by Nick Keller
“Uh, no,” he said unbolting the security door and swinging it open. “Please—I mean, come in.”
She stepped in looking around.
“How did you…”
“I followed you,” she said, embarrassed. “Is that—uh, er—do you mind?”
“I don’t mind.” They stood awkwardly in the tiny reception lobby.
“I had a good time tonight,” she said, aiming for conversation, wanting the strange silence between them to be over. “With you, I mean.”
“Yes, I did, too. Very much,” he said.
“Good,” she whispered.
There was more silence before he remembered his manners, “Oh, uh—this way.” He led her down the hall and into his unit. She stepped in, absorbing his place, sweeping it from left to right in her gaze.
“So, this is where you live,” she murmured. William just grinned watching her move past the open kitchen and into the living area. She picked up a magazine from the kitchen table, an issue of Psychology Today.
“Teacher,” she said. He nodded. She put it back down as the gray wash from the numbers over on the wall caught her. She studied it for several seconds, her head tilting one way, then the next. “Is that some kind of math art?”
William cleared his throat. “Well, not exactly. Or maybe what’s left of it. I was in the middle of wiping it all away when you buzzed.”
Ruthi moved to it, studying. “What is it?”
“It’s what I do. I work things out sometimes… on my walls.” He made an embarrassed face.
Ruthi chuckled, loosening up. “The legal contracting thing?”
“Right.”
She turned around casting her eyes across the room at the far wall. “And those?” She pointed to the portraits hanging over his desk.
A spear of panic rose up, jabbed him in the throat. He hadn’t considered the portraits of the dead. They had become as much a part of him as his sofa, a piece of the ambiance left forgotten. He closed his eyes knowing this was where she would head for those proverbial hills. “Uh—there are some things, some aspects of my, uh, life that I, uh…” his words trailed off unable to finish the thought behind them.
Ruthi squinted at the portraits. William could see her piecing the final realization of their relationship together in her head. She moved to the wall, reached up and plucked one from its hanging nail, staring at it like a small girl would stare at a crystal ball showing her older self in it. The portrait was of four people—a father in the center, a mother to the side, two daughters placed picturesquely below them, off center. They all looked to be asleep, betrayed only by the oldest daughter whose eyes were half open in a lazy pose.
None of them smiled.
Ruthi looked at him with an electric gape. It made him look down, then back up. “I should tell you,” he said. “My father…”
“I know about your father,” she said, forcing him to blink at her.
“You—you know?”
“I do.” She gingerly hung the picture back on its nail straightening it and stepping away taking them all in at once. “I know who they are too.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know who I am.”
They met eyes. “Yes,” she said.
“Do they bother you?”
“Why do you keep them?”
William swallowed and said, “They’re like… reminders.”
A corner of her mouth pulled up in a sideways grin. “Then, no.”
He chanced a step toward her. “I’m not dangerous, Ruthi.”
She mimicked him, stepping closer as well. “Everyone’s dangerous, William.”
“I don’t want you to be afraid.”
“Everyone’s afraid.” She reached out and took his hand. He followed her gaze as she looked back up at the portraits. “You know what scares most people?” she said.
William knew, but he said, “No.”
“The world.” Looking back, she said, “Do you know what the world really is?”
He took a breath as his thoughts went back to Anthony Sola Jr.’s apartment—back to the madman’s lair and back to the big, stark red eyeball slathered across his wall the way William’s own mania had been slathered across his own wall. “It’s an eye. It sees us for what we really are. It watches us do things. The world knows us—better than we know ourselves.”
She said, “The world judges us, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You know what I think the world is?”
“What?”
“I think the world is a spider. It traps us in its web. We get stuck inside our own nature until we can’t move.”
William squinted at her, reflecting on his dreams. Ruthi was right. It was a spider devouring us and leaving nothing but dust and bone in its wake.
She said, “Do you ever feel trapped in the web, William?”
“Yes.”
“What do you do when you feel trapped?”
William took a big breath and muttered, “I bear it.”
Ruthi smiled. “Do you want to see what I do when I feel trapped in the world?”
Interest crossed his stare and he whispered, pleaded, “I do.”
“Okay,” she whispered back, “come with me.”
RUTHI’S HOME was on the eighteenth floor of a downtown high-rise condo called The Baronial, a huge spire surrounded by huge spires. Only young, single professionals and lazy-minded hip kids with rich mommies and daddies lived there—or perhaps sperm bank technician managers who handled their money wisely.
Stepping into her unit, it was not what William had expected at all. The space was large and mostly empty with hardly any furniture and hard floors, a dim, cool cave utterly reminiscent of his own place, with lower ceilings. Allowing only the city lights to come in from her balcony window, she led him to an open studio section and to the far wall. An enormous canvas, easily ten-by-ten feet in expanse, hung unframed. The entire face of it was covered in a geometrical design with angles and swirls all so meticulously applied it almost appeared the entire canvas was a single, large swath of black. William’s eyes drifted slowly across it taking in its fine, tiny detail.
“It’s a single line,” she whispered, “never crossing, only going where it wants, painted with this.” She held up a sewing needle from an easel. He looked at it in disbelief. She had dipped the needle in a paint bottle and drew the million pieces of her artwork using only its point.
“Incredible,” he said. He could visualize her sitting cross-legged on the floor bent over the canvas moving her needle slow and fastidious—taking it wherever it wanted to go—for hours, days, even years. “Why do you do this?” he asked.
“That’s what’s inside me. That’s what people don’t see when they look at me, and… I don’t know how to tell them. I do it because I feel trapped, too. Sometimes, I get this hopeless feeling when the world looks at me, and I don’t know what to do or what to say or how to act—or even how to just be. When I look out at the people, it’s like they don’t see me. I want to tell them I’m right here, look at me, pay attention to me, and I just want to stare at them until my eyes bleed rivers at my feet and I want to scream at them like a storm until my breath becomes fire and makes them realize I’m here—I’m right here. Realize me. Understand me. Know me. So instead, I do this. It’s all the parts of me ready to unravel, to come loose and spill out all over the world. I lose myself here, creating.”
William stared at her being pulled away from the painting on the wall and into her—directly into her soul. She turned to face him, each of them seeing each other’s eyes sparkle against the hard city night. He suddenly knew her right down to the pit of her humanity, and all he could see was himself staring back, naked, yearning, hurt and ready. He wanted to tell her he understood her, how he lived the same life inside the same world, that he was a metal man, and he lived inside a body which was nothing but a tool for some greater light within him, how his impulses were as dark as hers—maybe dar
ker—how he couldn’t let them overwhelm him, just as she couldn’t let her impulses overwhelm her. He wanted to tell her all these things, but they were only words, and words were as feeble as the naive creatures of the planet, the ones that made her eyes bleed, made her breathe fire. But what could he possibly have if not words?
So, he lunged at her in the same instant she lunged at him, wrapping each other inside a loving death embrace, kissing and biting and sucking, both tasting the flesh and sweat of the other, their naked skin reflecting the night off their undulating shapes, clawing at each other’s body, mutilating the other in a cacophony of moaning and screaming, her pulling him inside, him invading her like an alien thing, both becoming one, both working toward empty. Empty. Empty.
34
THE F.B.I.
Bernie’s alarm went off at 6:35. It was set on screamer mode, not the radio. Getting up in the morning had been getting harder and harder on him since he turned forty. Was it five years ago, or six? Maybe seven. Who knew? Nevertheless, his big frame ached more and more.
He took a shower, got cleaned up, brushed his teeth, threw on his typical gray dress pants, white button up and tweed jacket, no goddamn necktie, took one last glance at Iva who slept with one arm thrown up over her face, plopped his fedora on his head and left.
Before he got to his Crown Vic, the phone buzzed in his pocket. He flipped it open. “This is Dobbs.”
“Where are you?”
Bernie froze, key in the car door. It was Captain Heller. “I’m just leaving.”
“Good. Get here fast.”
He threw the door open feeling a sudden sense of urgency. “What’s up?”
“The FBI’s putting together a task force. I want you on board.”
His eyebrows went up shocked and he cranked the engine. “What’s up, Captain?”
“Your guy—they got him.”
Bernie scrunched his face. “You shittin’ me?”
“Nope. Your lead was solid. The semen they took off the Newton girl—it was key. So, listen up, I’ll brief you on the way in. Gotta make it short.”
Bernie fished the Better Letter Lotto ticket out of his pocket, looked at it confused. He hadn’t shared their findings with the department. How could they know who the killer was? He heard himself say, “You sure, Cap?”
Heller continued, “Yeah, they did a hormone screen. Found a positive ID.”
Bernie shrugged, stuffed the ticket away all ears and slammed the accelerator backing out of his drive.
Heller went on, “It had high levels of serotonin and iodine. Shellfish. Particularly La Jolla Bay oysters. So, they matched it up to the FBI roster of wanted profiles. They narrowed it down to one suspect. A Raymond Komatsu. He practices Jouixang meditation rituals—some eastern martial arts thing, full of kama sutra healing-through-sex monkery bullshit. Get in touch with your sexual animal type-of-deal. Oysters are a large part of his daily diet—particularly La Jolla Bay oysters. As it turns out, he also has a thing for online suck jobs. Figures, right? Guess who’s all over his history files.”
Bernie pealed around the turn at the end of the street ignoring the stop sign blurting, “Harlie Davison.”
“That’s right. There’s more. Raymond Komatsu is a former tattoo model. From oh-nine to two-thousand-twelve he was represented by none other than Starlight Studios.”
“Same studio that rep’d for Candy Starr.” Bernie merged his tank onto the highway now blasting full speed in and out of traffic.
“You got it. They even had a shoot together. I saw the pics. Real sweet couple, those two.”
“Yeah, ‘til he burned her to a crisp. That connects him to two of the vics.”
“The warrant’s processing now. We got him, Bernie. Good job.”
Something didn’t ring right with Bernie. This was a job for the FBI. Why was SWAT getting involved? He cringed, thinking, and said, “So why PD?”
“I don’t want any shit on this, Bernie!” Heller shouted over the phone, his fuseless temper getting set off immediately. Bernie had that effect on him.
“Fine—no shit, then! Now tell me.” Bernie yelled back.
“Okay—the reason our guy was on the FBI wanted list was—heh, get this. He’s a card-carrying, life-long member of the Asian Persuasion, a.k.a. the Blood Dragons. They got ties to the Jineo Cartel. They run weapons, drugs, whatever. They’re the Cartel’s enforcement arm north of Oceanside. One side protects the other, that kind of thing. Raymond Komatsu there—he’s a shaker, a money man. Real sweet fellow.”
“A money guy for the cartel.”
“Yeah,” Heller said.
“And a model?”
“Yeah, some tattoo thing. I don’t know. Anyway, they’re about to take him down.”
Bernie shook his head. This wasn’t adding up, but he kept his mouth shut. “I’m pulling in now.”
“FUCK’RE YOU DOING HERE?” Mark Neiman said gruffly as Bernie came up next to him. The entire Investigations division was in a state of commotion. Everybody attached to the case was being brought into Planning Room One.
“I’m on the task force, jackass.”
“Don’t tell me,” Neiman said in his smug, detective’s acumen. “Captain Heller brought you in, didn’t he?”
“This is my case as much as it is yours, Mark.”
Mark pointed a finger at him. “No. You got the unsolved cases, and that’s fine. But this is my take down.”
“Try telling that to the FBI.”
Mark rolled his eyes at him impatiently and reached for his Kevlar vest.
It made Bernie grin, smug as hell. “I guess they liked my tip, huh.”
Neiman threw the vest on zipping it up and giving Bernie a hesitant face. “Well—it was a good call on the semen, dickhead.”
“Like that, did ya?”
“Whatever, Dobbs. Hope you brought your vest.” He knocked on his chest and went toward the planning room.
THE PLACE WAS PACKED. It was designed to seat fifteen people. There were three times as many—standing room only. Bernie took his perch in the far back.
Up front, Captain Heller, Mark Neiman and Derrick Smyth stood with two Suits, both gray with black ties. They were identical. Even their hair was styled the same. They were cookie cut straight from the FBI.
Heller started as everyone settled. “Most of you know Sergeant Derrick Smyth. He’s our contact at Hollywood Station and has been the co-lead investigator on this case along with Mark Neiman. In turn, they’ve been working under the Bureau’s umbrella. As you can imagine, this is a joint task force between L.A.P.D., SWAT, and the California Bureau. The FBI’s leading the charge on this one so listen up. This is Agents Carlisle and Fritch of the L.A. Division.”
Carlisle—or Fritch—stepped forward as a projection of an Asian face splashed across a large screen. It was a severe face with prototypical drawn-back eyes and chiseled, even features. Over his umber-tinted neck was the top edge of an intricate tattoo disappearing under the collar of his shirt. It was clearly a dragon of some sort. “This is our target. He has many aliases but his given name is Raymond Komatsu. He also goes by Jackrabbit. Male, thirty-two years old, Five Ten. Half Asian, half white, known member of the south side Asian Persuasion, a.k.a. the Blood Dragons, who, as it turns out, has ties with the Jineo Cartel operating from Juarez to Baja.”
Without skipping a beat, as if sharing one mind, Agent Fritch—or Carlisle— stepped in, “The joint investigation between Hollywood Station and L.A. Central uncovered his activities through the investigation of crimes, namely the Starlet Killer case, which are peripheral to Mr. Komatsu’s known history.”
The other went on in his robotic monotone, “He was incarcerated in two-thousand-eleven. Did eighteen months at Terminal Island and got paroled. Ever since, he’s been on the Bureau’s radar as a high-interest target for supplying illegal weapons to the aforementioned Jineo Cartel in Mexico. Aside from that he’s been either investigated, cited or implicated in no less than eight murders, unassoc
iated to the Starlet Case.”
Bernie shook his head critically and raised a hand.
“Yes, Detective, uh...”
“Dobbs.”
“What is your role in this briefing?”
“I’m attached to the case.”
“How so?”
Bernie grinned nervously and said, “Cold Files.”
Carlisle leaned forward. “I’m sorry, speak up.”
“I presented the semen tracking initiative,” Bernie said loudly.
The two agents looked at each other, then back at Bernie. “Okay, please continue, Detective Dobbs.”
“You say he was in prison for eighteen months back in two-thousand-eleven and two-thousand-twelve?”
“That’s correct.”
The dates didn’t match up. The Starlet Murders started in January 2012, right about the time their perpetrator was rotting in prison. Bernie could feel Heller’s eyes on him, scrutinizing. He settled with, “Huh.”
The agent continued, “This information has come to us through hundreds of man-hours of diligent investigation, research and discovery, which includes our most recent findings through semen hormone sampling, as suggested through the L.A.P.D., that has connected our perpetrator to no less than two of the starlet victims. We’ve unveiled numerous witnesses and pieces of evidence that clearly and succinctly corroborate our claims to this crime beyond repute, doubt or question.”
The other agent went on addressing the whole room, “Make no mistake, this apprehension will be in relation to your joint investigation into the Starlet Murder case, so the FBI would like to convey its appreciation to the L.A.P.D. for a job well done.”
“So, let’s discuss field tactics. What we know: Our target is in the Lakewood area, here.” A Google satellite map splashed up on the screen showing a perfectly geometric web work of streets dotted with large homes, manicured yards, blue swimming pools. A golf course was just blocks away. It made Bernie groan. Lakewood was no place for a shootout, if it was to come to that. There were rich people there with nice pensions and tidy lives. This fact didn’t seem to register at all to Agent Fritch who continued, “We’ll use a SWAT SRT van as an HQ setup at Harvey Way. Two four-man teams will deploy, one using the alley, the other flanking to the west, out on the street. L.A.P.D. will act as perimeter security, setting up a two-block circumference. Nobody gets in, nobody gets out. Agent Carlisle and I will act as mission oversight using lead Detectives Heller, Smyth and Neiman as task force liaisons in the event. Others assigned will act as residual backup.”
