Burnt Black

by Ed Kovacs

  I heard traffic sounds. We were close to a thoroughfare. Possibly a major one, but at this hour of night, traffic would be light. I stole a fast glance at where I now stood shoulder-to-shoulder with two killers. A dirty concrete slab, old tires, piles of junk, a Dumpster, freeway overpasses in the near distance. The drive had been short, and I suddenly knew with certainty we were standing behind a gas station, maybe on Franklin or Elysian Fields or Almonaster, near the I-10/I-610 interchange.

  Didn’t seem like a place to whack me, but maybe a transfer to another vehicle made sense. I needed to act, but my muscles told me I was operating on only 50 percent power. I’d already been stiff from the car wreck but was in much worse shape now. Still, I surreptitiously strained to get at the knife. Then my escorts kicked my feet out from under me, and I dropped to the cement. I managed to land so my left arm absorbed most of the fall.

  I watched as my four captors got busy. Two of them hauled out five-gallon cans of gasoline and a rubber mallet from the van. Another one muscled out what looked to be a thirty-pound pail. The fourth gangbanger rolled a fifty-five-gallon drum that had already been sitting on the concrete in my direction.

  My stomach lurched. This was no vehicle transfer.

  They were going to kill me, here and now.

  And it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Careful to show no sign of strain, I fought with every grain of strength I had against the duct tape to get my left index finger into the hole on the karambit’s small haft. My wrists were tightly taped together, but they weren’t taped to my body, giving me enough freedom of movement to generate the hope that I could do this. Only minutes remained to my life unless I succeeded, because I knew what was coming.

  A “stewing.” The homeboys here were going to make guiso out of me.

  The cartels used many gruesome ways to kill their adversaries. Beheading enemies and innocent victims on video was clearly only one. Tonight they planned to stuff me into the fifty-five-gallon drum, add gasoline and lye, hammer the lid down shut, then maybe roll me right onto Franklin Avenue. The chemical reaction of gasoline and lye would create an acid that would dissolve my body down to teeth and bones.

  No doubt Drake would want the bones.

  My finger edged closer to the karambit’s hole, but the killers’ prep was almost complete.

  In case I managed to free the knife, this was my chance to size them up, decide who looked strongest, who might be the best fighter, who carried what weapon and where.

  I named them Wart Face, Fatty, Goldie, and Flaco. The first two names were for obvious reasons. Goldie, I saw in a shaft of light, had a front gold tooth, like the description we got of the movers at Drake’s curio shop. The fourth Skulls member I called Flaco because he was on the skinny side.

  They all had semiautomatic pistols tucked into their pants, except for Fatty, who had a big-ass chrome-plated .357 revolver.

  “Hey, Mister Policeman, know what this is?” asked Goldie in heavily accented English. “You like cooking shows? Maybe you seen Mexicans make stew before.”

  “It’s for guiso,” I said.

  They all laughed at that, getting a kick out of my so-so command of Spanish and the fact that I knew what was about to happen.

  “Don’t forget to add salt,” I deadpanned.

  Nobody laughed.

  “Pinches gringo, you a smart-ass?” asked Flaco.

  “You going to kill the other policemen too?” I asked.

  “What you mean?” asked Goldie.

  “The SWAT cops who killed your homeboys in the raid.”

  “We’ll be killing a lot of people here. Starting with you.”

  His response told me they weren’t here as revenge for my participation in the raid. “How much is Drake paying you for this?”

  “Hey, gringo, shut the fuck up or we gag you again. The only reason I took the rag out is, I want to hear you scream when the magic starts,” said Goldie.

  “Put the lye in first,” said Wart Face.

  “No, pour the gas in first. Then Mister Policeman, then the lye,” said Flaco.

  “That’s not how we do it in Tamaulipas.”

  “That’s because you pinches putos maricones do everything the hard way.”

  “It doesn’t matter which you put in first,” said Fatty coldly, speaking for the first time. “Same thing will happen to the pinches asshole cop.”

  Flaco started pouring lye flakes from the plastic pail into the steel drum.

  “Don’t breathe that mierda, unless you want your lungs to bleed,” said Wart Face.

  I loved the fact that they were arguing over how to cook me, because I needed every extra second I could get.

  I jerked my head violently and fearfully said, “Don’t do it, please.” I did this as a distraction to mask the violent wrenching of my left hand to loosen the duct tape.

  “Don’t be scared, niño pequeño. It only hurts like a motherfucker for about five minutes,” said Flaco.

  I almost had my finger in the hole, when Fatty and Wart Face, the two biggest guys, lifted me to my feet.

  It was just about now-or-never time.

  I jerked my left hand; my index finger felt the edge of the knife hole. I had to get my finger fully through the hole to be able to pull out and deploy the knife.

  I also couldn’t struggle too violently or they might coldcock me unconscious. They dragged me toward the barrel as Flaco finished emptying in the lye.

  “That’s some nasty shit all by itself. Fuck,” said Flaco, lapsing into a coughing fit.

  “You pissed off the wrong person, you hijo de puta,” said Wart Face to me.

  Damn, he must have fifty warts on his face, and his breath reeked of a bad abscess.

  Flaco grabbed my legs and they lifted me off the ground. Crap, if they load me in headfirst, it’s over. I’m dead. I caught sight of Goldie unscrewing the top from a gas can, smiling, the diamond, ruby, and emerald in his gold tooth all glimmering with an evil glow.

  “Did he wet himself yet?” asked Goldie.

  “The pinches policía better not piss on me,” said Fatty. “Or I’ll cut it off him!”

  That brought a round of laughter. “I can’t see if he pissed or not. It’s too dark.”

  “Who’s got a light?”

  “I do.”

  They almost dropped me as Flaco pulled out his lighter and lit it.

  “Not a cigarette lighter around gasoline, pendejo de mierda estúpido! Stop fucking around and put his legs in.”

  I wasn’t happy to be going into the drum, but at least it was feetfirst. A cloud of lye dust rose as they dropped me in.

  “Sit down.”

  I didn’t want to be hit, so I quickly squatted in the barrel. Almost instantly the lid went on and light was cut off, except for a tiny amount streaming in through the open bunghole in the lid. This was the opening they would pour the gasoline through any second, sealing my fate.

  My body started to cramp, the stiffness from the traffic accident locking my leg and back and neck muscles as if in a vise.

  I heard the rubber mallet pounding the lid tight on the barrel as my body involuntarily convulsed in a coughing spasm from the lye.

  A nozzle filled the sight of the open bunghole. A gas can nozzle. Then I heard laughter and the barrel flipped onto its side. I banged my head on the steel.

  The barrel began to roll. No gasoline yet; they were toying with me, rolling the barrel on the concrete.

  I banged around a couple of times before bracing my legs, taped hands, and shoulders up against the perimeter of the steel in order to stop bouncing around inside the big can.

  Lye dust rose to my nostrils, and I held my breath and squeezed my eyes closed, struggling to fight off motion sickness as they rolled the barrel around and around, laughing.

  Then suddenly I was upright again.

  My shoulder pressed against the lid and felt the jab of what had to be a gasoline can nozzle. And I figured, wi
th what little cognitive ability I had left, that this time they would pour the gas.

  My current position inside the barrel had changed the angle of my hands in relation to the karambit. My finger instantly found the hole in the handle. I heard the men speaking in Spanish, happily, not a care in the world. I fought unconsciousness, squatted as low as I could, and then launched myself with one massive thrust, using my powerful legs like pneumatic pile drivers, and slammed my right shoulder into the underside of the barrel lid.

  The lid shot into the air as I stood up, lye flakes flying up, right next to Wart Face and Fatty. The gas can got knocked out of Wart Face’s hands, and all four gangbangers looked on in total disbelief.

  With a smooth motion my bound hands pulled the karambit free of my waist, instantly opening the supersharp steel blade, and I angled the weapon toward Wart Face, cleanly slicing through his throat and severing his jugular.

  I didn’t stop my momentum and quickly swung right, repeating the process with Fatty.

  In a slow-motion world punctuated by gasping and gurgling and geysering sticky red liquid, I saw Flaco and Goldie reaching for their pistols. With my hands still taped together, I let loose my blade and snatched the .357 from Fatty’s pants as he stood wobbling in his last moments of life. I went for his wheel gun and not Wart Face’s semiauto, knowing it would not eject superheated spent shell casings that could ignite the gas.

  I sighted the heavy sidearm on Flaco’s heart and punched his ticket straight to hell.

  Goldie was trying to draw a bead when I shot him three times, aiming low. He went down, his gun skittering away.

  Nauseous beyond belief, I puked again, then retrieved my karambit and cut myself free of the duct tape binding my wrists. The gushing gasoline from the dropped can made me nervous, and I wanted out of that barrel of lye, fast. But there was no way to climb out without the barrel falling over. So I lurched the barrel over away from the gas, crawled out in another cloud of lye dust, and cut the duct tape around my feet.

  I staggered to my feet, coughing, head spinning, and it took a minute to get my sea legs. I lurched more than walked, and found Goldie groaning and bleeding heavily from where I’d shot him in the thigh and groin.

  I dropped to my knees, teetering, and put the barrel of the pistol against his face. “Who sent you?”

  He looked at me with no fear, only hate.

  “Who sent you?” I jammed the pistol into his groin wound. When he stopped screaming he just gasped for breath.

  “Who sent you?!”

  I jammed the pistol again, and the screaming didn’t stop until he passed out.

  So I searched him and pocketed his wallet and other goodies. When he came to, I was ready. He blinked, watching me cover his body with lye flakes. He lay still, very weak.

  “It’s a little different from stewing, but when I douse you with gasoline, the acid will form and eat you alive,” I said casually. “I have to hurry and do this before you pass out from loss of blood.”

  His eyes glazed over. He knew he was dying, knew it would be painful, knew he had lost.

  I set a gas can near his face and unscrewed the lid.

  “Who sent you to kill me?”

  His eyes searched my determined face, then shifted to the gas can as I screwed on the nozzle.

  I stood up and hefted the can. Drops of gas accidentally sloshed onto the ground near his face. I was so weak, the gas can felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

  “Last chance to die without pain. Who sent you?”

  I tipped the nozzle toward him.

  “Tico Rodriguez,” he said quickly. “Old compadre of El Professor Negro.”

  “Professor Robert Drake.”

  “Si.”

  “How much is Drake paying to have me killed?”

  “Nothing. He just call Tico and say ‘Kill this pinches cop, please.’ Tico, he just laugh, say, ‘No problema.’”

  I put the can down, glad I didn’t have to hold it any longer.

  As a trained medical first responder, I knew that without immediate medical attention, he would bleed out and die. So I did the decent thing for humanity and sat with him as he bled out.

  At last I stood, drenched in blood, but curiously, not my own. I heard deep base thudding from a passing boom box on the street, the muted roar of traffic from the interstate overpass exchange, the far-off laughter from girls probably hanging out on a street corner. A faint whiff of chicken frying in a deep fryer told me I was gloriously alive, and I decided I’d be eating fried chicken tonight.

  I absentmindedly fingered Fournier’s medallion around my neck. Check that; it was my medallion, given to me by Fournier.

  Yes, for sure I’d eat fried chicken, and for sure I was not calling this crime scene in to the New Orleans Police Department. For many reasons. This needed to be handled on the down-low. So I returned to the van and gathered up my weapons, electronics, and other stuff and used my cell phone to call a number I knew well but seldom used.

  “It’s me. I need a cleanup. The head count is four,” I said as my hand holding the cell phone shook.

  “Are you hurt?” asked Twee Siu.

  “I’ve been better. But mostly it’s my feelings. I thought I was charming, but apparently Professor Robert Drake really does want me dead.”

  * * *

  Twee dropped me at my Bronco parked under a street lamp at the corner of Lesseps and Burgundy, across from B.J.’s. As she drove off, a dog barked from the shadows, and I saw Honey standing there with Chance, her rottweiler/shepherd mix. I’m sure I looked pretty rough, and there was no hiding the blood all over my clothes and in my hair.

  But my face was a mask of stoicism as I met Honey’s stare. She took in the sight of me, and it must have registered that something bad had just happened, and I hadn’t turned to her for help but to Twee Siu. My intention had not been for Honey to see this, but there was no hitting rewind. Knowing Honey as well as I did, I knew she would feel very guilty about what had just happened to me, since she was my partner and hadn’t been there to back me up. No reason to add more guilt to what she already carried, so I wordlessly turned away, got into the Bronco, and drove off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I’d gotten two and a half hours of sleep before the buzzing woke me. I could barely focus. The computer monitor next to the bed showed views from my security cameras. After rubbing my eyes for the third time, I made out Honey standing outside my front door, ringing the bell. She had keys, but I guess she wouldn’t be using them anymore, and maybe that was a good thing.

  I buzzed her in and groaned as I forced myself from bed. The pain from pulling on a sweater and a pair of jeans was sufficient to wake me up, like a couple of cups of coffee and a slap in the face.

  She stood in the front room when I shuffled in.

  “I’ve been trying to call.”

  I spotted my phone on the coffee table next to my pistols, knives, an empty takeout box of fried chicken from the Wing Shack on North Claiborne, and a half-empty bottle of Crown Royal that had been full three hours ago.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear it.”

  “How do you feel?” she asked, trying not to show concern. I knew I looked like death warmed over.

  “Like I’ve been tased, beaten with a pipe, and stuffed in a steel barrel full of lye.”

  “It’s Hans Vermack,” she said solemnly.

  My mind raced. “Give me five minutes.”

  * * *

  “Nothing like the smell of grilled meat.”

  “They say burnt meat is carcinogenic, but it tastes so damn good.”

  “Ever watch any of those comedy roasts on TV? This is a different kind of roast altogether.”

  “This will be an autopsy you take a fork to.”

  “Or mustard.”

  “A-One, anyone?”

  “I like my meat well done, but this guy is burnt black.”

  “All right, knock it off,” I snapped at the squirrelly crime-scene photographer and anot
her CSI tech. “I had more questions for this guy and I’m not too happy that he won’t be answering them.”

  Honey and I stood in Hans Vermack’s apartment kitchen above the Voodoo Cave. Han’s head, hands, and feet sat in a big turkey-roasting pan on top of the stove. Some of the flesh had been picked away.

  The rest of Hans still filled the bathtub, where he’d been butchered. His girlfriend, Patrice Jones, who should have been institutionalized long ago, would be soon. The patrol officers who responded to the 911 call had found her sitting at the kitchen table, eating a plate of Hans amandine. Both coppers had tossed their cookies.

  Mackie and Kruger had taken Patrice away moments ago to book her for murder. She had made the call to 911 and told us that Hans had fallen asleep in his chair, and that a ghost had come into the house through the back door and killed him. She claimed the ghost had told her that since Hans was so cheap, he would have wanted her to eat him and save on grocery money. And so she did.

  “Is there any chance Patrice could have killed the other victims too?”

  “No. None,” said Honey. “I’ve already talked to the chief about that. He knows that dog won’t hunt.”

  Honey was acting matter-of-fact, neither warm nor cold. Since she’d showed up at my place this morning, she had behaved like there were no issues between us. And maybe there weren’t.

  “I agree Patrice couldn’t have whacked the other victims,” I said. I paused, trying not to wince as my lungs and sinuses burned from my having breathed the lye dust last night. I’d already snorted about a pint of water trying to rinse out my insides. “Which begs the question: What are the odds this would happen? You and the chief are so big on percentages. What are the chances that Vermack, one of a handful of remaining Crimson Throne members, and one of our suspects, would be butchered and eaten by his crazy girlfriend the day after Becky Valencia got wiped?”

  “The facts suggest the odds were beaten here today,” said Honey. “Where’s the MO of your ritualistic killer? Your triumvirate of religion, sex, and pain?”

  “The facts aren’t all in,” I said. “The coroner will tell us if there was sex. There was definitely pain. Religion is tattooed all over his body. But I want to hear more about the ghost she was talking about.”