Intermusings

by David Niall Wilson

  He was still pondering these questions when the girl he’d called from the escort service showed up at his door. When he let her in, she eyed the VCR and smiled. "Dirty movies?" She ran a crimson nail through the stubble on his chin. "Long as you understand, Sport, I charge by the hour."

  Zolo was in the city. I could sense it, could feel his presence as he must have felt mine. He’d been on my trail long enough to become my shadow, and shadows are known to share premonitions and precognitions. Somehow knowing he was there gave me an odd sense of comfort. The last time I’d actually seen his face, in that apartment in San Valencez with sixteenpenny nails riddling his body and his arm a worthless, dangling length of flesh, something had passed between us. It was the second such exchange we’d had, and though I knew the danger he represented, the fear of discovery was not as strong as the odd communion.

  I knew that none of the others would believe him. They might see the pattern he laid out for them. They might understand that someone was traversing their great nation, putting killers and rapists into early graves with mechanical regularity, but they would never believe what he knew as fact. They would never admit the existence of the beast. Only I, and in a small way, Zolo, were intimate with that hovering darkness.

  I had a dual mission in the city, though I was uncertain how it would pan out. The killer I sought was not easy prey, and the hunt had been complicated still further by the invasion of those who thought to hunt me. It was not the first time, nor, I knew, would it be the last, that someone had thought to end my existence. I had no idea who they were, or where they’d gotten their information, but they were out there, waiting—seeking.

  They knew about the water. The reports in the papers had been sketchy, but it was clear that they’d taken the cat to water, and that meant that at least some of what they knew was correct. I needed to know the source of that information. The crazy notion had surfaced in my head that, if I could get my hands on my own history, or the history of the dark thing that shared my being, I might be able to gain a bit more control.

  I slipped into a short, clingy dress and smoothed the long, dark locks of hair over my shoulders. It was time for work. Even an existence such as mine requires financing. The hunger was growing, and though I had some measure of control, I knew I couldn’t let it get to the point it had in San Valencez. I wasn’t in the mood for innocent blood, the darker kind was so much sweeter. I locked the door carefully behind me, and headed for the streets. Several blocks down, the blinking neon sign called to me through the growing dusk.

  Kitty Kat Klub . . . Lap and Table Dancing Nightly.

  Smiling, I licked my lips and entered the shadows.

  Zolotow had asked for a tall, slender woman with long, dark hair. Most of the images that could reach him now resembled Kat in some fashion. The girl the service sent over was no exception. She was a bit rougher around the edges, a bit less appealing with the cigarette dangling angrily from one corner of her mouth and the cynical glint in her eyes, but the body was nearly right. He could still see the fishnet stockings and those long, lithe legs . . . could still imagine the scent of her . . . almost magical . . . flowing across that dingy hotel room toward him. The girl sprawled across his bed was not Kat, but in his mind, she would do. For now.

  She was a slow riser, lying tangled and vulnerable in sheets stiff with more than the hotel’s laundry starch. He’d paid for the entire night—his appetite was rarely satisfied with anything less. Like every hooker he’d ever met, even the high class ones who worked through escort services instead of off the streets, she’d been more than happy to stay the night. A working girl might turn four or five tricks a night, but she’ll gladly take the guarantee of three times her normal fee for the safety of an entire night with a single John. Hookers were something Martin Zolotow knew.

  Though, at the moment, the name of this particular one escaped him.

  He wanted to wake her, but she looked too innocent in his bed, the smooth length of one thigh revealed in the light coming in from the veranda, one little-girl breast exposed above the bed sheet. How many moments like this did she have? How often did she feel safe? He searched his mind for suitable verse, and came up with a sonnet by Samuel Daniel:

  Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night,

  Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

  Relieve my anguish, and restore the light;

  With dark forgetting of my cares return.

  He took in every detail of the hooker’s sleeping form. Her resemblance to his mental image of Kat was uncanny, but was his basis for the comparison fact or fiction? He almost reached out and shook her awake to ask her, Why are you doing this to me?, but he caught himself. This wasn’t Katherine. This was Janet. Janet, whom the escort service had sent over last night. Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci had yet to show her hand in San Antonio.

  The hooker’s name is Janet. I am at the Emily Morgan in San Antonio, Texas.

  From the veranda he could look down on the ancient oaks behind the Alamo and the northern end of the U-shaped Crockett Hotel. The Marriott dominated the view further south, but he could make out the convention center arena and, of course, the Tower of the Americas.

  Brain cells recalibrated, he thought he might be ready to face the day. He decided he would let Janet sleep as late as she wanted. He called room service and ordered breakfast for two, then switched on the television.

  It was all over the morning news. There’d been another murder on the Riverwalk. The body had been found behind the Hilton Palacio Del Rio, thrown from one of the balconies overlooking the river, just a mile from where Zolotow was presently sitting in the hotel.

  The media had decided it was time to give the killer a name.

  "Zolo? What is it, baby?"

  He turned to find Janet sitting up in bed, the sheets gathered around her waist. "Nothing, Janet." He pushed several tousled strands of hair out of her face. "I was just watching the news. Sorry, I didn’t mean to have it up so loud." But he hadn’t had it up loud at all. He suspected it was the sheer tension in the air that had awoken her.

  "That’s okay," she purred, slipping from the bed. "I really need to be going anyway."

  "I ordered breakfast."

  She slipped her dress over her head and dug her shoes out from under the bed spread. "Most important meal of the day, right?"

  "That’s right." He tried to remember what he had ordered. Couldn’t.

  "Sorry, babe. I don’t do breakfast."

  He watched her stuff her pantyhose into her handbag, then pause by the mirror to arrange her hair and check her face. "Can I see you again? Tonight?"

  She turned away from the mirror and kissed him. "I’m dancing tonight, Zolo. Don’t even get off until three . . . and I’ll be beat."

  He knew what she meant by dancing and he knew what the better girls could turn in a night. He suspected she was definitely one of the better girls. There was no way he was going to be able to talk her out of going. "Maybe I could come by?"

  She smiled wickedly. "You bring a car, and maybe we could go out into the parking lot on a break. Okay?" She pulled a card from her purse and tucked it into the waist band of his boxers. "I start at eight. Breaks at ten and twelve." She snapped the purse shut and turned for the door, then paused to look back at the television. "Voodoo Killer?"

  "Yeah. How the hell do they come up with this shit?"

  "They probably watch too much T.V.," she said, then opened the door. "Oh, and Zolo?"

  "Yeah?"

  "It’s Janice. Not Janet." The door snapped shut behind her.

  The plastic tape was the same color they used to secure crime scenes in San Valencez, but Zolotow had never stood on the far side of it. Until now, he’d never realized the frustration that displacement could bring. He could see the blue shirts moving about on the other side of the line, but the real work, the things that were his realm, far beyond the lines, back where the uniforms were suits, or undercover disguises, that world was denied him. Wher
e he stood there were no forensics experts to insult, no rookies to ridicule, and no facts. He edged up closer to the line, eliciting a sharp stare and a frown from a young man in a uniform so tight, so sharply creased that it could have sliced cheese. A boy. A rookie with no idea what was going on behind him, less of an idea, even, than Zolotow himself already had.

  The authorities had taped off a considerable stretch of Riverwalk, from water’s edge to the base of the Hilton. Anyone wanting to pass this way would have to backtrack and take one of the stone walkways or Market Street over to the north side of the river. Durty Nelly’s Irish Pub, located in the basement of the Hilton, had been included within the perimeter of that tape. The proprietor was standing in his doorway, arms folded and face twisted in a scowl, wondering perhaps if the police business would be complete before the noon crowds left their conventions and seminars and hit the Riverwalk for lunch and booze. Though his obvious interest was when he could reopen, the proprietor’s gaze kept shifting distastefully from the floral-shaped, brick-colored stain on the concrete to the Hilton balconies overhead. Zolotow looked up himself. Another five feet—something that could have easily been achieved by a jumper, but not a lifeless body—and the victim would have hit the water. The water wasn’t deep, only a couple feet, and might not have meant life or death for the victim, but it would have certainly made the cleanup easier.

  Zolotow spotted the Hispanic detective who’d been in Sieber’s office and took a chance. Garcia, he thought the man’s name was. "Excuse me," he called out.

  The detective looked at him, then looked again, realizing who he was, and headed straight for him.

  "What the fuck are you doing here, Zolotow?" he barked. "The Lieutenant told you to butt out. What don’t you understand about that?"

  Zolotow ignored the caustic words. What the man was carrying in his hands had captured his full attention. It was an evidence bag, inside which there was a small stone jar. The jar was carved with intricate designs, and the top was sealed with a thin bead of wax.

  "You know what that is, Detective Garcia?" he asked, looking up quickly.

  "It’s Garza, and I told you to butt out," the man repeated, his face growing redder.

  "Fine. I just thought you might want to know what you’ve found, is all."

  Zolotow started to walk away, but Garza called after him. "Espera!" And then, softer, as if embarrassed that he’d lapsed into Spanish. "Wait. What do you know about this thing?"

  "I’ll make you a deal," Zolotow said, spinning on his heel to face the Detective. "You tell Sieber to bring me in and show me what you’ve got, and I’ll tell you everything I know. For instance, that’s a soul jar, a voodoo charm. Houngans—witch doctors—trap souls in them and use them to gain control."

  "How do you know that?"

  Zolotow left the detective staring at his back, heading east along the Riverwalk. The sight of the govi had stirred memories he’d rather have left buried, memories that refused to be overpowered by the smell of fajitas wafting from the Republic of Texas restaurant or the annoying Mariachi music from a bar called the Naked Iguana. Beams of sunlight filtering down through the ancient oaks and the Spanish decor buildings that leaned out over the river fed the sudden rush of images that flooded his mind.

  He’d been in the hills above Los Angeles. The Marleys had dug in deep, but LAPD and other officers on loan, Zolotow included, had managed to rout them. Not soon enough—not before they’d sacrificed thirteen children to Papa Gede and some lesser loa. Zolotow’s assignment had included becoming something of an expert in Haitian voodoo—not the common, religious belief of the people, but the dark, bloody, fear-soaked brand of the Houngan. It was something he’d as soon forget. If Sieber cared to look, it was all there in his police records—buried perhaps under the recent layers of psychiatric crap, but there all the same.

  Why did it have to be voodoo?

  Despite the appeal of the Riverwalk, he found little to distract him. He had several margaritas, sampling from the dozens of restaurants on either side of the river. He was appalled to find that the far end of the Riverwalk, around the bend from long-standing haunts like Dick’s Last Resort and The Bayous, had been taken over by establishments that seemed somehow less appropriate. There was now a County Line Barbecue (He’d once been to the original in Oklahoma City), the trendy, en vogue Planet Hollywood, and even a Hard Rock Cafe. Disoriented and depressed, he returned to his hotel room. He was sitting there, alone, pouring a tumbler of scotch, when the phone rang.

  "Zolotow?"

  "Yeah."

  "Sieber. Get your butt in here, and you’d better be ready to be helpful, you fuck stick, or I’m going to run you in and mail the key all the way home to San Valencez."

  The line went dead and, for the first time in days, Zolotow smiled. Just like home.

  It was apparent from the moment they uncovered the shrouded body in the morgue that this was not a random killing. The girl was beautiful, tall with long dark hair that fell in a soft cascade over her breasts. For a moment, Zolotow thought he’d seen a ghost. The woman was the image of Kat . . . or the image of his own memory of her. He closed his eyes, focusing, trying to be certain his ass-backward brain wasn’t somehow projecting the image.

  She walks in beauty, like the night,

  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

  And all that’s best of dark and bright,

  Meet in her aspect, and her eyes.

  Byron could not have done better had he known her—and perhaps, Zolotow thought grimly, he had. He reached out and pulled the sheet back over the girl’s face.

  "Twenty-three years old," Garza intoned, reading from a preliminary report. "Cause of death, strangulation. The body was sexually assaulted, trussed up in baling wire . . . do you need me to read all this?"

  Zolotow shook his head. He knew all he needed to know except who, and why.

  The second detective, Bennet he’d said his name was, lit up a cigarette. He continued to study Zolotow closely, like he was looking for a reason to bust him. Zolotow had already been frisked, to make certain he wasn’t packing the Beretta. They had no way of knowing he’d stowed it in the glove box of the rental car just outside. Garza had lightened up afterward, but Bennet obviously resented Zolotow’s involvement. Zolotow understood him perfectly. He’d been there. In another time, or another place, Zolotow could have gotten along with these guys. It was unfortunate, but Garza and Bennet were hardly what was important here.

  Zolotow had made one of his renowned intuitive leaps and decided that whoever was killing these girls was doing it to lure Kat to San Antonio. Though he had no way of knowing this for certain, he felt that they’d succeeded. She was here. Somewhere. This girl’s death was a result of a natural resemblance to Kat. The baling wire was proof enough that they’d expected her to . . . what was that popular word for change? Metamorphosis? No, shorter. Morph, that was it. The guy who’d done this, like the guys at the zoo, had expected her to morph, to become the cat.

  Another question—how could he be so certain that the guys at the zoo and the serial killer weren’t one and the same? The answer—he couldn’t, but his gut feeling was that they weren’t. The key was the voodoo. He had seen the video tape, and there had been no voodoo elements at the zoo. Those guys had been pretty straight forward. Of course, he couldn’t tell Garza and Bennet all this. It would be a waste of time, and the small amount of cooperation he’d won for himself by identifying the soul jar might be lost.

  "Was the jar the only thing you found?" he asked, turning his back on the sheet-shrouded corpse.

  "Not quite," Garza replied. "We found these with the jar on the balcony from which she was thrown."

  Garza held up two more baggies. One held the remnants of several candles, deep green in color. The other held a rum bottle, nearly empty. It wasn’t Bacardi, either, but the real thing—straight off the boats from Jamaica. Zolotow had seen the brand before. They sold it in a couple of the occult specialty shops in San Valencez
. He told them as much.

  "The candles and the soul jar indicate your killer is into voodoo, Detective." Even the media had picked up on that much. "And not just your corner drugstore, pocket handbook kind, but the real thing. The rum bottle confirms it. Your lab’ll find it’s laced with hot peppers. It’s called tempe. Whatever reason they had for killing this girl," he pointed a thumb over his shoulder without turning to look again, "it wasn’t just for sex. They’re after something, and I’d say from the number of killings so far, they haven’t found it yet."

  Bennet just stared at him. Distrust swam in the detective’s eyes, but he kept his silence. Zolotow was glad. The image of the dead girl was strobing in his mind, supplanting the guy’s face at eerie intervals. He knew it was time to get the fuck out of there.

  "I’ll give you a call when the Lieutenant okays you to visit the crime scene," Garza said slowly, cautiously. It seemed he was also aware of Bennet’s resentment and didn’t want to set him off. "You keep your nose out of trouble until then."

  "No problem," Zolotow answered. "I’m not feeling so good, anyway." He left the morgue and walked back to the street. He knew Sieber wasn’t keeping him around for the voodoo knowledge. That stuff would have turned up in any routine investigation of such a killing. Zolotow didn’t really expect to be allowed on the crime scene, but he wasn’t going to be sent packing either. It might be interesting, at the very least, to find out just what the Lieutenant did think he could offer.

  It was time for another scotch.

  The strip joint was on the north side of town, just off 410, near the airport. Zolotow could have probably found it without the address on Janice’s card. In his experience, strip joints were always located near the airport, as if people flew in specifically to see a little T & A. Because he’d had plenty to drink already, because he didn’t want to hassle with interstate traffic, because he hoped to spend the night curled up next to Janice, he took a cab, leaving the rental car in the basement garage at the Emily Morgan. (The Beretta, though, was back in place, tucked up under his left arm. He’d also strapped a Walther PPK to his right ankle.) Traffic turned out to be light—proof that he was in San Antonio and not someplace like L.A. or Washington D.C. He arrived earlier than he’d planned, a good twenty minutes earlier than Janice’s ten o’clock break.