When a light finally did switch on inside Pat’s Auto, it was at the back of the shop. A single light in a single window. Bingo, he thought. Just in time, too. Down to my last smoke.
Spencer checked his watch—it wasn’t quite midnight—so he waited another ten minutes or so. Just about time for the third shift boys to start showing up and performing tasks that the first and second shift guys would never dream of. Pat’s Auto, while having no clearly defined off-limits areas, was no less able to somehow convey a sense of restricted ingress—a curb with no incline and a few junkers parked at irregular intervals around the premises made the place feel off-limits.
“Here they come,” Spencer said to no one at all. First it was a navy-blue Nissan Altima, which killed its lights a block up and pulled around to the back. Next was a red, four-door Pontiac Grand Am, an old one, possibly late 90’s. Following quickly on the Grand Am’s heels was an old, beat-up Buick that had probably once been red, but was now every color conceivable. The two cars pulled around back and parked beside the Altima.
Spencer waited to watch the figures step inside. They were barely more than silhouettes under a not-quite-full moon. From where he was parked, he could only just make out the back parking lot and its numerous junkers and other cars left overnight; the latter being there to keep up appearances of honest business. The three drivers stepped inside a side door that Spencer couldn’t quite see, and a few seconds after they were inside, more windows were filled with light.
Atlanta’s premier chop shop is now open for business, ladies an’ gents.
Spencer hopped out of the car and crossed the quiet street. Terrell Street was as vacant as it would be after the Apocalypse. One survivor of that event, possibly a radioactive mutant, crossed the street in a slow limp, holding a bag no doubt filled with his liquor for the night and illuminated only by a single dim orange streetlight. The desperate mutant paused only an at overturned trash can to rummage through it, then soldiered on down the street and disappeared, presumably off to scavenge the rest of the wastelands.
Yes, quite a dead avenue. Still, one never knew when the law would finally catch on to Patrick Mulley’s secret, so it behooved Spencer to check up on the various parked cars along the sidewalks. There were three of them—a van, a station wagon, and a truck—and he checked all of them for possible surveillance teams before he finally walked right up to Pat’s front door and knocked.
The door was made of glass and had faded stenciling on it. The lobby through the glass was pitch-black, not a single photon of light bounced its way from the work area in the back. He knocked again.
This time, he heard something drop. A wrench or a crowbar clattered to the ground, and someone hollered something like, “Hear that?” or “What was that?”
Spencer waited a few more seconds, still humming the Blue Öyster Cult song to himself and thinking about the first time he had heard their music. His older brother Brian had introduced him to music of the 60’s and 70’s, back when they were still talking, back before things changed and the family looked at the youngest and favorite with new, terrified eyes. Back then, Spencer wore turtleneck sweaters, pants with suspenders, and even pocket protectors. Brian had been the hellraiser and chick-banger, and Collin his faithful sidekick and confidant. The two of them had given Spencer his first beer when he was twelve, in secret and for his birthday, but had forbade him to ever act out as they had. Mom, the Christian fundamentalist, still swore that the music and that first taste of beer had planted a seed. She didn’t comprehend or believe in contemporary psychology, and so couldn’t understand that what happened to Miles Hoover, Jr. in the Brownfields Elementary School library had nothing to do with taking a single sip of beer or Blue Öyster Cult. They’re called a cult for a reason! she had screamed while Dad sat in his rocker, backing her up by saying nothing at all. These rock an’ roll creatures aren’t even tryin’ to hide it! They’re proud of it! Don’t you see! Same with these Nirvana idiots! Tryin’ to seduce you away from God! That had come about because Spencer was way into Kurt Cobain way after his suicide.
Spencer smiled. Funny how music sends one back in time.
A light flicked in a room at the back of a hallway, and another dark silhouette appeared at the end of it. Spencer looked at the unknown person, and the unknown person looked at him. The staring contest lasted a few seconds, and then the dark silhouette approached the glass door slowly. He couldn’t see much, just the teeth of the man in the moonlight. “Yo, dude, what’choo want?” the man hollered from the other side of the door.
The voice was a little different than Spencer recalled, but it was him. He reached up and pulled the hood back from his head and smiled.
It took a second for the black man on the other side to imbibe his image—or perhaps he was just trying to conceal his shock—but finally he said, “Sheeeeeeeeeyyyyyiiiiiit!” It was said with equal parts derision, surprise, humor, and trepidation. He called back to his cohorts. “Hey, yo! I’m gonna open this doe! Naw…naw, it’s cool, money! I know this bitch!” He fiddled with the lock a moment and opened up, glancing left and right. “What. The. Fuck?” Patrick Mulley was shaking his head ruefully. “We got some lazy-ass fuckin’ cops in this town when yo crazy ass walkin’ the streets an’ ain’t none o’ them snatched you up yet.”
“I’m like a sunburned penis,” Spencer said. “You just can’t beat me.”
That made Pat laugh. Humor was the best path to Patrick Mulley’s heart. Anyone that could tell a good joke could easily slip into his life and start manipulating him, if only they understood how to approach it. And Spencer did. He understood how to approach anybody.
Patrick shook his head again ruefully, as if he was already regretting the mistake he was surely going to make by permitting Spencer into his domain again. He already knows he’s gonna let me in. He just doesn’t want to admit to himself he’s that easy. It was funny this dance he had to do with “normal” people.
“S’up, Pat?” he said. Each man’s right hand went wide, then slapped hard as they connected, squeezing one another’s fingers and snapping as they came loose. The time-honored “street greet” might not ever go out of style.
“Not much, cuz. Work.” He said this the way a family man of twenty years would describe his days spent laboring in the factory. Same shit, different day. “S’up wi’choo?”
“Not much. Work,” he replied.
“Uh-huh.” Pat didn’t quite smile. He looked Spencer up and down, studying him for a beat, then took another look up and down the streets. “Izzat what brings yo white ass to my humble establishment?”
“Man’s gotta earn a living.”
“Uh-huh,” he repeated, even more skeptical this time. Another glance up and down the street. Spencer had noticed that so far Pat hadn’t moved out of the doorway. He hadn’t yet decided if he wanted to allow the wolf in. Pat knew many of the same people in Spencer’s world. He’d done ample business with the guys up in Kansas, and plenty with the boys in St. Louis, so he knew the rumors. He knew what had happened at Leavenworth, too. Anybody who watched America’s Most Wanted with even passing interest, or who visited www.fbi.gov just to check out the Most Wanted List from time to time, would know what happened at Leavenworth.
But does he know about Baton Rouge? That’s relatively recent.
“You gonna let me in, or leave me out here to freeze my nuts off the rest o’ the night?”
“It ain’t that cold.” He was right. Spring was edging into summer, and one could feel it now even at night.
“It is when you don’t have a friend,” Spencer said, giving a frowny face and wiping away an imaginary tear. This earned him another rueful smile and Pat backed away from the door just a smidgen, still not letting him in, but wanting to. Apart from being able to do what others felt was unconscionable, there was really only one other benefit to being a certifiable psychopath, and that was the ability to emotionally detach oneself so utterly from the outcome of any situation that one didn’t panic the w
ay others did when things weren’t going their way. Thus, total attention could be paid not to the “what ifs” (as in, What if he doesn’t let me in? Where will I go?), but to watching the subject carefully to see what needed to be done, what action needed to be performed in order to allow one to slip right on inside another person’s confidence. This sometimes took careful navigation, playing with a human being’s emotions, toying with their tendency to believe in the inherit good in others, and trusting their fear of offending another human being so that it would override their good sense that would usually told them to turn and run.
Like the two little girls earlier, he reflected. He thought on how people got themselves into such trouble by not knowing themselves. Those kind of people condemned creatures such as Spencer, claiming there was something wrong with him. I’m not the one getting raped right now, though, he thought with a smile. A line out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream suddenly came to mind: Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be. Billy Shakespeare knew what he was talking about.
The smile was right on time. He’d aimed it right at his old acquaintance—not a friend, psychopaths didn’t have or understand friendships, but knew how to mimic them—and it had done the trick. Pat backed away from the door and said, “Get the fuck in here ’fo the five-oh sees yo stupid ass on my doorstep.”
“You’re the boss.”
“God damn right, son.”
Officer David Emerson and his partner, Officer Beatrice Fanney, were the first on the scene, and the first to start taking statements. David stood in front of the titan that had called in the 207: possible kidnapping. The only man to call it in, and so far the only person in the area who had reported anything at all tonight. He might’ve thought the big fucker Terry “Mac” Abernathy had made at least some of it up, but then there were some telltale signs in the area. Skid marks aside, there were the spilled groceries, and the footage taken from the outdoor camera, which unfortunately took everything in one-second stills and not smooth continuous video. Still, it showed a couple of automobiles come halfway onscreen, a brief struggle between two or three blurry assailants and a pair of equally blurry small children, and then a speedy getaway. Not enough exposure in the camera to catch the license plates.
David glanced over at Beatrice, who was taking out the small orange cones from the patrol car’s trunk and placing them at intervals around the sidewalk, around where the best of the skid marks were. A detective would have to haul his ass down here in the next hour or so to start taking pictures, but David doubted it would happen even that quickly. No investigation he’d ever heard of happened quickly in the Bluff, no matter which side of Joseph E. Boone Boulevard you were standing on.
“So, you didn’t actually see the abductions yourself,” David verified, scratching the back of his ear with his pen.
“Naw, man. Like I said, I was inside watchin’ SportsCenter,” said Abernathy, who had first introduced himself as Mac. David had to wonder if the nickname came from the famous McDonald’s sandwich. “I heard this commotion, knew somethin’ was up, ya feel me?” David nodded that, yes, he felt him. “I heard screamin’. I heard some kid sayin’ ‘Run, run, run,’ an’ I heard some men yellin’. Got up, got my Glock, headed out the front doe. By the time I got outside they was squealin’ off. I barely got a look at ’em.”
“El Camino and an SUV of some kind, right?”
“Yeah. Full-size, fuh sho.”
David updated dispatch with the information. When he was done, he licked his lips and looked back at Mac. “And you’re pretty sure it was these girls you know? What were their names?”
“Kaley an’ Shannon Dupré,” Mac supplied. “Yeah, it was them. Had to be. That’s they groceries right there, Officer.”
David glanced at the smashed orange juice container and the paper bags that spilled ham, pretzels and Pop-Tarts. “Home address for the girls?” he said.
“I don’t know they address, but I know they be livin’ with they mom, Jovita. Fuckin’ meth-head bitch. ’Scuse me, Officer,” Mac put in, proving that he was a rough but congenial giant, which David found both unusual and refreshing for the Bluff.
“Jovita Dupré. Got it.”
“She always cooked outta her damn head, don’t pay them kids no mind like she should. She need her ass whooped lettin’ them kids walk out here alone like that!” He fumed for a moment.
David figured Mac was one of “those” kinds of people in places like the Bluff. A lone spirit who despised his surroundings, wished people would act right, and would never up and leave it. “So, you don’t have an address. Have a street, or a description of her house?”
Mac nodded enthusiastically, like he’d just been invited to go up there himself with the two officers and smash Ms. Dupré’s head in. He looked like he would enjoy that very much, and David believed he would. “She up on Beltway. I forget which house, but it’s one o’ them where ya pay based on how much ya earn a month.”
“Public housing,” David said, nodding as he jotted that down. There weren’t many other kinds of houses or apartments around here. The Bluff was the pinnacle of poverty in all of Georgia. “Got it. Descriptions of the girls?” Mac gave approximations of their age and height, as well as what they were wearing. “Did you see anything else? License plates on the vehicles? Special rims on the tires maybe? Distinguishing marks on the men who did this?”
“I didn’t see shit, Officer. ’Scuse me. By the time I got out here, they gone.” David went to jot that down, and then Mac added, “They was this one muthafucka, though. White boy. Drivin’ a pretty new black Tacoma.” David glanced up at this, interested. White was unusual for the Bluff, especially this late at night, and especially driving a new-looking truck. “He came in an’ bought a burger an’ a Dr. Pepper from me, walked out about the same time all o’ this happened, an’ then dipped when he found out I was callin’ the police.”
Mac had pronounced it poh-leece. Internally, David was just grateful Mac didn’t refer to the police as “po-pos,” at least not in his presence. “Description?” he said.
“White,” he said. “An’ I mean like white white, Officer. As in as pale as that moon over yo head. I mean, not albino, but fuckin’ white, ya feel me?”
David nodded. “What else?”
“Tall, thin.”
“How tall? How thin?”
“ ’Bout six-one, six-two, an’ maybe one seventy-five. Nazi poster boy, ’cept fo his black hair. Blue eyes an’ tall an’ German-lookin’. Ya feel me?”
Again, David nodded. “Clothing?”
“Blue jeans. Brown shoes. Converse, I think. He wearin’ a black hoodie. Pulled it up over his head befo he left.”
“He say anything to you before he left?”
“Yeah, a whole lotta shit. Talkin’ this an’ that. He ran his mouth a lot. Talkin’ about my name, how big I am, an’ tol’ me I oughtta buy a new jersey because Michael Vick’s a dog-fightin’ fool. I pretty much tol’ him to kiss my ass an’ he left. When I came out, I started to call 911, an’ he got the fuck outta here like his head was on fire an’ his ass was catchin’. Ya feel me?”
Once more, David nodded. “And you said that the only other witnesses were some guys who bolted, and a couple across the street that walked away a few minutes after all this happened?”
“Yeah, word. I don’t know who the fuck they was, but the four bitches who cut an’ ran were some fools I know from Vine, near MARTA.”
He meant Vine City’s MARTA station, which meant David wasn’t likely to find or get much out of those four black youths tonight. That area held nothing but people who were supremely mistrustful of the police, slamming doors anytime the word “warrant” wasn’t specifically uttered. A land of people who’d gotten to know the Atlanta Police Department so well that, despite sky high on meth and H all the time, most of them could quote civil rights laws back to the officers who appeared warrantless at their doorstep. It was ranked as the number one most dangerous neighborhood in A
tlanta, and number five in the entire United States. David had only been working Atlanta for a year, had never gone to that area once, and didn’t know many cops who did. That’s how he knew it was a lost cause looking for those witnesses.
Which means probably a lost cause for those girls. He didn’t like to admit it, but history was history, and facts were facts.
David sighed, and closed his book. “All right, I think we’ve got your full statement. A detective will probably be around in a short while, so—”
“Ho, wait, you leavin’?” Mac said, taking a step forward and forcing David to take a step back. He didn’t like being made to take a step back. “You can’t just let this up an’ slip right now, Officer. We can’t wait on no detectives to show up four hours from now—”
“Mr. Abernathy, I understand your concern,” David said mildly. “Believe me, I do. But right now the quickest way to get some results is for us to put this on the AMBER Alert system, get the description of the girls and their names out in public, as well as the two vehicles associated in their abduction.”
Mac’s eyes went wide in supreme disbelief. “You gonna wait for a snitch around here?”
“We’ll keep looking. My partner and I will patrol this area, and for the rest of the night we’ll be looking for the vehicles you described. In the meantime we’ll put the descriptions out so that maybe an aware citizen—” He paused when dispatch called something out over the radio attached to his chest.
“All units in the vicinity of Madison and Dawnview, please be advised of a 211S in progress—” David turned the volume down. A 211S was a silent robbery alarm going off. Madison and Dawnview weren’t anywhere near him. He turned back to Mac and started to finish his sentence.
“An aware citizen,” Mac said skeptically. He took a step back, and started stroking his chin. “Man, I’m tellin’ you, you can’t come at it like that, Officer Emerson. I mean, no disrespect or nuthin’, sir, but these muthafuckahs was organized an’ shit. They came up on those little girls an’ moved with a purpose. They had dat shit planned, yo. Ya feel me? An’ that white boy, he probably a scout or some shit for ’em. You know, scoutin’ out easy victims an’ all that?”
Psycho Save Us Page 5
