by Rex Miller
"Fuck you, cocksu—"
"I see. All right, Gravida. Perhaps you're not in the mood for an intimate conversation at this time. You might prefer sex. Eh? Is that it? Would you like some physical intimacy?" He did something and the gag was reaffixed.
"I wish you'd speak with me first. I know you must have some reason for starving all those helpless little puppies but, frankly, I'm not feeling too well myself. I just want you to know, before we have a little sex together, how much I hate you. If I had more time—if I didn't have other pieces of monkey shit to deal with—I'd take you out and peel you, kill you inch by inch, keep you alive for days, but…"
Chaingang could hardly breathe. He had to get out of there. This was a luxury he could not afford.
"I see from your pictures and things you're into buttfucking, eh? So that's the way we'll go, Miss Gravida." The man felt something large and hard inserted in his rectum. "My goodness, we're large back there. You're a real donut, aren't you? Do you know what's inside you now?" The man on the bed squirmed and moaned.
"Obviously, you're really into it. Ready for your last orgasm? Good. I think you'll find this a genuinely moving experience."
He forced another deep breath. Uncoiled the end of the wire out the door, pulled the thing as hard as he could and flattened against the outside wall as the concussive blast from the last grenade—the frag up John Esteban's butt-got his ass off for the last time.
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27
Trask finally kicked his cold, but his chronic stupidity-that he hadn't kicked. It was crazy, but he was still locked into this story that had cost him his gig at KCM, and that was continuing to threaten him with a jail cell. Once again, he was in his ride, parked near the police headquarters, monitoring that damned hidden mike. He'd told himself the reason was that he was going to get up the nerve to go in and get it—but deep inside he knew there was no way. He wasn't really waiting to see Hilliard, or some other cop he knew by name, leave the building so that he could go up to the metro-squad room and ask if they were in, using that as an excuse to be in the building. He was here because he was drawn by that damned bug—he wanted to know what was going on in a case that had become an obsession.
Crucifixion Killer Strikes Again!
That was the banner headline across the front of a morning tabloid, which he was perusing as he sat monitoring background noise in Llewelyn's office.
Federal agents today joined investigators from the Kansas City Metro Squad, the Homicide Unit of the Crimes Against Persons Division, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Violent Crimes Task Force, in an investigation into the death of John Esteban…
It is believed that an explosive device, such as the military fragmentation grenade which police say caused the explosion of a fleeing motorist's abandoned car…
He finally realized he was seeing something that was part of a submerged iceberg. It was pointless to listen for scraps. The cops—assuming they knew anything of substance at all, which he doubted—had no real handle on the apparently senseless and disconnected homicides.
It would be suicide to go up there after the microphone. He'd forget about it. When and if it were discovered, even if they managed to trace it back to Bob's Electronics—his name wasn't on file there, and after a while, it was unlikely his face would be remembered. If he didn't go back to get it, or return to the electronics shop, he could write his indiscretion off as a real bad idea and go on from there.
Trask started the car, pulled out, and drove to the nearest Dumpster, where he ripped out the tape and deposited both it and the earpiece. The radio receiver went into the first creek he crossed.
Lieutenant Llewelyn was far from the cop shop. He and a cluster of coppers and forensics people were at Mount Ely, where Kansas City Homicide detectives had found the place where the sniper blew off the heads of the bikers.
"The killer had to come up here after they were on the crosses," Llewelyn said. "For what purpose—target practice? It makes no sense at all. He'd killed up close—Ms. Hildebrande. If he was the one using the rifle grenades, he'd have taken the head shots down there. Somebody went to a lot of work to get into this position. The doer who did the bikers was under surveillance, it appears to me. We're looking at two killers, at least. Maybe more. The grenade guy, the guy with the machine gun and a .22 pistol, he's just part of the picture. The rifle grenades—that's somebody else. And when we match up forensics through the national computer we run into a wall.
"We got reporters now crawling all over the place. They say the mutilation murders—the hearts ripped out—and the size and description of the—grenade perpetrator all match the M.O. and appearance of Chaingang Bunkowski, who as we all know is slammed down on death row. We're telling the reporters—yeah, we don't know if it's a copycat killing spree or what. But we got a partial off a shell casing and the national printout came back as 'I.D. deleted.' Ran it by the feds and got zip.
"I'm just guessing—but who do you know ever killed like this but the infamous Mr. Bunkowski? Suppose, just for the sake of being the devil's advocate, he escaped from prison? They decide not to publicize it, for all the obvious reasons. When we inquire to the warden at Marion he says, 'Yeah, Bunkowski's in solitary.' But he's really here. Whacking bikers and other citizens. Wouldn't that theory explain why some asshole decides to delete his fingerprint identification? Figure it's for 'national security' or some such bullshit?"
"Yeah," Hilliard said. "That could fly. But who's the other asshole?"
Everybody just stood there. Nobody was speaking. They had the expressions of animals at night, when they're caught in the headlights of a fast-moving car.
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28
"Mr. Conway," the veterinarian explained to the tall, heavyset man, "we'll certainly do our best. But what do you want us to do if in a reasonable time we can't find good homes for all of the dogs?"
"How much would you want to continue to board them, say, for a year? If you couldn't find homes for them?"
"Just the cost of the dog food, I suppose. We could donate the care and feeding." The vet had been carefully selected by Daniel, who had tried to find someone who genuinely cared about animals. His sense of it was that the puppies would do as well here as anywhere, until homes could be found. This was the second vet who'd taken twenty dogs. He'd told them they'd been rescued from the Rutledge, Missouri, Animal Auction, which was a notorious marketplace frequented by "dog bunchers," who specialized in selling large numbers of animals to medical laboratories.
The care for these forty mutts had severely depleted Chaingang's war treasury, but it was of no consequence. He found money absurdly easy to acquire and of no interest in itself. After paying for a warehouse full of dog food and medicine, and impressing the vets with the fact that he'd eventually be returning for an accounting of the animals' welfare, he proceeded to drive back into Kansas, and found himself once again on the dreaded Bunker of his childhood.
He'd removed forty-nine starving, dehydrated pups from Mr. Esteban's home. Three hadn't survived. Forty were in good hands. But he hadn't found other vets he trusted sufficiently to use—and his bullshit detector was second to none. Six dogs cavorted in the back seat of the Buick. He parked, opened the windows so that there'd be ample air for the puppies, and reached back into the furry tangle of wiggly bodies, selecting one, tucking it into his voluminous shirt and starting up the stairs.
Had someone been watching him—this behemoth making his way up the rickety stairs of the crumbling tenement—they'd have seen him apparently talking to himself. He was reassuring the little dog.
He knocked and heard an old woman's frightened voice. "Who is it?"
"It's me. The man who gave you money—remember?" he asked, rather unnecessarily. After a few moments, he heard her unchain the pathetic thing that held the door.
"Um?" She was less than overjoyed to see this nightmare, money notwithstanding.
"I wanted to s
top and see how you were doing. Did those boys bother you any more?"
"No," She thought for a moment. "They never came back."
"I don't think they'll bother you again. I brought you a present. To replace your cat." He reached inside his shirt and got out something brown and wiggly, which he handed to her. The old woman took it like it was a lit firecracker, but smiled when she saw what it was.
"Oh! A little dog."
"You like dogs?"
"Uh-huh." It apparently liked her as it was giving her kisses on her wrinkled, veiny hands. "But I can't afford to buy dog food."
"That's all right." He pulled two cans from his voluminous pockets, and then handed her some money. "This will buy lots of food for you and your new pet. Don't forget to give him water and plenty of affection." Doctor Bunkowski found a dirty dish and put water in it, and spread a newspaper down. The old woman was petting the dog, somewhat dutifully, but he was certain they'd become fast friends.
"Thank you," she said, as he turned to leave. "Um. Wait." He turned back to her. "You asked about that lady who lived here. I asked my friend about her. She said she knows where she lives now."
"Mrs. Garbella?" he asked.
"I wrote it down somewhere." She went over to an old table and sorted through things for what seemed like an eternity. "Here it is." She held a scrap of paper out to him in her frail hand. The dog had found an old shoe and was busily chewing it to shreds.
He couldn't read her scrawl and made her decipher it for him. He mentally noted it and told her he appreciated it.
"Thanks for getting that for me." It was by far the longest, most uncharacteristic, and seemingly normal sequences of conversations—with the vets and this old hag—that he'd had in years. It made him think of the time they'd drugged him and freed him from prison, and he'd gone around acting like a monkey. It pissed him off totally.
He stomped out of the building ready to kick someone's ass to the fucking max.
The dogs were going nuts by the time he got the car started again. This was all he needed-he was busy trying to kill a professional assassin and he had five fucking dogs on his hands! Completely intolerable.
He forced everything out of his mind for the moment, concentrating on finding Mrs. Garbella. Within ten minutes he'd found the address the old woman had obtained for him—it was an empty lot full of rubble. It looked like a place where a building had burned to the ground in recent years. It was precisely what he'd expected—nothing. He shrugged and headed for his hideaway. He had to get rid of these dogs. Tighten up. Regroup. Get his shit together.
That night he fed and watered the dogs and gathered them around him in the small stone enclosure, telling them all the bad things were over. He told them about the bad man, and how he was gone now, and how some of their brothers and sisters—the ones he'd tried to feed with an eyedropper—had gone to sleep. Huge hands that had killed many hundreds of times cuddled and stroked the five little dogs.
He shared his body heat with them under the massive tarp, willing himself not to roll over on them by accident while he slept.
He dreamed of the crucifixion and his mindscreen conjured up images of recent cross killings in the Persian Gulf, Mexico, Central and South America; most of them were torture killings with political overtones. He dreamed of Dr. Norman.
"I know many things, Dr. Norman. Chemistry, math, the general sciences. I know of the medical conclusions reached by your colleagues in the Reich Phylogeny College during World War Two: that the cause of death from a crucifixion is suffocation, since one cannot exhale sufficiently when the arms are held up for long periods, and the facility of expelling carbon dioxide from the lungs becomes impaired.
"I know that to crucify properly one should employ expedients such as driving a wooden peg into the upright, so that some of the body weight is taken between the legs. Nailing the feet to the upright also supports the body and prolongs the suffering. Would you like to learn more about this subject, Dr. Norman?"
The enormous figure under the tarp, five tiny dogs packed in around him, smiles in his sleep. He begins snoring like a couple of chainsaws, which momentarily frightens the pups, but they settle back in around his falling and rising mound of belly.
He dreams of eradication, escape, and survival. In a vision black as the darkest midnight, he pictures a white, virgin piece of paper—blemishless white, smoother than the surface of a lake of milk.
Inside the whiteness, it is hot. Burning white fire. An incandescence of white hot vengeance scorches the raw borders of the dream.
Heat envelops him in a sphere of perfect, infinite white fire. The beast punctures it with the sharp edge of his imagination, and the white, milky balloon bursts, as he allows the blackness of his dark thoughts to fill the sphere, cooling it with its inky liquidity. A stream of black fills the round whiteness of the mental image as the ebb of black water would rise in a tub of perfect white, rising as it cools upon touch, and the curve of the black is an essence that stills his beating heart and slows each loud, deep, ragged breath from his mighty lungs.
The snores abate. A subtle change in his rhythms begins. There is an imperceptible and inexplicable slowing of his life force. Slower, the measured thu-bump, thu-bump of his heart beats slower, as he wills, slows, wills the strong pulse down to a crawl.
Willing his heartbeat and respiratory system to slow, becoming a silent, still, invulnerable mass. Efficient. Ruthless. Precise. The breathing so slow and measured.
He waits now for the red mist to come, and dreams of the taste of another fresh human heart.
Shooter Price could make out a large yellow van. A pack of people walking together. A blue over white Mustang. A maroon T-Bird on which he could read the vanity plates.
"The removable accessory vault, which is located in the butt of the stock, forward of the shoulder recoil pad, contains spare brush and bore cleaning rod, lubricant, patches, lens tissues, spare eyepiece shield, Allen wrench, spanner—" An autographed picture of Annie fuckin' Oakley. He saw a girl in red shoes. Her bright red high heels were like splashes of fresh blood against the dull gray background of pavement. He squeezed one off for the corps. Ouch! Girl fall down go boom.
He could make out a sip for the Happy Time Day Care Center. A billboard. The Laco brought an orange-and-white warning sip up close:
"Dumping oil or waste in parking lot violates state and federal laws. Offenders will be prosecuted. Fines can be up to ten thousand dollars. Please help us Stop Pollution" He loaded another APEX (X) in and did his part.
He swings over the parking lot of the truck stop. A figure on a nearby slope catches his eye from the middle of a half-acre garden plot. Flapping arms, large brimmed hat, his crosshairs touch the image of a garden scarecrow and he squeezes.
Moves, scans. "Under emergency conditions clean water can be substituted for bore cleaning fluid…" He's back in the sniper hide on Hospital Hill Park. It is a bad mistake. Chaingang is there, too, and this time when he squeezes, he is observed.
Price sees another college girl. SAVANT kisses the curve of breast, gentle swell of tummy, and he imagines a pouting bulge of unshaved cat under that pair of blue jeans and he squeezes one off for the commandant. Yeah!
Chaingang feels the danger claw at him but he cannot see any evidence of Shooter. The first thing he sees is a flight of sparrows who jump when the sign far below them explodes. He hears the noise of impact. Sees the sign—or rather sees where the sign was. Target practice. Shooter is up on the hill somewhere, the little fuck. He stares with full bore concentration, double-barreled vision trying to spot the sniper.
The hide is well done—he'll give him that. Had Shooter not popped the cap on another round be probably would not have found him. But he saw something. A puff of smoke or a branch disintegrating as another high explosive round blew through the shrubbery. He could see the gun pit. He was moving fast, those big hard tree-trunk legs churning moving him faster than anyone alive had seen him move.
Unfortunately, Sho
oter saw him as well. Caught the elephantine killer lumbering up the hill at him and yelled with delight as he slid the empty brass out, inserted a round, and firmly snicked the bolt closed. Eye to the Laco. Crosshairs on the humongous target, which was too fat to even zigzag, like shooting ducks on a pond—an easy squeeze and his worries were over.The big weapon gave him a satisfactory thump as it tooked Chaingang Bunkowski off the count. All Shooter could see on the grass was fresh blood!
Daniel had been shot several times, including a couple of up-close-and-way-too-personal incidents. He wasn't a virgin, as these things go. But there had never been any pain like this.
It was chain pain. The sort of pain he had inflicted many a time—where there's nothing for a few moments and then, as the numbness begins to wear off, it's such a screaming terrible hurting that you think you'll pass out from it. Imagine the pain from a hundred chain whippings.
He had to bite down on it or it would kill him. He had been hit by SAVANT, but his warning system had jerked him to the side just in time, and he'd taken a bad shoulder wound, high on the left shoulder just above the Kevlar vest. Three inches to the right and it would have blown his head off. In his mind, he fixed all his powers on that one point of focus, as he worked his way, on his right side, back to the car and his duffel.
The body is divided into four quads, subdivided again. The small section where he'd taken the hit was walled off inside his brain. He had to stop the pain. Isolate it there. He imagined the shoulder floating above him, freezing the rest of his upper torso in ice. Cutting off the flow of blood from the pain, slowing his vital signs as he made it to the Buick.
There was an up side. He was alive. Functioning. He didn't have the dogs with him—they'd been left at his hideout. This mess was going to be over. He would now do away with a long-time enemy. Battle dressing. Fighting to keep his mind chilly. He had to stay calm. There was a lot of blood but he liked blood. No problem. Bandaged himself and then wrapped some duct tape over the dressing—he was going to be doing some heavy work, he felt sure.
