Unkillable

by Dean C. Moore

  ***

  Klepsky entered the apartment with the dead body that had been keeping Adrian company. Paced up the hall. Past the bathroom on the left. And shot straight into the studio apartment’s main room, with the bed folded down, that used up most of the thousand square feet or so of space. It was still anybody’s guess if he was going to venture far enough to take in the entrance to the kitchen at the far end of the room on his right. Far less step through the sliding glass doors onto the narrow margin of a patio overlooking the Trump Tower.

  His protruding, square jaw could jackhammer a man’s head clean off if he just started chinning the guy at the Adam’s apple. His trench coat and his fedora indicated he belonged back in the Bogart movie Adrian was watching when he left his house this morning. But it was New York. It wasn’t just the drag queens that got to wear drag here. In L.A., everyone got into character. In New York, everyone was a character. He shouldn’t fault Klepsky for looking like he belonged next to Bogart in a B-grade movie, not when Adrian could see himself in the Bogie role. The two of them were definitely cut of the same stuff. Gritty. Hard-boiled. Often shady.

  Klepsky was FBI. He was also a kleptomaniac. He’d already pocketed a couple items on his way to confronting Adrian. He couldn’t be bothered to notice the dead body or to take in the crime scene in any way. He was like a horse with blinders, and he was galloping towards Adrian.

  The items Klepsky had pinched? A clear glass ashtray. A colored glass candle holder. He brought them for the wife so she’d have something to hurtle at him. He knew he was impossible to live with. He felt he owed her as much. And he didn’t want her spending his hard-earned money replacing the glassware in the house every couple of days.

  “What brings you here, Adrian?” he said stopping about a foot from him, lighting up a cigar. The tip of the cigar brought them that much closer.

  “Maybe you’ll notice the dead body?”

  “Of course there’s a dead body. You certainly aren’t going to come out to feed the birds.”

  “They’re vultures and they’ve been carting off the evidence of a crime the whole time I’ve been here. You could have me arrested for that.”

  “Like I give a shit who killed who and why unless you give me a reason.”

  “The blood spatter on the wall? Remind you of anything?”

  Klepsky threw a glance at the wall mostly to humor Adrian, not because he could really be bothered. “Yeah, looks like the ass end of a peacock.”

  “You might want to check your data base for similar m.o.s, see what comes up.” Adrian was already starting in with the misdirection, to help out his “friend” Manic.

  “And the missing body parts,” Klepsky said, glancing at the body, “the ones the birds made off with?”

  “I’d have your people chase them down. My guess, the birds were trained and they’ll lead us to more clues. He’s laying out a breadcrumb trail.”

  “A murderer who wants to solve his own murders for us.” He snorted. “Wish they could all be that accommodating.” Klepsky took another puff on his cigar. Unlit, it had smelled like rich, loamy earth, like walking into a barn. Lit, the far-too-complex-to-describe aroma was closer to what it felt like as a kid lying face down in a meadow inhaling: herbs and weeds and flowers, worms and insects and bird droppings, and broken fallen leaves.

  Adrian’s mind continued working on the case, the real one, not the wild goose chase he was sending Klepsky on. It was Adrian’s guess Manic shot Dead Vic up with something to keep the guy from passing out on him, from croaking, and from vomiting all the liquor he was force-feeding him back up, and to exaggerate the amount of perspiration he was gushing. He was just as sure the mystery substance would leave no forensic trail. It was one of those leads that on a standard investigation would mean a lot, and be worth chasing down. But this was no standard investigation, so Adrian refused to be distracted by it. His friend, Manic, wouldn’t do that to him, wouldn’t permit standard police work to lead anywhere pertinent.

  “What really brought you here, Adrian? I have to know before I can justify the kind of manpower and the kind of interest you want me to invest in this case.”

  “Just a gut feeling.”

  Klepsky took another puff on his cigar and studied Adrian. “You and your hunches. That all you giving me for now?”

  “Yep. If I were you, I’d forget about my gut feelings, throw my ass in jail. I’m your most likely suspect.”

  “Your inklings have gotten me three promotions in less time than it takes most people to get one. You’re a fucking lightning rod for super-predators. The ones that would push everyone else off the FBI’s most wanted list, if only we knew they existed.”

  “You flatter me, Klepsky. I don’t deserve it.”

  Klepsky made a dismissive sound with his lips that sounded a bit like a fart. “I’ve seen your place. Short wave radios, police band radios, satellite dishes that pick up news from all over the world, computers loaded with software that hack coded satellite transmissions. You’ve got access to every agency’s files, even the ones they don’t want you having access to. For anyone else, hell, for a savant working at NASA, it’s just white noise, the static snow you used to see on those rabbit ear TVs. But not you. I bet you can’t even explain how you do what you do.”

  “Sure I can. I trust my intuition. It’s a lot smarter than I am. Yours is too. So is everybody else’s. Only most people refuse to listen to it. They’re culturally programmed not to. We’re trained to be more reasonable than that. Tell me, Klepsky, ever meet a reasonable serial killer?”

  Klepsky snorted and took another puff on his cigar. His people swarmed in through the door like angry bees looking to take on the birds in a territorial dispute. “Shit! The vultures are stealing the evidence!” shouted one of them, pulling his gun and shooting one of the crows, which from this close up, Adrian could attest, looked fucking huge. The other agents followed suit.

  “Put your guns away!” Klepsky shouted.

  But Quick Draw couldn’t be snapped out of it. Klepsky decked him with a fist to the face. Klepsky had a fist bigger than most faces. A build that allowed him to box either heavy-weight or junior heavy-weight back in his youth. So it only took one punch to put the guy out of commission. Probably for the next week. “The rest of you idiots,” Klepsky barked, “start chasing down those birds and find me the missing body parts. Don’t touch them, just report in on your location.”

  “How are we supposed to chase birds, sir?” one of them asked.

  “How the hell should I know?” Klepsky, still in a barking mood, spat back. “Call one of our bird guys and find out.”

  “We have bird guys?” the same doubting Thomas said.

  “We’re the FBI! We have bird guys. We have guys who specialize in detaining and interrogating aliens. We have guys who can translate three thousand year old languages that haven’t existed for at least that long.”

  “Ah, where are they, sir?”

  “Fuck if I know. Go find them and go find those birds or you’re on the next train to Alaska, and you won’t be riding first class either. I’ll stick your ass where they ship the donkeys. That goes for the rest of you! You see this here?” Klepsky made a big gesture to include everyone in the room. “You’re the Indians in those cowboys and Indians movies. You’re just here to die, you got me? The more of you die and the faster you die the better the movie. You want to live, you better figure out what no Indian before you ever figured out.”

  “Yes, sir.” Whichever one said it, they were all filing out the door like cockroaches after the lights flicked on.

  The CSI team poured in on their heels. Klepsky turned to Adrian. “What should I do with these guys?”

  Adrian shook his head. “They won’t find anything. But sic them on the scene anyway. Not like you can take my word for it. You have to cover your ass.”

  “You got that right.” He turned to the CSI people. “Well, what you waiting on?”

  “What do we do about the bi
rds, sir?” asked one of the CSI guys.

  “Chase them out of your way!” Klepsky said.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t do that,” Adrian coaxed. “Those things are trained. You go at a crow, you better go at it with a shotgun.”

  Klepsky calmed down on the revelation. “Yeah, okay.” To the rest of the team, he said, “Just work around them then without pissing them off. Better yet, let them have the damn body, just concentrate on the rest of the crime scene.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wait.” Klepsky checked to see if the guy still had his face. Nope. His teeth. Nope. His fingers. Nope. His ears. Nope. Tattoos. Nope. “Yeah, go ahead.” There could still be a lot of forensic evidence he was sacrificing but he was choosing to go with Adrian’s gut. He was probably thinking something like, “Damn Adrian for letting the birds get this far. Damn him for not leaving him more of a choice in the matter.”

  Adrian took a few steps towards the door. “Where are you going?” Klepsky said, still sounding testy.

  “To clear my head. My job isn’t as easy as yours, Klepsky. I never know what my next step is. So I have to feel my way in the dark for a while. Get lost before I can be found.”

  “You got a process, I get that. But I got an addiction. You feed my habit with more clues on a regular basis that help me to catch my bad guy or I’ll have your head on a plate.”

  Adrian smiled wearily at him. Klepsky wasn’t kidding, and Adrian knew it. They were the best of friends for two people who couldn’t stop using one another. But, as Klepsky indicated, it was a relationship that hinged on pure codependence. Nothing like Adrian’s relationship with Manic. That relationship was less selfish and more selfless; something in his gut told him so.

  TWO

  The seagulls’ shrieks stabbed at Adrian like acupuncture needles, relieving stress when they damn well should have been causing it.

  The beach sand beneath his bare feet pressed against him with a million tiny points of contact, reminding him of how it felt to wear those reflexology sandals. But this was far worse. And still the response on his nervous system was paradoxical. He may as well have been sand-papering off the skin on his feet, so why should that feel good?

  The cold wind fought him with each step, forming a formidable wall one minute, pushing him along the next. Then it would disappear entirely, only to rush back in from some new direction, like a tempestuous child that would not be ignored.

  The surf roared, isolating him from the traffic noise from the road just behind him and back a ways. He could scream to high heaven for help, and no one would hear. It was the perfect place to murder someone. Even repeated stabbing, followed by wrestling in the sand—assuming the person was that determined to stay alive—would be interpreted from a distance as insatiable lovers devouring one another on the beach, playing, frolicking, wrestling, sexing, caressing, hugging, squeezing, desperate to get closer. Especially with nothing but an eternity of sea to stare out at and remind them of just how close oblivion lay ahead, so best get on with staving it off with some lasting memories.

  The shrieks of the seagulls were becoming more insistent. Maybe they expected to be fed. These public beaches encouraged such nuisance behavior. The birds seemed bright enough to know that the humans would happily feed them just to get them to quiet down.

  In a smart-ass move he turned out his pockets and opened his trench coat wide to convey that he had no food to give them and turned around three hundred and sixty degrees.

  That was when he grew conscious of the startling incongruity.

  They weren’t seagulls.

  They were the same damn crows from the crime scene three days earlier.

  Hitchcock’s Birds had nothing on these things.

  They had been mimicking the sounds of seagulls the entire time to throw him off. Most people don’t realize crows are among the smartest birds around and can mimic most anything. They were surpassed in their mimicry only by Mocking Jays, which weren’t nearly as smart or as aggressive.

  Something else was creeping Adrian out.

  He couldn’t quite put his fingers on it, as if being stalked by these creatures wasn’t haunting enough.

  Finally the other shoe dropped.

  They weren’t crows.

  They were ravens.

  The two types of birds looked damn similar, and their territories overlapped throughout the U.S. But ravens were bigger in size, like Red-Tailed Hawks. He should have picked up on that. On reflection, he could understand how he’d been duped.

  Crows fly in packs.

  Ravens fly in pairs.

  Why then were these ravens acting like crows?

  That would take even more training to get them to go against their natures.

  Of course, they were even smarter than crows.

  “What’s your killer trying to say, Adrian?” Such smart birds might well be bored with their lot in life too, and might well be looking for a challenge. They might bond rather well to someone who could supply them with the right trials. One more clue that his serial killer was far more focused on Adrian, and on forming a bond with him, than on the actual victims? Or just one more chance to read-into evidence something that wasn’t there?

  The birds, having gotten his attention, took to the air at once, with a synchronized shriek. One of them dropped a human ear at his feet.

  He bent down to pick it up with a pair of forceps and a plastic bag; no self-respecting detective left the house without some minimal amount of forensic equipment. As he did so, he watched the birds flying off. But they weren’t going to be so accommodating as to fly off in a given direction. So, no more clues to be had there, other than that his tormentor, with a flair for the dramatic, had thought of everything.

  He brought the baggie with the ear inside up to his face. “Well, Celine, it has been a while since we’ve hooked up. This seems as good an excuse as any.”

  THREE

  “Celine? You think you can make some room for me?” Adrian said, dangling the severed ear in the plastic bag in front of her.

  “If that’s a sly reference to your dick, no,” Celine Carter looked at him sharply, “not without a whole lot of lube within reach. You really tore me up last time. Made me feel positively post-menopausal.”

  Adrian smiled. “I love how you can be standing over an eviscerated body with blood all over you thinking about sex. I like that in a woman.”

  “And I hate how I keep mistaking someone with a fast tongue for someone who is guaranteed to be good at cunnilingus. I mean, the tongue ought to be in such better shape than most people’s.”

  He smiled at her, partly to acknowledge the joke, partly as a conveyor of sexual innuendo. “Dutifully chastised. More cunt-licking next time. Less poking.”

  “No, more cunt-licking and more poking.”

  “Make up your mind. I’m forced to do enough multitasking in my day job.”

  She shared with him an I-hope-you-can-read-the-warning-signs-on-this-face smile and returned to the corpse on the mortuary slab whose chest she was vacating, one organ at a time. “Just give me a second to finish hollowing this guy out.”

  “And I thinking it was just me you took everything out of.”

  She glanced up at the ear in his hand absently as she continued her work with the gloves on and the dispensing of the organs into the various stainless steel bins, like she was getting Thanksgiving dinner sorted. “What’s with the ear?”

  “Perfectly preserved after an entire day. No sign of tissue decay. The guy it belongs to was saturated in booze when he died. Thought that might be explanation enough and then decided, nah. The ear had also been inside the beak of a raven for God knows how long, exposed to the elements and the creature’s digestive juices, and the sharpness of the beak itself. All in all, it looks a little too perfect.”

  She was speaking distractedly, her eyes still on her dissection, when she said, “You realize the degree of decomposition varies not only from individual to individual but also differs in different b
odily organs? The spleen, stomach, intestines and the pregnant uterus are earlier to decay. But, on the other hand, the kidney, heart and bones, and pieces like your ear are later in the process. Much later.”

  He made a sour face to indicate “this is me you’re talking to,” and tilted her chin up so she could appreciate it.

  Once her eyes alighted on him, she mumbled, “Yeah, I guess you do,” and she returned her attention to her corpse, still more focused on finishing her autopsy, and whatever stage she was in with it. “You always bring me interesting stuff, Adrian. It’s maddeningly sexy. Why can’t all my boyfriends be half as interesting as you?”

  “Because then you would be cheating on them with me instead of cheating on me with them. This way hurts a hell of a lot more.”

  “You’re right. That must be it.”

  He smiled only because she was still talking at him while devoting most of her attention to the DB, so it was possible she really didn’t know what she was saying. Or maybe she did. They could be honest about being frustrated with one another. Sort of went with the territory. Both at the top of their careers, it wasn’t like they were going to stay there if their jobs weren’t all-consuming. That left precious little time for romance. Unless of course… one could be sly enough to figure out a way to combine both.

  Even covered in blood—it had crept up above her glove line and crawled onto her apron, and snuck behind her ears where she scratched with her knuckles, and onto her forehead where she wiped the sweat with the back of her hands—she was irresistible. She wasn’t Vogue Cover Girl beautiful. She was just the most attractive woman you’d ever find who managed to not be beautiful while getting you to jump out of your pants in half the time.

  “Okay, let’s take a look at that ear.” She de-gloved and washed her hands over the sink, and peeled the rest of her over-garments off. She used the mirror in front of her to catch the blood on her forehead and behind her ears. Next, she squeegeed the strands of blond hair near the ears clear of blood between her water-soaked fingers.