Contract Killer

by Richard Hoyt

  The cops would watch the streets and the pergola with Toba. We would go underground with the rats.

  Janine and I drew the south underground sidewalk of Yesler Way our first shift out. We first went east — away from the pergola. We didn’t talk. We didn’t use our flashlights. We felt our way in the darkness, accepting the cobwebs and hoping, both of us, that a rat wouldn’t suddenly sprint across a foot or scramble up a leg. When we came to the dead end on the map Janine had made from her research, we stopped and squatted, listening to our breathing. A small beep came on my walkie-talkie. I punched the button that lit my cheap digital watch: eleven-thirty. The beep was right on time. It was Willis, saying he and Juantar were okay but had found nothing. I gave them one beep back, as agreed. There would be no talking on the walkie-talkies unless someone needed help.

  The computer had told us to wait ten minutes before we started west. We waited and the howling of the coyote began — far, far down the sidewalk, perhaps around the corner along First Avenue. It was a dim call, plaintive, clear for a heartbeat then dim, inhabiting, it seemed, the realm of the imagination.

  I felt Janine’s lips against my ear. “Our friend,” she whispered.

  I put my lips against her ear. “How far, would you say?”

  I could feel her shrug her shoulders. “The butcher killer’s a psycho. Maybe it’s him.”

  “Maybe it’s George,” I said.

  “Could be.”

  When our ten minutes were up we started easing our way to the west again, but when we approached the corner of Yesler and First Avenue the mournful howling stopped. Our schedule called for a twenty-minute wait at the corner. Two minutes before it was time to beep Juantar and Willis, we heard the call again — in the direction we had come from.

  “Hear that?” Janine said.

  “I heard it. A man who knew the underground would have had plenty of time to go one level up and circle back. No problem.”

  “I agree,” she said.

  “You suppose Foxx Jensen could move George that fast?”

  “George is probably pretty quick. Of course, we could be dealing with more than one person.”

  That was the last time we heard the coyote that shift.

  At one o’clock we emerged under the Doie for a cup of coffee and a meeting with Juantar and Willis.

  Willis maintained they had heard nothing. “We heard a few rats, that’s all. Chauvin here claimed he heard something, but I think it was adrenaline squirting through his brain. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Brother Willis, Brother Willis, you’re wrong. I heard a saw buzzing. I got ears on me. I can hear coons and crawdads kissing in the bayou. We were over there in front of the place where the underground tour ends. I heard a saw.”

  “Coming from which direction, Juantar?”

  “From the west?”

  “See what I told you,” Willis said. “That’s impossible.”

  “Praise Jesus, I did hear it,” Juantar said. “At about twelve-thirty. Tell me you didn’t hear the coyote just before we came up, Mr. Policeman. Damn, you’re the kind of cop they got in Baton Rouge. Stone deaf. Won’t listen to a thing. Won’t listen.”

  “We did hear what sounded like a coyote,” Willis said. He didn’t want to admit his hearing might be going bad on him. “Somebody’s dog on the prowl.”

  Juantar poured us all more coffee. “Praise Jesus, but that howling was creepy. If it’s a dog his owner maybe oughta feed him or something.”

  “We heard him, too. It’s a suffering sound. He’s miserable,” Janine said.

  “He’s trying to say something,” I said. “He knows we’re down there and he’s trying to avoid us.”

  Willis looked at me like I was being ridiculous. “Oh, bullshit, Denson, this isn’t a drive-in movie. Use your head. There’s an explanation for everything. There’s either a nut down here howling like a fucking coyote — excuse me, Janine — or a miserable dog that sounds like a coyote. We find the nut who’s doing the howling and we’ve found a guy with a brick saw and RV freezers full of sawed-up bodies.”

  “If it’s a dog, maybe it’s been delivering parts of Moby Rappaport to Pioneer Place. The dog trainer at Fort Lewis said it could be done, didn’t he? All you need is a smart, strong dog.”

  Willis sighed. “All right. Okay. It could be that. It could even be George. Only I think it’s a man. A guy who howls is nuts. It’d take a nut to cut people up with a brick saw.”

  Juantar said, “Maybe we should all take silver stakes with us and a crucifix like in the movies. Praise Jesus! Praise the Lord!”

  I said, “The hound of the Bricksawman.”

  “Sure, sure, that’s it,” Juantar said. He did a little howling of his own. He turned his curly blond beard to the ceiling and went, “Ah wooooo!”

  Richard Willis had by now learned to ignore Juantar. Willis looked at his wristwatch. “The computer says our break’s up.”

  “I did hear a saw a-buzzing,” Juantar said. “I did hear one. There’s somebody down there cutting up bodies.”

  “A brick saw or a chainsaw?” I asked.

  Juantar said, “Praise Jesus. Could have been either. It’s hard to say.”

  Had Doug Egan gotten the bizarre idea of cutting up Judge Rappaport from watching the chainsaw Rodin carve salmon out of Douglas fir? Anything was possible. Anybody could be a secret psychopath. Both Egan and Jensen had a motive for the murder if they thought Rappaport was about to rule against them.

  It was time to go below again and listen to the howling of dogs and the buzzing of saws.

  28 – ENCOUNTER

  Bodily parts were now showing up in Pioneer Place Park once a day, at night always, including fingers, thumbs, toes, ears, and noses, so that the police were forced to acknowledge that they had identified Judge Moby Rappaport and his clerk, Kim Hartwig, as the victims. The admission did not come easily — in fact, the truth was forthcoming only after some vile, unconscionable bastard had tipped off the reporters on the sly. Or so the chief of police said, using various euphemisms and barely repressing his rage. He said he’d only been trying to spare the families of the murdered men.

  One does not murder and mutilate the corpses of a judge and his clerk without upsetting the public imagination. There is a hierarchy in the value of human life. One does not murder the child of Charles Lindbergh and have a quiet trial. Homeless drifters are at the other end of the extreme, which is why Juan Corona allegedly murdered one hundred and twenty-six men outside of Fresno before the cops got wise and began unearthing pits of bodies. One should not kill law-abiding family men because that upsets all manner of law-abiding family men. One should not kill cops because that pisses other cops off.

  But worst of all, possibly because it strikes at the very heart of everything, is to kill a judge.

  The public demanded swift and decisive justice as a deterrent to future butcher killers of judges. The media theater took over, and everybody watched the drama on television or read about it in the Times or the P.I. Various police officials were put at the top of the playbill. They didn’t like it there. The police seemed to dither. Willis’s hated police chief, protector of the incompetent cop Willis had slandered in a police meeting, addressed microphones with non sequiturs and tortured logic. The police were held responsible by editorial writers and station managers. The indecisiveness of the police continued. Cops are such dumb shits, people said. Television reporters ran excitedly from public official to public official, woof-woofing like dumb hounds, keeping their quarry excited and hopping about this way and that to provide their photographers with good material.

  It was difficult for the reporters to suppress their grins. The chief did his best. He twisted and dodged his way through his tormentors as best he could. He looked, wild-eyed, for the slightest hole in each wounding question.

  I suspected that Richard Willis was the source of the department leak about the identity of the corpses. Willis acknowledged it cheerfully as the four of us met for o
ur nightly meeting before going underground.

  “Oh, hell, yes,” he said. “Serves the dumb bastards right.” He smirked. “They know I’m the one who did it, too, but they can’t prove it. That’s what they get for insisting I hang around the station all day with nothing to do.”

  “Do you suppose they’ll forget it by the time of your disciplinary hearing?”

  Willis shook his finger in front of my face. “Listen here, those guys gotta prove everything in that hearing. They fuck me over and I’ll have their asses in court — excuse me, Janine — and they know it.”

  “Praise Jesus!” Juantar said.

  Willis said, “Who in the hell do they think they are, trying to keep something like that secret from the public? The murderer knows who he killed — no sense keeping it from him. What were they thinking? Did they think they could keep it a secret forever? Protecting their butts was all they were doing, stupidly trying to buy time. Isn’t that right, Chauvin?” Willis was beginning to respect Juantar because Juantar was willingly sharing in the danger below.

  “Oh my, I should say so,” Juantar said. He looked pious and pretended to pray. “Please deliver us all some good porking, Lord,” he said. “Believe me, we need it badly.”

  “Amen,” Janine said. Her hand was disconcerting on my thigh.

  It was difficult for me to keep my hands off her when we felt our way through the darkness of the underground sidewalks. I let my hand stray onto her rump as we stepped into the darkness of the sidewalk, but moved it quickly as though it had been an accident.

  Janine grabbed my hand and put it back on her rump. “Oh, don’t be so damn civilized,” she said. What she wanted was a little human warmth before she stepped off into the labyrinth to face a psycho. I was in the market for some company, too, and we held one another for a moment. Finally she said, “After you, big guy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll finish this later then? The fooling-around part.”

  “Yes, yes, later, Mr. Denson.”

  Janine Hallen was an extraordinary woman. One side of her was reserved and properly distant. She was conservative in her dress. She was a bit shy, in fact. Her other side was playful and affectionate; she wanted to burrow right in there. She wanted to live. It was as though she had the ability to put her inhibitions on a shelf if she pleased. It was hard to keep my mind off her. I started slowly down the sidewalk with Janine close behind, her hand on my collar as was our custom on our patrols. Three or four people laughing and walking rapidly passed overhead on the street-level sidewalk. We could hear them talk because there was a small hole in the sidewalk with a dim shaft of light coming down from a streetlamp above.

  One man said, “Man, the Sonics play defense? Play D? What are you talking about? If you leave Jimmy Paxson out on that wing by himself he’s gonna pop ‘em in all night long. The Sonics win a few, then say shee-it, no reason to bother with D. Just how long does it take them to learn is what I want to know. Makes a lot of sense. Win on the road and come back here and lose to the Blazers. God, Portland!” His exclamation was in disgust, as though there was no more humiliating spectacle on the planet than watching the Sonics lose to the Trail Blazers at home.

  It wasn’t more than two or three minutes after the basketball people passed that I heard a faint buzzing. A saw! Juantar had been right.

  Janine squeezed the back of my neck to let me know she heard it, too. The sawing stopped and she released her grip. The sawing started and she tightened it.

  The sawing stopped. I punched the light on my watch. Twelve-forty.

  We waited, not breathing.

  At last, Janine said, “Juantar was on this side when he heard it.”

  “Was there anything about those plans to go across the streets that would account for a tunnel in this side?” I whispered.

  “This stretch along here is the shortest distance to Pioneer Place. The street up there is narrow.”

  “Then they could have started their project along here?”

  “Could have,” she said. “Makes sense. It’d be cheapest and easiest from here.”

  “And it somehow got covered up, got hidden over the years?”

  “That’s possible, too. Wouldn’t take much to disguise a hole in the wall.”

  “Only to get uncovered recently. How?” I asked.

  Janine said, “A few years ago they had to reinforce the sidewalks along here. Maybe then.”

  I said, “A workman, possibly. A bricklayer.”

  “Prib Ostrow, you’re thinking.”

  I didn’t say anything. I checked my wristwatch. We still had a few yards to go for a twenty-minute break. We eased on down the sidewalk and stopped at the appointed spot. We held onto one another. We listened to footsteps above. There was nothing below except for the musty smell, the silence, and the occasional stirring of a rat. The city had the underground covered with cans of poisons, but still the rodents kept coming.

  It was about time to move on when I was aware of a presence. “Somebody’s down here,” I whispered.

  Janine nodded her head yes against my shoulder.

  “I feel him,” I said.

  She nodded again. “Me, too.”

  “Better get it ready.”

  She knew what I meant. She sat up slowly and drew the .38 from her shoulder holster. A figure burst from an alcove not two yards away. Pushed me hard. Pushed Janine. From the sidewalk I turned on my flashlight and aimed it down the sidewalk. The weak beam wasn’t good for much.

  I heard Janine cock the revolver.

  There he was.

  “No!” I shouted.

  She didn’t shoot.

  He was gone. We had just glimpsed him turn the corner.

  “What if it was Willie?” she said. “I couldn’t shoot.”

  “It could have been.” The figure had been wearing a red top of some kind.

  Janine said, “He wasn’t large enough for Prib Ostrow.”

  “Could have been Willie, could have been Rodney.”

  “Could have been Jensen or Egan too. Mike Stark.”

  It could have been any one of those men or a complete stranger.

  We stayed below after the Doie closed. We couldn’t risk going to an all-night cafe for coffee for fear of being monitored by Toba. At three in the morning we heard the howling again. This time the animal yipped and yelped before his howling. His howling seemed unusually lonesome and mournful; it drifted down the musty tunnels and into the empty rooms, an eerie, ghostly presence.

  29 - IN THE BEGINNING

  The skies over Seattle were ashen and somber. Janine Hallen and I had seen it coming and had bundled ourselves in layers of sweaters, but the cold still slapped us in the face when we stepped out of the warmth of my Fiat. We joined the other people who were going to Pioneer Place Park to hear Coyote stories. The clouds thinned to a dull gray then gathered again, turning dark, charcoal and worse. They moved heavily, bloated with rain. To the west — above the Puget Sound, where freighters lay like ghosts of Sargasso — the clouds rolled toward us. They billowed. They were angry. They came low and hard, bulls, gods upset. There would be rain, but that was not unusual; it was October, and on the shores of the North Pacific coast it rained from the tenth month through the fifth, weather much beloved by ducks and fungi.

  People gathered in spite of the cloudy weather. The city had planted shrubs in the interior to keep bums from sleeping there and hoped that would discourage the gathering. The organizers, assured by the police that it was safe at the tiny park despite the manhunt for the butcher murderer, went ahead with their plans. The folks standing among the shrubs wanted to hear Indian storytellers. They were there to support Native Americans in spite of the butcher. They thought they were being slightly heroic in doing that and were thrilled. Later — after discussions of herpes, AIDS, and ex-spouses had flagged — there would be spooky stories to tell while they sipped fruity white wine in front of a nice fire.

  They stood on sodden wet grass, moisture oozing over the soles
of their shoes. Those standing among the wet shrubs had wet pantlegs. They shifted from side to side to keep their feet warm. In keeping with their status, the intellectuals among them smoked pipes; some wore spectacles that steamed over. They breathed in lazy, frosty streams and talked in quick, frosty puffs. They had old umbrellas at the ready. They were not people who lived in A-frame houses. They lived in old cottages and bungalows that they had restored themselves. They bought their sweaters from Fred Meyer’s or K-Mart and drove old Saabs and Peugeots that were hard to start in the morning. They were teachers, librarians, people who lingered over the newspaper in the morning.

  They wore layers of wool to keep body heat in. They wore tans and browns, drabs, the colors of winter, although the city was treed by conifers that were always green. They wore woolen caps pulled down over their ears. They wore mittens and warm gloves that had been Christmas presents the year before. They stood with their backs to the wind that preceded the inevitable rain. Their comfortable old Hush Puppies were soaked. The wind pushed their clothes tight against their bodies and slapped the hoods of their rain slickers. They clutched mimeographed leaflets, incorrectly punctuated, that explained the storytelling function of an Indian shaman, or medicine man.

  One of the functions of the shaman, the pamphlet said, was to explain the past. The natives of the Americas believed, as their Asian ancestors believed before them, that life travels in circles. That what once was, will be again. That’s why the old stories were important; in telling the stories, the shaman told how things were in the beginning. First, there was the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit made the Animal People who came before man. One of these Animal People was Coyote, who was a prankster, and who could change himself into a human if necessary to tell stories of how the world began and how things of value were preserved. These stories varied from tribe to tribe, but that didn’t make any difference. A Clallam had his world. A Yakima had another.