Spree

by Michael Morley

  Stevie was mopping blood and simmering with humiliation and hatred.

  Shooter looked at him and knew what was going to happen.

  The driver reached for a steak knife still lying on the table.

  He grabbed it and rushed the back of the supervisor.

  The blade rose.

  Came down in a vicious arc.

  Shooter crashed into him.

  He got there a split second before steel found flesh.

  They tumbled to the floor. The knife clattered across the tiles. Stevie stretched for it.

  Januk had turned. Now he understood what was happening.

  He stamped on the driver’s wrist.

  A roar of pain filled the room.

  People ran for the exit.

  Two of the older men closed in on the supervisor. “Enough now, boss. Come on.”

  Another driver went to help Stevie.

  Shooter got to his feet and picked up the knife.

  Januk watched him cautiously.

  Everyone tensed.

  Shooter placed the knife on the table. The click of steel on wood was the only sound in the room. He looked from one man to the other. “How about you say this never happened?”

  Stevie’s nose dripped blood into his hands. “What?”

  His friend passed him a wad of table napkins. “That way you don’t get done for attempted wounding.”

  “And Mr. Dudek here don’t get prosecuted for assault,” added one of the older men.

  “Then we have a deal?” Shooter asked.

  Januk nodded.

  Stevie blotted blood and managed, “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Shooter left the room, conscious that the supervisor was following a few feet behind him.

  Januk shouted in the corridor, “Hey, wait.”

  He turned.

  “I want to say thank you.”

  “There’s no need.” Shooter walked on. As much as he’d have liked to see one of the men kill the other—it didn’t matter which—he knew that would have meant the police coming to interview everyone, and that was something he really didn’t want to happen.

  20

  Douglas Park, Santa Monica

  It was 5:00 a.m. when Jake woke and found the bed empty.

  He wandered through to the lounge and found Angie awake. She was sitting in her pj’s on the sofa with a laptop across her thighs. Her right arm was out of the sling but still bandaged and hanging limp. An empty coffee cup on the floor said she’d been working when she should have been sleeping.

  “Morning,” she managed brightly. “What woke you?”

  “You not being there, baby.”

  “How sweet.” She tilted her head so he could kiss her.

  He obliged, then added, “You should still be resting, not doing that. What is it anyway?”

  Angie ignored the rebuke. “Coffee’s still hot, if you want some.” She smiled and lifted her mug so he could refill it as well.

  Jake took it. “What did your last slave die of?”

  “Sexual exhaustion.”

  “Not a bad way to go.” He headed into the small kitchen. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I know. I was being evasive, not forgetful.” She lifted her arm protectively and swiveled around so she could see him while she spoke. “I think I cracked the anagram.”

  He froze at the cupboard, one hand on a clean mug. “Maybe I’m going mad but I thought just a few hours ago my boss told you to stay the hell away from this case.”

  “Yeah, he did.”

  “And that made it irresistible?”

  “Kind of. You want to hear my theory?”

  “Theory?” He topped her mug up and filled his own. “We’ve gone from an anagram to a whole theory now.”

  She carried on tapping left-handedly on her keyboard until he came in with the drinks and settled alongside her.

  “So go on.”

  “Judge and Jury.”

  “That’s the anagram?”

  “Yep. Danger Judy-Ju makes a few other things, but nothing as clean and clear as Judge and Jury.”

  The words settled in Jake’s brain. “And you think—what? That this was his statement to the world?”

  “I do. I think he’s saying he is going to be society’s Judge and Jury. He will decide who is guilty and innocent. Who lives and dies. He’s showing us his absolute power.”

  Jake thought on it. “It’s certainly the crazy kind of shit killers come up with.”

  “Serial killers.”

  “Oh my God, just because he plays anagram games doesn’t make him a Serial.”

  “It pretty much does. He is a Serial, Jake. Serials move from location to location, too.”

  “So do Sprees, and they also communicate. They send notes. They make calls and they run and hide just like Serials.”

  “But Sprees are generally dumbasses. They get caught quick, whereas Serials don’t.”

  “Mostly,” he conceded. “But then there are the likes of Charles Starkweather.”

  “What?” She hoped she’d misheard him.

  “Starkweather. He went on a two-month spree.”

  “Is this the shit that Danielle Goodman is feeding you?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Christ, Jake. The woman’s way out of her depth. This Starkweather shit was what led you to almost getting killed by Wayne Harris.”

  “No, you can’t hang that on her. Bad intel was what got people hurt that day, not anything Danny said.”

  Angie still wasn’t done. “Aside from the anagram—and that should be enough to convince you—there are so many other things screaming Serial and not Spree.”

  His voice said he was tired of arguing. “Like what?”

  “How many people died in that store?”

  “Eleven.” He corrected himself. “No, twelve.”

  “Twelve. Exactly. And how many letters in the anagram?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Twelve. And on a floor plan of the mall, which number shop is Judy-Ju’s?” Her stare provided the answer before she did. “Twelve.”

  Jake laughed. “I think they gave you too much lidocaine at the hospital. How many letters are there in your full name, Angela Holmes? I’ll tell you, twelve.”

  “Okay, I get it. You’re skeptical. There are coincidences. But what about the message I made from the anagram?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s interesting, I give you that. And I buy the power and control stuff—the idea of him being Judge and Jury.”

  “So you’ll take it to Dixon?”

  He closed his eyes and imagined telling his boss about Angie’s overnight thoughts on the case he’d warned her off. “Yeah, I’ll take it to him.”

  “You don’t have to say it was me. I just want you to catch this guy.”

  “Oh, I’ll catch him, honey. Don’t you go worrying your little lidocained brain about that.”

  21

  Skid Row, LA

  Locals in LA say the city is divided into “Bucks.”

  “Big Bucks” is home to the thousand-dollar-an-hour law firms, the marble-floored investment banks and blue-glass skyscrapers of the multinational businesses.

  “Shopping Bucks” is the air-conditioned oasis where glitzy brands hang and get hunted by hordes of platinum-carded designer junkies.

  “Anything-for-a-Buck” is the block or so where hookers will do whatever anyone wants, providing they have enough dollars to buy lunch or their next fix.

  Then there’s “No Bucks.”

  “No Bucks” is another name for Skid Row. It lies between Third and Seventh and is just a short walk and a whole world away from everything else.

  Even crack whores don’t fall that far.

  Today, the trash-strewn sidewalk was hot enough to cook eggs on. A raggedy old man with clumped, unwashed hair bent his world-weary shoulders over a supermarket trolley and squeaked it toward a patch of shade. In it was everything he owned: a sleeping bag, a sweater full of holes a
nd lice, and garbage that he’d picked from Dumpsters. He’d come across a store trashing a tray of sandwiches and they’d let him have them.

  Christmas in August.

  He couldn’t believe his luck.

  Old Joe steered his trolley toward two blankets spread in an alley back of Seaton. The red-checkered one was home to Wheelie, a diabetic in his sixties who’d lost a leg because he couldn’t afford his meds. At night, he chained himself to his chair so people didn’t steal it and sell it for scrap.

  The mustard-brown blanket opposite belonged to Fat Mamma Cas, and not many people were fool enough to try to steal from her. She’d punch their lights out. But Old Joe knew he was welcome.

  “I got something to eat,” he announced as he parked the squeaky trolley against the alley wall. “Woman down at the sandwich shop was throwin’ stuff out. Can you believe that?” He fished in the rusty wire basket and pulled up a part of his catch, careful not to show the rest of his precious haul. “I got toona and mayo-nayze. I got ham. An’ I got somethin’ odd called bry. It looks like sick-assed cheese’n’pickle but without any pickle.”

  Fat Mamma cracked a yellow smile. “Man, you got a beggars’ banquet there. What you do, sell that body of yours?”

  “Wouldn’t have got three sandwiches for a rack o’ ribs like his,” snorted Wheelie, rolling himself forward. “He wouldn’t have got crumbs, never mind sandwiches.”

  “Ain’t you the funny one,” answered Joe. “So who’s wantin’ to share my food and who’s wantin’ to bad-mouth me an’ go hungry?”

  “I think you’re a fine, mighty fine lookin’ man, Joe,” beamed Mamma Cas. “An’ the only thing I want more in my mouth than you is that sweet tuna mayo.”

  Joe tossed her the sandwich. “Which means you get the bry, Wheelie, coz hungry as I am, I ain’t eatin’ that shit.” He tossed the wrapped triangle onto the disabled man’s lap.

  Wheelie squinted at it. “Ain’t no bry, you fool. It’s Brie.” He laughed. “You done give me the most expensive sandwich there is, that’s how piss-stupid-dumb you are.” He cackled again and started unwrapping it.

  “I got some water for us,” said Mamma Cas. “Bitch from the Mission came by and left some.”

  “Not until she’d gone and prayed the holy living shit outta us both,” added Wheelie, sucking Brie off his stumps of teeth. “She says to Mamma, ‘Our church is prayin’ for you and Jesus has a special place in his heart.’ You know what Mamma said?”

  Joe knew he had to ask. “What’d you say, Mamma?”

  “I said, ‘If it’s just the same to you, lady, I’d like to swap my prayers for an all-you-can-eat dinner and trade the place in Jesus’s heart for a condo down in Glendale.’ ”

  They all laughed, then set about chewing.

  “Mmm. It’s real good, man.” Wheelie lifted the half-chewed sandwich in a gesture of thanks. “Can’t remember when I las’ tasted somethin’ like this.”

  Mamma unscrewed the cap on the two-liter bottle of water and passed it around. By the time she got it back there was so much bread floating in it, it looked like a fisherman had laid down ground bait.

  The sound of tinny music spilled around the corner from Alameda.

  Single instrument. Brass. A B-flat trumpet. Out of tune.

  Everyone knew what it meant.

  “Finish quick,” said Mamma. “Trumpet Man is a comin’ an’ he’s one food-stealin’ mother.”

  Backlit by the blistering sun, a thin black guy appeared at the end of the alley.

  He was dressed in a dusty brown suit that finished three inches above bare ankles and busted boots. On his head was a tatty felt hat that never left him, not even when he laid his daft old skull on the sidewalk at night.

  Trumpet Man raised a dented old brass to his big, scabbed lips and blew hard. Out came the only tune he knew—“Family Guy.”

  Old Joe got to his feet somewhere between a mangled E flat and a murdered D. “I’m gonna roll. I ain’t got time to have my ears blasted by that fool.”

  Neither Wheelie nor Mamma Cas questioned his exit. Joe rolled in and Joe rolled out. You had to respect other people’s ways.

  “Take care, man,” shouted Wheelie, sucking the last of the cheese from his gums. “Thanks ’gain for that de-lish-us Brie.”

  “Bring doughnuts an’ coffee tomorrow,” hollered Mamma with a laugh in her voice. “An’ may the good Lord keep a place in his heart for you, brother.”

  They both roared as he pushed his trolley away.

  Joe lifted a hand in acknowledgment. Dust rose as the trolley wheels cut along the blacktop.

  He was done for now.

  He’d lapped several blocks and shown his face to all the regulars.

  Kept up his identity, one of his backstories.

  Now he could return to his other life.

  The one the whole of America was talking about.

  22

  SKU Offices, LA

  Jake was on his way in to work when he got the call from Crawford Dixon. The one he knew was going to screw up his day.

  His boss needed to see him. Urgently. Whatever it was, it was too important to even mention over the phone.

  None of this was good news.

  Jake found the section chief grim-faced at his office desk. Opposite him was a large African American man, who’d planted his feet and set his shoulders like a former soldier.

  “Jake, this is Tom Jeffreys from the Bomb Squad. He has news on last night.”

  “Heard a lot about you, Jake.” He rose and shook the SKU leader’s hand. “I had a friend served with you, said nothing but good things.”

  “Your friend’s probably a very generous and forgiving man, sir.” Jake took a chair opposite them both.

  Jeffreys rubbed a palm over his bald head. “We found enough chemical traces to discern that the bomb was ninety percent cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine. Diethylhexyl was used to plasticize it and then polyisobutylene added as a binder.”

  Jake recognized the ingredients. “We’re talking C4?”

  “Yes. Composition Four. Plastic explosive. From the blast pattern and rerunning the TV footage, we pinpointed a clay statue put down by a kid who said he was the grandchild of a Mrs. Tanya Murison.”

  Jake looked surprised. “A kid?”

  “Uh-huh. He’d turned up late and flustered. A cop looked at it, saw the tag that said ‘Grandma, I’ll always luv you,’ and ushered him through.”

  Jake was still stunned. “Did the kid detonate it?”

  “No. He was a patsy. Some asshole sent him in there with it. There was a timing-based high-energy detonator cap inside the clay.”

  Jake could see how that would have worked. “C4’s heavily controlled,” he added. “Whoever got it and detonated it had to have special contacts to obtain it.”

  “In theory, yes,” said Jeffreys. “Distribution is strictly monitored and needs end-user certification. But quantities go missing. And you can buy the chemicals separately through companies and countries that aren’t as scrupulous as they should be.”

  “Last night, Al-Qaeda denied any involvement,” Jake recalled. “Has anyone claimed responsibility yet?”

  The two bosses shook their heads.

  “And the kid’s family? Have they shed any light on who he’s been hanging around with, who might have set him up as a walking bomb?”

  “We’ve been working overnight with the LAPD,” explained Jeffreys, “and we’ve managed to ID the kid as eleven-year-old Leroy Danziel. He was certainly no rebel or political activist. Lived out in Watts. No father. Mother is either on the game or on ketamine, or on both. Neighbors said the boy came and went as he chose. No one to account to. No one to account for him. He lived mostly on the street, doing whatever people wanted him to in return for food or cash.”

  “So we’re thinking, what?” asked Jake. “Some heartless crazy just paid him a shitload of cash to carry the clay tribute?”

  “That’s the main theory we’re looking into,” said J
effreys. “That and a feeling that maybe the crazy is the UNSUB who shot up the mall.”

  “That’s what Angie figured last night,” Jake said to Dixon.

  “She did,” he conceded. “Did the labs come back to you on that piece of paper you thought might be a note he left?”

  “They did.” He wasn’t sure he should disclose it in front of the Bomb Squad commander.

  Jeffreys sensed the uncertainty. He put his hands on the chair rests and made to stand up. “You guys need privacy and I need to go. I’ll call you later, Crawford; please keep me apprised.”

  They all stood and shook hands.

  As soon as the door closed, Dixon wanted the story. “Okay, Jake, out with it.”

  “The labs cleaned up the note and through the bloodstain you could make out twelve letters that said DANGERJUDYJU.”

  “Judy Ju being the name of the store?”

  “That’s right. Angie figured it was an anagram and worked it out to be Judge and Jury.”

  “Angie? She’s been doing a lot of figuring on this case I told her to forget.”

  Jake skipped the trap. “Her theory is that the killer is setting himself up as a supreme power over the state. One with the right to decide who lives and dies.”

  “Let’s back up a second, Jake. Do you and Dr. Holmes remember my remarks last night about her not working this case?”

  “I do. Of course I do.”

  “Then for now, forget them. I reserve the right to change my mind during times like this. Pull together a full briefing for late this morning. Ask Jeffreys back. And Pryce, too. I want all bases covered. I’ll talk to Sandra McDonald and have her okay Angie’s attendance—but to be clear, it’s just to voice her theories, that’s all. This is still Danielle Goodman’s case—you may want to help prepare the ground on that basis.”

  “I will.” He got to his feet to leave.

  “I pity you, Jake. Cross fire between Angie and Danielle could be worse than anything you faced in Afghanistan or Yemen.”

  23

  A call from the press office gave the SKU leader the only good news of the morning. He was off the hook vis-à-vis facing the cameras. The mayor and the governor were both holding media conferences before midday and the Bureau figured everyone would benefit from staying out of their spotlights.