Shadow Games

by Ed Gorman

  But he was sure the noise had come from Beth's apartment.

  Sure of it.

  He set the magazine down on the white doily that covered the surface of the stand. Following surgery years ago, his wife, Marjorie, had taught herself to crochet and it had been their joke that her enthusiasm would someday lead her to crochet such things as a refrigerator and a car. Kemper put his hands on his knotty knees and stood up.

  His first impulse was to pick up the phone and call Detective Cozzens. Hadn't the detective told him to do just that?

  The problem was, what if he was wrong?

  On a windy night, in an apartment house usually noisy at this time of night anyway, how could he be sure that the sound had come from Beth's apartment? And who would be up there, anyway? The killer? Unlikely. For what reason?

  He stood in the darkness surrounding the glowing chair, thinking.

  Maybe it would be a waste of time to go up there at all. Maybe his hearing had just been playing tricks on him. Neither his vision nor his hearing were all that wonderful these days.

  Then he sighed, drew tight his brown cardigan with the two buttons missing—he'd been not only a chauvinist but an obstinate one; even with Marjorie gone all this time, he still hadn't learned how to sew, pricking himself every time he tried, and the button falling off right away the few times he'd succeeded—and went out into the hall.

  VCRs competed with each other up and down the hallway. In the last five years, home videos had become the dominant form of entertainment, some people bringing home one or two at a time, others bringing home six or seven for a long weekend. A few apartments still watched regular television, though. As he neared the staircase, a human laugh came up over the inhuman laugh of the soundtrack, while in another apartment a popcorn maker simulated the sound of a Tommy Gun on the old Untouchables show.

  The stairs were wearying. This was a big place, long out of fashion, of course, but the size guaranteeing each renter real privacy.

  When he was halfway up, he saw Cosgrove, his newest tenant, coming down the stairs with a smiling, blonde woman walking in front of him single file. Cosgrove should have been the one smiling. As far as Albert Kemper was concerned, Cosgrove bore no resemblance whatsoever to Prince Charming, yet at least three times a week he sported a very nice looking woman. And a different one each time, too. He was this doughy Irish guy with a lot of greasy black hair and a somewhat sinister, film noir mustache. He always wore dark, double-breasted suits and bright silk ties. His success with women proved that the world was a mysterious and ultimately incomprehensible place.

  The blonde smiled her empty blonde smile for Albert Kemper and kept on walking.

  "Hey, Pops, how they hangin"?" Cosgrove said as he passed Kemper. He smiled his empty nightclub smile, obviously taking pleasure in the fact that calling Kemper "Pops" irritated and humiliated the guy. Then, "Hey, what's going on in that apartment where the chick got killed?"

  Kemper froze on the stairway. "What?"

  "Yeah, me "n Denise here were just leavin" the apartment when we heard some kinda noise in there. Right, Denise?"

  Denise nodded. Damn, she was good looking.

  "What kind of noise?" Albert Kemper said.

  "Who knows from noise? Just—noise."

  "Like something falling maybe," Denise said.

  Cosgrove shrugged. "Yeah, like somethin" fallin" maybe."

  "I'll check it out," Albert Kemper said.

  Cosgrove laughed. "Hey, maybe it's a ghost in there movin' around, right, Kemper?"

  Denise shuddered. Cosgrove winked at Albert Kemper. They were both, or so thought Cosgrove, in the same club, with ladies far too frail to ever join.

  "Stuff like that really scares me!" Denise said on the way down the stairs.

  Albert Kemper walked in the opposite direction. When he reached the second floor, he started thinking about strange noises and how they affected him. They scared him, too.

  Maybe he should go back downstairs and call Detective Cozzens and let him go see for himself what was going on in the apartment.

  Albert Kemper paused, though, then shook his head and continued down the hall, past doors that smelled of roast beef and chili and baking bread. Albert Kemper might be losing his vision and his hearing, but he had a fine, keen nose.

  When he got to Beth's door, he stopped, gaped.

  All the yellow tape designating the apartment as a CRIME SCENE: DO NOT ENTER was still in place. The door looked like a gift, tied up in yellow ribbon.

  If somebody was inside, how in the world had he gotten in there?

  For a long moment Albert Kemper considered, with a certain relish, the notion of ghosts. As a boy, he'd always loved campfire tales that made him shiver. A certain kind of fear was even enjoyable, lights out, lying next to the other Scout in the pup tent, trying to see who could do the best job of scaring the other guy.

  But this was different.

  A young woman had had her head severed from her body. Then somebody had placed the head, ragged and dripping blood, into the refrigerator.

  No, this was very different from campfire tales. Very different.

  He approached the door, taking notice of the fact that his heart rate had increased, and that a fine, invisible sweat had broken out chill along his arms and shoulders and back.

  Imagining how Beth's head must have looked in the refrigerator, he decided to make sure that the door was actually sealed, that somebody hadn't broken the seal, in fact, and then head back downstairs.

  From what he could see, peering closely, the yellow plastic tape was just as the police had left it. The apartment was sealed off.

  He leaned his head closer to the door, listened.

  The apartment house was a cacophony; an electric blender erupted somewhere, accompanied by the din of MTV, which was in turn drowned out by the Colemans' baby. Marsha and Dave Coleman were the only parents in the entire apartment building.

  His ears strained to hear something within Beth's apartment.

  But—nothing.

  He waited a moment longer, shrugged, then turned around and headed back downstairs.

  Once in his own apartment, he went into the bathroom, took a nice, long pee, washed his hands and then went out to resume reading his magazine.

  But twenty minutes later, he found himself unable to concentrate on his reading.

  Hadn't Detective Cozzens said to call him if anything untoward happened?

  And wasn't it even stranger that Cosgrove and Denise had also heard something in there?

  Albert Kemper stood up, walked out of the circle of light, and went over to the dark corner where his desk lay, the aged, black, dial phone atop it.

  He didn't even say hello; he didn't even identify himself. He said, first thing, in a bluster, "I'm sorry, Detective Cozzens, for phoning you like this. I really am."

  So Cozzens had to back him up a little and find out a) who was calling, and b) why he was calling.

  After that, the two men got along just fine.

  2

  The cab pulled up to the phone booth where, twenty minutes earlier, Cobey Daniels had stood.

  Now the booth was empty, the dark street shiny with the recent rain.

  Puckett told the cabbie to wait while he walked up and down the block of warehouses trying to find Cobey.

  But Cobey was gone; gone...

  3

  "Yes?"

  "I was wondering if I could get into Cobey Daniels' apartment."

  "You a cop?"

  "Private cop."

  "Private eye, you mean?"

  "Something like that."

  "What's your name?"

  "Puckett."

  "Cops told me I was supposed to tell them if anybody tried to get into Cobey's apartment."

  "It's all right with me if you tell them after I leave. I'll need a while up there, though."

  "How long?"

  "Hour-and-a-half. Maybe two."

  "Now why would I go and let you do a thing lik
e that?"

  "Because I'm going to give you this."

  "Say, you must make a lot of money in the private eye business."

  "I do all right."

  "Hour-and-a-half you say?"

  "Or two."

  "Or two. And you don't tell the cops I let you go up there?"

  "I don't tell the cops anything."

  "Good enough."

  He spent two hours and twenty-three minutes going through virtually everything that was in the tiny efficiency apartment Cobey had rented for the run of the play.

  He found nothing; nothing.

  4

  Being a smart-ass cop, Cozzens decided to play it like a smart-ass cop. He parked in the rear of Albert Kemper's apartment building and walked through the wind and the cold, spattering rain to the fire escape. He would not announce his presence. He would see Kemper later.

  Kemper did a good job of keeping the place neat and orderly. Two dumpsters and six large galvanized steel garbage cans lined the rear wall. A newly painted door led to the basement and the two clothesline poles had been painted silver recently. The rear steps, steel and doubling as a fire escape, were also in good repair.

  Cozzens stood a moment in the shadowy light, looking up at Beth Swallows' apartment window. The glass was dark. In other apartment windows, light was warm and cozy. He thought of his old days as a family man. Damn! Now wasn't the time for melancholy.

  He went over to the steps and started climbing. The metal rail was cold to his touch.

  He went up past the noise of a TV set playing rap music, past the noise of four people playing bridge, past the noise of a couple laughing. For a moment, he knew how a killer would feel out here in the vast, dark, night—knowing, superior, dangerous, one with the shadows, the bringer of violent and unexpected fate.

  At this, he smiled. He was reading too many paperback serial killer novels. Maybe it was time to switch back to the science fiction of his youth.

  When he reached Beth Swallows' floor, he took out his burglar tools and went to work. The lock yielded entrance in less than a minute-and-a-half and he went inside and stood for a moment in the hallway.

  He smelled warmth and the lingering aromas of several dinners. He heard competing TVs; competing conversations; a phone ringing.

  Beth Swallows' door was right in front of him.

  From his trench coat pocket, he took a black leather glove and tugged it onto his right hand.

  He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob, turned it. Locked.

  He examined the yellow tape. The door was completely sealed off, just as the officers had left it.

  If somebody was in there, he hadn't gone in through the door.

  Cozzens stuffed the glove back in his pocket and then went outside on the rear stairs again. The contrast between the heat of the apartment house and the cold of the rear steps was like a bracing slap in the face.

  He walked over to the rear window of the Swallows apartment and peered in. He could see nothing more than the shape of bedroom furnishings, a double bed, bureau, a closet door left ajar. Nothing stirred. Nothing looked unusual or wrong.

  He took out the glove again, jerked it on, and tried to push up the window frame.

  The window eased open.

  He stood there in the rushing, dark, night, letting his cop judgment dry the sudden hot sweat on his face.

  He did not want to race to any conclusion. Any number of explanations could be given for the window being unlocked, namely that one of the officers had failed to do his or her duty in securing the crime scene.

  As for the noise that Albert Kemper and at least one of his tenants had heard, people living in a house where a murder had taken place were often spooked for months following. The slightest noise convinced them that something sinister was afoot, and they frequently made calls to the precinct with hysteria riding high in their voices.

  Cozzens took out his weapon. It was an old-fashioned Smith and Wesson .38, his first official police gun, and the only weapon he'd ever been sentimental about—he hated to think of the phallic implications of that—and the weapon that had seen him through three shoot-outs and any number of robbery scenes. The contours of the gun felt welcome and familiar in his hand.

  Cozzens was betting on his cop hunch, betting that despite all good reason, despite all the long odds, somebody was in there.

  He had no idea who, he had no idea why, but he was just about to find out.

  Sliding the window up all the way, he pushed a leg over the window ledge and proceeded to climb in. Not so easy when you were wearing your official Mike Hammer trench coat.

  As soon as he was inside, standing in the darkness, the .38 filling his gloved hand, his blue, Irish eyes scanning the shadows, he smelled the blood and entrails.

  No disinfectant ever created could rid a close quarters crime scene such as this one of its stench. Only time could do that—long periods of time. The way that poor young woman had been cut up, head severed from torso, torso worked on with unyielding savagery...

  The stench would be in this apartment for a long time, despite all the best efforts of poor little Albert Kemper.

  Cozzens started his search.

  He kept thinking about calling for backup but decided against it. He wasn't the macho sort. He was, in fact, the sort who found a great deal of police work pretty frightening, but he had to admit that he had found the past half hour to be exhilarating.

  Ever since splitting up with his wife, Cozzens had existed in a kind of funk. He couldn't quite bring himself to focus on anything. But ever since Albert Kemper's phone call

  Talk about focus. Talk about attention to duty.

  Cozzens' heart was pounding. His eyes were keen as an animal's. And there was the undeniable wish in his heart for violence, for some kind of purgation of all his emotional pain, some blinding, blood-filled moment of pure exorcism, his demons on the run at last.

  His grip tightened on the handle of his weapon.

  He started his search of the bedroom, taking the closet on the right first and finding it empty, and then checking the other closet. Nothing.

  He went out into the living room. Chalk marks still indicated where Beth Swallows had been killed originally. Only after that had she been beheaded, her body dragged to the kitchen closet.

  He found nothing in the living room, nothing in the front closets.

  He paused by the front window, looking down at the street that appeared clean and shiny and new after the rain. He felt as if he were hiding in some dark perch, a tree house made exclusively for grown-ups. A silver XKE went past below and he thought of how enviable the owner's life probably was. Lots of fun, lots of women. Or maybe not. As a cop, Cozzens had learned that few lives were all that enviable under close scrutiny.

  When he heard the noise, he whipped around in a crouch, ready to fire like a gunfighter of old.

  Heart slamming against his chest, body trembling beneath cold sweat, gun hand twitching violently, he peered into the gloom.

  He hadn't imagined the noise. That he knew for sure. But where had it come from? And exactly what had it been?

  He started having doubts about his decision to face this down alone. Maybe he was being macho, after all. Maybe he should walk over to that phone and call in and...

  And then the noise came again.

  Right below his feet.

  He grinned. He couldn't help it. This big-ass grin of relief.

  Somebody in the apartment below had dropped something on the floor, and had just now dropped it again.

  He looked down at his hand.

  Still shaking. God, inside his thick, Irish body beat the heart of Barney Fife.

  He grinned again, at the image of Andy Griffith and Mayberry. He hoped heaven was just like Mayberry.

  Then, good, reasonable and competent cop that he was, he set about finishing his search, moving down the narrow hallway to the kitchen.

  The stench here was much worse. Images of the headless torso flashed in his min
d. He felt sick.

  He found more chalk marks on the tiled kitchen floor. The white appliances looked dim and dirty in the gloom. His eyes fixed on the refrigerator. He could still see Beth Swallows' head inside there, staring out at him, as if she were waiting for human company. Next to the refrigerator was the tall, narrow pantry where he'd found the headless corpse. The door was closed. He tried not to remember how obscene she'd looked with her head gone.

  Inexorably, he walked slowly toward the refrigerator.

  He pictured himself the night the body was discovered... moving at about the same pace...walking closer, closer to the refrigerator.

  Putting forth his right hand, as now.

  Taking the silver refrigerator handle, next to the built-in juicer, and pulling it back with his gloved hand.

  Watching the door come open, the bright burning light from the refrigerator interior painting him a wan silver color.

  And then the door opening all the way—

  And the light growing brighter, brighter—

  And sitting right there, staring right up at him, the most horrible sight he'd ever—

  But there was no bloody and begrimed head waiting for him tonight.

  Somebody, Albert Kemper probably, had scoured the refrigerator until it shone white and clean.

  Cozzens shook his head, the image of Beth Swallows' head vivid again, and—

  He didn't see it in time. Or hear it in time.

  The other closet door opening.

  The woman stepping out, the butcher knife in her hand.

  Only too late did his eyes move to his left.

  Only too late was he aware of the knife coming down in a flashing arc, directly into his right eye.

  He screamed and tried to fire but she was stronger than she'd appeared in his momentary glimpse of her.

  She tore the knife from his eye and pushed him into the refrigerator door, the gun falling, unfired, to the floor.

  So much hot blood. So much screaming pain. He was blind; he was frenzied.

  And then, distantly, as if it was happening to someone else but somehow his own body was registering the pain, he felt the butcher knife begin to move in and out of his chest in a rhythm that was almost sexual.