88 Killer

by Oliver Stark

  A beam from a flashlight swept across the bushes and crossed her legs. She shrank away as if from physical pain. The light came back across and hit her again, right through the thicket and into her eyes. It remained trained on her face.

  She couldn’t see what it was, but she could hear something pushing through the bushes. She retreated further into the thicket.

  She felt a hand on her leg. It grabbed and tightened around her ankle. She screamed, held on to a branch as her body was dragged out. She kicked at his hand, but he jerked hard and her hands slipped off the branch, her body sliding over wet leaves and sharp twigs. She was crying out but her voice no longer made any noise.

  He dragged her to her feet. She felt his palms circle her neck, his two thumbs hard on her throat. He was strong and not even breathing heavily. Her eyes remained open. She didn’t fight him; instead she was fumbling in her canvas bag. Her hand found the pepper spray and flipped back the lip. She tried to see his face. She wanted to have something to tell the cops.

  Her right hand rose out of the darkness and she sprayed the pepper directly at his face. The hiss of the spray was followed by an angry cry of pain. He yelled and let her go momentarily, but he lashed out hard with his arm, catching her full on the cheek. She crumpled to the ground and the pepper spray flew from her hand. She tried to get to her feet to run, but he grabbed her and held her. He coughed and spluttered to his knees, but he didn’t let go of her. He let himself recover with her body beneath his.

  He finally stopped coughing and his hands returned to her neck and tightened. The blood beat hard in her temples. The pressure just kept building. Then her mind went white, her eyes misted over and she faded out of consciousness. The last thing she remembered was his cologne. There was something about it. It smelled familiar.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Jules Gym, Lower Manhattan

  March 6, 8.12 p.m.

  A tattooed arm swung in fast from the right and connected with a thud of leather. The guy in the red shorts took the full force of the blow on the point of his chin; his head jerked up and he staggered three steps backwards on to the ropes, then tucked his head between his gloves. The attacker strode across and started to pummel his body repeatedly.

  In the faded ring, the boxers had been going two rounds, fighting toe-to-toe, trading uppercuts, right and left hooks, and body blows. Under their head guards, each guy’s face was bubbling up with bright red bruises.

  The audience whooped at every big punch that landed. It was not difficult to imagine that the head guards didn’t so much protect as prolong the time in which each man was getting his brain pounded. But it was a precinct grudge match, honor was at stake and neither boxer was going to stand down. The big crowd roared their approval, jumping, shouting, spitting and drinking like a bunch of out-of-control rioters.

  The NYPD’s fight night was in full swing and it was brutal.

  Through the double doors into the locker rooms, the narrow, airless corridor was tiled in blue and black. Inside the third locker room the next fighter prepared, listening to the excited bloodlust of the crowd. The air was coarse with the smell of sweat, and the striplight above, twenty years’ deep with dead insects and dust, shed a clouded yellowing light on the fighter below.

  Detective Tom Harper of the NYPD’s Homicide Division tried to focus. He caught the image of the majestic peregrine falcon in his mind’s eye. He’d spotted the raptor earlier in the day, perched imperiously on one of the pylons of the Brooklyn Bridge. The peregrine was a skilled hunter. It flew way up high and watched the world below, unnoticed and unseen until it sighted its prey.

  The fight was ten minutes away. On the white clock-face ahead, the seconds ticked past, but Harper could only see the raptor.

  There was a great roar from the gym; it rattled the doors, which hung loose on their hinges. Someone had gone down. The crowd loved a knockout – they loved to see someone hit so hard that the brain would momentarily lose motor control and the body twist and sink like a bag of cement.

  The roar faded and Harper was left with the silence, the bare red brick of the locker room and the ingrained smell of male sweat. He shifted on the bench. He needed to feel ready for the fight, was waiting for the trigger – anger or a sense of injustice – but all he felt was the cold air, the hard bench and the fear trickling slowly through his veins.

  He tried to imagine his glove landing on his opponent’s jaw, tried to imagine hitting someone into submission, but the image faded as fast as it appeared. If you couldn’t imagine beating someone, then how the hell could you go out and do it?

  There was a loud smacking sound as Dylan, the all-in-one corner man, manager and trainer, chewed his gum. Harper looked down at the man taping up his fists. ‘Can’t you cut that out?’ he said.

  Dylan looked up, his unshaven face pockmarked. ‘The champ feeling a little tetchy tonight?’

  ‘Just trying to focus here,’ said Harper. He exhaled slowly. Ahead of him, a boxer in red satins stared out from a torn poster, his shining gloves held high, his body tense and ready. Harper tapped his booted feet on the floor. ‘Let’s just get this done.’

  Three years ago, Harper had made NYPD Cruiserweight Champion. He’d beaten an opponent who was bigger and heavier. Harper had had reserves that night, and he’d wanted it bad. Now he didn’t know what he was doing here. Rusty and tired even before he stepped into the ring. Maybe that was the problem – three years of rust was making his muscles feel dull and heavy.

  From somewhere beyond the small room, both men heard another roar echoing down the corridor. Harper’s muscles twitched. He imagined the referee lifting the winner’s arm, the loser standing beaten. Avoiding failure used to be Harper’s main motivation. It’d been three months since the end of his last big case. A tough case. And three months since he’d seen Denise Levene. And that hurt too.

  Guilt still kept him from sleeping. He’d brought Levene on to the case – she’d impressed him, she was smart and eager. She knew things about criminal behavior that no one else seemed to understand. They’d worked well together. Then it all went wrong. The killer targeted Denise Levene and kept her for two terrible days. For three months since, Harper had been unable to put the monster to rest inside his own head and Denise Levene wouldn’t speak to him or see him. And without forgiveness you can’t go forward, you can only keep punishing yourself.

  Out at ringside, the first bout was cleared. The ring was mopped of sweat and blood as more cops poured in from the street for the main event. They were there to see the ex-champ Harper take on the new boy Castiglione. Harper had retired as champ, had never been beaten and word was, he wanted his title back. People of all ages, from the old vets to the fresh-faced rookies, began opening beers and jostling for space on the battered wooden benches.

  In the locker room, Harper thought about the weeks of preparation and training. He’d pushed himself hard, working long shifts at North Manhattan Homicide and then carrying on with lengthy sessions at the gym.

  Cops weren’t supposed to be affected by what happened to them, they were supposed to move on to the next case, the next body. The reality was different. The cops Harper knew hid their weaknesses. The hardening of the heart was the price you paid for being in the game, but every cop knew that underneath, every damn thing stuck in deep and clawed away at you. Awake, you could control your fears, but asleep, there was nothing at all between you and the abyss.

  Harper stood up, his gloves on and laced. He was in good physical shape – six two with broad shoulders and toned muscles. His age showed only in the gray flecks in his hair.

  Pushing his mouth guard in, he gritted his teeth and let himself be led out of the room into the darkness beyond. They walked slowly up the narrow corridor as the noise of the crowd grew louder and louder, the heavy beat of stamping feet rising to meet them.

  The door to the gym opened up, the noise doubled in a moment and hit them like a wave. There was no fancy music, no fancy name.
Just Tom Harper who had demons to face and had decided he’d try to face them in the place he knew he could fight best. The ring.

  He looked across at Marco Castiglione pacing his territory. He was a short, bullish patrol cop with a mean and hungry look in his eye, who was out to prove himself. Once upon a time, Harper had been that guy.

  As Harper walked towards the ring, the cops started shouting his name, rising from their seats and patting his back as he passed. He pushed the top rope high and stepped through on to the canvas, standing opposite the young Italian, who was shadow boxing in his corner.

  The referee walked up and stood between the two men. The fighters came together. Harper held up his gloves, but stared right through Marco Castiglione’s direct gaze. Denise Levene was still in his head, back in the dungeon, the face of the killer behind her. Fragments of his nightmares kept breaking in.

  From ringside, Harper’s partner Eddie Kasper slurped on a beer and leaned back, his arm curling around the shoulder of the cop next to him. ‘My man is going to slay this guy,’ Eddie boasted. ‘It’s going to be brutal. I’ve got a hundred dollars here that says so.’

  In the ring, Tom Harper felt a wall of fear rise up like never before. It was like a sudden freeze, turning his muscles to waste and leaving his mind in flashes of white-frosted panic.

  But time had run out. The bell rang three times and, from across the ring, Castiglione approached like a beast from the shadows.

  Chapter Two

  Upper East Side

  March 6, 11.28 p.m.

  He sat in his car opposite the building, waiting. He had been watching for three hours, his focus on the door of the club. His hands were cold now. He held them out in front of his face and looked at them closely. Thin and elegant, like a pianist’s, his nails were cut and filed. He liked all aspects of his life to be neat, ordered and clean.

  He was a hunter. He was supreme. He could wait and wait. Sometimes for days, until the opportunity was right. The point was to be on duty at all times. Always vigilant. The hunt he could control. Not like everything else in his life.

  Love hadn’t worked out for him at all. For six months she’d made him happy, then she had cut herself free. She had rejected him and what he believed in.

  He had never really understood her problem and he didn’t believe she did either. She was part of the world – the world that was corrupt and out of order. He had to put it all back into shape. Frighten when necessary, hurt when necessary, and kill when necessary. But it had to start changing.

  The man stared across at the black railings and stone steps that led down to a red basement door. He knew they were inside: him and her. He had planned this for a long time, had lived it in his mind and waited patiently for the right time. He had his kit on the seat beside him: the barbed wire, duct tape, knife, gloves, flashlight, pistol, needle and ink. There was going to be pain first, then resolution, and then freedom.

  Orders were orders, whatever you thought about them and however you played it. People had to understand – there was no morality, no absolute, in battle and war. God’s will was self-assertion and evolution – the drive to secure the future for your own kind. He’d read more than he could remember about it. The science was unmistakable. People were just a genetic code seeking its own silent future. They were just incubators for God’s code. Bodies were nothing. But people had forgotten what God’s chosen code was and what the inferior code was doing to the world.

  His purpose had been sharpened over the years. He understood who he was now; finally understood that it was possible to be alive in both the present and the past. When he had absorbed that simple truth, the whole of his life fell into place. Time was not linear, time was all-present. It didn’t matter if you weren’t part of the original purpose, you were part of the eternal struggle which happened outside time and space. And anyone you killed was killed throughout eternity.

  The man knew he wasn’t really an individual; he was part of a hive, a single cell in a larger mind. He didn’t need to understand the whole, only his work, his duty, his small piece of the city that needed cleansing.

  Tonight was special. The order was to kill again. He would follow them slowly. He would make them cry out for death. Then, he would help them.

  Outside the club, his watch chimed at fifteen-minute intervals. He checked the time visually before going through his other checks. The first was his weapons check. He pulled out the small pistol, examined the magazine, removed it, took the bullet out of the breech, clicked the trigger twice, replaced the magazine, levered the bullet back into the breech. Then he took out his army combat knife, a small four-inch holed blade. He unsheathed it, felt the blade, sheathed it and put it away. Next he took out his flashlight. It was combat standard, strong and simple to use. He flicked on the beam and picked out the shadows opposite, then quickly switched it off and replaced it in his pocket. He took out the gloves. They were industrial gloves, so that he could handle the barbed wire. He was ready. He opened the window a couple of inches and pulled out a cigarette. A match flamed in the darkness; he dragged deeply and felt the rush of nicotine in his blood.

  Soon, it would be time. He held the anger in and felt it spread throughout him, the rage forming in each muscle in turn, mingling with the nicotine. He didn’t just hate. Hate was for part-timers. He was hate. It was his DNA, his purpose, his sole trajectory.

  Hate was a bloodline. It had grown in his cells like anything else: blue eyes, brown hair, muscularity – and hate. Hate was his inheritance, his birthright – and his duty.

  He stared across, blew smoke out of the window and repeated the eighty-eight words softly to himself.

  Chapter Three

  Salsa Club, Upper East Side

  March 6, 11.50 p.m.

  Inside the basement salsa club, the dance floor was heaving with bodies, the walls running with condensation under dark red lights. The series of small rooms reverberated with the high-pitched hoot of the trumpets and the rhythm of the bongos. A barely audible singer led the song in Spanish.

  David Capske was twenty-seven, engaged to be married and very pleased with how life had changed for him. He put his arm around Lucy, pulled her in tight, sipped his fifth Corona and stared at her. She was so perfect. Lucy’s eyes followed the dancers; David, too, turned to watch.

  The couple on the dance floor were breathtaking. The woman twirled in a tiny silver dress, flicking her long legs around on high heels, her elegant arms draped across the shoulders of her chisel-jawed partner. He was tall and taut in every movement – like a fixed bar against her fluidity.

  The dancers moved quickly, their legs and hips lifting and falling to the rapid thump of the beat. David stared transfixed. Then he felt something on his thigh. He looked down and saw Lucy’s hand slowly moving across it.

  ‘You want to dance?’ he shouted over the noise.

  ‘I see you like to watch her dance,’ she teased. ‘You getting excited?’

  David grinned. ‘I was admiring her technique. She’s got great upper-body isolation.’

  ‘That’s why you were staring so hard at her upper body region?’

  ‘What’s to look at? She’s not half as beautiful as you and she’s not even got the moves you’ve got.’ He reached out and tried to kiss her. ‘Now your upper-body isolation is second to none.’

  She pulled away and smiled. ‘I need proof.’

  David leaned closer. ‘That’s not a problem.’

  ‘How are you going to prove it to me?’

  ‘By taking the most beautiful woman in this place home and showing you,’ he said.

  ‘Flatterer! Anyway, that might be second-hand excitement. You might be thinking of anyone. I want better proof than that.’

  They stared at each other. This was happiness, David Capske thought. Whatever more was to come, couldn’t compete with the feeling he had when they were together.

  ‘My family have disowned me, is that not proof enough?’

  Lucy laughed and stood up. �
�They just want you to meet a nice Jewish girl and not some—’

  ‘Talented and brilliant young writer.’ He gazed into her blue eyes. He meant it. She was the one. True, Lucy Steller was not what his family had in mind for their firstborn. They were part of the wealthy establishment and she was still working in a supermarket.

  ‘Let’s go home then.’ She took his hands and dragged him to his feet. David kissed her.

  They stood outside in the cold night air. They were both sweaty from the heat of the club, and the cold air stung. Lucy had goose bumps. David put his arm around her and rubbed her bare arm briskly to try to warm her up. The road was quiet – just a line of dark shop windows and a row of parked cars under gloomy street lights.

  ‘I love being with you,’ he said.

  In one of the parked cars across the way, a light suddenly flared in the driver’s seat: a face illuminated for a second seemed to be staring directly across at him.

  Lucy felt David’s body tense. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. The light went out in the car and smoke drifted from the half-open window. ‘Someone just lit a cigarette.’

  ‘We should get going,’ she said, and took his arm.

  ‘He was staring right at me,’ said David. ‘Not a nice look, either.’

  ‘Don’t start with the paranoia,’ she said, and drew him close. As they began to walk up the street, David turned and looked again over his shoulder at the parked car, but all he could see was a trail of smoke from the window.

  Chapter Four

  Apartment, Lower Manhattan