Bone Crack

by JJ Lamb

  “Are you nuts, Mulzini? You want to put him under fire, too? No way.”

  “Trust me. He won’t be a problem ... will you, Harry?”

  Harry shook his head negatively, started toward the door. “All I want is to find Gina.” He turned to Yee. “Come on, Inspector, you owe me this one.”

  She gave Harry a I’d-like-to-strangle-you look and turned to glower at Mulzini. “Oh, man, if this goes south, are you ever gonna get it ... hospital bed or no hospital bed.”

  “And you!” She pointed at Harry. “No lip! When I say jump, you jump; don’t even take time to say, ‘How high.’”

  Chapter 61

  Gina watched the man grab the dead woman by the hair and pull her off the bed, leaving behind a bloody outline of her body. The smell of rot was so strong, she started gagging when acid seared her throat.

  “You’re a nurse. You’ve never seen a dead woman before?”

  “I’ve never seen anybody mutilated.”

  “I am an artist, after all.”

  “You. You, what’s your name? You did this while she was still alive?”

  Gina didn’t want to die, she would gouge his eyes, kick him in the balls, do anything to get away.

  He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “My apologies for not introducing myself. My name is Vlad, Vlad Folo. And your name is Gina Mazzio. He laughed again. “Is that better, Gina Mazzio, the nurse who doesn’t like the sight of blood?”

  “And you’re Vlad Folo, sadistic killer!”

  He considered that for a moment. “No, Nurse Mazzio, I’m a businessman. I sell a service and I get no complaints about my work.”

  Gina scooted away from the bloody outline. “Why would you do that to anyone? Is that what Mort Tallent paid you to do?”

  “So you know the good doctor hired me?” He started pulling off his shirt. “Yes, Tallent pays me to kill—and I kill—my way.”

  Vlad pulled a knife from his pocket and cut away the bottom corners of the bloody sheet, then ripped off four bed-width strips.

  “Move to the center of the bed, Nurse Mazzio.”

  Gina looked into his dead eyes. “I’m not moving into that bloody mess.”

  He raised the knife high and plunged it deep into her thigh, twisted it before pulling the blade out slowly. He raised it to strike again.

  She screamed, “Don’t!”

  “Move!”

  Gina closed her eyes and shifted until she was in the middle of the bed—her blood dripped onto the clotted mess already there.

  Vlad took one of the strips of sheet, grabbed her arm, and tied the wrist to the bed post. She struck out at him with her other fist, but he stood by the bed and laughed at her useless jabs.

  Gina’s heart was thrumming in her ears.

  Harry, Harry, I’m going to die.

  He jumped on the bed, straddled her, and restrained the other arm. When he finished securing the second wrist, he jumped off the bed, avoiding her thrashing legs.

  When he reached for her ankle, she tried to kick him in the face. He stood back and laughed again and suddenly reached out and grabbed her. He muscled-down each leg until she was spread-eagle like his other victims had been.

  His smile turned into a leer as he stood in front of her and stripped off the rest of his clothes, then pranced around the bed, turning this way and that to show her his body. He picked up his knife again and methodically cut away her clothes.

  “Oops!” he said each time he nicked her skin.

  * * *

  Harry could see Pepper Yee’s adrenalin was high as she drove like a demon shot out of hell. He kept his mouth shut and thought about Gina in the hands of Tallent’s mad killer. Yee couldn’t drive fast enough for him.

  “Listen, Harry, when we get there, don’t be a wise ass. I want you to stay in the car ... don’t need you to get dusted, too.”

  Harry turned and looked at her. “You think Gina’s dead, don’t you?”

  “Sorry, Harry. Better to face that possibility now.”

  “And you think I don’t know that?”

  “Yeah, well—”

  “—who do you think helps put cops together when they come in torn apart, barely hanging on, wanting desperately to live? Who holds their hands when they call out for their women, their men?”

  He wanted to crawl inside of Pepper’s skin, make her understand there was nothing she could add about life and death or suffering that he didn’t already know. But the bottom line—he was grateful she agreed to let him come.

  Harry’s voice was gone. He spoke in a whisper. “Please, Pepper, don’t treat me like a fool.”

  “Harry—”

  “—some maniac has the love of my life. I’m so terrified I’m ready to scream. But if you think I’m going to give up and just accept she’s dead, you’d better think again.”

  Chapter 62

  A sudden blast of cold air encircled Vlad.

  Mamoushka! If you were here, you would have warned me that black days were coming.

  Vlad tried to shake off that sudden feeling of doom settling over him as he stood by the bed and looked down, studied the nurse’s nude body from head to toe and back again.

  He had goose bumps from the iciness in the room. Why didn’t she? She had to feel the cold, the end of her life was but minutes away.

  Yes, she had to feel frightened, but there was a glint of anger in her eyes; she still craved life. She hadn’t given up hope, like his other victims.

  Another blast of cold air jolted him.

  Mamoushka!

  He wanted to ignore these warnings. But he knew already he’d stayed too long. It was way past time to find a new life far from here.

  Put on your clothes. Leave right now. Leave the nurse behind.

  Leave!

  He tried, but he couldn’t turn away, couldn’t stop looking at the woman. Her naked body was so close.

  He bent over her and mouthed her breasts with his wet lips. “You are very beautiful.”

  “Get off of me, you piece of shit.” But her voice had changed.

  Now he saw fear as she tried to jerk away.

  Yes. That’s better.

  He ran his hands up and down his hard, naked body, felt the strength in his loins. He threw himself on top of her, slowly rubbed himself against the length of her smooth, soft body.

  Yes, her flesh would yield not only to his heat, but to his knife—like cutting through butter.

  He reached for his blade on the bedside table, saw the blade was bloody, and for a moment was puzzled.

  Yes, now he remembered. He’d stabbed her. Even now her wet running blood was on the bed mixing with Rosia’s clotted globules. He would have to clean the blade before he could begin the final ritual.

  “Don’t go away,” he said and gave her a sardonic smile. He stood, grabbed the knife, and walked to the other side of the bed.

  When he stepped over Rosia’s dead body, he looked down at her and a fresh whiff of death rose to his nostrils.

  You’re nothing but stinking flesh now. That’s all that’s left of you, you bitch.

  But she’d distracted him.

  He was compelled to kneel and looked at the deep slices he’d made across her breasts and stomach.

  A memory: Twelve-year-old Vlad coming out of his hiding place in the closet. He’d kneeled at his mother’s body as he was doing with Rosia.

  These were the same cuts his mother had endured. Those and the long slash that started from her lips and ended at her pubis.

  Vlad was shaking, frozen to the bone.

  He began to cry. Sobs filled his chest and he moaned over Rosia’s body. He took her cold hand and held it. Rocked back and forth.

  Mamoushka! Mamoushka!

  Then he was emptied.

  When he looked down at Rosia’s body again, he felt nothing.

  Vlad moved into the bathroom and washed the knife until the metal was sparkling clean. When he stepped out, a man was pointing a gun at him.

  * *
*

  Pepper Yee smacked a flashing red light on top of the car to help her cut a pathway through traffic. Harry could only hope that the residence listed on the vehicle registration was not just a ruse. If she wasn’t at that address, what next?

  He mentally crammed his panic into a box and threw it out the window of the speeding car. But he couldn’t stop the numbness that had started in his chest and spread.

  Gina had been lucky throughout all of the life-threatening situations she’d gotten into, but today, a man hired for the sole purpose of killing her, had snatched her from the hospital garage.

  This all started when Lolly came to San Francisco, got a job at Tallent, Cantor & Brichett. Without Lolly, Gina would never have sneaked into Mort Tallent’s office and ended up a murderer’s target.

  Wasted wishes. He had to stay in the now.

  Gina, Gina, Gina! Please be there. Please be alive when we get there.

  “Hang in there, Harry. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

  For five minutes his life would be hanging by a thread

  Chapter 63

  Gina looked at the man, who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. One minute there was only her and Vlad, the next minute there was this second man, holding a very large pistol. Anger was etched throughout the deep lines in his face.

  “You are the son of Nadya and Ivan Antonev,” the man announced, looking at Vlad. The man had not once glanced in Gina’s direction.

  “So?” Vlad said defiantly. “What do you want here?”

  “Drop the knife. Carefully!”

  Gina could see the man had fiery eyes and was shaking with emotion.

  “Who are you?” Vlad stepped back over Rosia’s body.

  “I am Alexander Yurev. The one who was supposed to kill you twenty years ago.” He backed away, out of Vlad’s reach.

  Gina yanked on one of the strips of cloth that bound her to the bed. She sensed no weakness. It was solid.

  “I’m the one who has been a step behind you for the past twenty years, the one who should have killed you when you were a boy, the Antonev boy. But instead, today you are Vlad Folo, the man. All the same to me: Dimitri Antonev, Karl Pushkin, Vlad Folo. Today you will die ... Dimitri Antonev will finally be dead.

  Vlad looked shaken. “I can give you money.” All his bravado had melted, his voice was weak, faltering. “All you have to do is forget you ever saw me.”

  “Money?” Alexander spat out the words. “Did you say money?”

  “I can give you fifty thousand dollars. Cash. American.”

  Alexander stared at him, his neck was red, his back rigid.

  “I was just a child,” Vlad said. “I had nothing to do with my father’s decisions. Why do you blame me?”

  Alexander’s face flushed a bright red. “I blame you for living, for having a life these twenty years. Everything I had—my wife, my children, my home, my country are gone! So tell me, little boy-man, of what good is fifty thousand American dollars to me now?”

  “Please,” Vlad said bowing his head.

  “When you are dead, I will return to Russia”

  “Why would you do that?” Vlad demanded. “As you said, there is nothing left there for you.” Vlad smirked as though he had found the key to his freedom—simply tap into Alexander’s weakness. “Stay, and with fifty thousand dollars, you can make a new and much better life for yourself.”

  Gina kept tugging at the strip of sheet. Her skin was raw and burning; her leg wound was painful, continued to seep blood. She ignored the pain, kept pulling at her bonds. She knew that if she didn’t get free soon, she would die.

  Alexander held the gun with a steady hand. “I will reclaim what is mine when I return to Russia. I will kill anyone who tries to keep me from my family. I will destroy anyone who stole what is mine.”

  Without warning, Vlad jumped for Alexander. The blast from the pistol filled the room. There was a hole in Vlad’s forehead when he fell atop Rosia’s body and tumbled onto the floor beside her.

  Gina’s heart was racing, she could barely breathe. She pulled harder and harder, felt her wrist burn from the friction. She didn’t stop yanking and twisting her bonds.

  * * *

  Alexander Yurev lowered the pistol, wavered for a moment, his face paled, and he looked as though he was going to topple over.

  “You should have died twenty years ago,” Alexander said, looking down at the dead body of Vlad Folo, lying face up at his feet. “Twenty years of my life wasted looking for you.”

  Gina yanked again, pain shot up her arm. The strip of sheet was beginning to shred. Then she froze, saw Yurev staring at her. She tried to make herself small, shrink into the mattress, and disappear from the room.

  He took a couple of deep breaths and shoved the pistol into a holster under his jacket. He bent and picked up Vlad’s knife and walked over to the bed. He stared down at her and she knew he was weighing her value.

  “Who are you?” Alexander demanded

  “Gina Mazzio. Vlad kidnapped me. He was going to kill me.”

  Gina could see the man was undecided; he looked deep into her eyes.

  Please, please don’t kill me. Please, please, please!

  He examined her naked body, his eyes continuing to evaluate her. He took in every inch of exposed flesh.

  He sighed, checked his watch, and leaned over the bed. Using Vlad’s knife, he cut away the strips of sheet from her ankles and wrists.

  “You are nothing to me,” he said without emotion.

  He turned from the bed, walked to the door, and left. She soon heard the apartment door slam shut.

  Chapter 64

  “That’s the building,” Pepper yelled. “Man, this is one ugly neighborhood. I don’t even like driving through here.”

  The rain had stopped, but Harry saw a homeless man covered in plastic sleeping next to a line of garbage cans. Harry knew that if the rain hadn’t washed down the streets, the aroma of urine and rotten garbage would probably have made the air near unbreathable.

  Pepper double-parked directly behind a squad car. “Looks like my backup beat us here.” Two uniformed officers got out and stood by their vehicle, waiting.

  “You stay here, Harry, until I see what’s up.”

  “No way. I need to go in with you. If Gina’s in there. ... well, that’s where I’m going.” He could see her lips tighten, ready to turn him down. Instead, she said, “Okay, but stay behind me.” She pointed a finger at him. “You hear me, man?”

  “Got it!”

  They walked up to the two cops. “You guys can wait here in case the perp runs out.”

  “Come on, Inspector,” one of them said. “We didn’t come here just to stand and look stupid.”

  “Okay, you guys follow me.” She turned to Harry. “You’re at the back of the line.”

  Harry started to object.

  “I swear, Harry, I’ll fry your ass if I get screwed because of this.”

  Harry raised his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, Inspector.” He walked to the entrance of the rundown apartment house, but all he could do was try to shut down an image of Gina’s dead body.

  Inside the entryway, Yee said, “Looks like Mazzio took part of the wall with her.” She pointed to the fresh nail gouges cutting through the paint leading up to the second floor.

  A man dressed in wrinkled pants was coming down the stairs. He nodded and gave the four of them a wide smile of crooked teeth. When they let him pass, he said, with the hint of an accent, “Good evening officers.”

  Standing in front of the apartment door, Pepper drew her gun and pounded on the door.

  “SFPD. Open up! Now!”

  The patrolmen drew their weapons also, then one of them slid past Yee and kicked open the door. The smell of decay smacked them in the face.

  “Holy shit!” Yee said. “What the hell!”

  The uniforms spread out, quickly checking the kitchen before moving cautiously down the hallway. When they stepped into the be
droom, the first thing Yee and the cops saw were the two bodies sprawled on the floor.

  All Harry saw was Gina, crouched in a corner. Alive!

  * * *

  Gina had been searching the apartment for something to cover herself when she heard the banging on the door and someone moving down the hall.

  What if that man Alexander changed his mind and was coming back to kill her?

  She closed her eyes.

  Every part of her was screaming in pain. Where Vlad had stabbed her in the buttocks hadn’t bled much, but it was throbbing—her wounded thigh was on fire.

  Maybe he would shoot her through the heart. End it quickly.

  When she finally opened her eyes, Pepper Yee and two other cops were in the room.

  And so was Harry.

  He ran to her and lifted her up into his arms.

  She kissed him on the neck and whispered in his ear, “Don’t ask me how, but deep inside, I knew you would come.”

  “How could you know that, doll?” He’d leaned back and was gently fingering her split lip.

  “Because you always do.”

  Chapter 65

  Gina found enough of Rosia’s clothes to cover up. She pleaded with Yee not to call the EMTs, and Harry promised the inspector that he would take good care of Gina, make sure she got the proper medical help.

  “I really don’t get why Mulzini loves you two,” Yee said, with a sour look. “If you ask me, you’re both pains in the ass.”

  “We probable are,” Harry said. “And I really want to thank you for saving Gina. I’ll never forget this, Pepper.”

  She actually blushed and looked away.

  Before they left the apartment, Pepper rested a hand on Harry’s arm. “Don’t take me too seriously, you know? You’re a good man.” Then she turned to Gina. “You’re lucky to have him.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Gina leaned heavily on Harry as she limped down the apartment building steps and into the back of the squad car.

  “Take me home,” Gina said, squeezing Harry’s hand. “You can steri-strip the wound. I don’t want to go to the hospital.”