Desperate Souls

by Gregory Lamberson

  “Do I have any say in this?” Bernie said.

  “None at all.”

  “In that case, I’m happy to be here.”

  “You’ll liaison with Gang Prevention. This is their mess as much as it is ours.” Mauceri pointed at them. “It only makes sense to partner you two up.”

  “I already have a partner,” Maria said in an arch tone. “No offense, Bernie.”

  Bernie sipped his coffee. “None taken.”

  Mauceri kept his cool. “I don’t see your partner anywhere, Vasquez. Produce him.”

  “Assign me to assist Missing Persons, and I will.”

  “Not happening. I need you here, and I’m not letting go of you. And if you have any notion of conducting a personal investigation on your own time, forget it. There’s no room in your life for any other cases. Since you and Reinhardt are the only BMTF members still around, I’m making you jointly responsible for all these murders. That’s thirty names in the Green Book.”

  Maria’s eyes widened. “L.T., you can’t do that!”

  “Can’t I? I just did. The primaries for each set of three murders will do the legwork on their respective cases, but they’re answering to you. This whole bag of shit is yours.”

  “I’m too inexperienced. I’m a third grade gold shield …”

  “Bullshit. Edgar mentored you for a year, and he’s the best we’ve got, God help him. You’re no rookie, and fortunately for you, Reinhardt’s a seasoned pro. Aren’t you, Reinhardt?”

  Bernie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m a seasoned pro.”

  “For now, you’ll work out of Detective Hopkins’s desk.”

  For the first time, Bernie’s expression registered emotion as he glanced at Maria with something akin to terror in his eyes.

  “Now both of you get over to the ME’s office. I understand Walsh has some eye-opening information for you.”

  Maria stood, and Bernie did the same. She opened her mouth to speak.

  But Mauceri waved her on. “Run along. I’ve got to requisition uniforms and plainclothes cops to help out with this workload.”

  Maria led Bernie to Edgar’s desk in the bull pen.

  “I’m sorry about this, Maria.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault. Just do me a favor.” She gestured at a framed photo of Edgar and Martin. “Leave his stuff up. You’re going back to Gang Prevention when this is over anyway.”

  “No problem. I only need the back of a chair for my jacket and one drawer for my lunch and gun.”

  “Thanks. Shall we go?”

  He offered a slight smile. “Lead the way.”

  Jake laid a bouquet of lilies on Sheryl’s grave in the cemetery off the LIE.

  Maybe for the last time, he thought, gazing at Sheryl’s marker.

  He had checked into a fleabag hotel with an hourly rate and slept for three hours. Standing before the bathroom mirror, he stared at his closed left eyelid. The swollen muscles behind it made it appear as if his eye was still there. Then he forced himself to pull his lower lid out and apply the flush and healing ointment. After checking out of the hotel, he went to a pharmacy and bought his first eye patch, which he now wore.

  Looking around the cemetery to make certain no one stood within listening range, he spoke in a low and tentative voice. “I could use some help, babe. Edgar was the only one I’ve been able to turn to since … the Cipher, and now he’s gone. I have to save him just like I did you, and I don’t think I can do it alone.”

  Taking a deep breath, he waited for a reaction.

  The clouds in the sky did not part. A shaft of golden sunlight did not fall upon him. No choir of angels sang. The gentle breeze that blew his hair into his eye remained consistent.

  Jake sighed. Abel had warned him that he would never see Sheryl again unless he ascended to the Realm of Light, a situation that became more in doubt whenever he killed a living person, even in self-defense.

  Fuck you, AK.

  “What about you, Abel? You didn’t exactly rule out another meeting between us. I’m freeing souls, just like before. What makes this any different than last time? Tower had thirteen souls. Katrina has hundreds.”

  Nothing.

  Jake supposed the souls of drug addicts didn’t rate very high on heaven’s list of priorities.

  “You owe me!”

  No response.

  Alone as usual, he thought. Then his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he checked its display. Just the call I’ve been expecting. Pressing the phone against one ear, he gazed across the cemetery at the Manhattan skyline in the distance. “Yeah, talk to me.”

  The silence on the other end seemed interminable. “I want my drugs.”

  “Sorry. You have the wrong number. I’m no drug dealer. You must want some lowlife, murderous scumbag.”

  The breathing on the other end grew louder. “I want my drugs, cracker.”

  “Oh, you mean those twenty keys of Black Magic? Be more specific, sport.”

  The breathing on the other end came in short, angry bursts. “When can we meet?”

  “As it happens, I’m free for lunch. What do you say we meet someplace public?”

  A pause. “Name the time and place.”

  Jake had just the place in mind.

  Maria and Bernie walked down the long corridor on the fourth floor of the City of New York Office of Medical Examiner.

  “I need a shower,” Maria said.

  “That makes two of us.” Bernie pushed open the swinging door leading into Autopsy Room C and followed her inside.

  Assistant Medical Examiner Samuel Walsh stood in the middle of the room, poised to cut into the skull of a male corpse with a bone saw. A dozen metal autopsy tables surrounded him, each home to a corpse. A young woman in a smock and face mask assisted him.

  “I’ve never seen it so crowded in here,” Maria said.

  “Standing room only,” Bernie said.

  Walsh turned at the sound of their voices and killed the bone saw. “Ah, the cavalry has arrived.” He handed the bone saw to the woman. “Why don’t you take a break, Janet?”

  “Thanks,” the woman said, nodding. As she passed Maria and Bernie, she removed her face mask, revealing tired features.

  “You’re not the only ones feeling the budget crunch,” Walsh said, joining them. “We’re shorthanded and overworked, too.”

  Maria looked around at the corpses, most of them male. All of them had mutilated stumps rather than toes, with identification tags strapped around their ankles. “Business is booming.”

  “Death is a growth market. These are all yours. There’s more in Room B and Room D …”

  Bernie walked over to a table and pointed at the gray corpse upon it. “This just came in last night?”

  “Actually, it came in just a few hours ago.”

  Bernie gestured at the Y incision that divided the dead man’s torso. “And you already autopsied it? Wham, bam, thank you, Sam.”

  Walsh smiled. “As much as I like to believe that I’m a model of efficiency, I can’t take credit for that. It came in self-autopsied. Or, rather, self-embalmed. They all did.”

  Maria gaped at the dead bodies. Every one of them had a Y incision. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Walsh motioned for them to follow him over to the table occupied by the corpse he and his assistant had been working on. The body’s chest had been peeled back in three sections of flesh, revealing a dry rib cage.

  “These bodies have no blood. Their organs were removed and soaked in a cleansing solution, which makes it all but impossible for us to determine the causes of death, then returned to their proper arrangement. The bodies were packed with sawdust, which acts as a fill-in agent, and sewn back up. I’d hazard a guess that the fingers, toes, and gums were mutilated at the same time.”

  Bernie said, “Forgive me for stating the obvious, Doc, but it’s pretty apparent to me that there was only one cause of death: a bullet to the brain.”

&nb
sp; Walsh jabbed the air in a gleeful manner. “You’re wrong! They were all shot in the head after they were embalmed.”

  “Fuck you,” Maria said. Then she covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh. Sorry. That just slipped out.”

  “That’s okay. You sounded just like Edgar. Sorry to hear the news, by the way.”

  “Thank you. I’m still pulling for him.”

  Staring at the bullet hole in the corpse’s head, Bernie rubbed his forehead. “Any theory as to why all this occurred?”

  Walsh snorted. “That’s your job. I’m just telling you what we have on our hands.”

  “We need to tie these stiffs to Malachai,” Maria said. “And then we need to tie Edgar’s disappearance to him.”

  “Why is that?” Bernie said.

  “Because if we do, the bosses can’t keep me from working Edgar’s case.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jake sat in the back of Viand, a Greek diner on the corner of Eighty-sixth Street and Second Avenue. He and Sheryl had lunched here often. With his back to the wall, he had a perfect view of the entire restaurant, and no one could sneak up on him.

  He ordered lunch, then waited for his dates to arrive. A few minutes later, three men walked parallel to the windows, their backs to him. He recognized Malachai, Marcus, and their fat bodyguard from two nights earlier at Caribbean. The drug dealers approached the diner’s entrance and peered inside. Perhaps because they saw the diner’s narrow dimensions, Malachai and Marcus left Fat Boy stationed outside the door and entered. They strode between patrons eating at the counter and in the booths opposite it, making their way toward Jake. Jake sipped his half glass of ice water.

  “You Helman?” Malachai said.

  “That’s right.” Jake gestured at the seats opposite him.

  Marcus sat next to the window, leaving Malachai to sit across from Jake.

  “I never met a real private dick before,” Malachai said. “You don’t look like one.”

  “You mean I don’t look like detectives on TV?”

  “Yeah, you know, Magnum, P.I. and shit. You’re no Tom Selleck.”

  “I was a lot prettier before one of your scarecrows stabbed me in the eye.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.” Malachai turned to Marcus. “You know anything about that?”

  Before Marcus could answer, a server set down Jake’s lunch: a turkey burger deluxe with melted Swiss cheese, fries, and a Diet Coke with lemon. Flipping open his order book, the server said, “What can I get for you today, gentlemen?”

  Watching Jake slap ketchup onto his burger and fries, Malachai said, “We’re not hungry.”

  Marcus handed the server a twenty-dollar bill. The man thanked him and left.

  “It’s funny,” Jake said, biting into his burger, “but you two look exactly like drug dealers do on TV.”

  Malachai’s face darkened. “Where’s my product?”

  “Someplace safe,” Jake said, chewing.

  “What do you want for it?”

  Chewing, Jake considered the question. “I don’t know. What’s it worth to you? A million dollars?”

  “Is that your price?”

  “Not necessarily, but it’s as good a place as any to start.”

  “What else you want?”

  Jake swallowed. “I want your girlfriend to lift the curse she put on my ex-partner.”

  Malachai’s left eye twitched at the mention of his girlfriend. “This ex-partner of yours a dick, too?”

  “No, he’s a cop. You two have a lot in common. For one, he’s in charge of the Black Magic Task Force.”

  Malachai turned silent for a moment. “I don’t know nothing about no cop. The drugs are mine. You deal with me on that. You want something from my woman, you deal with her. Separate deals.”

  Jake gulped his soda and set the glass down. “Good, because I flushed your shit down the sewer, where it belongs.”

  Malachai slapped the table, causing Jake’s plate to rattle, then touched Jake’s table knife. “I should stab your other eye out.”

  Jake picked up his burger again. “I think I’m going to get that a lot. Cut the shit, Daryl. You’re not going to do anything to me, and neither is your boy here.”

  Malachai narrowed his eyes. “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because Katrina wants me alive for some reason.”

  “Katrina doesn’t call the shots. I do.”

  “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  “What kind of curse did she put on your friend?”

  “If you don’t already know, I’m not saying. He’s safer that way.”

  “Why’d she curse him?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess because she was fucking him behind your back, just like she was fucking you behind his, and he learned the truth. She must have wanted him out of the way, but she cared for him too much to kill him like she did Brown and Beck.”

  With his eyes appearing ready to pop out of his skull, Malachai leapt out of his seat.

  As a precautionary measure, Jake dropped his hand to his Glock, hidden inside a newspaper folded on his bench.

  Marcus stood and set his hand on Malachai’s shoulder. “Not here, not now. Later. Let’s just do what we came here to do and get out.”

  Glowering at Jake, Malachai sat down again, and so did Marcus. Malachai leaned forward and spoke through quivering lips. “You’re lying.”

  “Katrina’s real name is Ramera Evans. Edgar knew her as Dawn Du Pre, a publicist.” Jake took out a business card on which he had scrawled Dawn’s address. “She has a second apartment not far from here on 105th. You can probably see it when you step outside. That’s where she fucked Edgar, and that’s where she cursed him. See for yourself. She’s playing you.”

  The anger on Malachai’s face had gone from a simmer to a boil. Jake waited for the explosion to come.

  Marcus leaned over and whispered into Malachai’s ear.

  Malachai nodded. “Katrina knows what you want from her. Now here’s what she wants from you: it’s called Afterlife.”

  Jake’s body turned rigid. His mouth fell open, and his throat went dry. He had underestimated Katrina’s ambitions. It made sense: she had worked for Old Nick and had withheld some of her research, which was why Afterlife lacked concrete details about voodoo. She had murdered her fellow researchers to protect her secret and had moved to Manhattan sometime after Tower’s death, reducing the chances of her activities being discovered. She wanted more than money; she wanted power.

  Just like Old Nick.

  Malachai grinned at seeing the shocked expression on Jake’s face, but Jake doubted the drug kingpin possessed a clue about Afterlife’s significance.

  Rising again, Malachai tossed a piece of paper onto the table. “Katrina says for you to call that number at 9:00 p.m. sharp, and she’ll tell you where to meet us.”

  Jake glanced at the cell phone number written on the paper.

  As Malachai and Marcus stepped into the aisle, Malachai turned back with an insincere smile on his lips. “When I see you again? With my bare hands.” He offered a demented grin.

  Watching them leave, Jake pocketed the piece of paper.

  Afterlife.

  He pushed the remainder of his food aside.

  Shit.

  “Go up Second Avenue,” Malachai said from the backseat.

  “You got it, chief,” Forty-five said.

  Marcus turned around in the front seat and looked over his shoulder. “What are we doing?” Like he didn’t know.

  “Relax,” Malachai said. “I just want to check out that building, like the dick said.”

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to get inside your head, throw you off your game.”

  “It won’t take but a couple of minutes, son.”

  Marcus turned around without say anything, careful that his body language didn’t telegraph his disapproval. He knew better.

  This is bullshit, he thought. But he had to wonder if Katrina was playing all of them.
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  “What are we doing here?” Bernie said as he followed Maria into Dawn Du Pre’s apartment. The doorman had given her the keys to the apartment when she showed her shield and claimed to be part of the investigation into Edgar’s and Dawn’s disappearances.

  “Dawn Du Pre is Edgar’s girlfriend. Edgar signed the ledger downstairs at 2300 hours on the night he disappeared. I know he had his own set of keys, so he had no trouble getting in here. According to Missing Persons, the doorman who worked that night says Dawn came home just a few minutes before Edgar showed up, but Edgar wanted to surprise her. Approximately twenty minutes later, Dawn left. Edgar never did. But a Caucasian male ran into the lobby from outside and claimed Dawn had fallen down and hurt herself. Guess what the doorman found?”

  Bernie stood near the door, his hands stuffed in his pockets, making it clear he was just along for the ride. “No sign of Dawn?”

  “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re no detective.” Circling the table in the living room, she leaned forward and sniffed a purple candle centered on it. Frowning, she faced her companion. “So the doorman calls 911, and no sooner do they go upstairs than our Caucasian male runs out the emergency exit with what appears to be a bundle of clothes in his arms. The doorman tries to stop him, and the guy pulls a gun on his ass and tells him to step off.”

  “Was our Unidentified Caucasian Male missing an eye?”

  Maria gave him a small smile. “I don’t know. He was wearing sunglasses.”

  “At night?”

  “Go figure. After the UCM takes off, the POs discover that someone broke into Dawn’s apartment—and Edgar wasn’t in here. Somewhere between 2300 and 2400 hours, my partner disappeared from this building. And so did his car.”

  Bernie glanced at the ceiling. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I don’t have a clue. But I’m not giving up until I get some answers.”

  Marcus followed Malachai into the building’s vestibule, where Malachai pointed at the directory. “Du Pre, D.”

  “Stay cool, Mal,” Marcus said. “Forty-five says this is where Katrina’s sister lives.”