Season of the Assassin

by Laird, Thomas

  ‘Well, I’m happy to have a visitor,’ he says and smiles. Then he looks up and gives me the full treatment with his eyes. They are shockingly bright and intelligent and…evil.

  ‘I’m no visitor. Just happened to be in your vicinity.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you came anyway. I have this unavoidable desire to get you to believe I’m not the guy you think I am.’

  ‘Who do I think you are?’

  He smiles and flashes a stare at me.

  ‘I’m the guy in the ninth concentric ring. I am Legion, I am the Antichrist! There! Satisfied?’

  ‘When they fit the hood over your face, I’ll be satisfied. When they turn on the circuits and the smoke rises from all of your facial orifices, then I’ll be at peace.’

  ‘I’m getting out on bond. My lawyer’s in there now. I’ll be out by lunch.’

  ‘I’m sure you will be…I just saw someone who knows all about your innocence.’

  ‘Yeah? Who’s that?’

  ‘The nurse you left behind.’

  ‘You keep insisting that there was someone who actually saw me do those seven young ladies. I keep telling you she saw someone else. Why is it impossible for you to come to terms with the notion that you got the wrong man?’

  ‘When she comes out of it, we’ll have you back here. But your bondsman won’t be able to afford you when I come for you then…By the way — ’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Why’d you kill them? I mean you could’ve raped them and done your disappearing act. The way they trained you in Special Forces.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Special — ’

  ‘You could’ve had them and you could’ve let them live. You know how to leave the scene of a crime, like I said. So why not just have all that sex and leave?’

  ‘I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about…But as far as rapists go — and I only know what I’ve read — they sometimes can’t get the full effect with just a normal climax. Some of them enjoy the thrill of control. The control over the very life of the victim…But then, you’re a Homicide lieutenant. You don’t need me to explain basic criminal psychology to you. You know about control. How many rape/murders have you presided over, Lieutenant?’

  ‘I just wanted to hear your slant, your version.’

  ‘Very clever, Detective. Very clever indeed. Astute, even. But I didn’t do those girls. There are all kinds of killers out there, and the man who did the nurses is still out there.’

  Anglin’s wearing a T-shirt with the American flag all over the front. It’s obvious he doesn’t plan on staying here very often.

  ‘The food’s lousy in jail,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll have to make adjustments to your sexual habits when we lock you up the next time, the final time. By then you’ll be hoping they give you death. Everybody’s gonna want a piece of your scrawny ass when they hear there’s a celebrity in the jailhouse…Wherever you turn, you’ll see me out the corner of an eye. I’ll be there, right there. When they spring you, I’ll be behind you or just off to the side — ’

  ‘My lawyer has already told you that — ’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what your lawyer said or who he said it to. So sue me, shitbird. I’ll never give you up. Maybe you better do one of your jungle ops on me when you get out.’

  ‘You got the wrong guy, Lieutenant. You just made a mistake and you’re having trouble living with it. So I like pussy. I don’t need to force them to fuck me…You got the wrong perpetrator. You’ll see, if you ever go after the real guy,

  ‘Remember what I told you.’

  I turn and walk away from his cage. I hear what sounds like soft, almost gentle laughter following me on my way out of the lockup.

  *

  Jimmy’s been hit. Not badly enough to be sent home. Says it was just some hot shrapnel that cut through the bottom of his Chinook helicopter when they were sent into the bush for an engagement with the NVA and the Viet Cong. Jimmy says he didn’t even feel the piece of metal that hit him and didn’t realize he’d been wounded until he saw the red stain on the knee of his pants.

  Eleanor cries when she reads Jimmy’s note. But I tell her that he’ll get some time off in the hospital. Maybe even some R-and-R in Japan. She looks up at me and I tell her that being in the hospital will keep him out of combat, at least for a little while.

  I touch her hand, but when she looks up at me I withdraw my fingertips.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  [February 1999]

  Renny Charles came up with an address for Anglin. It was the most positive information we’d had in weeks, so we didn’t hesitate to get some cops over to the location. We had to scan the neighborhood and interview several dozen people before we found a woman who’d seen Carl Anglin coming out of an apartment not two blocks from where we stood and this young college girl who said she’d noticed his distinctive weird eyes ‘looking me up and down’.

  It was 4412 East End Avenue, right by the Elevated tracks.

  I had six squads waiting for Doc and me at the address.

  ‘Isn’t this a little showy, just for an interview?’ Doc asked me on the ride over.

  ‘We’re just going to talk, yeah. We don’t have any evidence from the two murders to put Anglin on scene, but he doesn’t know that. Let’s just go in like we mean business.’

  Doc smiled and turned off his all-day all-night jazz station from Evanston.

  We were at the point, the lead, as we walked up the steps at 4412 East End Avenue. I had my Nine in my hand and Doc had his standard police-issue piece in his right mitt. There were six uniformed patrolmen on the stairs coming up with us to the third floor. Anglin was bold enough to have his name on the mailbox by the entrance.

  ‘Police. Open up,’ Doc yelled as he beat on the door. We didn’t have a warrant to break in so were hoping we’d caught him at home.

  Doc hit the door with his knuckles again, and this time we heard movement from within. The remaining two patrolmen we’d brought along were standing outside in the alley, watching the rear exit. There was no way Anglin could evade us.

  The door opened slowly to reveal a young female, naked to the waist. Her eyes appeared bleary, blown-out.

  ‘There ain’t no party here,’ she said, a glazed smile on her lips.

  ‘We’re police. We’d like to come in, honeydew,’ Doc grinned.

  She fell for his Slovak charm.

  The door opened all the way. All she was wearing was thong bikini underwear.

  ‘Oh my,’ Doc said, admiringly.

  She was a stunning brunette.

  ‘Where’s the head of the house?’ Doc asked her. We shut the door behind the three of us and I thought I heard one of the uniforms groan.

  ‘Would you be more comfortable if you put something on?’ I asked her.

  ‘Don’t you like to look?’ she slurred, grinning dopily.

  I raised my hands in surrender. Either she was a little more than liberated or she was displaying herself in order to distract us. If she was trying to distract us she was doing a first-rate job. My wife would have slapped my face if she’d heard I’d let this kid stand naked in front of us this way.

  ‘Carl ain’t here, as you can see. I don’t know where he is. Sometimes he don’t come home at all.’

  She switched her stare to Doc.

  ‘You using?’ Doc smiled.

  ‘Yeah. How ’bout you?’

  ‘What’s your name, darlin’?’ Doc asked.

  ‘Cherilyn…You wouldn’t turn prick and send your narco buddies this way, would you?’

  ‘Not unless we feel you’re being unresponsive.’

  She whipped off her bikini bottom before I could tell her what we really meant by ‘responsive’.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Doc laughed. ‘We mean that we want you to help us find Carl. We aren’t asking for, ah, professional courtesy.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Her face had gone blank. It was as if she really had mistaken what we were after here.

  ‘Be
cause we do have friends in narcotics, and those needle tracks in your arm give us probable cause to have this apartment flopped. And those guys don’t give a shit if you bend over and shoot the moon at them while they tear this place apart. So do you want to cut the crap and tell us where Carl Anglin is?’ I explained.

  *

  We found him in conference with his Chicago agent. This was the guy who set up his personal appearances.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Ralph Martin, the agent, cautioned us. ‘We’re in the middle of some private business — ’

  ‘Sit down, chubby,’ Doc told him. You could see Martin was very much offended by the ‘chubby’ remark. He was one of these North Shore yups who worked out daily at some health club in the city. Racquetball was probably his sport. But he did sport a paunch.

  ‘We need to talk to you, Carl. We’ve been looking for you for a long, long time,’ I told Anglin.

  He shot the green, mean stare at me.

  ‘I’ll need a lawyer,’ he said.

  ‘Call him. There’s the phone. Tell him to meet us downtown. Homicide floor. You remember, don’t you, Carl?’ Doc asked.

  ‘I remember.’

  Anglin picked up the phone and then he pushed the buttons. It was a Chicago number, I saw.

  ‘Come on, Carl. Let’s go for a ride.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you in an hour, Ralph. Don’t worry,’ Anglin told the agent.

  ‘Might be a little longer than that,’ I told Ralph.

  *

  ‘You heard the names Martha Eisner or Renee Jackson?’ I asked Anglin.

  He sat in the interrogation room with his lawyer, Paul Jackson. Jackson nodded that he could answer.

  ‘No. Neither. Never heard of them.’

  Anglin was sucking hard at a Camel filter until I informed him that there was no smoking in this building. He put out the butt and looked down at the glossy finish of the dark oak table.

  ‘This conversation is about to be aborted,’ Jackson said. ‘You have shown me nothing that would cause Mr Anglin to go any further with this line of questioning. This appears to be open harassment on account of Mr Anglin’s previous incarceration for the murder of those seven student nurses — a crime he was found not guilty of.’

  ‘I remember,’ I told him.

  ‘It was your father who arrested him, was it not?’ the lawyer asked, smiling greasily.

  Jackson wanted me to hit him. He had a hard-on thinking about the litigation he could bring against me.

  ‘It was my father, yes. But he has nothing to do with these two current murders. I’m not lame enough to bring up a thirty-year-old dead case.’

  ‘Splendid. Then you understand we have nothing further to say to you.’

  ‘I brought you down here for a reason, Carl,’ I told Anglin.

  ‘Tell it to my lawyer.’

  ‘We don’t have anything except your mode of operation to connect you with these two young women, Anglin. But we’ll have more soon. You can be sure we will. And one other thing.’

  ‘What’s that, Lieutenant?’ Anglin stared at me.

  ‘It isn’t over with the seven nurses. Don’t ever think it’s over. We know the government likes you for some damn reason. But that won’t stop me from getting you. I’m not a political policeman, Carl. I don’t give a shit about my pension. I’ll keep working until I collapse with a stroke over a case file. Which should tell you that I’ll never stop. The case is never closed. I won’t talk about it anymore now, but I’ll be in your face again. If you’d just stayed out of business, all this might not have come to a boil. But you really pissed me off when you came back into your old hunting grounds and thought you were untouchable. Whatever you have with the Feds won’t cut jack shit with me. I just wanted you to know…Be seeing you soon, Carl.’

  ‘Your old man couldn’t catch me. You think you’re as good as he was? I heard Jake Parisi was the big dog. Except for the liquor. That’s what kept him stuck at lieutenant. Wasn’t it? Then he had that tragic accident — ’

  I was up out of the chair and I had my hands round Anglin’s throat. I was squeezing, and his emerald orbs were beginning to bulge when I felt Doc’s surprisingly strong grip on the back of my neck — and then I was being hauled back into my own chair.

  The lawyer made all the obvious threats about my attack on his client, and then Anglin and his mouthpiece left the interrogation room.

  ‘A mite unprofessional, Jimmy,’ Doc said.

  The heat in my face was slowly receding.

  ‘Yeah. You’re absolutely dead-on.’

  ‘Take it easy, guinea. We just got invited to this dance. It’s a brand-new deal. The trail is fresh and the scent is clear. He wants to get your attention away from the details. He wants to make it personal between the two of you, the way it was for your dad and him. That was Jake’s only error. He let it get to him, he let it become a vendetta. That’s how you guineas operate, ain’t it?’

  My pulse was still pounding. In my mind I could feel my fingers getting closer to Anglin’s windpipe. The man was four or five inches taller than I was, but I had him at the point of no return. And I was glaring into his eyes, and for some odd reason I felt like my rage was feeding off his stare, making me stronger, angrier with each squeeze. I frightened myself in the process.

  ‘Carl Anglin is not the Boogey Dude. He’s not Satan. He’s a filthy piece of human flesh who’d like you to think he’s supernatural. It’s part of his bullshit appeal to all these young doper snatches who hang out at his parties. He’s like the next step away from the occult. They take him as an evil father replacement because most of them don’t have anyone at home…He wants to get into your head. Our heads. It’s part of what they taught him in the military. He wants to scare you. That’s why he did the seven giris one at a time. Just so the next one down the line had to wait and think about what he’d be doing to her. He’s doing the same thing with that talk about your father. He’s stirring you up, James. Don’t let him.’

  I looked at the one-way mirror. Luckily our captain hadn’t been present at the interview. But he’d be hearing from Anglin’s lawyer as soon as that pimp found a telephone.

  *

  Now that the daytime temperature was in the forties, I took my baby daughter for walks in her stroller. My other two children were approaching adulthood, so I’d never thought I’d be doing that again. I was off shift and my wife Natalie was on. When we both worked simultaneously, my mother, Eleanor, got the job of sitter. She loved taking care of Mary. And I’d noticed that dealing with my kid had made my mother seem younger. She only needed to sit for us two or three days a week, with our schedules, but she still seemed more youthful, maybe even happier.

  I walked Mary around the block three or four times. Just enough to get the pink in her cheeks.

  Then we went back inside because this was still winter, and the temperature in this city had been known to drop ten degrees and more in less than an hour.

  When we got back inside our North Side bungalow, I turned on the TV for her cartoons. She was just beginning to get interested in them. Some of them were too violent for me. So I turned over on the cable to the movie classics station. Those old black and whites put my daughter to sleep in just seconds. I thought maybe it was their lush music scores. The violins and everything. I wasn’t sure. But I knew it worked.

  Then the familiar pangs crept back into my heart. I saw Mary as a twenty-year-old nursing student, learning all those facts that would help her alleviate human suffering. And along came the big bad wolf and he huffed and he puffed and he put his hands around my own daughter’s throat. I saw it in my mind. This vision of the future where Carl Anglin never grew any older. He never got caught, either. He was the devil who always had hell for his refuge, and for some reason we tolerated his existence. We never seemed to do anything to put him permanently out of business. The human predicament — a constant relationship with evil.

  Perhaps Doc was wrong. Maybe Anglin was the Boogey Dude, the Boogey Man,
the horror beneath the bed or inside the closet or wherever he lurked.

  Who was I to think I could eradicate Legion? He was too many, even though the Bible said he was really just one. Fallen angel. Would-be God.

  I took Mary up out of her crib and embraced her until I made her too warm — and until I pissed her off sufficiently for her to want her old man to feed her some more of that tonsil-pleasing apple juice.

  *

  We went over the crime scenes at the locations of the Eisner and Jackson killings. The FBI had been over them several times. All the photographs had been taken, everything had been processed. He’d left nothing behind. He knew how we thought. He was trained to defeat a police examination. The military had taught him to leave nothing of himself behind. What the military called an exchange. Pubic hairs, spittle, semen, body hairs, fibre. Nothing was left on the bodies of the girls.

  I was assuming that he was using condoms in the rapes. There was damage to the cervix in each case. He had rammed himself or some object inside them, but there was no trace of sexual climax. He was too smart. As I said, he was too well prepared. He was that organized kind of killer that purposely put together his own slaying scenario before he actually went out into the world and performed his deeds.

  I got hold of Mason, the Fibbie, and I asked if we could see his files. We got unexpected cooperation from the Federals. They showed us what they had, which was the same as we had. Nothing.

  There was nothing to do but go nose-to-nose with Mason himself.

  We were at his office, not far from our own.

  ‘Why are you guys protecting him?’ I asked him straight out.

  Mason grinned and let the room go quiet.

  ‘You seem to think we’re conspiring against the CPD over this man. Why is that?’

  Mason’s assistant, the FBI babe of the month, was sitting in with us. She had her legs crossed demurely. She was trying to become Agent Starling.

  ‘He’s got a closed file. That’s why. Because we know he was a trained pop artist for the Spooks or Someone Just Like the Spooks — you know, one of your more covert brethren who goes around the world taking out the trash. Without a trial or any of that legal bullshit.’