall 1986, he promised them. If you find the bodies quickly enough, I might even beat the Christmas rush.

  They took their football seriously here, too. Garrett turned to the sports pages. On his arrival, Garrett had immediately bought the camouflage of a New Orleans Saints jacket. It was classy, in black and gold, and he was better pleased with it than most he’d worn. He could not, however, say the same for the team itself, who were so bad and lost so often, it was almost funny. This time, his new loyalty was definitely nothing more than convenience.

  Garrett stood, dropped the correct money plus a two dollar tip by his cup and walked out. He hadn’t said a word to anyone in the cafe for weeks now - he was just a regular, always turned up at the same time Monday to Saturday, always had coffee with cream and one refill and a pastry, always tipped generously. Besides which the cafe only ever had female staff for some god-forsaken reason, and Garrett generally ignored anyone of that gender and mostly they ignored him. Garrett enjoyed making influential friends in the right places, took pleasure in supervising young men and developing camaraderie in the workplace - like in the hardware store he was managing now - but there were plenty of situations he liked to slip quietly through. He was sensible, he had it all figured. Though these days anytime there was a young man around who met his tastes, Garrett found it hard to resist flirting a little, trying his luck.

  These weeks in New Orleans, he reflected as he resumed his stroll down the sidewalk, had been happy ones from that point of view at least - there were lovely young men in abundance here, in all shapes and sizes and colors. But, despite that, he hadn’t yet taken up any of the multitude of opportunities. He’d been too worried over Oregon, his faith in himself too shaken.

  Garrett always followed his cases. He loved getting away with this, misleading the police, leaving the state before they’d even found the bodies let alone cast their investigative net. At home, he kept all the newspaper clippings, the missing person notices, the funeral announcements, along with the boys’ jewelry and wallets. In his imagination, he relived those deaths again and again as he held the silver chains and crucifix earrings in his hands, as he gazed at the photos reproduced in the newspapers’ grainy black and white, as he had rough and tumble sex with some unsuspecting young man.

  He walked int
o the hardware store with a smile on his face.

  “Hey … you got lucky last night, Mr Garrett?” Kenny murmured through a grin, in that charmingly insinuating manner of his.

  “No, just day dreaming,” Garrett replied. As he headed for the office, Garrett looked back to cock an eyebrow at his employee. At twenty-seven, Kenny was older than Garrett usually liked them, but he appreciated the man’s attitude. It was sweet to contemplate the lips that were so full it seemed they’d already swollen from savage biting kisses; it was sweet to wonder whether the dark skin would show bruises.

  But taking Kenny would not be sensible. Tony had been enough of a risk, one worker amongst a hundred. Here, Garrett supervised three full time staff, and another three casuals. The odds were definitely against him.

  Though who knew what he’d be doing by fall 1986? Garrett had taken on this job because he’d arrived in the craziness of the Big Easy, unusually restless, unable to settle, unsure of what he wanted to do. And the contracted manager of this place suffered a heart attack and needed eight to ten weeks off work. Available in the right place at the right time, Garrett was offered generous payment by a desperate and grateful owner. It was fun, in many ways, to be carrying something this simple, and it filled in the time until he figured out exactly what he wanted to do. Meanwhile, the owner was a rich businessman, someone useful to know, to be able to call on for favors. No matter how curiously reluctant Garrett felt, he had to start the process of fitting in, of being respectable. He did not mean to end up on a list of suspects as an itinerant store manager, with a black shop assistant his only friend.

  But Garrett grinned. He’d kept the local paper so he could begin looking for a long term contract or a business for sale. This would work out. The Oregon police had missed him, just as law enforcement had missed him every time before. Garrett was too clever for them. Life was good.

  “A dollar for a cup of coffee, mister,” a clear voice said, as if no reasonable man could refuse such a request.

  After a couple more paces, the tone registered with Garrett and he came to a halt, turned back to the group of street kids sitting on the sidewalk. He wasn’t disappointed in what he saw.

  “My name is Zac, and I’m a caffeine addict,” the guy confessed, straight-faced.

  Garrett laughed and Zac’s companions all quietly chimed in, playing along. He asked, “That’s more urgent than your addiction to food, is it?”

  “Yeah, mister. Wouldn’t miss a dollar or five, would you?”

  “Five? What’s that - inflation?”

  “No - a refill for half price and tax and a gratuity.” The guy finally lost his poker face and smiled, then stood as if too polite to continue the conversation on such an unequal basis.

  Garrett definitely liked what he saw. There were five kids, three of them boys, all in their mid to late teens, all in torn black and ragged denim, just the wrong side of dirty. Their hair provided as much variety in cut and color as you could get within the range of punk styles. The guy talking to him, perhaps the oldest of the lot, was handsome despite all that; his features were regular, his skin good and his expression unguarded. As for his hair, it was bright red with no attempt to look natural, generous curls on top and tumbling down the back, and closely shorn over each temple. The other four kids sat there, lined up against an empty ruined shop, huddled against the cold, watching warily. Garrett was used to being accosted by strays of all age groups on his walk home from work. Most of the time he ignored them but if they met certain criteria …

  “You’re a man of style,” the guy was saying easily, either comfortable with or oblivious to Garrett’s silent appraisal. “Surely you understand these things.”

  “What - that coffee and hair dye are higher priorities than food?”

  Zac shrugged, offered a smile. “I try for the lot. Want to help me reach the third?”

  “Sure. Walk home with me. Bed for the night, whatever food you can find in the fridge, we’ll have some pizza delivered, and as much coffee as you can drink.”

  “I only asked for a dollar,” the kid said in mild, unthinking protest as if he had some residual scruples.

  “Did I leave that out? Bed, food, pizza, coffee, money for you and your friends.”

  “In return for what?” Forget scruples - he was suspicious now.

  Laughing again, Garrett didn’t even bother looking around for people who shouldn’t overhear. “Sex, of course. Nothing you can’t handle.”

  Zac looked down at the other kids, and they stared back at him, waiting for his reaction.

  Garrett couldn’t read their faces, didn’t know whether they were supportive or not. He said, “Come on - your friends will think you’re crazy if you turn down easy money. I’ll walk away and they’ll call you ten kinds of fool.”

  The guy turned back to him. “I have my pride, mister.”

  Putting on his most irresistible smile, Garrett promised, “You’re going to enjoy every minute of it. Trust me on that. We won’t do anything you don’t want to.” When Zac still didn’t agree, Garrett pulled his wallet out, offered a fifty-dollar bill. “Down payment.”

  Zac reached for it, pure instinctive need, wavered; then made the decision and took it. “All right.” He cast a look at his young friends, worried but defiant, and stepped away.

  “I’ll bring him back tomorrow morning,” Garrett reassured the kids, who remained blank and wary. One of the girls was standing, as if unsure whether to interfere. Garrett smiled again before she could say anything, and turned to walk up the street beside the guy, his heart singing. He still had it: the charm and the nerve; the ability to entrance and entrap. He had it in spades.

  Having taken exactly what he wanted from the young man, Garrett felt expansively magnanimous. He could afford to be generous now. In fact, he liked to be.

  It was dawn, and neither of them had slept. Garrett ran a warm bath, eased the guy into it and soaped him up. He’d only broken the skin in two places, which was quite good considering. The guy’s real hurt was from being fucked raw. And despite all they’d been through, Zac let Garrett kneel here by the bath, so drained he simply accepted the thorough and careful washing, apparently too dazed to consider how easy it would be for Garrett to push him below the surface, hold him down while he tried to breathe water.

  But what would be the point? Sure it would be interesting to watch, good to feel the guy struggling under his palms, wonderful to dig his fingers in as panic widened Zac’s eyes. Garrett’s hands itched, and he even took hold of the boy’s shoulders.

  No: it was more important right now to retain the control. He needed the control, to savor the power rather than let it devour him.

  Difficult, once he’d had such a nice idea, to let it go.

  “Stand up,” he said, gruff. The boy did so, weary and beaten beyond protest. Garrett pulled the plug, fetched a towel and dried the kid off. And then he took a lovely long time examining the bruises that were already beginning to show, tending to the two patches of roughened, bloodied skin.

  By the time he’d done, the guy had regained a little awareness, and was looking at him as if this was the weirdest experience of the whole night. Garrett grinned at him, letting his eyes sparkle. “Coffee before you go? I guess you’ll want to skip breakfast.”

  Zac nodded, dumb. When Garrett let him be, the guy struggled awkwardly into his clothes, then trailed after him into the kitchen and obediently swallowed the two cups of coffee Garrett poured for him, though he seemed to have a hard time stomaching it.

  The streets were just beginning to come alive when Garrett drove Zac to the old shopfront where he’d found him. There was no sign of the other kids amongst the few passers-by. “Where are your friends?”

  It took a moment for the boy to speak his first words through swollen lips. “Here’s fine.”

  “No, I want to make sure you’re all right. Where do they hang out?”

  The kid, slumped in the passenger seat, turned further to look out the side window so
that Garrett couldn’t see his face.

  “You don’t have to worry about me coming to find you again, Zac,” Garrett said. “I had what I wanted. Now it’s over and I’ll take you to your friends. They can look after you.”

  “Here’s fine,” the guy repeated. And he added a dull, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” Reason touched with amused impatience. “Just tell me where they are.”

  The boy sighed, surrendering the last of his streetwise instincts to a more persuasive force. Garrett grinned, loving this thorough defeat. Turning stiffly to the front again, Zac let his head fall back, eyes closed. “Next left,” he whispered, “middle of the block, there’s an old wooden house.”

  Garrett quickly found the ramshackle place down a narrow street little better than an alley, then helped the guy out of the car. The girl came out, the one who’d wanted to interfere, took one look at Zac and glared at Garrett.

  “He’s going to be fine,” Garrett said placatingly, his hands refusing to let the guy go. “Don’t make this into something it’s not.”