I thought about a fortune teller; I once went to for help. I sat in her small storefront parlor because I was desperate and wanted to know who I really was and why I was given this ability.
I was desperate before I became indifferent.
When the gypsy looked into my eyes, she became scared. But she regained her composure. She grabbed my hands and told me. “I know that living with your gift feels like a burden. But, it's not.”
“But, why me?”
“Your gift is not for this world, but for another.”
“For what world?”
“It’ll be a time, when the night never ends.”
That was the closest I ever got to figuring out who I really was.
“James!’ Violet called down to me.
I looked at Violet, standing on the edge of the roof of the old garage. She pointed at the rooftop of the abandoned house. I looked where she pointed, and my eyes widened when I saw a man wearing a black hood and mask.
That was the first time I saw him, the man I would come to know as the Beast.
Instantly, I pulled out my fire engine red gun and shot at him as fast as I could. But, the dark figure was gone. The powerful gun blast brought the attention of the police officers from the basement of the house.
The officers surrounded me, as I pointed my gun at the night sky. They asked me what happened.
“Come over here!” Violet called to me. “He’s going to the front of the house.”
She pointed at the side yard that led to the front yard. I ran to the front of the house. Some officers followed. Up ahead, I saw Violet appear in the middle of the street under a halo of orange light. She stood there like a statue, pointing up.
Violet and I, looked up at the trees, listening to the leaves rattling with the force of the wind. Except, Violet knew it wasn’t the wind that made the trees sway side to side in the dark of night.
It was only a gut feeling. But I felt that it was the hand of the Beast, more than anything else. As my mother used to say, the Beast runs from no one.
II
THE DEAD ARE EVERYWHERE
11
The Letter of the Beast
The Queens N train screeched around the Queens Gazette at midday in Long Island City. At the time, Luella was coming back from lunch with an old college friend, when Lawrence Katz, the editor of paper stopped her on the way to her office.
“They found the damn body part down the street from us and we don’t have anything for the front page. Time is ticking Luella.”
Luella thought about it for second, then responded.
“For now, just take a picture of the street where the severed body part was found. We’ll photoshop the bag into the picture. Okay? How does that sound? Besides, I’m almost done with the article.”
Lawerence thought about it for a second. “Okay then. Leave the story on my desk in an hour. A draft is good enough. I’ll get my team to go over it for you.”
“Yup.”
Luella watched Lawrence leave down the hall. She was filled with relief that Lawrence bought her bullshit. If she wasn’t such a talented writer, she would have been fired by now. Luella entered her office, threw her coat on the chair, and went to sit-down. She was anxious to get started on her breakout story.
Suddenly, a title for the story popped into and out her head. She was about to recite it out loud when she noticed something on her leather seat. There was a letter sitting on her chair. The envelope was stained, handwritten, and addressed to her. She felt a shiver down her neck, when she read her own name. There was no address, just her name.
With a knife, she sliced it open. There was a folded piece of white spiral notebook paper inside. A second later, Luella sat in her seat, unfolded the letter and started reading.
-L
I can not stop it. I’ve tried. But the Beast goes on hurting me as well as society. Society can be thankful that there are ways for people like me to relieve myself, like day dreaming of some victims being tortured and being mine. mine. mine. mine.
It a big complicated game the beast makes me play, putting victim’s number down in the book, following them, checking up on them, waiting for them in the dark, waiting, waiting, waiting . . . the pressure is great and sometimes the Beast runs the game to his liking. Maybe you can stop him. I can’t. The Beast has already chosen his next victim or victims. I don’t who they are yet. But, he’ll tell me. The next day after I read the paper, I will know, but it will be too late.
-TJ
After reading the letter, Luella stood in her office in shock. It was an actual letter from the killer. It was as if the killer had left the envelope on her chair by his own hand.
“Oh my god,” she repeated to herself.
Was this really from the killer? Luella took out a plastic bag from her desk drawer and sealed it away. Somehow, she would have to find out the truth about this letter.
There was a chance it could be one of the readers of the paper, playing games.
She knew the writer of the letter wanted her to print it in the newspaper, but not yet. Luella thought, maybe James could make sense of this letter. She traced the killer’s handwriting with her eyes.
At that moment, the phone rang in her office. She flinched with fear.
It was the head editor of the paper. As the phone kept ringing, she thought twice about handing the letter over to her boss. She needed to keep this one close to the chest. So she tucked the letter into her coat, until she saw James again.
Maybe he could verify it for her.
By five-o’clock, Luella’s third story was printed on the front page of the Queens Gazette. The headline read “Boulevard of Death.” Luella’s first front page story had created a stir on social media. However, not everyone was happy with her when they read it.
The hookers of Long Island City were being stalked by a serial killer and dumping their severed body parts along Queens Boulevard. There was no evidence of a link between one and the other. But, she speculated anyways.
Lawrence Katz was the Managing Editor of the Queens Gazette Newspaper. Tonight, he stayed late at the office, trying to do damage control, after Luella’s story went to print. The hallways and offices of the aging black tower were empty, except for his on the tenth floor. A large corner office burned with a glowing night lamp on a side table next to the couch.
At the time, Lawrence was on his cell phone with Clive Pharaoh, the owner and chairman of the Gazette. Lawrence laid down in his couch, smoking a cigar.
Lawrence’s office looked old and worn, with piles of newspapers sprawled around the floor. His desk was buried underneath memos and bills. Lawrence was an older white man who worked for the aging newspaper as a teenager. He started out as a paper boy and worked himself up the ladder. He was a corporate man first and a journalist second.
“Are you sure, you want do this?” asked Lawrence. “The article has increased our circulation by 35%. No reporter has done something like this for the paper in a long time. The increase in revenue is nothing to blow off so easily. Those numbers give our sales department some leverage to increase revenue, even further.”
“Larry!” yelled Clive.
Lawrence hated it when the owner called him Larry. It always made him feel common, like he were anyone else.
Clive continued on, “I hope you are able to accommodate this request as soon as possible. I am not in the business of repeating myself. Do you understand? Yes or no.”
“Yes, Pharaoh.”
“Thank you. Believe me, everyone on the Board appreciates everything that you have done for us, so far. You have been a loyal employee. The best that I have worked with.”
“Thank you.”
“Good. I was going over the stories for tomorrow and I saw that there is going to be a follow up story to “Boulevard of Death,” about the black bags found in the street of Long Island City. Is that true?”
“Yes. But, It’s not just about the black bags and prostitutes anymore.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The police have uncovered the serial killer’s dumping ground in the middle of Woodside.”
“How do you know that?”
“My reporter has a contact.”
“Do you have a headline yet?”
Lawrence looked at his phone for the headline that Luella sent him through text message, The Long Island City Serial Killer., aka, the LIC Killer.
“No, not yet,” said Lawrence.
“Good. I need that story shelved, for now.”
“Why? This story has a lot more to it, than just a missing hookers ending up dismembered on the streets of New York City. My reporter just made a good contact with someone in the police department.”
“Inside the police department. Really?”
“Yes. I promise you, Clive. This story will sell a lot of newspapers.”
“Don’t call me Clive. Just cut the story loose.”
“Well, do you mind telling me why? It will be done. But, I would like to know why.”
“A story like this can destroy a neighborhood that other people are trying to rebuild. Don’t you think? And that’s not the reason what this newspaper exist. It’s not our mission to destroy communities by causing senseless panic. We can’t push any kind of speculation further into the minds of the public. Jesus Lawrence! Just get rid of her!”
“I thought I had editorial control?”
“Not at this newspaper, Lawrence. Do you understand me? Not at this newspaper, or anywhere else.”
There was silence on the line for a moment.
“Yes. But at least tell me why.”
The phone line went dead and the ash of Lawrence’s cigar fell on the wooden floor. He got up from the couch and placed the cigar on a silver tray.
Lawrence looked at his watch and it was 6:30 pm. He wondered, if he should call Luella and give her the bad news right now.
On the other hand, he could let her do her thing, while he covered for her. Nope. Bottomline, he couldn’t string her along any more. Not this time. He had to nip this in the bud now, before she got too involved.
At first, he did want to help those girls working the stroll at night. However, in this city things sometime get in the way, such as politics.
He should call her. That was the least that he could do for her, a final time. Or he could fire someone else and just let her go chase after the serial killer story. He would cover. However, he did’t even want to fathom the consequences of that act. They would not only fire him.
They would ruin him and his family.
Lawrence sat in his chair staring at a train entering Queensborough station. There was something beautiful about those moments when the elevated train cut through the evening. As Lawrence smoked another cigarette, he picked up a cell phone and called Luella.
Luella Matos stepped off the 7 train at 72nd and Roosevelt Avenue. Tonight, there was a smile on her face because the Queens Gazette was giving her a chance to tell the story of those missing prostitutes. This time, some one was actually going to give a damn about these girls.
Walking throughout the train station, Luella noticed how Jackson Heights had changed in the two years that she lived in New York City. Now, there were hipsters and yuppies moving in. When Luella first heard about Jackson Heights, she only passed through this neighborhood on her way to and from LaGuardia Airport. At first, she didn’t even give the place a second thought.
Now she lived in the neighborhood, trying to build a career for herself. And she thought about everything differently. She saw Jackson Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods as a gateway for the American immigrants. There was always a novel here in the neighborhood, she thought. Every person was a chapter. Every community was a novel.
When Luella first started out, crime and public safety wasn't even her beat.
Last year, Luella worked for a small outfit called the Brooklyn Bullet. She was a political science major hired to cover City Hall. At her job interview, the editor of the Bullet complemented her on her writing and hired her on the spot. However, everything from there went down hill.
She felt like the Queens Gazette was different, like she was building a real career.
Luella stepped onto the street floor, as blue sparks dropped from the train leaving the station. There was the distinct smell of blood sausage cooking from one of the meat carts on the sidewalk. She wasn’t even a vegan anymore.
At night. the streets were packed with people and the traffic was thick and slow. As she looked around for the street signs to get her bearings, she noticed several groups of men walking down the street. There must have been 4 or 5 groups of them.
Then, she spotted a group of Jehovah's Witness on the corner of another train station. They were older latin women wearing long plain dresses and black sweaters covering their shoulders. In between them, there was a pale white-faced man with brown hair and round black glasses. The propagators of the faith held several copies of a religious magazine called "Awake!"
Then, Luella’s eyes went back to stare at a group of men going from one bar to the next. These bars were known to local as Ficha bars. There were tons of them along Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. They were the kind of places where guys could meet women. For two dollars, a man could buy a dance or a conversation with one.
Yes. there was a good literary novel here, she thought.
Luella looked around one more time before making her way off of Roosevelt Avenue to head to Maria Vargas’s house. Jackson Heights was busy and the sidewalks were drenched in neon lights. For a last time tonight, she couldn't look away, her eyes were memorized by the street ballet.
She was about to step off the corner, when her cell phone rang. It was Lawrence.
“Luella?”
“Yeah. I’m almost at the place. I got an interview lined up with a woman from New Jersey. She lost her daughter who worked the stroll.”
“Luella.”
“What?”
“I have to let you go.”
“What? Why! You’re firing me.”
She was stunned by what Lawrence’s just told her. The area between her two eyebrows cracked and deepened the longer she stayed on the line. Luella couldn’t believe it and kept thinking about how different Lawrence’s voice sounded on the phone. This wasn’t good at all. Lawrence spoke to her as if they were strangers instead of co-workers.
Luella stood on the sidewalk while a swarm of people passed around her.
“Luella, are you there?”
For a moment, she stayed quiet and remembered what Jackson Heights felt like when she first got there. Back then, she started out from nothing. Jackson Heights felt like a miniature version of Time Square. Everyone on the street was different and arrived from everywhere on the globe. It was a place where everyone was to busy to notice anything around them. It was a place where anyone could get lost in the crowd and disappear.
Now, it was her turn to disappear.
“Why are you doing this?” Luella asked.
“I’m pulling it. We don’t have enough facts and it’s causing too much public speculation. We’re looking irresponsible. Pharaoh gave me a choice. Sorry.”
“But why?”
“In the end, the write-up is harming the formal police investigation. An executive board member of the newspaper is concerned about us interfering in the investigation. What else is there to know?”
“But why?”
“It’s over Luella. Face the facts.”
“But, this piece is bringing the story of these girls into the light. We are doing some good here for the families of the missing girls. I can feel it. It’s working.” Luella tried to win Lawrence a final time. “Plus I finally spoke with my contact inside the department.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, he’s in. So what about you?”
There was a long pause on the phone.
“Sorry, Luella.”
“Come on, Lawrence. What the hell. That place is already running on fumes.”
“Sorry Luella, I’ll mail you you’re last check and mail you stuff to your apartment. This was your last day at the office. Thank you for everything and good luck.”
As Lawrence hung up, Luella stood on the street corner. She was out of job and just moved into a larger apartment. Shit. It wasn’t bad enough that they killed the story.
“But, they had to kill me too.”
She thought about what her friend Edgar from grad school told her at lunch. He said that New York City was like a spinning top, if you can’t hold on, you simply fall away.
“Fuck.”
Once again, Luella Matos journalism career ended before it began. This was the third time that she’d been fired but she understood that in journalism, every beat had their political land mines and she just stepped on hers.
Later that night, Luella hung out with Edgar in Long Island City, having drinks at bar. It was 8:30 pm when they sat at a table by the window watching the traffic pass-by, talking about Luella’s next move in New York City.
“Can you believe that. It’s a fucking meat grinder out there,” Luella slurred.
“I told you Lawrence was a lying piece of shit. They all are, at that level,” said Edgar.
“I guess I won’t need this anymore,” Luella placed her empty glass on a flyer for Violet’s memorial and left the table to go use the washroom. While she was gone, Edgar read the flyer about another fundraiser for Violet.
Tonight, Luella promised Maria Vargas that she would go to the memorial to interview the other families. But Luella blew it off, once she got the bad news from Lawrence. The story was dead and so was she.
Luella returned from the bathroom and saw Edgar with the flyer in his hands.
“But, why does this story have to die, Luella?” asked Edgar.
“What are you saying?”
“You always talk about about how much smarter you are than every boss that you’ve had. If you’re smarter than them, Luella. Then be smarter than them.”
Never Wake the Dead Page 8
