The White Flamingo

by James A. Newman

  “Do you mind if I fix here?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Taylor looked the other way as the Detective rolled up his sleeve and found a blue express-line heading along the forearm. The shrink worked out of his condo on the fourteenth floor of the TS building. The view was dazzling. Why Jim had told him the shop-house story, was anyone’s guess. It mattered not. He took out his works and cooked right there on the desk. The solution filled the syringe and he hit the line without tying up.

  His face relaxed as the plunger fell.

  He remembered as a kid he had befriended a child in second grade. The child had given him a blue veined marble as a leaving gift. He had gone to as many as ten different schools as a kid. His mother was always running away or running to a lover. The child had asked him to take the largest blue veined marble as a reminder that he had once been his friend. It was the kindest, most generous gesture by another human being that the Detective had ever experienced.

  The image stuck.

  The sudden wave of heroin passed and the Detective now sat with the dull steady concentration of a banker considering a mortician’s loan. His thoughts were clear, unclouded by the anxiety of withdrawal. Present in the moment, he asked Taylor: “Tell me, sir. In your professional opinion, what kind of a man would go around killing hookers in a ritualistic fashion?”

  “What kind of man would post a card to his mother every mother’s day and wear pyjamas in bed? What kind of man hates it when the toothpaste tube is squeezed from the middle and when the cap is left off? What kind of man prefers squeezed orange juice to concentrate?”

  “Organized?”

  “Yes, and careful. This is a busy town. Two victims were out in the open. Not the work of a drunken man or a mentally ill man. An obsessive compulsive personality type maybe. I have seen the photographs that you sent. This is the work of a man that knows absolutely what he is doing and the consequences of his actions. The work has a familiar ring to it.”

  “Whitechapel 1888.”

  “Precisely. I would guess that he is English. However, most foreigners in Fun City are.”

  “Have you seen anyone in your practice that fits the profile?” Joe asked.

  “That, as you well know, I am not at liberty to say.”

  “Of course.”

  “What I will say, is that psychology can be studied both as a science and an art. It is regrettable that many seem to see it as only a science, as if it has the answers to all peculiar modes of human behaviour.”

  “Explain,” Joe said.

  “Take an alcoholic and put him in a bar with five hundred dollars on his person, and science tells us that he will buy a drink. Now if that same alcoholic had undergone treatment, maybe the twelve steps, maybe group counselling to find the route of his addictions, he will refrain from drinking, and that is an art. Mr. Dylan, if you won’t consider letting me help you with your, erm, recent weakness, at least go to a group meeting. They hold them here, you know.”

  “I’ll chew it over.”

  “Do more than that. Swallow it before it swallows you. You will not catch the killer in your current condition. Now if you will excuse me, Mr. Dylan, I am terribly sorry. But I do have clients waiting to see me.”

  “Sure,” The Detective said and made it to the door. Turned. “One more thing. There is a boy locked up in connection with the first murder.”

  “Sebastian Bell?”

  “Yes, I know his mother.”

  “Everybody knows his mother,” Taylor smiled. “She is one of my more interesting clients.”

  “I need to spring him out of the can. He can’t make it inside there.”

  “There’s an officer by the name of Kult. We play golf sometimes. If I speak with him, will you leave my office, now?”

  “Sure,” Joe stood and shook his hand. It was as cold as a dead lizard with just as much life.

  “Mr Dylan. One more thing. The police force here is totally corrupt. It encourages and provokes crime. Twenty years back, there was a chief, called himself Bank. He took five thousand dollars from the government for every criminal convicted. Criminals who he had himself employed. A lot of innocent men found themselves guilty. Bank became the most hated man in Fun City, until a mob attacked him outside the city courts. They tore him apart, limb by limb. Kult, well, he is the new wave. Corrupt, for sure, but not unintelligent. He has an armoured vehicle with body guards that take him to court.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate your time, doctor. And if you could call Kult, I’d appreciate it even more.” He made it to the door and walked down the stairs and back onto the street. Outside, two brown rat snakes were attached to each other, twisting, fucking in the street next to an overflowing garbage can. A group of teenagers pointed and giggled. The Detective walked towards the waterline. He knew a bar that over-looked the sea. It was happy hour in Fun City.

  Every hour was happy.

  THIRTY-NINE

  FUN CITY EXPRESS

  December 9th.

  HUMAN BODY PART FOUND BY STREET DOG

  Human body parts found in two bags in a refuse container on the dark side district, are believed to be those of a male foreigner who was once a member of the London police force. Vern Small, sixty-four, is believed to have been living homelessly on the Beach Road for the last three years, and has no close relatives.

  The investigative officer at the eighth road police station said it was reported on Thursday night, that a dog was seen by a passer-by on the roadside holding what appeared to be part of a human body in its mouth. Police investigated and found two bags containing human body parts.

  The first black bag they examined had three layers. Inside, police found two legs clothed with dirty shorts. The limbs had been severed at the knee with a neat cut, likely to have been made with a bow-saw. There was also a left hand and part of a shoulder in the bag.

  The second bag was a fertiliser sack, with six layers. It contained the victim's torso, clothed in a Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt. The body was identified by several witnesses who recognized tattoos.

  Based on a preliminary examination, police believe that the dead man was foreigner, Vern Small, given his general unkempt appearance and the reports from the investigation led by Detective Kult.

  Kult suspects the man was murdered in a different location and then dumped. He had been dead for at least 10 hours when his dismembered body was discovered. This death is not considered by the police department to be connected to the recent killings of two prostitutes in Fun City.

  DEATH IN FUN CITY – SERIAL KILLER’S THIRD VICTIM FOUND IN SHORT-TIME HOTEL

  The body of a female, a twenty-one year old casual worker, was discovered by cleaners inside a short rental hotel room on the seventh road. The woman, who has yet to be named, had been attacked from behind with a large sharp object, possibly a butcher’s knife. This is being treated by the police department as the third in a string of killings of sex workers in the streets around Beach Road.

  POSTBAG

  Dear Sirs,

  Having watched with interest the recent splurge of killings around the Beach Road district, and having read the reports in the newspapers yesterday, I walked past the scene. I could not help but notice the recent graffiti sprayed outside the hotel where the most recent murder took place.

  The afflicted must not be the ones blamed.

  It would seem to suggest that the killer is either trying to protect his condition, or more like throw a red herring to the police, if this message was indeed written in his own hand. In calmly reviewing the whole chain of facts connected with these bloodthirsty atrocities, we can be sure of one thing: The killer will strike again. By the afflicted, we can surmise many conspiracies. Who are the afflicted? Is it the minority expatriate community of Fun City? Or perhaps it is those suffering from a mental condition or perhaps a physical disability. Once we realize whom the afflicted are, perhaps we come a step closer to understanding who is carrying out these terrible murders in an otherwise fun City.


  Yours,

  A worried native.

  Dear Sirs,

  You won’t catch me now. The first and second I took a little souvenir. The third I ate her liver, just for jolly.

  Catch me if you can.

  Well, wouldn’t you?

  From Hell.

  FORTY

  FROM THE Occult Killings of Jack the Ripper, (Dandelion Press, 1984) pages 16-19.

  The first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, was a forty-five year old prostitute, who was also known to her friends as Polly. Her marriage to a printer’s machinist failed in 1880, and due to her habits, lost custody of her two children. Drunk and staggering that fateful night, she had not the money for a room and took to the streets where she was approached by a man in the early morning of Friday 31st August 1988 at Woods Dwellings, not far from Whitechapel Road. Polly was mutilated in under a minute. Her throat was cut twice and her legs drawn up to the body. In addition, there were several abdominal mutilations. The cuts were caused by a long blade.

  The second victim, Annie Sivvey, forty-five, was discovered terribly mutilated on Hanbury Street 8th September 1888. The second woman was also a prostitute who had not enough pennies for a bed for the night. The head had been torn from the body. Her uterus, upper portion of her vagina and most of the bladder, had been removed using a blade of at least six inches in length.

  The third victim, Elizabeth Stride, also known as Long Liz, Swedish by birth, was discovered in Berner Street 30th September 1888. The throat was deeply gashed and a silk handkerchief was found in the deceased’s hand.

  The fourth victim, Catherine Conway, forty-six years old, was born in Wolverhampton in 1842. Her occupation was listed as a hawker of matchboxes. On the 30th September (the same date as the third victim) Conway was discovered on Mitre Square. The body was found on its back. Her throat cut twice and her face terribly mutilated. Her intestines were found placed over her right shoulder, presumably by the killer. Body parts, including the left kidney and the womb, were taken from the scene. There was no sign of a struggle.

  The fifth victim was by far the worse in terms of mutilations. Mary Kelly was butchered in her dwelling, a small room on Spittlefields, therefore, the killer had much more time to carry out the horrific ordeal. The face was terribly mutilated. The breasts torn from the body. Her heart removed and burned in the small room’s open fire. Body parts were removed from the scene. She had been completely gutted. Witnesses from the scene stated that it was not the work of a man. It was the work of ‘a devil.’

  When the locations are placed on a map and joined with a simple pencil line, the occult symbol of the devil is observed. It has been agreed by several scholars that the Whitechapel murders of 1888 were the work of an educated person who had studied the occult and believed that the slaying of fallen women in specific locations could invoke a spell to achieve a longevity serum. One suspect in the Jack the Ripper inquiry, was in fact, an occultist who had travelled to India and West Africa and had written extensively in magazines and journals about the findings he had discovered in the art of black magic.

  FORTY-ONE

  TAYLOR CAREFULLY spent time writing and researching Jack the Ripper. His food was brought to him by telephone delivery service. The fear of going outside grew more intense the longer he stayed in the room. It grew and grew until it was a physical weight pressing on his door. The last time he had made it around the block, he returned in a heightened state of panic, his heart beating, mind racing, hands clammy. His entire body tense with anxiety.

  The knock at the door was a surprise.

  Joe stood there. “Well, are you letting me in or not?”

  “Please…” Taylor stood there with his arms out and palms open.

  “Well, what is this story about you not wanting to go outside?” Joe quizzed him taking in the neat and tidy apartment. There was little sign of life apart from a couple of watercolours and a cheese-plant that was withering beneath the wall-mounted lighting.

  Taylor told him about it. Taylor had first experienced the panic after the accident; the doctors had diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder and had subscribed a course of tranquilizers, followed by SSRIs and then cognitive behaviour therapy.

  He was a shrink.

  Wasn’t that a laugh?

  Not a very funny one.

  “I have much more research to do,” Taylor said.

  “Well, first, you’re coming on a little trip with me.”

  “Well, I couldn’t. Not this time. Maybe tomorrow…”

  Joe took the man by the hand and led him out into the corridor. They rode the lift down and walked through the lobby and out onto the street. “If you are writing about these attacks, you need to see where they happened,” Joe flagged down a taxi and the pair of them got into the back seat.

  Taylor’s hands massaged his head as the car pulled away. He felt the bones creak in his neck as he turned to look out of the side window. The city flashed by like a vivid nightmare.

  Joe took the journalist shrink to each of the sites, Slim Jim’s, The Beach, the short time hotel room and the alley. Taylor was silent as Joe pointed out the sites and explained the circumstances of each event.

  “You know these places, right?”

  “Well, maybe?”

  “Look, if you had to kill, where would you do it?”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Then why are you so interested in the case?” Joe said.

  “I lost my wife, my son, I’ve made mistakes.”

  “I’m sorry. Tell me about it.”

  “The killer is following the path of Jack the Ripper.

  “Shit, you think I don’t know that?”

  “Well, perhaps I know more than you do…”

  “When I was a younger man, I was always bothered about people knowing more than I knew. Now, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass who knows what.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  “Where were you the night the killings took place?”

  “In my apartment. I never go out. I told you already,” Taylor smiled.

  “I like you for the job, you have an interest.”

  “So do you.”

  “True, but I have a client.”

  “As do I.”

  “Who?”

  “Who? The Fun City Express. I get paid by the word,” he smiled.

  “Well, I guess that gets you off the hook?”

  “There is no hook.”

  “No?”

  “No. The killer is not me, Joe. I don’t have what it takes.”

  “I believe you, for now. I had to ask the questions.”

  “I understand.”

  “That’s good. I’m not sure I do.”

  The taxi shot through two lanes of traffic, neon lights glittered across the street. They reached Taylor’s apartment. The car screeched to a stop. Joe opened the passenger door. “This is where we say goodbye.”

  “Thanks.”

  “There, you’re home. Don’t you feel better now?”

  “Well…”

  “Of course you do. Stay in touch.”

  “Thanks…”

  “Think nothing of it…” The Detective watched Taylor on the sidewalk stumble and disappear into the Fun City night. He told the driver to take it to the seventh road.

  FORTY-TWO

  THE BLUE ROSE.

  The Detective found her drinking with a Russian client in the bar. He took a table in a bar called The Pelican on the street opposite, and ordered a beer, watching Kelly through the dirty window. Her hands brushed through her hair and twice she playfully pinched the Russian’s nose. She smiled and held his hand in hers, pretending to read his palm. She stood up from the chair and danced to Nancy Sinatra.

  These boots were made…

  Joe looking through the window thought for a moment that he was Scrooge - The Ghost of Bargirl Past. She lifted up two fingers, negotiating a price, Joe thought.

  That’s just…

&
nbsp; She had her routine nailed down to the finest detail. How many had come before, too many, far too many to count.

  On two fingers.

  What they’ll do…

  The Russian meant business. He was a huge hunk of white muscle, probably spent his free time lifting weights, injecting steroids, and eating jars of baby food. He paid the bar and they both stood. Kelly looked like a dwarf next to him. He would destroy her, or she would destroy him.

  The Detective couldn’t decide who would be victorious.

  Maybe neither.

  Maybe both.

  The Detective trailed them to a mid-range hotel called The Mermaid. He waited across the road in an all-night bar that sold beer and noodles. He ate the noodles and sucked on the beer. At 4.32, she appeared in the doorway of the hotel. He followed her to her room on the eighth road.

  Lived another night.

  Back in the apartment, The Detective, slightly junk sick, took the last remaining shot. He fell into a restless dream. He was with a girl named Helena at a party in his hometown, back west, she fell asleep in his arms, he remembered a great feeling of loss. A life he could never go back to. A large Victorian red brick house and an open fire. Her hair was a mousey blonde, and her eyes suggested an escape, a way out of the race. A sanctuary from the monsters that had populated his life since the insane asylum, the self-medication, and the pain of displacement. How he longed to travel back through the avenues of misadventure and the perilous crossroads of his past to that moment in that red brick house. The fire, a cat asleep on the sofa, Helena’s head resting in his lap. There was no turning back. Fun City had him trapped like a rat in a trap. Once you crossed over, you never came back, your innocence and belief burned by the neon lights and the catalogs of mistruths, brushes with lady death in cheap hotels and run down bars.